Organizing songs, Playlists & Folders, and Importing

When I think of organizing music, I always think of using folders to group by genre. Much the same as the Forum is grouped by genre.

There are no top-level folders for songs in iRealB, so I guess we have to use Playlists like "Jazz", "Country", "My Originals", etc to group by genres. The "Songlist" is then a stewpot of all song titles on the iOS device. Do I have this right? Any thoughts of using tag words to group by genre?

When downloading a Playlist like "Jazz 1300 Standards", I can make sub-playlists from that, like "Standards I'm working on now". But organizing "up", can I put all those tunes in my main "Jazz" genre-playlist at once?

When importing an individual song from the Forum, I have to go back and add it to my genre-playlist, or else it's just lost in the sea of titles, right? Might be nice to ask what playlist(s) you want to add the song to when importing it.

Thanks as always for the great app....Lyle

hi Lyle
I feel your pain. It's like we're kids in a candy store with so many tunes. When you import a single tune you need to add it to the appropriate playlists at that time. There is a feature with recent views but mine is blank so I don't know how reliable it is.
It would be nice if you could drag playlists into each other or select all the songs in a playlist and add them to another playlist (then delete the old one)
These are Mac features that I can't seem to do on the touch screen.

A few tips:
- you can always Search for a song (Song index at the very top of the alphabet along its right side) or Search in any Playlist.

- when importing, Playlists>Last Imported will show the last 50 songs imported. You can find them there. Tap on each one and save to whatever playlists you need the song to reside in.

- you can use the Style category to find songs (Songs tab, tap on the 'diamond' - up/down arrow top left). This is the style set for each song in song info. You can name it anything you like within each song. (If you use a style name used for the player, it will attempt to find and set the playback style, but you can use any words you like and then assign a player style if you need to after doing this.)

- you do not need to keep the 1300 jazz playlist if it is not necessarily needed (deleting a playlist name will give you the choice to keep or trash the songs). Make smaller playlists for specific song lists.

- the songs within a playlist can be sorted (alphabetically) and searched, or each song can be moved up or down for a specific order.

- when importing, if a song is exactly the same as one already there, it is not imported (if slightly different - chords etc. it will be). A playlist being imported with some duplicate songs already in the song index, will still list those songs.

- currently you cannot merge nor duplicate playlists on iOS (or Android). (Mac version has drag and drop and is easier to organise playlists.)

- if not needed, you could use each song's Composer as a specific category (our exercises are named as such).

- currently there is no facility to have sub-categories of playlists.

- if you have an iPad, you can use it in landscape for organising, where you can choose a playlist, scroll indexes etc. in the left window, and swipe through a songs on the right.

Run a backup after you have made important changes to your songs and playlists.

ref: iReal Pro iOSv5.0.2

Thanks Db I really appreciate you taking the time for such a thorough answer.

Lately I've had some issues where I couldn't find a song because it was on the mac or visa versa.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dflat

A few tips:
- you can always Search for a song (Song index at the very top of the alphabet along its right side) or Search in any Playlist.

---

This is what I do most of the time. It works well for songs but not so well for exercises.

Quote:

---

- when importing, Playlists>Last Imported will show the last 50 songs imported. You can find them there. Tap on each one and save to whatever playlists you need the song to reside in.

---

Does this also apply to last edited? This would be important since I could check to see if i created anything that I forgot to export to the other devices? I'm sort of afraid it doesn't since the ipad only shows 5 last edited songs and I know I've done more editing then that on the pad.

Quote:

---

- you can use the Style category to find songs (Songs tab, tap on the 'diamond' - up/down arrow top left). This is the style set for each song in song info. You can name it anything you like within each song. (If you use a style name used for the player, it will attempt to find and set the playback style, but you can use any words you like and then assign a player style if you need to after doing this.)

---

This interesting , I didn't know about this.

Quote:

---

- you do not need to keep the 1300 jazz playlist if it is not necessarily needed (deleting a playlist name will give you the choice to keep or trash the songs). Make smaller playlists for specific song lists.

---

I think I may backup all playlists (does this also backup anything not in a playlist ?) from my devices to my mac ,clean up everything , delete the devices (how do I do That properly) and do the backup from the mac back to the devices so that (at least for a little while) all 3 programs will have the same library.

thanks again Dflat

-bob

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I'm hoping someday there will be a "Sync" button on the OSX program we can click that instantly copies all our revisions to the iOS app...

...are you listening, Santa Claus?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DaleMac

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I'm hoping someday there will be a "Sync" button on the OSX program we can click that instantly copies all our revisions to the iOS app...

...are you listening, Santa Claus?

---

All well and good, but what about the pad people who want to have their gig ready in their pocket on their android phone just in case.
Or
The fire-folk who want their iPhone ready as well (just in case).

First, one needs to decide which platform is the boss (and in which situation) or perhaps, maybe it's your cloud-files that are the real-deal and a change that's made anywhere is reflected everywhere...

Everyone's waiting for the man with the bag.
:))BOB

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pdxdjazz

All well and good, but what about ....

---

duh, I dunno.... how does all that magic stuff work with iTunes? ;) When iReal lets us bypass that pain-in-the-butt emailing step, it will truly be "PRO".

P.S. I have a sneaking suspicion more than a few people are using this Forum as their "cloud" storage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bobsax

I think I may backup all playlists (does this also backup anything not in a playlist ?) from my devices to my mac ,clean up everything , delete the devices (how do I do That properly) and do the backup from the mac back to the devices so that (at least for a little while) all 3 programs will have the same library.

---

In Settings (Android, iOS) is an Erase button which will delete all songs (and Settings) - however I would always make a backup email (also in Settings) before doing this.
As the Mac version is the best for organising, do your preparation there and use it as the master copy. You can make a backup (File>Backup) and save an .html file (this format will import into other devices). Email to yourself on the other devices. Tap to import, the backup itself - which is all the songs, and each playlist. Change any Settings (transpose instrument, minor symbol etc.)
Run some tests to make sure this works for you each time, before you need to rely on it.

Also you could save the .html file to Dropbox (or similar) and import directly on your devices.
There is a Dropbox app for Mac, Android and iOS. This means you can save a playlist on your device directly to Dropbox for instance.
- Android, from your playlist, tap Send, choose Email and then the Dropbox app
- iOS, Send>HTML>Dropbox
To import, log into Dropbox, and tap on your iReal Pro html file, then tap on each list (one-by-one).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bobsax

This is what I do most of the time. It works well for songs but not so well for exercises.
Does this also apply to last edited? This would be important since I could check to see if i created anything that I forgot to export to the other devices? I'm sort of afraid it doesn't since the ipad only shows 5 last edited songs and I know I've done more editing then that on the pad.

---

To find exercises:
Mac - click on the Composer field
iOS - list by Composer ('list by' is the up/down arrows in Songs tab, top left)
Android - search 'exercise'

Last edited should remember the last 50 songs edited (at least I think it is 50). Is this not happening?