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How do you deal with music? - Page 2

post #31 of 49
1/16/13 at 11:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Not the answer I was hoping for.

You mentioned above sometimes a single tool works best. I am wondering what the best single tool for downloading album art is ?

Why? Because it's not free? It's the best single purpose music tagger and renamer I've used, that list includes all the software listed here.

It does a fantastic job with album art, giving you multiple cover options if it finds them, (which is cool if there was some cool import cover you like), it embeds the art in the mp3 tag, and creates the jpg in the music folder for the album as well.
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post #32 of 49
1/16/13 at 12:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

What's easiest way download missing album art ?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/
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post #33 of 49
1/16/13 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by t-c View Post

Try SRS Audio Essentials. It functions as a virtual sound card. Designate it as the default audio device in the Control panel Sound applet and it will process sound for any application. I've not had any problems with SRS AE.

http://www.dts.com/audioessentials/

Their website only seems to offer a mac version. Where is the windows version?
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post #34 of 49
1/16/13 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ajkrishock View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by t-c View Post

Try SRS Audio Essentials. It functions as a virtual sound card. Designate it as the default audio device in the Control panel Sound applet and it will process sound for any application. I've not had any problems with SRS AE.

http://www.dts.com/audioessentials/

Their website only seems to offer a mac version. Where is the windows version?

Thats odd. There is no download for the Windows trial. The only option offered is to purchase it. I googled a bit and noticed that there are numerous links for cracked versions of the latest SRS for Windows. Maybe thats why DTS doesn't offer a free trial anymore...

If you still want to try it, PM me your email address and I'll put my trial installer up on an ftp site for you to download.
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post #35 of 49
1/17/13 at 12:37pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdkhang View Post

Musicbrainz picard is good in that there is a good level of uniformity in how things are done.

There are many ways to use the software... you can let it scan the tracks and find a best match and then you clean up the bits it got wrong, or you do the search for the correct album match on the musicbrainz website and add the album (when you install I think it associates the web links with the software) and that way you can then just drag the folder on top of the album that has just been added and it will sort itself out.

For example, lets say you have Album ABC by artist XYZ and there are 10 tracks named Track 01 through to Track 10 without any metadata at all. You start up the musicbrainz picard program, browse to the musicbrainz website and search for XYZ after which it will list matching results, you pick the right artist and then it lists that artists releases. You can view each release to see which one is a match to the one you have (e.g. sometimes there are standard releases with say 10 tracks, an international release with a bonus track or a deluxe edition release with a bonus disc). Once you've identified the correct release you can just select it and it will show up in musicbrainz picard, you then drag that folder over and it will match up. If there are mistakes, you can drag songs individually.

The way I use the program is that I keep the ripped/acquired music in a separate folder to the folder that is shared (the shared folder contains music that is tagged correctly). I set musicbrainz picard up to move the files as they are tagged, as well as renaming the files. The move is done in such a way that it creates a new folder in my shared folder location with the format "Artist \ (year) Album [Format]"

Once it is in my shared folder, I manage the songs through foobar. As picard does not do automated replaygain tag updates on a per album basis, I have to do that additional step later. Once replaygained I will use a plugin in foobar to add albumart from sources like iTunes/Amazon/etc. The addition of cover art concludes the process and is a way for me to determine which has been tagged, checked and replaygained.

The reason for using foobar though is because picard can sometimes assign genre's that I am not happy with (I like to keep stuff in more generic genres) and sometimes the artist information is not to my liking so having the extra foobar step is just the compulsive obsessive in me.

This is fabulous info! Thank you very much, I am really making headway on the music now!

A question for you...is there a way to change the album MBP assigns? For example, I have the song "Christmas in Hollis" by Run DMC. MBP is assigning it to "NOW! Christmas 2005", but I want it assigned to "A Very Special Christmas." When I choose to "Lookup in Browser", the Very Special album is first in the list, but I don't know how to make it use it within the program, so that it moves the file to the correct folder (ie Music>Various Artists>A Very Special Christmas)
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post #36 of 49
1/17/13 at 2:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by t-c View Post

Thats odd. There is no download for the Windows trial. The only option offered is to purchase it. I googled a bit and noticed that there are numerous links for cracked versions of the latest SRS for Windows. Maybe thats why DTS doesn't offer a free trial anymore...

If you still want to try it, PM me your email address and I'll put my trial installer up on an ftp site for you to download.

I found it. Pretty short lived experiment. Uninstalled it this morning. The interface is ridiculously bad. Half the "advanced options" menu won't fit on my screen, and it won't start on boot. I have to specifically start the application every time I want to use it, which is bad since nobody but me would think to do that.

I guess I'll stick with windows media player's enhancements. I may make another run at DFX when I get some time.
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post #37 of 49
1/17/13 at 3:39pm
Sorry to hear that. I have not experienced those issues. Were you testing 1.2.3.12, the latest version?

Unfortunately there are very few stand-alone software audio enhancement products. I wish there were more...
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post #38 of 49
1/17/13 at 4:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by robnix View Post

Tag&Rename. It's $30.00, but it's the best Tagger/Renamer for music there is. I tried all the popular free ones and none come close to combining ease of use, accuracy, and functionality like Tag&Rename does.

http://www.softpointer.com/index.htm

What are the chances that using something like this will affect how iTunes is linked to my "Music" folders? Any chance it'll get fooled and no longer point to a file?

I created a mess of subfolders back in my college days... I'd like to undo it, but I'm not sure how, and I fear the effort that it will take to remap iTunes.

Another question: When iTunes identifies something, it starts labeling "Artists" separate from "Album Artists", but the *sort* function on the iPhone is by Artist, so if you don't overwrite the properties, you start getting lots of odd-ball entries with songs from the same album (and "album artist") listed under a number of different "artists". Will something like that happen here as well?
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post #39 of 49
1/17/13 at 8:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by psuKinger View Post

What are the chances that using something like this will affect how iTunes is linked to my "Music" folders? Any chance it'll get fooled and no longer point to a file?

I created a mess of subfolders back in my college days... I'd like to undo it, but I'm not sure how, and I fear the effort that it will take to remap iTunes.

Another question: When iTunes identifies something, it starts labeling "Artists" separate from "Album Artists", but the *sort* function on the iPhone is by Artist, so if you don't overwrite the properties, you start getting lots of odd-ball entries with songs from the same album (and "album artist") listed under a number of different "artists". Will something like that happen here as well?

I have no idea. itunes is the devil.
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post #40 of 49
1/18/13 at 3:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by robnix View Post

I have no idea. itunes is the devil.

Agreed. I hate crApple.

But I do like my iPhone... A lot.
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post #41 of 49
1/18/13 at 5:43am
This is the application that I use for tagging:
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

It is not an autotagger in the sense you can just point it to a hard-drive and let it do its thing. It's a bit more manual which I like. It has really, really good batch editing functions, so you can edit the tags of many files at once and just edit a single or group of tags, get them from Amazon, etc. You can custom add tag fields of your own (ITUNESCOMPILATION anyone?), let it get album art or drag it and one of my favorites, use a template for renaming files (e.g. %tracknum% - %song% - %album% - %artisit% will rename the file to 01 - Meatplow - Purple - Stone Temple Pilots).

Like a previous poster, I too like just a few genres -- I think I have probably 15 or so and it's very easy to sort all the file in the UI and then tag them all with the same genre.

So, if you're into a bit of manual editing in batches with some help from Amazon, etc. this is a great tool.
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post #42 of 49
1/18/13 at 6:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by StardogChampion View Post

This is the application that I use for tagging:
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

It is not an autotagger in the sense you can just point it to a hard-drive and let it do its thing. It's a bit more manual which I like. It has really, really good batch editing functions, so you can edit the tags of many files at once and just edit a single or group of tags, get them from Amazon, etc. You can custom add tag fields of your own (ITUNESCOMPILATION anyone?), let it get album art or drag it and one of my favorites, use a template for renaming files (e.g. %tracknum% - %song% - %album% - %artisit% will rename the file to 01 - Meatplow - Purple - Stone Temple Pilots).

Like a previous poster, I too like just a few genres -- I think I have probably 15 or so and it's very easy to sort all the file in the UI and then tag them all with the same genre.

So, if you're into a bit of manual editing in batches with some help from Amazon, etc. this is a great tool.

Thanks for the pro-tip. I like the idea of a more manual, hands-on approach as well.

I take it you are able to over-write properties like genres, based on "custom added tag fields"? And the user can control the template for file naming (for instance, I would want "Stone Temple Pilots - xyz", the artist name, to appear first?
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post #43 of 49
1/18/13 at 8:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

What's easiest way download missing album art ?
I still say Media Monkey. With three clicks of your mouse you can easily add album art to just about any song, as long as the artist/album/track information is correct. Then it might take a couple more clicks. I only use mp3tag for albums mediamonkey can't find.
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post #44 of 49
1/18/13 at 9:02am
I use MP3Tag and like it a lot. Like said above, its a manual tool. A nice feature is that you can drag multiple album folders in at the same time and quickly see what needs to be added or changed, or just check for consistency. YOu can change individual fields in bulk (such as genre). The re-naming and tagging script tools are huge timesavers as well. You have lots of control over the re-naming scripts and formatting. It will fetch album art and save it right to your folder and/or embed (an awesome feature I just recently discovered)
Edited by DanPackMan - 1/18/13 at 9:25am
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post #45 of 49
1/18/13 at 9:21am
I got it down to a science, takes me maybe 3 mins max per album.

1. Tag&Rename - to rename files, update/change tags and add album art. This is a powerful program which may seem overwhelming at first, but once U get used to it and have it set to your defaults, it takes less than a minute to process an album.

2. mp3Gain - to clean up errors and set a default volume level. The faster the pc, the faster it will process files.

That's it, then copy over to your music folder and let MCE sort out the rest.
Tester
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post #46 of 49
2/2/13 at 12:47pm
The best CD ripper, is DBpower amp, its not free, and it ain't cheap, but it works really well, lots of ripping options, and pulls highquality cover art, 500X500KB or larger, add alternative cover art image, seasy to use for editing tags , just right click and the tag editor is in the window dialog box. Once ripped I import in to itunes.

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/
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post #47 of 49
2/3/13 at 1:43am
I like MP3Tag... http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

It's pretty simple to use... it can grab album art from Amazon and other sources, and it embeds it in the files, which prevents Media Center from having to go out and get it's own (plus make your music share/folder read-only!)

Don't forget that Media Center really likes the "album artist" tag. It uses this instead of the explicit artist when you are viewing or searching by artist.


EDIT: I didn't see that others had mentioned this above. It's a little manual like everyone else says, but you want to get your tags right the first time.
Edited by Puwaha - 2/3/13 at 1:58am
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post #48 of 49
2/3/13 at 12:26pm
+1 for MP3Tag. If you're importing a ripped CD and need to type in everything from scratch it's really not that to bad to do one at a time.

If I'm processing a "batch" of albums that have already been tagged this is usually how it goes:
0) Get album art, place in folder as "folder.jpg"
1) Import all the albums by navigating to the folder or drag and dropping
2) Sort by path/file name. This groups all the albums together starting with track 1.
3) Auto number tool. Renames all the track fields the way I like
4) Remove comments from all tracks (one click)
5) Scroll through and edit any things necessary - change "CD1" to "Disc 1" etc. format artist tag the way you like. Sometimes the year is "01-01-2013" I want just "2013"
6) Convert Tag to Tag (artist to album artist
7) Convert Tag to File Name. This will sort everything in the folder structure you specify. I have mine "Music/Artist/year - album title/track# - track title"
8) Assign album art to the tag if it is something you're into

Done.
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post #49 of 49
2/11/13 at 11:11am
This thread has been very helpful for me, personally.

I've since been using MP3Tag to tag all of my "loose" MP3's, and Exact Audio Copy to rip my old CD's to FLAC files.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Puwaha View Post


Don't forget that Media Center really likes the "album artist" tag. It uses this instead of the explicit artist when you are viewing or searching by artist..

This part right here kind of concerns me. I've been using the "freeDB" option inside Exact Audio Copy, where it has "Artist" listed. Having used WMC, I know it's using "Album Artist". I haven't imported my results yet into "MyMusic" (wanted to work/dabble/tinker outside before changing/breaking everything I already have set up)... the thought occured to me that this could be a problem. I hope it's not.

The other thing I've noticed is that although freeDB has an Album Art database, and I can assign that artwork to a song (and it shows up in the preview of the file in Explorer), when I play the song in WMP the album art doesn't show up. That hasn't been a problem when I've used MP3tag. I'm wondering/worrying that using *freeDB* inside ExactAudioCopy isn't going to give me results when I transfer into MyMusic/WMC.

This is minor, but the *dates* in the Amazon database, using MP3Tag, I think are the date Amazon might have added it, not the date the album actually released. The dates are all messed up, and that kind of annoys me.
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