iTunes alternative for Mac

[cubby01]

Hi folks. Haven't ventured into this forum before. My wife is looking for a iTunes alternative for her older macbook. She's been using iTunes for years as a portable library storage for CDs. I don't think she's ever used the iTunes store to purchase anything. She's recently upgraded the OS to OSX El Capitan but is extremely hesitant to agree to anything that even sounds like it utilizes "the cloud". Yes, I know that stuff can be turned off but whatever.

Her needs are pretty basic:
Be able to import her current iTunes library (I'm not even sure what format these are in. I know there are well over a thousand CDs that she pics up cheap at yard sales, etc.)
Easy to add CDs to the library by just inserting and letting it do it's thing
Filtering by categories and easily searchable
Ability to create playlist for iPod or android phone
Without any need for public internet access (no "cloud stuff')

When i was looking for an iTunes alternative a few years ago I came up with MusicBee, but as far as I know it's Windows only. A brief search recently pointed to FooBar2000 which does both Mac and Windows.

Helpful thoughts or recommendations?

 

[KevinJS]

Are you sure Foobar2000 is available for Mac? It's the only reason I still keep a PC. I know the author intended to write a Mac version, but as far as I'm aware, it hasn't happened yet.

At around $50, Jriver is the best alternative I've heard of that is available for Mac.

 

[hjames]

I use iTunes on my 2009 macPro (tower). currently running Sierra 10.12.5
Over the last 7 or so years I've loaded about 50,000 songs into iTunes on a 3TB drive - mostly lossless files.
I Do Not use The Cloud with iTunes, I do rarely buy songs from iTunes store or Amazon MP3s, (mostly one hit wonders my wife wants available).

I DO direct copy/backups every 3-4 months to a 4TB external drive, just to make sure its backed up - doing it right now -
runs about 5 hrs (I do it overnight). I do that because its a lot of work copying all those songs and album covers and such.

I copy stuff to my iPhone, my wife's iPhone, and occasionally an old iPod that still works -
and I can send songs around the house to play on the house audio systems via Airport base stations.

Native mac software is the easiest to deal with ...

 

[cubby01]

Kevin, you are correct. Foobar is Windows and iOS. and my brain changed that to Windows and OSX.

Thanks Heather. Her Macbook is late 2008 and El Capitan is the latest that processor can handle. I thin she was either on Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion befor this last upgrade she did. Besides her wariness of iTunes she has also developed a strong dislike for the newer version of Calendar which tries to be helpful by interpreting her email putting appointments in at the wrong times. We turned that feature off but it still manages to cause grief.

Thanks again.

 

[olson_jr]

J River is a great program, it will find your media quite easily, will do most of what you want, but as far as I know , it does not let me copy stuff directly onto phones and IPods, I still use iTunes for that. I am using an older version of JRiver, MC20 I believe.

As Heather said, for what you want, iTunes is still going to be your best bet. After you make your agreements with the Apple Gods, just turn off the Cloud Stuff. You might have to do a Google search to understand everything that needs to be shut off.

My wife feared Apple the first time we set up her iPhone, she figured that they were going to start charging her every time she fat fingered something, or worst yet, automatically load U2's latest album onto her phone and force her to listen to it. Since the initial set up she has never mentioned it again.

As for your comment "Without any need for public internet access (no "cloud stuff')" All music programs need to access the internet ( http://www.gracenote.com/) to recognize what CD you are adding to your systems and add the info (metadata, Gene, track numbers, time, etc) for that CD. After that, there is no need to access the internet.

Good luck.

 

[palsapal]

I DO direct copy/backups every 3-4 months to a 4TB external drive, just to make sure its backed up - doing it right now -
runs about 5 hrs (I do it overnight). I do that because its a lot of work copying all those songs and album covers and such. ...

Have you ever considered using a program that allows you to compare two folders (+sub-folders) & copy what's new i.e. synchronise. A lot shorter backup times!

 

[hjames]

Have you ever considered using a program that allows you to compare two folders (+sub-folders) & copy what's new i.e. synchronise. A lot shorter backup times!

The mac OS does incremental backup of every changed file hourly using a built in utility called Time Machine.
BUT, I am old school and ALSO do a complete copy of the whole music folder every month or so to a dedicated drive.
Call me redundant, but with 60,048 tracks currently in iTunes (1.03 TB),
I would rather let it do a periodic redundant dupe overnight than have to rip all those files again!

 

[benricci]

ITunes meets all your needs, just use that. You don't have to use any cloud services with it if you don't want to.

 

[hendertuckie]

I use Swinsian software to supplement iTunes. Like most iTune replacements there is a slight learning curve. I have CD's dating back to 1984 and finding and inserting covers into iTunes could is a multiple step process with Swinsian it's pretty easy. I still rip using iTunes but all playback in my main system is with Swinsian.

 

[uofmtiger]

I have used Fidelia with the Mac (for its headphone plug-in), but it is buggy, so I prefer iTunes. I also have J River on a Windows partition of my Mac. If J River on the Mac is similar to the version on Windows, I would go with that if she can't get over "the cloud". There are tons of options in J River that make it great for audio freaks, but I think it is easier to just uncheck a few boxes in iTunes rather than setting up a new, more complicated program.

I have seen recommendations for the Vox Music player on Mac, but I have never tried it.

 

[Jrflanne]

I have tried many and use Audirvana+. You can synchronize your iTunes library if you like.

 

[ben_]

+1 for audirvana wich looks like itunes but lighter and with a great focus on sound quality

Also I use Vox as an every day player, feels more like old winamp without the bloated library index and drives apple audio and direct output for perfect sound quality