Messages

1

Tips and Tricks / Re: MusicBee now works under wine

« on: March 04, 2025, 08:09:26 PM »

This thread has been a lifesaver. Thank you so much to everyone here. Posting my setup/steps to help anyone else:

System info:

Hardware: Ryzen 5 5600X, 32GB RAM
OS: Linux Mint 22
Wine: 9.0
Winetricks: 20240105
MusicBee: 3.5.8698


Installation steps:

Step 1: Download+extract the .exe installer

Step 2: Install wine and winetricks:

Code

sudo apt install wine winetricks

Step 3: Configure wine:

Code

winecfg

Map drives, set Windows version to Windows 10

Step 4: Install winetricks packages:

Code

winetricks -q dotnet48 gdiplus allfonts wmp11

Step 5: Run installer with Wine:

Code

wine MusicBeeSetup_3_5.exe

Notes about winetricks packages:

dotnet48 - seems required to run

gdiplus - fixes most graphical issues (including the stretched album art / auto-pick colors feature)

allfonts - adds all the common fonts to be used in MB customization

wmp11 - fixes issue where MB crashes when you select File Converters in the options


Packages mentioned in this thread that did not make a difference to me: mfc42, d3dx9, vcrun2008, msxml6


Issues
I managed to resolve almost all initial issues with the four winetricks packages listed above.

- Scrolling through albums in tile view is a tiny bit slower than it was on Windows, still usable. Like Rotum said above, would be interested in things to try to improve sluggish scrolling.

- Re-arranging the top tabs doesn't work, causes "unexpected error pop-up" but does not crash the program.

Many many many thanks !

Installed on KDE Neon, looks fine. Plays mpc, flac, mp3, ratings same as in Windows (another try with another method my half ratings were messed up), everything runs fine as far as I know.

Soooooo nice to have MB on Linux !!!! 

2

Tips and Tricks / Re: [GUIDE] How to use Musicbee on Linux (Archlinux/Debian based distro)

« on: October 30, 2023, 11:36:33 AM »

Latest Musicbee is up and running.  I took a slightly different route. I haevn't touched wine in years so I cannot confirm if any of these steps are not needed or deterimental. Any feedback is appreciated.  I'm running the latest Pop_OS.

(...)

Awesome ! Thank you !

I tried several solutions posted here to run MB on Linux, this one is the first I managed to get working. I tested it running a VM (Mint 21.1 on Windows).

Seems to work flawlessy. Plays APE, FLAC, MPC, categories are still defined, special characters are displayed correctly (û, ç etc), cover art are there...

The only issue so far is rating. Flac ratings are displayed as they should, but MPC and APE (APE v2 tag) are wrong if they contain a half-star. So 4,5 becomes 2,5 and 3,5 becomes 2...
No issue with half-star ratings with flac files.

It's quite strange, I mean it's the same program, even if run with an emulator like Wine. Maybe I need to check MB configuration.

Last issue before I install Mint on my laptop instead of Windows

3

Portable Devices / Re: Sync ratings FROM portable device TO main MB library ?

« on: February 24, 2020, 08:51:47 AM »

I found a workaround. I use FreeFileSync. Not fully automatic, but almost.
This software compares 2 directories (the one from my usb disk and the main library on my NAS) and synchronize both ways. New/modified files on NAS go to the usb device, the same from the usb to the main library (mainly rated songs when I was listening from the usb disk).

I made a shortcut for the task, I just have to double click on it and directories are synced. It's very fast (~40000 songs).

That said, it can be dangerous : if files are damaged on the usb, FreeFileSync could overwrite the "good" files of the library. So, make backups 

4

Portable Devices / Sync ratings FROM portable device TO main MB library ?

« on: January 05, 2020, 03:35:50 PM »

Hello there,

All my music is now into a MB library. I don't have words to describe how this is GREAT 

I'd like to listen to those songs when I'm at the office.

To achieve this, I thought to :

- copy all music files to a portable HDD ;
- listen and RATE songs when I'm in the office (playing songs from the HDD) ;
- sync ratings (or copy files newly rated) FROM the HDD to the main library (on a NAS) at home.

But the sync feature seems to work FROM the library TO the mobile device only.

Is there a way to achieve this with MB ? Or should I use a sync utility within Windows ?

Thank you 

5

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Video management

« on: December 30, 2019, 09:27:26 AM »

Thank you vaatimidona, you wrote the post I wanted to write today  


I feel the same : MusicBee is so great I'd like to manage my movies & TV shows the same way.


There was a plugin some years ago, but I think it was discontinued.

I don't know what kind of a challenge it is (to support video files). At least MB should be able to read NFO's, I guess.

6

General Discussions / Re: How to generate basic artwork from album title ?

« on: December 20, 2019, 10:45:02 AM »

But wait.... Is there a way Musicbee could do this automatically if no artwork is present ?

If you're talking about artwork for self-made compilations, etc, then no, MB can't create artwork. But you can try the 'one-size-fits-all' approach that sveakul suggests. I happen to use this when no artwork can be found for a album...

Ahah, I like it, thank you 

7

General Discussions / Re: How to generate basic artwork from album title ?

« on: December 20, 2019, 10:44:18 AM »

You can change the fixed image MusicBee displays in cases of no album art being found for the file using a skin modification (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=22889.0), but it's a one-size-fits-all solution, not a unique image per file.

Have you tried just using MusicBee's built-in Artwork Downloader for those files?  Tools/Artwork/Downloader.  Pretty fast and easy when a match is found.

Nope, I didn't. I re-tag all the files with TagScanner and I search for covers at this time. So I assumed I couldn't have better results than intensive searchs with Discogs/MusicBrainz or a manual search with Google.


But thanks for the tip, I'll use this feature for fine tuning inside MB when I spot a missing cover ;-)

8

General Discussions / How to generate basic artwork from album title ?

« on: December 19, 2019, 09:59:48 AM »

Hello,

For some albums, I don't have an artwork : compilations I've made, missing albums on Discogs or too lazy to find and scan the original one.

Sometimes I just create a basic 500x500 file with the album title in it.

But wait.... Is there a way Musicbee could do this automatically if no artwork is present ?

Thank you for any advice :-)

9

Questions / Re: Best way to group genres ? (tagging / MB setup)

« on: March 13, 2018, 09:12:11 AM »

Awesome !
I didn't see this option, thank you !

Is there something MB can't do ? 

10

Questions / Best way to group genres ? (tagging / MB setup)

« on: March 12, 2018, 11:49:01 PM »

Hello 

I sort my music into folders. I tried to have few genre of music, for my folders, as for tags.

In MB, I'd like to sort :
- by genre (when I want a specific genre, e.g folk hard rock)
- by genre category (when I want to look for rock, whatever the kind of rock)


But I don't really figure how this works.

E.g :
AC/DC is tagged as hard rock (genre).

In MB, if I sort by genre category, AC/DC is under "rock" (nice).

But I have other albums that are not in a genre category, even if they have a genre. E.g french music is sorted in french music when I sort by genre (ok), but is not in a genre category when I sort by genre category.

How are these genre categories set ? Is there a way to define them ? (rock = hard rock + punk rock + etc) Or is it automatic ?

Another - fully working - way is to assign a group tag.

AC/DC will then be tagged as hard rock (genre) and rock (grouping)

This way of doing seems to be 100% working.

But is it fine ? I mean, does this group tag designed to be a "meta genre" ? Or should I use genre category ?

Thanks 

11

Questions / Re: MusicBee as a server ?

« on: April 23, 2017, 05:01:58 PM »

Thank you boroda for the reply  

I already tried the Subsonic plugin. I could play in MB (on my laptop) songs that were in the subsonic DB on the server (my desktop).

Unfortunately I was not able to control the play. Since I didn't manage to make it work again.


Is the subsonic plugin supposed to control the server ?


TeamViewer : at my knowledge, all remote access softwares I tried allow only one session, not concurrent sessions. I mean, I could control MB (and I did, using TurboVNC), but I could only control MB, I was not able to play songs using MB on another device, using the same database.

12

Questions / MusicBee as a server ?

« on: April 23, 2017, 01:11:47 PM »

Hello


I'm new here ! I'm looking for the perfect music player, you know, the one that makes everything you want but doesn't exist :p


I'm testing several music players. MB is the best I found as a standalone player. A very nice player easy to use.


I would like to do two things :

-> be able to control a MB player on a "server" (could be a simple computer attached to an amp). The controlling device would be another computer (no android device - I saw there was an android remote for MB). I'd like to be able to rate and add songs to a playlist using that remote.

-> be able to play locally (on another device that the one attached to the amp) sons, from MB.


I think it could be possible with :

-> a centralized MB database. I should have MB installed on every device (for playing locally) but I should have the same ratings and playlists for every device. I could control the MB attached to an amp with a remote desktop (as far as I can have a centralized database, I can live with it)

-> a streaming MB on the server side. I could play files locally using streaming/transcoding and a client MB. Ratings and playlists will be stored on the server. I'll control the server using the MB client or a web interface.


Unfortunately, it doesn't work :

-> I didn't manage to use only one DB with two MB clients
-> at my knowledge, MB can't act as a server.


Can you help me ? Thank you :-)