12:09AM
Review - TuneRanger
I have a confession. I’ve had iPods for years and own more music than I care to admit. While I did get it all ripped into iTunes a long time ago, I’ve never really been an iTunes power user. That has been changing the last few months though. Recently I’ve started making smart playlists and autosyncing lists to get more out of my music library. This is great but it has also exposed a problem. Fancy playlists depend on good metadata like how you’ve rated a song or when the was the last time you played it. Since I have portions of my library on my laptop and a big library on the family desktop (not to mention an iPod and iPhone), keeping all of this data in sync could be a real chore. This problem gets magnified when my wife and kids get involved. I like Hannah Montana as much as the next dad, but that doesn’t mean she gets to share space with Thelonius Monk and Debussy on my iPod.
While at Macworld this year I found a small company named Acertant Technologies that had a booth right behind the Apple area, that section where all of the best little developers seem to land. Anyway, I met Manny Menendez who showed me an application he developed for precisely my iTunes problems called TuneRanger.
TuneRanger connects all of your iTunes libraries. It then compares the libraries and allows you to share data between them. This doesn’t just include the music files but also all of the metadata.
When you first open TuneRanger it gives you a window that shows your local iTunes library and any other libraries on your network. It then gives you drop down lists of playlists on both libraries and gives you several options. When choosing what to sync you have a variety of filters available including duplicate files, license IDs, file types, genre, artists, album names, and song titles. You can also instruct TuneRanger to trash files marked for deletion or move them to a different folder for later review and deletion.
You can force one library upon another or synchronize them. Once you give TuneRanger its instructions it does a preliminary analysis and gives you a dialog telling you what it is going to do and offering you a chance uncheck any specific action. Once you tell it to go, TuneRanger then does the syncrhonization. This doesn’t just work with other computers in your network. It also works with your iPod. You can actually pull music off your iPod and place it in your iTunes library with TuneRanger. TuneRanger is also multiplatform so if part of your library is on a Vista or XP box, you still can synchronize. Since I’ve purged all PC’s from my home, I was unable to test this feature.
Before using TuneRanger, I treated our desktop computer as the source for all iTunes music. All music had to be ripped on that machine and all iTunes purchases had to be made on that machine. I then had to manually copy the stuff I wanted over to my laptop usually losing all metadata. TuneRanger has really liberated me of this whole process. I can now finally use the iTunes button on my iPhone or buy music on my laptop. It is no trouble to then later upload it to the desktop computer with TuneRanger. It really is that easy.
The application costs $29.99 and includes 5 single platform licenses so you will have no trouble getting it on all of the Macs in your household. There is also a free trial available at www.acertant.com. You should be warned though, since getting TuneRanger on my Mac, I’ve spent a lot more money downloading music.
Reader Comments (66)
Just read through all the comments and I'm not convinced that this will be any better than my current solution, which is this...
To keep my desktop & laptop's 400GB libraries (on separate external drives) "Synched", I use SuperDuper to clone the drive with the most current library. I then copy all the current iTunes library, xml, etc. files (I think there are 5 now) in the music folder on the startup drive and I ichat them over to the computer with the older itunes library and replace them. When I open iTunes it looks just like it was the last time I used it on the other computer.
I hope I explained that right. I generally use my desktop, but when I travel or DJ I don't want to lose any progress I've made on my library... I want it to be a work in progress wherever I am. I think you could make this a step easier and keep your library on the same external drive and just transfer the iTunes library files between computers. I use the two drives as a form of back-up (and I run ESATA drives on the desktop but not on the laptop).
Still would love to find an app that would keep my 400 GB library synched between 2 computers. Let me know if you find one and thanks for writing the reviews.
I have an iMac G5 running the most current OS and also a G4 iBook-loaded the app on both and have had nothing but SERIOUS problems since. Without a doubt the most malicious app. I've ever had the misfortune to use. I STRONGLY URGE ANYONE INTERESTED IN THIS PRODUCT TO AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE. After crashing both computers badly and damaging them beyond use (i.e neither Disk Repair nor Disk Warrior can repair)-I have had to do clean wipes on both machines and rebuild using Time Machine--total of 150+hours. This product is poison and I would tell anybody to not buy. Just my experience and advise.
No one could convince John that he seems to have much more serious problems than what a simple little app like TuneRanger can cause.
Hi Manny/anybody else,
Can TuneRanger properly sync 2 versions of the same song : one being Apple Lossless on a Media Center, the other being AAC on a Laptop ( The laptop is used to sync whith IPODs, while the Media Center PC is used to play locally ALAC songs).
Will the same song, with identical tags(aka Artist,Album) but different codecs(one AAC,other ALAC) in each library will properly sync as the same song, or will it be considered as 2 different songs and be duplicated in each library?
Basically, what are the criteria used to consider songs as identical? Is encoder type one of them?
Bonus question: If I remove the file in 1 library, will it be removed in the other?
Thanks for info,
Though this works, it turns music video to movie. Majority of my files are music videos. I initially thought that sync did not happen since I checked music on a target iTunes. Then I discovered them under movies. I had to change them as music videos manually. I hope that this will be fixed soon, and options to add all other meta data will be added also.
Marc: The same song in different file formats will be considered 2 different songs by default or depending on your settings can be considered only 1 song but TR will want you to choose one format or the other (the other will be removed in this mode). Or you can set a filter and ignore one format completely from all operations.
Max: Its not that TR is changing music videos into movies, its that iTunes differentiates video files using a tag that is not part of the the file and TuneRanger can't sync that metatag. We are aware of this limitation and hope to fix it in a future update.
John, wow! You've got issues, bud. Kinda like the the story of the Russian who started a nuclear war by swatting a fly that landed on the launch button. Clearly, a lot had to be wrong for this to happen in the first place. So is the house fly is a global killer? Uh... no. Bad operations center? More than likely. I think you need to look at how you are setting up your machines and how you maintain them. Been using TR for a month and it works great.
I'm glad I found this page, the TR website doesn't answer enough questions IMHO. I emailed them last year about whether it sync's libraries only or not and got nothing back. After learning that it does from here I have just bought the product.
Granted there is a panel on the site that says it can have one media repository but after downloading and experimenting with the demo, it wasn't clear how to. I was always worried that be shunting gigs of music over my network just to overwrite the same location. You guys have put my mind at ease. Thanks :-)
Ok- I read that this program does NOT work for an iTouch. Can you confirm this please? If it doesn't, I will take my computers into the Mac store. Thank you.
Thanx for posting this great information. I just found TuneRanger this morning cuz I have 6 computers with music (at least) and 3 iPods (2 full, and one brand new unopened one.) Time for me to get it all together in one place.
I found their site, and then googled for reviews of their product, and up your blog came.
Other than John, who needs more help than the Apple Store's gonna be able to give him, this has been enlightening.
I just purchased and downloaded Tuneranger but would like a manual detailing how to use it to copy itune files from my office Mac to both my home macs. I've tried both email and phone messages to the manufacturer but have received no response.
Hi there, I foolishly moved my iTunes to another bigger internal drive just using copy/paste. iTunes could then not find the library of 10k plus of songs. I restarted iTunes holding the option key and chose the new library option. All files can now be seen but all files have broken links showing '!'.
Can Tune Ranger fix this issue?
Cheers
Tuneranger crashes continually on me. I get no response from SmithMicro. I do not recommend at all.
TuneRanger helps you keep track and control of your music. If you have iTunes music and video collections on more than one computer ( at home, at work, on your iPod etc.) then TuneRanger connects iTunes-running computers over any network, allowing you to move music, video and playlists form one iTunes library to another. Playlists can also be synchronised with the click of your mouse. "Dell inspiron mini netbook" When you buy a song on any computer, add an album cover or lyrics, all your changes will reflect across your computers. It really couldn’t be easier.
I installed TuneRanger on my new 27" iMac and the first time it worked beautifully. Every time I've attempted to use it since it crashes. I turned off all firewalls, re-installed TuneRanger, and still no dice. What's up with this?
TuneRanger, which I had a trial version of for a short period and then bought a license for, is one of the worst pieces of software I have ever owned (I'm excluding some Windows software here).
It happily deletes an entire music collection on one computer when asked to synchronise two libraries, and then wants to copy the whole music collection again. We're talking about over 50Gb over a wireless network!
It is definitely poor design, not my skills in setting it up, believe me.
I can't recommend this software to anyone with a serious music library.
Avoid
Kurt