Author Topic: how tidy and complete is your music library? (Read 17,410 times)

urlwolf · « **on:** March 24, 2007, 10:49 PM »

how tidy and complete is your music library?

I used to think that my music library was in a pretty good shape.
Most of the stuff has covers, etc. But when you really want to look for little details, things look ugly...

I'm using two outstanding scripts for MM:

Advanced Duplicate Find & Fix 1.8

Tagging inconsistencies

With these two, I have found plenty of... well, inconsistencies.

I have the feeling that some people in this forum will have immaculate libraries

urlwolf · « **Reply #1 on:** March 24, 2007, 11:57 PM »

Actually, if you post what strategy you follow to get tags right (and cover art), that'd be ideal.

Krazy Hawaiian · « **Reply #2 on:** March 25, 2007, 12:43 AM »

Eyedunno.... I got several hundred albums that I ain't even looked at in 10 years LOLz

and nearly 100 gigs of stuff on the box!

nite_monkey · « **Reply #3 on:** March 25, 2007, 04:29 AM »

What is this tidy of which you speak? I got one folder for music, and sub folders for full albums, all id-tags are default, I don't change them.

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** March 25, 2007, 05:02 AM »

This was just posted on freeware world team today, and seems relevant:

WheelTag - http://www.ipod-software.com

Quote

WheelTag is a unique id3 tag editor which enables you to tag all of your mp3s quickly and easily
Whether you have an Ipod full of music or simply a few mp3s, WheelTag is the software for you.
WheelTag Key Features:
Batch tag editor for viewing/editing entire albums/folders at once (including sub-folders)
Spreadsheet style tag editing
Auto Tagging feature which enables you to tag entire albums at once
... many more

iphigenie · « **Reply #5 on:** March 25, 2007, 10:05 AM »

The only way someone would have a clean library is if all their music had been created with the same tool and the same settings.

I have 2 main sources so it's not too bad - most of the mess comes from relying on CDDB databases when ripping, you get everything from typos to strange capitalization and the one that annoys me the most, micro-genre classification.

It still beats having to type everything in, I have had to type and submit about a dozen and that was dull enough.

The first clean up step I did was reduce it to about a dozen genres. Yes, it's hugely reductionist but I just can be bothered to think about all the sublabelling that goes on.

I also cleaned up most artist names to have the same pattern everywhere

Then i use the "rename from tag" option that my software uses, which also does directories. So I have artist/album (or more precisely "album artist"/album since i have quite a few "various artists" albums).

I'm currently going through the "various artists" album to put each song's real artist in, so i can properly find what I have by X or Y. And now and then I also drop lyrics in, I like that.

But no, my collection is still a mess - thank heavens for clever tag based search!

TucknDar · « **Reply #6 on:** March 25, 2007, 10:32 AM »

Actually 99% of my music are on those old fashion things called original CDs and are stored in physical shelves. They're not organized very well though, although my <9 months old daughter is working on a new system

urlwolf · « **Reply #7 on:** March 25, 2007, 10:57 AM »

Quote from: nite_monkey on March 25, 2007, 04:29 AM

What is this tidy of which you speak? I got one folder for music, and sub folders for full albums, all id-tags are default, I don't change them.

Well, for a start, no duplicates, no missing album info, no tracks with defaults (unknown artist), etc

Then, you can make sure that everything has other fields like BPM, year, etc.

Having cover art for everything is nice too.

If you care about directory structure, then having a consistent artist/album tree too.

Some people like to have lyrics.

The amount of time that can be wasted in this is really impressive

Eóin · « **Reply #8 on:** March 25, 2007, 02:58 PM »

Mine is tidy but I'd like to think not obsessively so

Basically musikCube forced me to correct a lot of tags and every now and again I run MediaMonkeys 'auto-organise from tags' to clean up the directory layout.

Ampa · « **Reply #9 on:** March 25, 2007, 03:09 PM »

Currently I use MusicBrainz Picard to identify and tag my files, it also renames them. Then I'd - grab the cover art from Amazon, while MP3Gain sets the replaygain information.

Finally I use XMPlay to save the playlist.

Have always used a standard naming scheme for folders and files, and everything gets catalogued on CDBank - so in all it is good enough.

There was a stage where I'd add an album review, cover art and BPM etc to each file, but it was short lived and struck me as pointless at best.

Ampa

Nighted · « **Reply #10 on:** March 25, 2007, 10:25 PM »

Which music library, on which hard drive, and in which folder?

f0dder · « **Reply #11 on:** March 25, 2007, 10:53 PM »

I rip my stuff myself, grab the cd info from freedb but look through and correct it in case of errors. I rip to one big wav + a cuesheet (with FLAC compression later on), and when I have a batch of CDs ripped, I use Album Cover Art Downloader to find album covers... going to have to scan a few myself, though, since not everything can be found in a decent quality (512x512 JPEG).

I'm using a naming scheme like Dimmu Borgir [1997] - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant for the folders, so I don't really have to do any special indexing of the folders. Other indexing is done better by the meta-info in the cue-sheets anyway.

urlwolf · « **Reply #12 on:** March 25, 2007, 10:59 PM »

Do you use replaygain tags?
I thought I had that controlled, but mediamonkey seems to be using its own way, and I cannot find any replaygain info when looking at my files with mp3tag.

Most of the CDs I ripped myself are ogg -q6, which uses a different tagging (vorbisgain).

What is the best way to get replaygain tags for every filetype easily? foobar maybe?

nite_monkey · « **Reply #13 on:** March 26, 2007, 01:57 AM »

I don't really mind what my music looks like, I can still get to it.

app103 · « **Reply #14 on:** March 26, 2007, 07:13 AM »

I went through the trouble to organize everything all nice & neat by creating a folder for every artist, trying to create a subfolder for every album, labeling the album folders with the release year so they are in chronological order...

Then realized that I was only doing it to be obsessive since it doesn't matter...

Winamp's library will find them no matter what way I organize them and in the end, that is how I find the songs I want to hear.

All of that organizing was a big waste of my time. But for some reason I still feel I have a need to keep doing it and refining it and making it better and more organized.

Maybe I am just bored and need a new hobby.

f0dder · « **Reply #15 on:** March 26, 2007, 10:24 AM »

Quote from: urlwolf on March 25, 2007, 10:59 PM

Do you use replaygain tags?

Nope, not yet - haven't looked into how it works (the technical aspect is easy enough, but I mean how it works with different apps, players, where the gain is stored, etc). I certainly want to use "album gain" rather than "track gain", to preserve the dynamic of an album, instead of just getting tracks maximized... and I want the gain value to be stored in meta info, not to be applied to the wave data.

Darwin · « **Reply #16 on:** March 26, 2007, 01:55 PM »

I'm with app here... what seems to matter most is making sure that the tagging is correct and consistent; how it's organized on disk is of secondary importance. At one time I was quite obsessive about album art but don't care anymore. Thus, organization starts and ends with tagging for me. I use mp3Collector from Collectorz.com to catalogue and tag and XMPlay to play it all. In the past I've used MusicMatch Jukebox, WinAmp, and iTunes. I used MMJB for years as my exclusive mp3/digital music cataloguer and player, ditched it six months ago for iTunes, and transitioned to XMPlay about a week ago, courtesy of urlwolf!

Curt · « **Reply #17 on:** March 26, 2007, 03:25 PM »

What is all this talk about TAGs?

I have no idea!

I record my music (1 playlist for all)- I click Play > Random - and thats it.

iphigenie · « **Reply #18 on:** March 28, 2007, 12:22 PM »

Quote from: Curt on March 26, 2007, 03:25 PM

What is all this talk about TAGs? I have no idea!
I record my music (1 playlist for all)- I click Play > Random - and thats it.

I tend to do the same thing but sometimes I want Play > Random > 4 or 5 stars
or Play > Random > Jazz or Play > Random > Stuff not played recently.

For some of those you need tags

And sometimes I just want to make someone listen to a particular song or album

Darwin · « **Reply #19 on:** March 28, 2007, 02:33 PM »

Today's Bits du Jour offer is Melomania, which is a "great music organizer". I haven't tried it as I have mp3 and Music Collector by Collectorz.com to handle what I need/want, but it looks impressive for anyone looking for such an app to keep their music collection tidy:

Quote

Automatic adding the digital tracks - No manual input of track titles and related information is needed - Melomania will get all the information right from the media files.
Information loading from Internet - Internet Finder allows you to find and download the comprehensive information about your music items and save any part of it to your music database.
Where's your media? - Lend your CDs to friends without worrying about forgetting who you've loaned anything to.
Instant cover download - A few clicks and the CD cover is added to your music database!
Instant and accurate search - Find any music items by any part of their names in seconds.
Support of any media formats - from vinyl to MP3s. Melomania helps you more with digital formats like MP3, M4A, WMA, OGG, WAV and others, but it also lets you organize music on your old albums and tapes.
Track compilations - Make track compilations for any kind of event, from parties to romantic evenings. They're easy and fun to make and easy to use.
Track filters - Make track lists that match any combination of criteria. Want to see your favorites of 2005? No problem!
Customized item grouping - Group your music database by any category, or combination of categories. See your music collection in whole new way.
Multi-format export - Easily export to Excel, Word, HTML, or plain text. You won't need to know HTML to be able to turn your music collection into a website.
Customized views and ratings - Make your lists look just how you want. And include your ratings on any track or album.
Printing, playlists and much more - Make your music info make sense, and use it just how you want.