Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection
Will Friedwald proclaims he has the world largest iTunes collection. An avid listener to Jazz music, and a writer for the New York Sun, Will spends his days in front of his Power Mac G5 running “The Maxtix�, his mammoth 200,000 track iTunes library.
Will took some time out of his rigirous daily schedule and took some time to talk with me about iTunes, his music collection, and how he manages it.
The question we all want to know. How large is your iTunes music collection?
I just re-compiled the main library (something that takes about six hours – I only do it a few times a year!). Here are the new stats:
849 GB | 172,150 tracks | 809.2 days
2,935 artists | 11,561 albums
iTunes library database file - 282 MB
iTunes library XML file - 259 MB
For reasons I will get into later, I also have several sub-libraries; theoretically, all my music will eventually go into the main library. I also have a separate “annex� of about 200-300 GB of stuff that I am gradually adding in to the main library. If I were to put everything together, which I am slowly doing, it will be around 1200 GB.
How long have you been using iTunes to manage your digital music collection?
I started using iTunes when I made the leap to OS X, which was in 2003, the year I bought my G3 iBook (which I am still happily using four years later – am typing this on it, as a matter of fact).
Originally, I planned to just transfer a few CD artists into the library – Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis. Then, the next thing I noticed was that iTunes was great for listening to box sets: I could take, for instance, the 18-CD that I did on Nat King Cole (Mosaic Records actually won a Grammy for that in the early ‘90s) and instantly find the track that I wanted to hear.
No more opening a big clunky box, fumbling around to find an individual CD, and then looking for the right track! It was astonishing that as soon as I typed “You Must Be Blind,� there it was! I started transferring all my big boxed sets – especially the Mosaic and Bear Family boxed sets almost immediately.
When was the takeoff point where the library started to drastically grow?
I could tell you “when� in terms of the theoretically breakthrough, if not precisely in terms of calendar time. For the few months or so, I went back and forth between listening via iTunes and listening to standard compact discs.
Then, at a certain point, I realized that I was doing nearly all of my listening via iTunes. In fact, I gradually reached the point where I am now, and that is the only time I listen to standard CDs now is when I am “auditioning� them to see if I want to put them into iTunes.
Early on, I didn’t want to make my iBook internal hard drive work so hard to house all that music, so I purchased my first of many external drives (it may have been 160 GB, which at that time I thought would last me forever!). Then I bought a used blueberry iMac just to run iTunes – and that held me for a while.
But basically, it was at the point that I began doing all my listening via iTunes that the library began to grow exponentially. When I started to put every piece of music I thought I would ever listen to again, I began referring to the iTunes music library as “The Jazz Matrix� – although since then I have shortened it to just “The Matrix.�
How many tracks do you add to your library each week?
I couldn’t really estimate in terms of a number; the way I work is, this week, for instance, I did a feature article for my paper (The New York Sun) on Charles Mingus, which ran today (Monday 4/16) in honor of his the 85th Anniversary of Mingus’s birth. Since I wanted to listen to as much of his music as possible, I loaded all of my Mingus CDs into The Matrix. I have about 50 albums by Mingus, some of which were already in there, but I added all the others.
It’s an incredible tool for someone writing about music, to be instantly able to listen and compare every recording of “Fables of Faubus� and see how they differ from one another.
Right now I have two Mac OS X desktops – a G5 Power Mac and the G3 iMac – I use them both for importing. There are some days when I just keep the iMac going all day long; I just keep feeding the beast, when The Matrix yells “feed me!� It’s the only way to tackle some of the more prolific artists in the history of recording, and massive projects like the 17-CD Complete Art Pepper Galaxy Sessions box.
I also have also added massive amounts of material that otherwise only exists in the analog domain – CDRs transferred from LPs and 78s that have not been digitally remastered.
What do you like about using iTunes to manage your library?
iTunes is, without a doubt, the best and most intuitive program out there for transferring, archiving, and listening to music – not to mention buying it from the store and putting it on an iPod. There’s nothing I’ve seen that has its ease of use, and its flexibility – especially with the aid of the applescripts made available by Doug Adams.
With a smallish library, especially, it is incredibly easy to compile playlists, to search for songs using any criteria. I particularly like that you can search by criteria other than recording artist; much of the time I look for music by composer, so I do a search under “Gershwin� or “Ellington� and all of a sudden, every recording of a song by thousands of different performers magically appears. If anyone has a better music program, bring it on!
What things would you like to be added/improved within the application?
I’ve actually written an editorial essay about the limitations of iTunes (which hasn’t been published yet), where I talk about some of these issues, but it to boil it down to a paragraph or less:
Essentially the problem is that iTunes was designed for people to buy music from the store, to put CDs on their iPods, and then, perhaps lastly, to store some of a personal CD collection in the library. It was NOT designed for what I am doing with it, which is to store, manage and access a major music collection of nearly 200,000 tracks. As a result, when I am working with the full 800 GB library, it is painfully slow, getting around the library, doing searches, and editing info on individual tracks or whole albums just takes forever!
As an example: when I want to edit the information on an individual song – the “metadata� as technically-minded people call it – I highlight the track, then I press Apple-I. With a small library (under 50-100 GB), the edit info window comes up instantly. But with my 800 GB Matrix, I have to wait three or four minutes before the window comes up. That’s time enough to go to the bathroom, make a cup of coffee, or entertain myself with 99% of the clips on youtube!
As I see it, there are two possible solutions (other than using multiple libraries, which I am doing now, but which is more of a temporary workaround than a long-term solution):
The first (which is quicker but more expensive) is to get faster hardware, although I am not even sure if one of the new 8-core Mac Pro desktops could process a 1000-GB music library as fast as I would like it to. (Not that I can remotely afford a fully-outfitted new Mac Pro!)
The second is a vague but hopefully optimistic possibility for the future: I find that more and more individuals out there are getting saddled with these mega-libraries like mine. Also, at a certain point, institutions like The Library of Congress, The Smithsonian, and, most importantly, the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, are going to want to make their collections of recorded sound available in a digital system. Right now, as far as I know, the technology to do that does not exist – it certainly would be very difficult to do that using iTunes as it currently exists.
What I would like to see Apple do is build a specific program to address this need. The same way that there are several levels of Final Cut, why couldn’t there be an upgraded edition of iTunes – something like iTunes Pro or Super-iTunes? This new program, obviously wouldn’t be a freebie, but if it could do what I want it to do I would gladly pay Apple almost anything that it wants. $200 for new software is a lot cheaper than having to spend $4000 for a new Mac Pro!
How much time are you spending building, organizing, and listening to your music on a daily basis?
Way longer than I should! I usually start the day by importing a few Cds as I answer the morning email and downing my first cup of coffee. As I’m working on a story, I keep on importing – somethings transferring two discs at once simultaneously on the G5 and the iMac. I’m forever tinkering with the library, several hours a day, often when I’m on the phone, sometimes even when I’m watching TV (on the extremely rare nights when I’m not out covering live music).
What genres of music do you most enjoy listening to?
I’m essentially a jazz guy: I review jazz in New York for The New York Sun, which boasts the best arts section of any NYC newspaper (even the Times – it’s true!). I’ve written a bunch of books on jazz and pop singers, but I write mostly about instrumental jazz for the paper.
Lately I’ve had more of an appreciation for classic rock, though there’s still very little from after 1970 that I listen to, pop-music wise. I also have nearly every original Broadway cast album in the matrix, and lots of classic country. When it comes to classical music, I’ve been using Rhapsody, since I don’t have enough of my own personal classical CD collection to make it worthwhile. As of now, there is no Classical Matrix, but maybe someday soon.
What hardware are you using to run your mammoth collection?
In 2005, I invested in a single-processor G5 PowerMac, and that has powered the collection ever since. The Matrix is currently housed in a mirrored SATA RAID array of three four-hundred GB drives (3 x 400) in a Transintl enclosure. (I have recently learned, to my great annoyance, that I can’t get PCI-X on my G5, which might have helped to speed things up a bit.)
I also do frequent back-ups, using a PCI magic bridge and three barebones external SATA drives.
849GB, 172,150 tracks, and 809.2 days of listening pleasure. Envy the collection? Digg it.
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#1
wphj → wphj.wordpress.com
Wow!
That’s ridiculous. I don’t even know what to say, very interesting interview Glenn.
#2
Jeremy → jeremyfriedland.com
What bitrate does he encode at?
I have a ways to go to catch up.
58.03 GB, 11,104 tracks, 30.05 days.
#3
Andre → winnopeg.com
It would take more than two years to listen to all that music, with it constantly playing… Something tells me the play count on his music isn’t that high. ;)
#4
Henry → henryetc.com/blog
Wow, do I have a ways to go to catch up with him! I’m behind by about 803 days :D
I’m really liking these interviews, Glenn; hopefully we’ll keep seeing more of them in the future.
#5
Dustin → web.mac.com/dustin.cook
What I want to know is how many tracks are unplayed? Perhaps Glenn could convince him to download the iTunes Stats widget and get him to publish the stats?
http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=1269
#6
Michael Yurechko → michaelyurechko.com
Dugg:
http://digg.com/apple/Man_with_largest_iTunes_collection_in_the_world
#7
Peppery → www.worddissociation.com
And I thought I had alot of music!
1729 songs, 4.5 days, 7.90gb
#8
Shawn Blanc → thefightspot.com
I had no concept of someone owning a digital music library that big. Insane.
I don’t even listen to all of my measly 25 gigs.
#9
BrendanExactly, what bitrate? I just re-imported my entire CD collection into iTunes last week in 256Kb (although I can’t find a couple of my CD’s). I think this guy needs a new Mac Pro - I don’t think he should hold out for iTunes Pro as Apple wouldn’t have the resourses, and if the said they were delaying Leopard again because they put key OS X software guys on ‘the iTunes Pro’ project, I would kill them!!! We’ll I’m glad I got that off my chest. Good work Glenn!
#10
Edward Scherf → edwardscherf.com
That is a retarded amount of music. Holy man. I have a hard time managing all of the music that I have, and it’s no where near this much lol! You would never get bored of the same old play lists that’s for sure lol.
#11
Worlds Largest ITunes Collection | David Paul Robinson → www.davidpaulrobinson.com/2007/04/18/worlds-largest-itunes-collection
[...] 2007 @ 11:25 pm by David Paul Robinson Glenn Wolsey interviews Will Friedwald and talks about his ITunes Collection, allegedly the worlds [...]
#12
David Paul Robinson → www.davidpaulrobinson.com
Great interview. My collection is only 770 GB behind….
#13
FriendsWithManagersâ„¢ » Blog Archive » LNK: Will Friedwald - Owner of One Big-Ass iTunes Library → www.friendswithmanagers.com/archives/2007/04/19/lnk-will-friedwald-owner-of-one-big-ass-itunes-library
[...] Wolsey interviews Will Friedwald, owner of one big-ass iTunes library. His stats? 849 GB, 172,150 tracks, 809.2 days. I currently sit at 88.45GB, 13,950, 39 days and I [...]
#14
Yannic → yannicwalter.de
oh my…
My database is about 10GB xD
I’ll take a while to catch up with him ;)
#15
Samuel Blowes~170gb right now. Going since the first gen iPod came out (which I still have and use!)
#16
Martin Gordon → www.martingordon.org/blog
That’s an awfully low bitrate for someone who listens to music for a living. It’s even lower than what comes from the iTunes store!
849 GB * 1024 MB/GB * 1024 KB/MB * 8 Kb/KB = 7121928192 KB
809 days * 24 hours/day * 60 min/hour * 60 sec/min = 69897600 sec
Average bitrate = 101.89 kbps
#17
Julian Schrader → julianschrader.de
My library is 10,07 GB, but I can have it with me on the MacBook Pro or iPod.
849 GB is sick… ;-)
#18
JustinI’m up to about 200 GB (mostly at 192-320 k/s), and iTunes is starting to get sluggish. I just don’t like any other players though…
#19
BrandonI have roughly around…
87,000 mp3’s
243.2 days
465GB
most tracks encoded at 320kb FLAC
I used iTunes for awhile, but have reverted back to Winamp.
I am impressed at his collection. Took me about 2 years to build mine up to current amount. About 70% is imported from audio cd, the rest is some way or another downloaded.
#20
EI have about 125K songs. He’s right. iTunes drags to a crawl, even on Core 2 Duo computers. I have mine stored on a Raid 5 NAS. Though, it’s getting full…..88% full at the moment :-/
#21
VexxerWhat genre’s do you have the most of? The least of? What’s your longest single song? I’d like to know more about the statistics :(
#22
ChrisThis is not the worlds biggest iTunes library…
There is a bar near me that has an xserve server with around 2TB of music….
That is 2 TB
#23
NateWhy the fuck would you buy that much music? You could never listen to it all.
And he complains he can’t afford a fully outfitted MacPro?
He could buy more then 10 with all the money he must have spent at the iTunes store and/or on CDs.
#24
jurgen → jurgen.ca
I’ve got a large (not huge) collection: nearly 50,000 tracks, 230GB. It was getting annoying to work with on my old PowerBook G4, but this MacBook Pro makes it workable again. I’m also wishing for a “Pro” iTunes, but I somehow doubt this is something Apple really wants to invest money in.
#25
hagure → hagure-metaru.net
Ah… I was gonna post that I wasn’t too far behind with my 500 or so gigs. But then again I can’t stand anything below 192 mp3. But I guess if you have to deal with THAT much music, quality
#26
Mentalo → www.canaleibar.net
Ridiculous, there are people sharing up to 4 TB of music in nets like direct connect, it of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection gives me laugh :)
#27
Court K“How many backup copies of your Library do you have?”…….
hey! wtf, woop! where did my music go???
#28
MIDFI have about 600 gigs of music personally. None of it in iTunes because it would be painfully slow to search it. What you need is a mySQL database. I use a program called prokyon. It is a multithreaded (so dual or quad cores speed it up) database that allows you to search through music all day and all night, nearly instantly.
Did I mention it was open source and free?
http://prokyon3.sourceforge.net/
*laugh* the only downside is it is mainly linux only. You can run a client on a windows box but I would not suggest doing so. What you can do is virtualize it inside a mac but still….
It takes a bit of configuring but that might be a decent answer to your problems.
:: features ::
* multithreaded (Qt3 based versions only)
* manages music files on harddisk/cdrom or over network
* search the database by artist, song, album, filename…
* very comfortable editor for ID3 tags
* manages favorite artists
* plays or enqueues music files with XMMS / WinAmp
* uses MySQL as database backend
* configuration editor and database wizard
* access files over SMB, CIFS and NFS (Linux only)
* playlist editor
* support for Ogg/Vorbis
* access tracks by artist and album
* basic drag-n-drop support (Linux only)
* smart playlist generator
* rudimental CD burning support
* save GUI setup
* internationalization
* taglib support
* guess tags from path and filename dialog using regex
* musicextras integration (get album covers, artist images, lyrics, … from the internet and store it within prokyon3)
* support for embedded MySQL including wizard
* MP3, OGG and FLAC support
* support different album types (normal, sampler, soundtrack, musical, drama, comedy)
* personal review notes
* rating of tracks
* generator takes care of rating
* allow customized SQL queries (free MySQL search) and store them
* cd burning via k3b (supports Audio CD, Data CD, Data DVD)
* export and import playlists (m3u and pls)
* copy tracks to directory (useful for mobile mp3 players)
* preconfigured for several popular players (xmms, amarok, totem, …)
* Mixxx remote control and Mixxx queues
* basic MusicBrainz support
* supermount and submount support
* album cover thumbnails
* more GUI improvements
* utf8 support
* 64bit platform support
* prelisten tracks via headphone while playing another one
#29
The MassesSounds like someone needs an oink account.
#30
notrickEven I dont listen to songs I have. Around 190Gb odd.
But tehre is no sone in My Database of 190+ GB that I havent enjoyed atleast once. Its a pain for me to listen to them again.
I like things to be new. Very new. A Song 7 days old is same as a song 7 year old for me.
I am out of money to buy new hard disk now. So I shud Re think on my storage and delete My Songs.
BTW I am a poor windows user and I use Windows Media Player to store the database.
#31
Panda BearI’m sure some of the guys working on Apple iTunes have access to the whole catalog.
If anyone has a large music library and finds themselves struggling to get through it then I would recommend downloading The Filter as a way of creating interesting playlists that explore your library. You can download it from http://www.thefilter.com
#32
PaulStamatiou.com → paulstamatiou.com/2007/04/19/worlds-largest-itunes-collection
World’s Largest iTunes Collection…
Glenn Wolsey published an interesting interview with the owner of the largest iTunes music collection. The owner of that collection, Will Friedwald, maintains a massive archive of 849 GB of songs equating to 172,150 tracks. It would take roughly 2.2 ye…
#33
justin“As an example: when I want to edit the information on an individual song…I have to wait three or four minutes before the window comes up.”
editing metadata with itunes? well theres the problem!
i agree, itunes sucks at editing ID3.
im not sure what the best editor on Mac is, but on windows,
hands down mp3tag.
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/
in addition, when you do use itunes, to edit ID3, it won’t save the following:
1. ratings
2. album art
both should be default entries, but somehow this escaped itunes development staff.
i personally have issues with itunes on xp, and continue to email there suggestion box frequently.
#34
erik → www.mukamo.com
wow that’s a lot of music right there.
#35
FrancesThis is the kind of user who makes the life of any software developer a problem. He uses a great piece of software and then takes it to levels it was never intended/designed for. How many people are going to have a music library of that size?
Plus, if he used a late-model Mac, it would be a lot faster. I think iTunes is holding up remarkably, considering how he’s using it. I only have a few tens of gigs worth of music, iTunes rocks.
Apple will probably do for iTunes what it did for iPhoto. First you could only put some 2500 pictures in it [I'll probably be wrong, don't have kittens over it], then they went to 25,000 and now they’re at 250,000. A dedicated shutterbug, with a decent camera will still wreak havoc, but 250,000 for the average user is rather plenty.
So, if iTunes is built to be able to accept 1,000,000 songs, someone will complain that it’s slow when loading her 3,000,000 songs.
The main thing is that within its design limits iTunes is just about the best jukebox you don’t even have to pay money for. Some people will see a way to find fault with that and chide Apple over it, I really couldn’t scoff at the gift of such a fantastically elegant and nice piece of software. I have never had any problem with iTunes, I certainly can’t say that of every application I’ve ever used.
Say it with me: Thank you, Apple!
#36
got_u_shooki wanted to have the largest collection of music while i was in college, of course for popularity’s sake. That was lame I know, I have so far reduced my collection from 90 to a slim 12GB. I am comfortable
#37
Dave → www.davenicoll.com
Hi Will
I have a similar sized library and wish iTunes would perform better with it. I’d love to start a movement to persuade Apple to modify iTunes to accommodate our needs. Drop me an email if you’re interested.
#38
Augensausen. » Blog Archiv » iTunes ist ziemlicher Schrott! → www.augensausen.de/?p=204
[...] Glenn Wolsey interviewt den Mann mit der längsten bekannten iTunes-Sammlung der Welt. [...]
#39
ImAFish Extra » Blog Archive » Man with largest iTunes collection in the world → www.imafish.co.uk/extra/2007/04/19/man-with-largest-itunes-collection-in-the-world
[...] the man with the largest iTunes collection in the world. Will currently has over 200,000 tracks.read more | digg [...]
#40
Nick@Martin Gordon
“That’s an awfully low bitrate for someone who listens to music for a living. It’s even lower than what comes from the iTunes store!
Average bitrate = 101.89 kbps”
I didn’t check, but I wouldn’t be surprised. He likes Jazz. Many of these will be old recordings in mono. The information simply isn’t there on the discs. Throwing a lot of bits at it wouldn’t help.
He’s probably ripping in iTunes, but on OS X you can use Max, which can use the excellent LAME MP3 encoder:
http://sbooth.org/Max/
Now LAME is a very efficient encoder. You set a quality level *not* a bitrate. At the default setting it would usually produce a file with an average birate of 160-170 kbps, but if the music were exceptionally demanding it might produce a file with a bitrate of over 200 kbps on the *same* quality setting. Similarly, when the information is not thre in the original recording, LAME will drop the bitrate down.
I’d guarantee that LAME - which is the gold standard for MP3 encoders - would encode an old mono recording at around 100 kbps, because that’s all it needs. The information isn’t there on the original media to be captured.
#41
NickAnother thought. Has Will Friedwald tried any other taggers for OS X?
If iTunes is exceptionally slow at tagging for him, he might try Chaotic Software’s Media Rage and see if it’s any quicker.
http://www.chaoticsoftware.com/ProductPages/MediaRage.html
I quite like it myself (although the tagger built into iTunes works just fine for me). It may be worth a try.
#42
Jared1.43 TB.
Just ask for screenshots.
#43
Anonymous → www.eff.org
An better algorithm might be a good idea.
Or a better database.
MySQL would probably be faster…
#44
bodyrockerI know people with double that in music and there’s no way in hell they’d touch itunes for handling their database. As previously mentioned, a mysql database setup is the best way to go. I threw up all over my computer when I read that you were using itunes to manage a collection this size. Gross, now I have to clean this.
#45
Sean McManus → www.sean.co.uk
I wonder whether you end up spending too much time managing the collection (several hours a day?!) and not enough time just enjoying it. I’m reminded of that line in Fight Club - the things you own, end up owning you.
#46
Jeff → www.dottunes.net
To really get the most out of this huge library Will should check out http://www.dottunes.net
DOT.TUNES will allow you to stream all of your tracks to any computer in the home or office or listen to your tracks from the other side of the world.
In fact if someone could please pass on a message to Will that we would be happy to offer him a free serial number for DOT.TUNES as we would love to hear his comments with such a large library.
Cheers
Jeff
#47
MACNOTES.DE » Notizen vom 19. April 2007 → www.macnotes.de/2007/04/19/notizen-vom-19-april-2007
[...] für alle MP3s genutzt werden kann, muss US-Jurnalist WIll Friedwald noch etwas warten. In einem Interview spricht er über die wohl größte iTunes Musikbibliothek. Ganze 200.000 Titel kann er sein Eigen [...]
#48
Matt Gardner → mattgardner.net
Just think about it, he’s listened to over 3 years worth of music just once. Think about how many times you listen to a particular track.. Your life is ticking away to the sound of music..
#49
SrikanthNice interview. My collection’s 73.6 GB, 14,137 songs, 42 days and 22 hours :). I still have a long way to go!
Srikanth
#50
World’s Largest iTunes Collection at Maszman Speaks! → www.tommasz.net/index.php/2007/04/19/worlds-largest-itunes-collection
[...] Wolsey has an interview with Will Friedwald, owner of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection. How large? 849 GB | 172,150 tracks | 809.2 days 2,935 artists | 11,561 albums iTunes library [...]
#51
Josiah Pugh → www.eternallyaddicted.com
I don’t get it. He can afford 200,000 tracks but not a quad core Mac Pro?
#52
tech → www.iyiz.com
An better algorithm might be a good idea.
Or a better database.
MySQL would probably be faster…
#53
GaramondMy collection reaches 1.5TB today, so I guess he can’t be the owner of the world’s largest music collection? But Will, don’t think of expanding your main collection to 1.2TB - working with meta tags and even just playing songs will be extremely slow. I’ve split mine in two.
#54
Brian Griffin - → briangriffin.org/blog/2007/04/19/331
[...] world’s largest itunes library, nicknamed “The Matrix” by its owner, contains over 800 GB of music and takes over six [...]
#55
Other RyanPretty crazy. I only have a few hundred songs.
#56
dood → asdasd
“iTunes is, without a doubt, the best and most intuitive program out there for transferring, archiving, and listening to music”
maybe for a mac…
foobar owns
#57
GandalfJust for your information, “rigirous” is correctly spelled “rigorous” and “shudule” is correctly spelled “schedule”.
#58
Grab Baggage » World’s Largest iTunes Collection → www.grabbaggage.com/2007/04/19/worlds-largest-itunes-collection
[...] An interview with the owner of the world’s largest iTunes collection. Apparently he has over 200,000 tracks in his library. I haven’t had a chance to read through the article in detail, but I would assume you would need some sort of database just to navigate through such a library. [...]
#59
Andreas → macintalk.com
I’ll second that. iTunes is just pathetic for what this guy is using it for. Prokyon is a good solution.
IMO though, having a music collection of that size is rather pointless. Sure it’s great to have that much stuff to listen to, but I can’t even keep track of my 30 GB iTunes library. But hell, if he can use it it’s all good :P
#60
BillI wonder how many of you guys bragging about having 230948 TB in your library actually bought all of that…also, he’s a jazz guy, every jazz artist ever has like 50 cd’s in his discography, with a pretty good portion of them being live albums. Pretty impressive, even for a music columnist.
#61
JeronimoFor those of you wondering how “he can afford 200,000 tracks but not a quad core Mac Pro?”.
He’s a MUSIC JOURNALIST, for crying out loud. He gets tons of CD every week for free.
#62
CidI think I know why his iTunes is so slow - he needs more RAM.
My iTunes library has on Win XP
427 GB | 72,594 tracks |
iTunes library database file - 121 MB
iTunes library XML file - 102 MB
and it asked for running (not playing) in background for 190 MB RAM. Even when i´m working on iTunes with coverflow on, it takes over 500 MB RAM. To calculate your needed RAM add 30 MB RAM for Itunes with the size of your iTunes library database file add the size of iTunes library XML file and multiplicate it with factor 2. There is your need for working halfway smooth with big librarys.
Cid
Germany
#63
NancyHe’s not buying any of this music. When you review music for publications, people mail you CDs every darn day. I used to have freelancers work for me who just did it for the free CDs.
#64
GaryI have a 250GB library in iTunes, it used to be ok, but when itunes 7.0 came out it got very slow. It used to take a few seconds to open itunes. Now when i open iTunes I actually get a bar to watch as it loads the Library. And it takes about 5-10 minutes to load. It’s not a very pleasant new feature.
Does anyone know of a way to go back to iTunes 6?
#65
The Pandora Effect → the-pandora-effect.blogspot.com
you’ve gotta be kidding me.. its.. impossible! even just for the money spent.
#66
will friedwald → www.nysun.com/authors/Will+Friedwald
Guys - thanks for all your wonderful response! I will respond more fully later today; this morning I am on a tight deadline writing my column for tom’w’s paper (if anyone cares, it’s on Bill Frisell & Don Byron at the Village Vanguard and Karen Akers at The Algonquin).
quick immediate response: I use the Apple-recommended AAC format and I burn at the highest rate allowable, which (as you all know) is 320 for stereo and 160 for mono. There are a lot of short tracks in there, three-minute mono singles, but also some very long stereo tracks from John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. (I don’t have a lot of classical music, which as you know, also results in lots of long tracks and biggish files.)
More answers later! I may also answer some questions at my own blog, which is at
http://politicalmavens.com/
although, honestly, I haven’t posted that much up there, as you will see…
thanks again for the wonderful, overwhelming response
Will
#67
will friedwald → www.nysun.com/authors/Will+Friedwald
PS - if anybody wants to read reviews & feature stories that I’ve written, and see why I’m obsessed with gathering and listening to music 24-7, this is a link to some recent columns in THE NEW YORK SUN :
http://www.nysun.com/authors/Will+Friedwald
#68
the mini Blog » The 849GB iTunes Collection → theminiblog.co.uk/archives/2007/04/19/the-849gb-itunes-collection
[...] read more [...]
#69
abethecat » Största iTunessamlingen i världen? → abethecat.com/2007/04/19/storsta-itunessamlingen-i-varlden
[...] Största iTunessamlingen i världen? Läs intervju med innehavaren av denna enorma samling. [...]
#70
lux aeternaWhat a great mythical jazz collection, makes me jealous… Such a rarity these days when everyone and his cousin is listening to 60-minute techno mash-ups or whatever.
Such a huge collection… Makes me think of a reference archive… If only we could access it, just like a library. Too much music for one lifetime! it is not fit (or fair?) for just one person to use.
Reminds me when I was living in Paris, we could go to Beaubourg and *freely* listen to audio CDs on site *and* look at the paper scores too. Golden age.
Book libraries are such a great concept, too bad there is no such approach possible for music (outside of illegal copying of course).
#71
Chris SI am the proud owner of a 133GB Itunes library and having that amount of music is crazy…and i am jealous.
#72
go ahead, mac my day : something to aspire to → blogs.msdn.com/nadyne/archive/2007/04/19/something-to-aspire-to.aspx
[...] with my music collection: about 200 GB. But Will Friedwald takes the cake with what’s being called the world’s largest iTunes collection. He’s got 849 GB in there currently, for a whopping 809.2 days’ worth of music there. 11,561 [...]
#73
pagansoulMy digital CD collection is about 4,000 songs but my obsession is with DVD (standard, not HD). They have gotten so cheap lately that I can get them (used) for a few dollars when I remember back in ‘97-98 it wasn’t strange to pay $20 each. I’ve been ripping my favorites and keeping them on my computer. Right now I have about 50 and am looking at getting a MacPro. Music files have nothing on Video files. My current DVD collection is over 2500 but I see myself only ripping a few hundred but who knows. With storage getting cheaper, computers getting faster, and programmers making better ways to set your collections up, maybe, someday, I’ll be able to finish. Maybe I don’t suppose to, it’s too much fun.
#74
LauraWow — and I thought I spent a ridiculous amount of time individually play-listing my (almost) 10,000 songs! Will Friedwald makes me look like a slacker, for goodness sake. I have just over 2700 songs that require correct placement in one (or more) of over 30 playlists. Wish me luck!
#75
Opethian News Blog » A Huge iTunes Collection → www.opethian.com/news/?p=13
[...] Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection [...]
#76
shadownight → thomasgvl.50webs.com
Haha, 3-4 minutes to open the Get Info window :D That’s hilarious.
#77
IcemanThat sorta reminds me of my self. Except I have video instead of music 498gb of video 6gb of music = 10days of video and 2 days of audio
#78
kena funny thing that popped into my head, does this guy listen to podcasts?
#79
rawrr=_=… 279.5GB 377.6 days
#80
cTheorySo um… whats the bidding for a copy of one of these uber collections *shifty eyes* haha…
#81
roninarts → www.roninarts.de/wp/?p=793
[...] Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection interessant (tags: itunes music apple nerd interview) [...]
#82
links for 2007-04-20 on hypernarrative.com, a weblog by Wilbert Baan about Art, Media and Technology (v. 3.5) → www.hypernarrative.com/wordpress/2007/04/20/links-for-2007-04-20
[...] Glenn Wolsey : Blog Archive : Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collecti… (tags: Apple mp3 music iTunes interview) [...]
#83
PiratX → www.myipod.gr
well, hi there.. i am from greece i have iTunes since version 1.0 and since then until all my cds converted in mp3 i was importing cd the one after the other.. all this job take place on my iMac G3 400Mhz DV. I changed some Macs since then i have now iMac 24″ with Intel Core 2 Duo .. so i have external disks (not so good solution as yours - i love the situation with the 3×400 SATA disks) but i have now only 500gb Lacie Big Disk Extreme on fw800 and there i have exactly at this time
70141 songs, 202:01:00:58 total time, 429.30 GB (this is my online music)
but because i never had a tower to make something like a music server i am backuping music on dvds i have the file of those dvd in DiskCatalogMaker and now it is like
127 items (DVDs) / total 94,327 items (files) and every dvd is filled up with 4.3GB
so if 127 * 4300 = 546.100
everything that i have backup or everything that it’s online its fully organised with artwork, year, album artist, artist AND EVERYTHING!
when i will finish some assignments that i have to do for my school i have to import and organise some old cd with greek music its almost 3000 CDs .. and i forgot to tell that everything on my library is around 160kbps VBR - if i like the album a lot then i am reconding it and trash the old one .. the rencoded is Apple Lossless of course.
I would like to know somehow HOW MANY songs iTunes can get and dont stuck all the time..
thanx for your time if u red that :)
#84
Dünyanın en büyük iTunes arÅŸivi kimde? - Mac Dünyası → www.macdunyasi.com/2007/04/20/dunyanin-en-buyuk-itunes-arsivi-kimde
[...] en büyük iTunes arşivinin sahibi diye tanıttığı Will Friedwald ile yaptığı röportajı yayımladı. New York Sun’a yazılar yazan ve Power Mac G5 kullanan Friedwald’ın arşivinin büyüklüğü [...]
#85
GraphiX2004where can i contact Will Friedwald as i would like to get some answers to these questions regarding him braging about his mass collection of itunes songs?
1. itunes contains DRM which stops you transfering your songs/collection to any other device, why would someone pay thausands of dollars for music that they can’t listen too or transfer to any other mp3 player other than the ipod??
2. what happens if his hard-drive dies because of some virus or fault since your not allowed or you cannot backup your song archive because of DRM restrictions why would you risk spending thausands of dollars on a collection that could become worthless?
3. if you hard a computer crash and you couldn’t get back them songs you paid good money for because of stupid copy protections like the DRM that stops you transfering to other computers and DRM would you think that Itunes is some super great service?
what if they revoked their DRM licence so none of the songs you paid $$$$ of money for all stoped working yes 200,000 of your songs stoped working due to DRM.
i have many more questions but i’ll leave it there i just cannot understand at all why someone would invest so much money in a service that could and will one day completely ruine and destroy all that collection due to DRM licence restrictions and copy protections.
just can’t work out why you would pay money for crippled contents that will one day become worthless when you want to transfer to any other computer/device you own but stopped because of the DRM restrictions that apple has.
#86
GraphiX2004Also to add, i cannot beleive reading all your comments and posts not 1 of you as thought of the restrictions placed on your legally paid media.
and im very anoyed glenn you didn’t ask these questions in your interview just as if these situations with DRM and copyright protections don’t exist.
People need to know about all the stupid restrictions placed onto music DRM/Fairplay what ever you want to call it,
maybe everyone posting their comments could even raise this issue since i seem to be the only one!
#87
mathsWorld’s Largest iTunes Collection? You must be having a laugh…..there are lots more people out there with terabytes more of music which they have obtained via dubious means or otherwise.
And the fact that Will insists on using iTunes to manage such a large collection shows how misguided he is - use a proper management software, at least something that will even manage ID3 tags properly. iTunes is not equipped for a basic function as managing ID3 tags properly.
#88
Day In Review - Everything But The Kitchen Sink at Keynote 2 Keynote → www.keynote2keynote.com/2007/04/19/day-in-review-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink
[...] neat thing going around the blogosphere right now is Glenn Wolsey’s interview with Will Friedwald, the owner of the worlds largest iTunes collection. Now, I think I’ve got a pretty decent [...]
#89
Faciamus → faciamus.blogspot.com
Thats amazing! I’ve never heard of a collection that big!
#90
Isaack → isaack.info
GraphiX2004:
You can and are allowed to backup your music. Should you lose your hardware activation for ITMS, ITMS support people are reasonable and can replenish your activation list.
Plus, you are allowed to reset your list once per year, once your run out of activations, this feature comes available automatically through iTunes.
If you use it with care, you will most likely never need to reset the list…
Having Digital Music is a different way of thinking that traditional media’s. Many comparisons can’t be made. Like an extreme example, what if your appartment burns up in a fire caused by a glitch in the electrical system. Will you be able to get all your hundreds of CDs out in time? Most likely you will be busy with other things while getting out in safety.
Can you make clones of your CDs… like you can take copies of your iTunes songs to as many locations as you like.
Having music on a digital medias provides new ways and new pitfalls. Once you educate within this realm, I’m sure you will do just fine if not even better. I see mostly benefits to the digital media compared to CDs. And as of such, I don’t keep CDs anymore at all.
Finally, I don’t recall them ever talking about the Music Store, thus, he most likely doesn’t have any or only very few DRM songs on his computer. If you read it again, you will see that he spends time every day IMPORTING CDs… when you import, there will be no DRM as you should know.
#91
Mark → www.geocities.com/spoomym/rdmainpage.htm
..and I thought his brother Leo was eccentric. lol.
Impressive collection though.
#92
pristina.org | everything design » links for 2007-04-20 → www.pristina.org/?p=836
[...] Glenn Wolsey : Blog Archive : Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collecti… A maior livraria de iTunes do mundo (tags: itunes Apple interview music toread) [...]
#93
links for 2007-04-19 | blog.ftofani.com → blog.ftofani.com/?p=677
[...] Glenn Wolsey : Blog Archive : Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collecti… A maior livraria de iTunes do mundo (tags: itunes Apple interview music toread) [...]
#94
will friedwaldGood morning!
Will write some further responses later in the morning, but here are a few quickies:
first, anyone who wants to get in touch with me can use the work eMail - wfriedwald@nysun.com.
JEFF - would love to get more info on dottunes - please write me above.
RE DRM - ISAAK is right, as I said in the interview, nearly all my stuff is imported directly from physical CDs, thus DRM is not an issue - I keep hearing that Apple/The iTunes store is going to phase that out anyhow.
MARK - how do you know my brother, Leo? He is the least eccentric member of the family. Do you live in Carolina? Are you a pilot, or do you work some where in the aviation industry?
more later!
Will
#95
Joe Batutis → mactags.blogspot.com
Great article! I am a big fan of Will’s book on Sinatra, so I really enjoyed getting a behind-the-scenes look at his music library. I also believe that iTunes is very limited and has effectively hindered development of alternative music players for the Mac.
If you’re looking for tag editors for the Mac, check out my blog, it includes a list of all the taggers I could find along with short descriptions and links.
mactags.blogspot.com
Will, are you adding album art to all the songs?
That would be one giant CoverFlow!
#96
ad6amIs he on Limewire?
;)
#97
will friedwald → www.nysun.com/authors/Will+Friedwald
Hey Folks! Joe Batutis’s website-blog is excellent - a wonderful round-up of the various tagging utilities out there, some that I have tried, others that I haven’t.
Joe - am very glad you know my work! Please do contact me at the SUN address wfriedwald@nysun.com.
Yes, I have just about every scrap of Sinatra that I could find currently in the Matrix, including all the privately-circulated concerts that are out there. In most cases I have cover art and, most importantly, composer credits added.
I believe I have more Sinatra than anyone else in the Matrix, close to 20 GB of Frank.
W
#98
But does he have the Black Eyed Peas’ “Smells Like Funk”? « The Finest in Celebrity Hairlines → celebrityhairlines.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/but-does-he-have-the-black-eyed-peas-smells-like-funk
[...] Eyed Peas’ “Smells Like Funk”? 20Apr07 Interview with a dude who has 200,000 songs in his iTunes library. Says dude, “If I were to put everything together, which I am slowly [...]
#99
primetimemagazine → primetimemagazine.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/flink-doogeschoten
[...] {20 april 2007} Flink Doogeschoten Totale iTunes gekte bij de man in dit interview: 172.150 tracks reeds. And counting! primetimemagazine @ 18:39 [ingedeeld onder [...]
#100
links for 2007-04-20 → shino.be/?p=14
[...] Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection (tags: itunes music interview mp3) [...]
#101
jcpGood luck in trying to sell, should you so decide, your “collection” one day.
Me, I collect CD’s and LP’s, which run into the thousands….
#102
Blog Image & Web Solution » La colección de música más grande en iTunes → blog.iws.com.ve/?p=1676
[...] [vÃa Glenn Wolsey] [...]
#103
DeeDeeThat is massive…I think my music collection stands somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 gigs, and there are a few CD’s that I don’t have ripped (because I don’t listen to them).
I am a Windows user, and I find that iTunes is painfully slow and basically hogs my system (and I’m running a gig of RAM which should be sufficient, IMO) but I basically just use it to sync tracks to my iPod and download and listen to a few podcasts. To playback music on my machine I’m all about Windows Media Player 11. It’s a vast improvement over WMP 10…at least I think so.
As for my music collection, I imagine I’ll be up to 60 gigs by the end of the year…if not more.
I like downloading from eMusic. No DRM.
#104
Brendan ClouthierThis article really interested me by library is about 1800 songs, plus Podcasts, ipod videos,comedy stuff, I’m constantly discovering other music I love iTunes, I think i’ll see what jazz Will likes most.
#105
Cloudy BoyAre you really the person with the largest iTunes collection?
Yes.
Really?
Yes.
You?
Yes.
i hope this has been enlightening
#106
rexblog.com: Rex Hammock’s weblog » Blog Archive » links for 2007-04-21 → www.rexblog.com/2007/04/21/16818
[...] Interview with the owner of a 200,000 track iTunes Libarary | Glenn Wolsey He’s a music critic, so obviously, he gets lots and lots and lots of review CDs. (tags: mac itunes) permalink | categories: All other | Time posted: 1:06 am on Saturday, April 21st, 2007 [...]
#107
23A » Blog Archiv » Passen 200.000 Songs in iTunes? → blog.davidgraesser.de/?p=7
[...] Friedwald ist auf die verrückte Idee gekommen 200.000 Songs in iTunes zu speisen. Hier berichtet er über die Probleme die da dabei Aufreten. Wartezeiten von 5 Minuten bei [...]
#108
The MacReviewCast #104, Happy 2nd Birthday! by MyAppleStuff → myapplestuff.com/the-macreviewcast-104-happy-2nd-birthday
[...] This week we welcome a new addition to the MacReviewCast family, Glenn Wolsey. Glenn writes for MacApper and Gadgetell among other online and traditional media. This week Glenn Wolsey looks at the following Mac Stuff: Cha-Ching: http://www.chachingapp.com Xbox 360 Guide: here Arstech Safari: here iTunes interview: here [...]
#109
Free Apple iPhone Stuff » Blog Archive » World’s Largest iTunes Library? → www.iphonebitz.com/worlds-largest-itunes-library
[...] />Glen Wolsey has an interview up with Will Friedwald, the self-proclaimed owner of the world’s largest iTunes collection, [...]
#110
AlHave you tried using a ramdisk for the database files? You’d need an extra gig of ram, but the benefit would be immeasurable
#111
MichaelGlenn & Will,
As a person with a 1TB collection (half in ALAC so I only have 40-50k songs in total), I would be very much interested in reading the essay on how to improve iTunes.
I was also one of 8 “Metedata Gurus” during my tenure at Microsoft. I have a strong knowledge on some of the complications of managing large libraries. As a result I am very opinionated about the way iTunes handles metadata and really would like to see Apple do the right thing.
Overall it was a good read and I hope you will be willing to share more as time paces.
-Michael
#112
Steve → www.stevedemena.com
I have close to 1.8 Terrabytes in my iTunes library, so I surpass the “largest iTunes library in the World” by 50%.
I suspect there are many larger than ours.
I have a Mac Pro which holds 850GB of files on a RAID-0 (two 750GB drives) and the other terrabyte is on a Windows 2003 Server (Five 500GB RAID-5).
I don’t have any videos to speak of.
#113
Philippe PETER’s blog » links for 2007-04-22 → philpeter.free.fr/wordpress/index.php/2007/04/links-for-2007-04-22
[...] Glenn Wolsey : Blog Archive : Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collecti… (tags: apple itunes mac storage usability music interview mp3) [...]
#114
Nada“This is the kind of user who makes the life of any software developer a problem. He uses a great piece of software and then takes it to levels it was never intended/designed for. How many people are going to have a music library of that size?”
But a library one tenth that size is entirely appropriate. And iTunes falls apart long before then. Why are developers designing software that can not be used for a typical home library? Most people I know own one to three thousand albums. Why is Apple (who claim to be targetting consumers) releasing software that is not suitable for a typical home?
And more importantly, if there are such jazz collections out there, how come every time I stick a jazz or blues album in to CDDB it almost never has track composer information?
#115
Anonymous FreakSomeone asked what bitrate he has it encoded in.
Some quick Google math shows he probably has it all in standard 128 kb/s. The estimates showing 101 kb/s are based on numbers with very little precision (xxx GB and xxx.x days.) If it were to show Kilobytes and Seconds, we could find out much more accurately.
#116
World’s Biggest iTunes Collection at Aspirations of a [Phronemophiliac] → bllindgrls.officiallydumb.com/blog/2007/04/21/worlds-biggest-itunes-collection
[...] collection. It’s about oh… 849 GB worth of media in it. Glenn Wolsey published an interview with Mr. Friedwald and asked about how having such a ginormous library feels and the things that come with it. Such as [...]
#117
driftmy library is:
113GB, 12.704 titles, 46.3 days, 594 artists, 1300 albums
#118
World’s Largest iTunes Library at Netsua.com → www.netsua.com/blog/worlds-largest-itunes-library
[...] Glenn Wolsey has an interview with Will Friedwald, owner of the world’s largest iTunes collection: 849 GB | 172,150 tracks | 809.2 days 2,935 artists | 11,561 albums iTunes library database file - 282 MB iTunes library XML file - 259 MB [...]
#119
RonboDon’t hold your breath. I doubt he read past this first question. I sure didn’t. If the other questions were as *cough* intelligent as this one, it probably doesn’t matter.
Exactly where did you dream up this piece of misinformation? Have you ever actually ripped a CD in iTunes? What DRM got attached to that track? MP3 and AAC files you rip yourself have no DRM in them. None. Move them wherever you want.
If you actually DO have problems moving such files, then please don’t blame anything but your own meager intellect, k?
And just as a friendly general remark for everyone else who DOES have a brain, Apple’s DRM is the most liberal I know of, short of “none at all”. In fact you can even strip the DRM entirely by burning to a CD then ripping back into iTunes. Can you do that with PlaysForSure? (That last is actually a question; never having used it, I honestly don’t know, and I’ve never seen anybody say).
#120
RonboSeveral people have commented that iTunes gets really slow when their collection gets large.
I’m not disagreeing with you, but I’m wondering why that is, and what’s slow.
I have a collection that’s currenty a little under 600GB. About half of that is video. Video files often take a long time to change tags on, which I’ve always taken to be because the whole file is being re-written. They’re big files.
But my audio tracks are still pretty snappy. I’ve honestly never noticed a lag. I’ve got a lot of audiobooks, and each one may have a couple of hundred tracks. If I select an entire audiobook and change some of the tags, it may take awhile updating, but it seems to go at the same speed it always did.
I recently moved my collection to an external drive when it got too big for the internal drive, and I haven’t noticed a change in speed one way or the other.
And startup isn’t a problem either. One poster said every time he starts up, he sees a progress bar. I’ve only seen that twice maybe, after updates.
What functions have you seen slow down, and what functions still seem snappy? It sounds like your search functions are still good.
#121
batmanningI am about to rip over 30,000 CDs at 224 acc so the estimate at 10 songs per disc +/- is 300,000 songs. I have 4 TB that I want to run on the Drobo so I can upgrade individual drives to TBs when they become available without having to chage all of the drives. My other option is Enhance Techs:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/enhance/e8/
with the Rocket raid controller for up to 8 drives raid 5. I want to run full random shuffle through AE 8211.n and will be ripping using the Sony VGP-XLB1(2) in parallels then transferring over to itunes or running in Windows media center (I hate it!), any thoughts? I curently use a MacBook Pro 2.33 / 2GB to run my system.
#122
iBlog » The World’s Largest iTunes Library → igul222.com/the-worlds-largest-itunes-library
[...] Check out the full story at:http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/04/19/interview-will-friedwald-owner-of-the-worlds-largest-itunes-co… [...]
#123
your-name-hereI too listen to music for a living. I have around 6,000 tracks mostly encoded at 256kbps (at least those I’ve ripped) - mostly heavy metal. The list has actually grown the most in the past year as far as rate of growth. I use iTunes to manage the list. As soon as I receive music from the label (or purchase the CD as I do have to do sometimes) I rip it to mp3 using a different ripper and import it to iTunes so I can listen to it on my iPod for review. I know I’m rather far behind (I couldn’t even say how many GB at this point since I’m not on that system) but it sure looks pathetic next to Mr. Friedwald’s.
#124
“links for 2007-04-23″ by Bob Plankers, The Lone Sysadmin → lonesysadmin.net/2007/04/23/links-for-2007-04-23
[...] Glenn Wolsey : Blog Archive : Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collecti… Wow. I, like this fellow, find iTunes library management underpowered. I just wish it would acknowledge that one person might have two or three separate libraries… [...]
#125
eldinoMy library is 270GB and it’s stored on an external firewire 500GB hd, and it’s backupped on dvds as well. 35-36.000 tracks, and 40% of them are Creative Commons or netlabel stuff.
By the way, this guy’s library of 800Gb is really cool.. if in the future i will finally get a DSL connection at home and iTunes will be faster than today into managing such a huge library, my library will be -at least- like 2-3TB, all made by songs with right tags, right cover and lyrics inside (thx to pearLyrics).
Managing and listen new music with iTunes is a drug.
#126
Blogistan-Panoptikum Woche 16 2k7 auf datenschmutz.net → blog.datenschmutz.net/2007-04/blogistan-panoptikum-woche-16-2k7
[...] Friedwald hat keine kleine Musiksammlung, wie Glenn Wolsey berichtet. Der stolze “Besitzer” der größten itunes Collection der digitalen [...]
#127
Apple TechCast 25 - Caffeine Fix– TechCast Network → www.techcastnetwork.co.uk/2007/04/23/apple-techcast-25-caffeine-fix
[...] Worlds largest iTunes Collection [...]
#128
The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection « Somebodys → somebodys.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/the-worlds-largest-itunes-collection
[...] Kunst & Kultur, Blogroll, ipod, Apple, Software, Windows, Mac, Uncategorized. trackback Glenn Wolsey : Blog Archive : Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collecti…: Will Friedwald proclaims he has the world largest iTunes collection. An avid listener to Jazz [...]
#129
Largest iTunes Library « the wind up girl chronicles → wildflowersoul.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/largest-itunes-library
[...] Tue 24 Apr 2007 Largest iTunes Library Posted by wildflowersoul under Uncategorized Interview with the owner of an iTunes library that spans around 850gb, about 800+ days worth. [...]
#130
MichaelRonbo: The biggest single issue that iTunes has is that the Library “data” is stored in XML files. The XML files grow quickly with collections that have a large number of songs (and not related to the actual total size of space the music takes up).
The truth is that if an application should only uses XML for storing data (not a bad thing) so long as the xml file(s) stay at a consumable sub-5mb file size. Of course their can be variances on optimal size. However, nothing beats a solid data-store like MySQL or even SQLite. Core-Data is another great option for the future.
In the end, it takes iTunes a long time to scan through the XML file when the library quantity size is beyond the (guessing) 5000 song norm.
#131
WalkingEyeMusic » Keep the Blood In Your Head…Keep Your Feet on the Ground → w2.eleven2.com/~cschraga/2007/04/24/keep-the-blood-in-your-headkeep-your-feet-on-the-ground
[...] leave you with this article a friend sent me about a man claiming to have the world’s largest iTunes library. [...]
#132
Better Brain » Wirklich groß…172.150 Musikstücke in ITunes → www.better-brain.de/wirklich-gross172150-musikstuecke-in-itunes-77.html
[...] Glenn Wolsey : Blog Archive : Interview: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collecti… Posted by: CG | [...]
#133
iTunesì—?ì„œ 가장 많ì?€ ì?Œì•…ì?„ ë³´ìœ í•œ 사람 → www.hjazz.com/wordpress/archives/434
[...] image type:3/home/center79/www/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/itunesinterview-itunes3.png Will Friedwald란 뉴옥ì?˜ ì?Œì•…기ìž?란 사람ì?´ 현재 iTunes를 ì?´ìš©í•´ì„œ 관리하는 ì?Œì›?ì?´ ë¬´ë ¤… 849 GB | 172,150 tracks | [...]
#134
Penguinwired.org » Blog Archive » Interview with owner of largest iTunes library → www.penguinwired.org/?p=700
[...] This man has some serious music. I just re-compiled the main library (something that takes about six hours – I only do it a few times a year!). Here are the new stats: [...]
#135
Apple News » Man with largest iTunes collection in the world → www.appnews.org/mac-ipod/man-with-largest-itunes-collection-in-the-world
[...] the man with the largest iTunes collection in the world. Will currently has over 200,000 tracks.read more | digg [...]
#136
iPhoniac Central » Blog Archive » ¿Cuantos gigas puede gestionar iTunes? → www.iphoniac.com/?p=148
[...] T. (Fuente: glennwolsey.com vÃa [...]
#137
Motorcycle Guy → www.cyclechaos.com/blog
I can’t imagine having more than 2 years worth of music. I don’t think my memory would be good enough to ever find what I was looking for.
#138
squarelover → iheartsquares.com
How does one become a proclaimed world’s largest iTunes Library. I should win this then.
My library has 23,981 items,
total time 75:16:03:01
428.09GB
But I have only a handful of videos in my Library. Most of my collection is encoded in lossless (I’d say about 75%?). I spent 4 days ripping my CD collection. This does not include any of my vinyl.
No special hardware needed. It all sits on a Infrant ReadyNAS box. If it’s sheer numbers of items in the library, mine is clearly larger and growing at rate of about 300 items per month.
#139
weshaving a ridiculous ammount of songs is all very well, but anyone could just go onto the internet and download random albums, i have 11,500 but its all music i like and it all has artwork
#140
dérive » Blog Archive » Glenn Wolsey interviews: Will Friedwald, Owner Of The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection → parthsuthar.com/derive/2007/05/30/glenn-wolsey-interviews-will-friedwald-owner-of-the-worlds-largest-itunes-collection
[...] all text/image via Glenn Wolsey’s blog [...]
#141
é›»å?生活 mild but calmless! → www.mildbutcalmless.net/wordpress/2007/02/06/king-of-itunes
[...] 0 !important;}tr.lastfmFoot td.popup a:hover {background-position:-159px 0 !important;} Will FriedwaldITUNES 大胃王 nocturne立�變黑　亦得　得左 UNIVERSE (processing project)宇宙論 [...]
#142
FactoryDo you have a large vinyl collection as well. As a jazz collector with such a large collection, it seems like a waste to listen through iTunes and not on a high end analog system. Thank you to all those that mentioned he doesn’t pay for all of his CDs due to his job. I’m a Mac user and I hate iTunes, thanks to its XML ways.
#143
MickThe fact of the matter is that iTunes has a very badly designed library; it cannot handle large collections of music since it stores all information in an XML file, which has to be completely rewritten every time a change is made. A proper database should be implemented in iTunes; XML can easily be exported from a DB if so required.
It amazes me how moronic the interviewee appears to be, if he is waiting more than 10 secs for searched music to appear (never mind 3 minutes), then alarm bells should be ringing and another application should be trialed, iTunes is not the be all and end all.
#144
noisemaker → whitenoisenetworks.com
It is a common misconception that the iTunes database is stored in XML. this is definitely not true. If you drop your iTunes Database file into your favorite text editor, you will quickly learn that the file is not XML, or any clear text format. It is very obviously binary. The database file is in a database format, a proprietary one though (more recent ones may use the CoreData API, which uses SQLite under the hood).
The database format has been documented frequently by many iTunes and iPod hacker groups. The fact of the reason that iTunes runs so sluggishly with large libraries is due to the way it is implemented, and also due to the fact that it is an ObjectiveC Cocoa app, instead of a C/C++ application.
In general the largest problem is that iTunes was just not designed to have libraries in 10s to 100s of thousands of items in it. It can handle it, just not well.
I think this misconception that iTunes stores it’s database in XML is because that a lot of applications work with iTunes export format which is an XML format.
#145
Lucas → sowiesonietleuk.wordpress.com
Are all those guys in here radio DJ’s or something? Why do you need such a big library… OK, I’ll have to admit it’s pretty cool ;-)
Lucas
Netherlands
#146
SteveI have almost ten times that, 206,455 songs, 1.85 TB. 689.3 Days.
Steve
#147
abethecat.com » Blog Archive » Största iTunessamlingen i världen? → abethecat.com/blogg/?p=19
[...] Största iTunessamlingen i världen? Läs intervju med innehavaren av denna enorma samling. [...]
#148
paul jollimore38606 Tracks,112.6 days,237.09 GB
4. min delay between song’s
#149
subcorpus → www.subcorpus.net/blog
i cant even fill up my 8GB iPod nano …
And i have so many tracks i havnt played in it yet …
hehe …
its always the top 10ish songs that u always play …
hehe …
#150
Orkut » Blog Archive » Man with largest iTunes collection in the world → orkut.xfgd.info/2007/09/01/man-with-largest-itunes-collection-in-the-world
[...] read more | digg story [...]
#151
Jack → www.bishbo.com
I thought I had a lot… how wrong I was.
42216 songs, 117.5 days, 228.09GB
Amazing!
#152
ipodgr.com » Blog Archive » Η μεγαλÏ?τεÏ?η iTunes Library Του κόσμου → ipodgr.com/blog/?p=439
[...] Έχετε πολλά Ï„Ï?αγοÏ?δια στον υπολογιστή σας ? ΠιστεÏ?εται οτι σας Îχει γίνει Îμμονη να μαζÎψετε οτι Ï„Ï?αγοÏ?δι Îχει κυκλοφοÏ?ήσει ποτΠ? Μόλις βÏ?ήκατε το είδωλο σας . Τον κÏ?Ï?ιο Will Friedwald τον ιδιοκτήτη της μεγαλÏ?τεÏ?ης iTunes Library ανα τον κόσμο. Ποσό μεγάλη την Îχει ? (την βιβλιοθήκη φυσικά) ΜεÏ?ικά στοιχεία για να πάÏ?ετε μια γεÏ?ση : 849 GB | 172,150 tracks | 809.2 days?2,935 artists | 11,561 albums?iTunes library database file - 282 MB ?iTunes library XML file - 259 MB Διαβάστε μια συνÎντευξη του εδώ. [...]
#153
JustinHoly crap, that’s alot of music. How did he afford all that?
#154
Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com
He reviews music for a living.
#155
Michael Mistretta → michaelmistretta.com
Does he keep a backup of all of that? He might need a server….
#156
Blair BeckwithI’m not gonna be like all the other posers and claim mine is bigger… But that is freakin’ huge!
#157
Links links! | Randell.ph → randell.ph/blog/2007/10/31/links-links
[...] The owner of the world’s largest iTunes collection is Mr. Will Friedwald. Right now I only have 60+GB worth. Lots to catch up. Read the article. [...]
#158
Apple is Not Fruit » Man with largest iTunes collection in the world → applenotfruit.com/2007/11/05/man-with-largest-itunes-collection-in-the-world
[...] read more | digg story [...]
#159
NichM → nichm.com
And I thought 5 thousand was a lot. Hmm guess not. All I can say is, amazing interview
#160
home → 2yearsinamsterdam.com/blog/?p=
[...] I also ran into this interview with the guy that claims to have the biggest iTunes collection in the entire world. I thought mine [...]
#161
Umair AtaCan this be true? I dont bel this, this is crazy :) Amazing man … hats off…
#162
Zac Sman and i thought my 3500 songs was alot!
mega cool points dude!
#163
The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection (surely not, but still a lot of music) at j a v a j i v e :: photography from indonesia :: → thejavajive.com/blog/?p=837
[...] The Worlds Largest iTunes Collection (surely not, but still a lot of music) [...]
#164
Flying EdMy library is currently at 60,000 songs, but my claim to fame is that they are all AIFF files which are currently held on a 4TB Lacie Biggest Quadra HDD.
It cu.rrently runs at 2.2TB.
#165
ztkgcyb dzco → www.dnaequx.fimnbxra.com
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