How to synchronize with iTunes library on other machine?

Library Management and iTunes
#1

I just downloaded the trial version of Audirvana on my Mac mini M1.
The hard drive on this machine is rather small, so my iTunes library is on another Mac. This is no problem when using the Music app, it connects easily with the foreign library using Home Sharing.

When I tell Audirvana to sync with iTunes, it doesn’t ask me to locate the library file, it just automatically connects to the local library in my music folder. But there are no tracks in that library.

On the other hand, if I try adding the foreign music folder to Monitored folders, I can sync all my tracks, but playlists and some album art are missing. Also I wonder about authentication. Does Audirvana have any way to remember the password to access the drive on the other machine? I am afraid that when I reboot I will have to manually mount the drive again before Audirvana can sync.

I tried music legacy integrated mode but that seems really dumb. All it seems to do is create an extra window to control Music and it plays through the Music app.
Why would I want to buy an expensive program like AudirVanna just to play music through the music app? It can’t change bit rates automatically when a Hi-Res track is played which is one of the reasons I want to use Audirvana.

Am I missing something? There should be an easy way to connect to a library on another machine.

#2

Hello @chetstone,

Have you tried to add the shared folder to the synchronized list in the Library page of Audirvana preferences. This way, standard file sharing protocol is used, and Audirvana is able to access the audio files.

The authentication is handled by MacOS, not Audirvana, if you don’t need to put your password each time you try to access to your iTunes library then it’s all good.

#3

Thank you for the reply.

It turns out that authentication is probably not going to be a problem. The machine crashed and rebooted last night and it seems the shared folder was remounted automatically after reboot. I’m not sure why.

Now, regarding synchronizing with the iTunes library,
If you’re asking did I try adding the shared folder in the section labeled “1st method: Monitored folders“, Yes I did. As I explained, the problem with this is that it doesn’t pick up the meta-data stored in the iTunes library database, such as all my iTunes playlists, or the locations of files that are not in the main iTunes folder.

All it does is find the actual audio files. Maybe I’m doing it wrong?

#4

Have you tried using the second method of sync?

#5

Yes. Sorry I didn’t make it clear in my first post.

Unless I’m missing something, it only allows you to sync with the local iTunes library. When you click on “Synchronize” it doesn’t ask you to locate the library, it just syncs with the local library in your Music folder. In my case that library contained only playlists, which are useless because there are no music files.

I just tried removing my Music library from the machine entirely and tried synchronizing to see if it would ask me where the library is. It didn’t. It just did nothing but claims the synchronization was done.

#6

Have you followed this procedure to access to your library in another device?

#7

Thanks for the hints. No, that doesn’t work for two reasons.

  1. When synchronizing with iTunes Match ( or iCloud Music Library), the files are not downloaded by default. You can stream them with the Music app, but Audirvana cannot play the files if they don’t exist. You could go into Music and download all the files, but I don’t have room on my hard drive for them.

  2. All the tracks that iTunes Match matches, including my Hi-Res albums, get converted to 256 kbps AAC. Not good.

I did finally figure out a solution to this. (This is on Big Sur.)

  1. Turn off Media Sharing in Sys Preferences/Sharing. (Not sure if this is really necessary)

  2. Delete the existing Music library.

  3. Open the Music app holding down the option key to create a new library.

  4. Select “Choose Library” and navigate to the Music Library on the other machine and choose the iTunes Library.itl file.

  5. Choose where to put the new library file. I used “Music/Music-OtherMachine”

  6. When Music opens, quickly open Preferences and turn off “Sync Library” before it has a chance to start syncing. (Not sure if this is really necessary)

Once this is done, you have a Music library that references the files on the other machine, and you can sync it with Audirvana.

I had a problem with my Hi-Res files which were not located in the iTunes Media folder. The Music app could not find the files and Audirvana could not import them. To fix thheris, in the Music app, try to play the track and you will get a dialog asking you to locate the missing file. Navigate again to where it is located on the other machine. After doing this a couple of times, Music offered to find the other missing files in the same place.
Then syncing with Audirvana succeeded for my entire library at full resolution.

UPDATE: A major problem with this approach is that the library database is copied from the other machine. Thus it does not automatically update when new songs are added. One must go through the entire procedure again.