organising audio files... so they look good on MP?

Hi All,

I have a bunch of MP3 and lots of songs in various formats. I can see and play all of the on MediaPortal but they are all messed up and this is my fault as they all have a different file name structure..

Are there any programs that you would recommend I use to put his in order with Artist, Album, (cover?) all in good shape?

I can use Real Jukebox to edit each song with the correct artist, and other info, but would that be reflected in MP?

Will try that anyway but if you guys have a suggestion..
Thanks

I use mp3tag and this is very good. Can be found at www.mp3tag.de

[CoolHammer]

Hello ****mm,

It has more than just names of a songs i'm afraid. Just got thru of over 1500 songs with ID3-Tagit software took hours to clean it up

So you need following to have nice layout on MP:
1. ID3 tags of songs
- Album
- Artist
- Track
- Year (not necessary but nice to have tho)

These tags will be used by MP for different views. After you have cleaned up your music folder you should import information to DB with configue app.

There are at least 2 versions of ID3 tags. MP uses both. Mine rule of thumb was to get version 1 ok first and then copied that info on ver 2 also.

2. Folder layout (not necessary for MP but easier to handle IMHO)
Music (folder)
Artist (folder)
Album (folder)
Song (file)
...

3. File names
AA - BB - CC - DD.mp3

AA = Artist
BB = Album
CC = Track
DD = Title

I have used ID3-Tagit to rename songs after ID3 tags are in place and correct. Again not necessary step but it is easier to handle files later. And it is a snap after those ID3 tags are ok.

Good luck, and let us know how you are things going ...

CoolHammer

Thanks for the fas replies!!!

Will try mo3tag progie and then will organise the folders as per CoolHamer's direction..
Might take some time but I think it is worth it!

Thanks Guys

[Mr.Mitchell]

I have my files organised like this:
Artist - Albumname\Tracknr - Artist - Title.mp3

Main reason for this naming is that I don't like to have really long filenames. I think Artist and Title are the most important things to have in a filename.

For some types of music I have extra folders, but in that folder the structure mentioned above is also used. Like Soundtracks\Artist - Albumname\Tracknr - Artist - Title.mp3 and Nederlandstalig\Artist - Albumname\Tracknr - Artist - Title.mp3 (Nederlandstalig means Dutch)

I don't know mp3tag, but with ID3-Tag-it you can give a pattern like "%A - %B\%T - %A - %T" and it will use the information from the file(path) for the ID3 tag (%A for Artist, %B for album etc..). This saved me a LOT of time when I was applying tags to my collection, since most of my files has at least some kind of naming convention.

To maintain my tags I put new music into a folder called ToTag and every now and then I put the correct tags on all the stuff in that folder and then move the files to the correct spot.

[waeberd]

I use "Tag & Rename", which is a cool (shareware) MP3 renamer:

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

Looks up cover-pictures in amazon etc.

I have a similar folder structure like CoolHammer, but without the MUSIC-folder level (simply ARTIST / ALBUM / <songfiles>).

Some special treatment was necessary for "Soundtracks" and Compilations:

Soundtracks: I set "SOUNDTRACKS" as Artist and the movie name as the ALBUM-title

Compilations: I set "VARIOUS ARTISTS" as Artist and the CD-title as the ALBUM-title.... gets very big though.

Problem is otherwise, that if you have different artists for one album, it will be tough to play them in CD-order if the player only respects ID-tags!

Anyway: you might want to choose a strategy for compilations discs, it's worth it!

Enjoy!

Daniel

I used the ID3 TagIt and did as Mr.Mitchell, nice and simple, Artist and Title. This prog is very nice indeed actually!!! Was able to tag 70% of my 220 songs or by selecting the files.., The rest I had to do manually but no big deal..

All my songs have got right title and correct song. I am not very interested in other tags as they would not b much use since my collection is not very * organised* in the first place..

Will add Genre info next as my collection is geographically spread...

If any of you guys know how to add Genre info to lots of file at the same time: eg I want to select 10 or so songs and put all "Rock" on the genre for all of these.. would save me editing all of them manually

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge!

[waeberd]

Originally Posted by ****mm

If any of you guys know how to add Genre info to lots of file at the same time: eg I want to select 10 or so songs and put all "Rock" on the genre for all of these..

as I said: "tag & rename" is worth a look
I do this kind of stuff all the time (tag all MP-songfiles for one single album).

Greets,

Daniel

waeberd
downloading the thing now and will play with it..

Will report back... but already the collection looks very readable indeed!!

ok.. here is another dum question: if I only want to keep the Artist and Song title tags.. so that is all I see on MP: How do I do that? When I look at the list on MP it shows all th tags and it does not look great...

ideas?