getmusicbee.com
Support => Questions => Topic started by: Alonzo Mosley on September 13, 2023, 11:37:35 PM
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Hi, it's me. I'm the problem.
Just imported my library in from iTunes. Have three setup questions, but am splitting into separate threads.
One really neat feature of iTunes is, when I import new songs (either via the menu command, or just dragging and dropping), it automatically moves a copy of the songs into the appropriate Album folder in the appropriate Artist folder in the Library. (If said folders don't exist, it creates 'em). If you edit the tags in iTunes, it automatically makes the adjustment to the folder (e.g., if you change the album title, it moves it to the correct corresponding folder, creating as necessary).
How do I ensure MB behaves in the same way?
Thanks!
(https://imgur.com/tpMLTIv)
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Hi, it's me. I'm the problem.
Welcome to the hive Alonzo Mosley!
You have both made me smile and made the best introduction ever ;-)
I am considering that line to be my signature from now on ;-)
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Did screenshot wrong. I really am the problem.
(https://i.imgur.com/4FWIucS.png)
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Hi Alonzo Mosley,
For this you want to be looking at the library auto-organise function. (Edit Preferences>Library), It is much more powerful than iTunes and you need to set up your own required template to direct where you want your files saved and how you want them named:
(https://i.imgur.com/G3dxDrr.png)
You can see a preview of the new storage path before reorganising. Please be careful, all your files will be moved according to the rules you set. For unknown reasons some people seem to be very surprised (and somewhat upset) when this happens.
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Thanks! Can I point it to the existing location? (I don't have enough HD space to duplicate everything, even just once).
I'm afraid to experiment until I see your answer on this...
I presume it will automatically move/copy newly-imported items to the appropriate place?
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I'm guessing since it's renaming the files (hoo boy, looks like a potential Charlie Foxtrot), I would need to do this twice - the first time to remote storage, then delete the original iTunes library, then do it again to the internal hard drive. Hoo boy.
(https://i.imgur.com/Uq5gkbD.png)
Hoo boy.
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Why not just have it look at the folder where your iTunes library already sits, set up with a template that matches your current folder structure, and just have it move new stuff there rather than moving everything around?
Your music files can be anywhere (or even scattered in a number of places). You don't need to move your files just because you changed to MB.
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I wholehearted agree with Frankz here - you don't need to do this, so unless you are absolutely certain you know what is going to happen (and that's what you want to happen) don't do it.
You can set this up later when you have a better understanding if you so wish.
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Why not just have it look at the folder where your iTunes library already sits, set up with a template that matches your current folder structure, and just have it move new stuff there rather than moving everything around?
Your music files can be anywhere (or even scattered in a number of places). You don't need to move your files just because you changed to MB.
Yeah, I don't WANT to move them. Post 5 was my own reply to my question on Post 4.
I haven't used any specific naming convention when adding music - iTunes only specifies file structure, not file protocols.
Really, all I care about:
- When I add new music to the "system", it creates a copy of the media files in the appropriate folder (i.e., Music\Album Artist\Album)
- If said folder doesn't exist, it creates it
- If I edit the file in MB (e.g., I change the album title), the underlying file structure magically corrects itself
Does that make sense? And is it do-able? (Again, I don't want to start messing if it's gonna start rewriting 21,000 files)
It doesn't seem terribly complex and needy, until I type it out...
Thanks for your patience.
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I haven't used any specific naming convention when adding music - iTunes only specifies file structure, not file protocols.
I don't know what this means.
What I'm saying is that if iTunes has all your files in structure like <Album Artist>\<Album>\<Disc-Track#>-<Title>, then point your organization to your root folder and set your template to that and nothing (or very little) should be moved.
When I add new music to the "system", it creates a copy of the media files in the appropriate folder (i.e., Music\Album Artist\Album)
Do you really want copies, or do you want to move the files into place? How many copies do your have of each music file right now? There's no need for copies of files.
But yes, if you truly want duplicates of each file, MB can do this.
- If said folder doesn't exist, it creates it
Yes
- If I edit the file in MB (e.g., I change the album title), the underlying file structure magically corrects itself
Yes
You should read this.
https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/File_Organization
You should read a lot of the wiki. I think you'll have a clearer picture of what you want to do and how to get there afterwards.
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Quick note on the file organization wiki - there's a note at the bottom of the auto-organize section that says automatically copying files isn't officially supported and gives instructions about adding it back in. I think that's wrong as of these later versions - it's there in the interface and no additional work is required to use it.
I don't use auto organize because I'm a control freak, so I don't know enough to give good auto-organize advice beyond knowing the bare bones of how it works.
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OMFG - I typed a really long explanatory (and grateful) reply. I hit "Post" and it deleted it because "another reply was posted". I've NEVER had that happen in BBS before! Argh!
Long story short - I name my files however I want, and let the tags do the heavy lifting on how they display (on my PC, on my players).
I couldn't find the info before posting my first question - so "RTFM" wouldn't have helped, if I don't know what I'm looking for or where to find it. Then, once I saw the "Be afraid, be very afraid" reply, I thought, well, I better confirm a few things with real-life users before trying it myself.
If I read the wiki correctly, it appears I can allow MB to use my existing filenames and manage the folder structure. I just don't want it rewriting a significant portion of 21,000 media files.
Thanks everyone for your advice.
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Greetings... I add to this thread rather than open a new one because it is certainly a related "problem" (or better said "question"), and like Alonzo I do consider myself the problem. :-)
I have some 80,000-90,000 music files, all ALAC. Most of them from my own CD collection (including many albums not available digitally or for streaming, such as many specialty label film score releases), as well as a number of downloads, including thousands of high-res files (from Qobuz, Hyperion, etc.).
I still use iTunes to curate the collection, mostly because that is the program I started with years ago and I have found if I use the (few) tags available in iTunes to tag my (mostly classical music) collection, it will work in any other system I set up.
All my music is on an external hard drive, and from there, it is copied to my NAS from where my hifi-system is playing it.
I am now considering ditching iTunes (which doesn't get updated anymore anyway) and moving to MusicBee (which has far more options and I really like it, though it requires a bit of a learning curve).
All my music files are sorted according to iTunes:
Album Artist/Album Title/Title (wich is (disc-)track-number title)
iTunes has the strange issue of shortening file names of music to 40 characters or less. I don't know why, but that's the way it is. I am now worried that if I switch to MusicBee and use it to organize my files, it will re-name the files according to the longer actual track titles. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so many files, plus the backup copy, plus the NAS (so all the files would have to be re-named at least three times, which would take a lot of time).
It would be easier if there were a way to set MusicBee up to use the same (or almost the same) name convention for files as iTunes. But is that even possible? I know I can set up MusicBee to name files "<Album-Artist>\<Album>\<Disk-Track-Nr.> <Title>, which would be great in principle. But iTunes uses "disc" only for multi discs albums (otherwise just track number) and as I said, "title" is never more than 40 characters.
I suppose it may not be possible to achieve what I want, because even though MusicBee has more options than iTunes, the latter just has some strange idiosyncrasies which may be difficult to duplicate.
Regards
Nick
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…But is that even possible?…
Welcome to the forum NPZwar.
Yes, that can be achieved.
For restricting the length of the title you can use the $Left (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35868.msg196258#post_func_left) function.
For not showing disc numbers for albums that are not multi-discs albums, I would assume these albums would not have the disc# tag populated at all to begin with. (what would be the use?)
And if that tag is empty, it will obviously also not be used for renaming.
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I am now worried that if I switch to MusicBee and use it to organize my files, it will re-name the files according to the longer actual track titles. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so many files, plus the backup copy, plus the NAS (so all the files would have to be re-named at least three times, which would take a lot of time).
Just on this point...you do not have to let musicbee reorganize your old files in order to have it organize any future files.
(https://i.imgur.com/zXlG5bj.png)
As long as you keep the setting in the green box off, it will not touch your old files (provided they're not in a folder set to monitor in the blue box).
To automatically organize your future files, you'd set your "holding" or "intake" folders (where you put new rips and downloads) in the blue box and then turn on the setting in the red box.
But you don't even have to do that. I don't. You can manually choose what to organize and when yourself by keeping the blue box empty and the setting in the red box off.
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…But is that even possible?…
Welcome to the forum NPZwar.
Yes, that can be achieved.
For restricting the length of the title you can use the $Left (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35868.msg196258#post_func_left) function.
For not showing disc numbers for albums that are not multi-discs albums, I would assume these albums would not have the disc# tag populated at all to begin with. (what would be the use?)
And if that tag is empty, it will obviously also not be used for renaming.
Thank you, that's is very helpful. No, all albums have the disc# tag populated, the use is simply consistency throughout. So even if its a single album, it says "disc 1 of 1".
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…all albums have the disc# tag populated, the use is simply consistency throughout. So even if its a single album, it says "disc 1 of 1".
I would call that wrong and unneeded, not consistent ;-)
Consistent (in my opinion) would be to only have disc numbers for albums that are actually multi-disc releases.
For single non-album tracks in my library, I also don't tag them with 'track# 1'. That would not make sense.
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Just on this point...you do not have to let musicbee reorganize your old files in order to have it organize any future files.
(https://i.imgur.com/zXlG5bj.png)
As long as you keep the setting in the green box off, it will not touch your old files (provided they're not in a folder set to monitor in the blue box).
To automatically organize your future files, you'd set your "holding" or "intake" folders (where you put new rips and downloads) in the blue box and then turn on the setting in the red box.
But you don't even have to do that. I don't. You can manually choose what to organize and when yourself by keeping the blue box empty and the setting in the red box off.
Oh, thanks. That's very helpful as well. MusicBee has plenty of options to dig through, obviously many more than íTunes.
All my music files are in a folder called music, and there are a two different subfolders: There is the directory "ALAC", which is for all stereo music files (and all these files are ALAC), FLAC (which are all multi channel music files, just a few hundred). (Note: The reason multi-channel and stereo files are separated into FLAC and ALAC file types and directories is just for legacy reasons, I know either format could do both.... I just kept it like that, so the file type automatically tells me if it's a stereo or multi-channel file.)
So I would set up the MusicBee library to the "ALAC" directory, but in your setup, it would only sweep and organize new files (when they are added to ALAC), but leave the old ones as are? That's great and already helps a lot.
Short question: if I ever edit one of the old files in MusicBee, say, change the album or track titles, will it then also change the actual directory and file name? (I would assume so, as that's what I hope it would do).
Anyway, thank you very much for such quick and expert replies. Great forum!
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Short question: if I ever edit one of the old files in MusicBee, say, change the album or track titles, will it then also change the actual directory and file name? (I would assume so, as that's what I hope it would do).
If you turn on the setting in the green box giving MB full automatic control of your organization, then yes. Your library will be auto-organized according to the template used as soon as you turn this on (which sounded like something you didn't want initially but maybe I'm wrong). Then, going forward, any changes you make to tags that are referenced in your template will result in file name / location changes.
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Short question: if I ever edit one of the old files in MusicBee, say, change the album or track titles, will it then also change the actual directory and file name? (I would assume so, as that's what I hope it would do).
If you turn on the setting in the green box giving MB full automatic control of your organization, then yes. Your library will be auto-organized according to the template used as soon as you turn this on (which sounded like something you didn't want initially but maybe I'm wrong). Then, going forward, any changes you make to tags that are referenced in your template will result in file name / location changes.
Maybe I just explained it way too complicated, I try to make it simple an clear what would ideally work for me, though you have already helped me quite a bit.
Ideally, I could setup my MusicBee library to the folder "ALAC", where it would not overwrite all the files at once, but should I then add files or make changes to old files, it should indeed change the file name and location as well. If that's not possible (which may well not be, because I obviously want two things that may be at odds with the options available), I will try to work around it somehow.
I would not even mind if all the files were managed by MusicBee, I am just worried about the countless hours it would take to rename 90,000 files in three different locations. :-)
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…all albums have the disc# tag populated, the use is simply consistency throughout. So even if its a single album, it says "disc 1 of 1".
I would call that wrong and unneeded, not consistent ;-)
Consistent (in my opinion) would be to only have disc numbers for albums that are actually multi-disc releases.
For single non-album tracks in my library, I also don't tag them with 'track# 1'. That would not make sense.
I know that lots of people tag their music according to various parameters, and that's all fine. :-)
I have all the disc number set, and overall I have found that missing tags are more problematic than redundant tags (if they are consistent and correct). So I can quickly see if a track belongs to a single album or is a multi-disc album. I don't think I have any tracks that don't belong to an album.... If I did, the single track would be an album to itself. :-)
(https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render/00-qqXkq-YSXVDCUiEmPy1uRmYtfeHnw4qIVSw3eSb6TsetofsB3Hkhadwj9lqNgTOjqCe7ffHDJpwno-pEcjtJnw?cn=THISLIFE&res=x-small&ts=1711717842)
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No, all albums have the disc# tag populated, the use is simply consistency throughout. So even if its a single album, it says "disc 1 of 1".
If you are not willing or able to remove disc# from single-disc albums, you could use this virtual tag in your renaming template to only output a disc number for multi-disc albums:
$If($Max(<Disc#>,<Album>)>1,<Disc#>,)
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Ideally, I could setup my MusicBee library to the folder "ALAC", where it would not overwrite all the files at once, but should I then add files or make changes to old files, it should indeed change the file name and location as well.
This is not possible.
If that's not possible (which may well not be, because I obviously want two things that may be at odds with the options available), I will try to work around it somehow.
The part for future files entirely possible as I described here.
To automatically organize your future files, you'd set your "holding" or "intake" folders (where you put new rips and downloads) in the blue box and then turn on the setting in the red box.
You'd just want to have a separate "intake" folder where you put incoming files that's not located within your existing structure. MB will look at this folder and organize anything it finds, moving it into your existing folder structure without touching the files that are already there.
So if you have...
C:\Music\ALAC
C:\Music\FLAC
Just add...
C:\Music\Incoming
...or something similar, reference that in the blue box, turn on the setting and set your template in the red box, and then put all of your new files in C:\Music\Incoming. If your template says to sweep files to C:\Music\ALAC\<WhateverTag1>\<WhateverTag2>, then the new files will get organized from C:\Music\Incoming into the existing structure named in the way your template say to.
Just as an aside, why is it important where your files are located and what they're named. Isn't the point of tagging and using a library manager to avoid needing a perfect folder and naming structure to get library information?
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I know that lots of people tag their music according to various parameters, and that's all fine. :-)
I have all the disc number set, and overall I have found that missing tags are more problematic than redundant tags (if they are consistent and correct). So I can quickly see if a track belongs to a single album or is a multi-disc album.
Absolutely true.
But you spoke of being consistent in also showing the disc number if there is only one disc.
And yet, for this naming template you don't want to show the disc number for single-disc albums... ;-)
Personally, when I see 'disc#1' in my library, it tells me there are more discs.
If there aren't, I don't want to see 'disc #1'.
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Absolutely true.
But you spoke of being consistent in also showing the disc number if there is only one disc.
And yet, for this naming template you don't want to show the disc number for single-disc albums... ;-)
Indeed, quite right. That is simply because iTunes is inconsistent, and I guess I am trying to "import" some of that inconsistency to MusicBee. I would be happy and fine if ALL tracks would start with "1-01" instead of "01" even when it's a single disc album, it's just that iTunes doesn't do that. And I just want to keep the number of files MusicBee edits when taking over to the necessary minimum.
Personally, when I see 'disc#1' in my library, it tells me there are more discs.
If there aren't, I don't want to see 'disc #1'.
Ah, before I forget, one more reason I have this consistency: Almost always files that get ripped or added to the collection need to be re-tagged, so there is consistency throughout.
If the disc number is "1 of 1", it means, there is one disc. Period. If the field is empty, it can mean there is just one disc, but it could also mean that the tags of a multi disc album are missing. That happens sometimes, that people tag an album "Album Title Disc 1", "Album Title Disc 2" and don't insert any disc numbers... so when I then change the album title to "Album Title", the tracks mix and mingle where they shouldn't. So when ripping a CD, I habitually insert the disc numbers, no matter how many there are.
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Just as an aside, why is it important where your files are located and what they're named. Isn't the point of tagging and using a library manager to avoid needing a perfect folder and naming structure to get library information?
True that.
While I can imagine it being some OCD fun to get folder structures 'right', it will never be 'right'. Too many variables involved.
And MusicBee won't care about it.
Time spend on that will probably be spent much better on perfecting the metadata of your music.
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I think a lot of times people let "perfect" be the enemy of "good" when it comes to this stuff.
If it was me, I'd let my current folder and naming structure stand untouched for simplicity and let MB manage my future files loosely into that structure in the most easy to manage way possible.
I also don't auto-sweep new files or any of that, so maybe I'm an outlier.
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I also don't auto-sweep new files or any of that, so maybe I'm an outlier.
Same here.
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Just as an aside, why is it important where your files are located and what they're named. Isn't the point of tagging and using a library manager to avoid needing a perfect folder and naming structure to get library information?
That could be one reason to use a library manager, but it's not the only one and is not mine.
There are several reasons why I keep the folder structure as diligently as I do. The main reason is that the library exists in multiple locations, and it is much easier to check and keep backups consistent if the folder structure is consistent as well. I don't have any music files directly on my PC, they are all on an external hard drive. All the music is in the directory "music", which basically has two subdirectories "ALAC" and "FLAC", and within these two folders, everything is grouped according to "Album Artist" "Album" "Tracks". There are no other files in the directories, no image files or log or text files. That means, when an album is renamed in the library manager, the folder is also renamed. That has several advantages:
1. It makes it easy to control and keep all backups consistent. I can just right-click the ALAC folder on my disc and the ALAC folder on my NAS and see the exact same number of bytes and the exact same number of files, so I know the backup is perfect. This has already helped me several times over the years to notice if a backup for some reason was inconsistent or did not get all the files.
2. Any copy of the music directory is a perfect copy and can replace any other existing copy. A few years ago, the "core" hard drive with my music collection crashed on our stone floor. Fortunately, I could just buy a new hard drive, copy all the files over from a backup, and everything was 100% as it was before.
3. I periodically check the files with PerfectTunes for accuracy, so that's easy as well if they are all in one folder.
4. The files on the NAS are accessed from a variety of programs. A hifi streamer, a few players on my smartphone, file managers, etc. A clear directory structure is very useful for navigation there. On the NAS are not JUST music files, but the music files are all in one folder with subdirectories, and all music playing devices are referred to that one folder.
Last but not least, when I started to rip my CD collection and buying high-res files, I started organizing them as well. So my files were "orderly" from the beginning. It was then the logical step to put them all into the same folder. I never had a loose collection of files spread out over different directories that I started to manage one day with a library manager. My collection was "consistent" from the very beginning, and so I just have a natural inclination to keep it that way. I admit, I enjoy that the files on all hard drives/NAS exist in the exact same spot. Makes many things easy. Relative playlists can be used on any drive from any program. I often use file managers so consistency helps there. All my computer files are more or less in orderly directory structures.
(https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render/00-qqXkq-YSXVDCUiEmPy1uRmYtfeHnw4qIVSw3eSb6Tsc7sBdoqpUahqPYrHKVzHvlldMTLfbtJ__wYVBQ_4iTow?cn=THISLIFE&res=medium&ts=1711719378)
In any case, frankz and hiccup, your insightful responses have certainly helped me get a better grip on MusicBee and how to proceed. Very much appreciated.