Messages

1

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Refresh Computer Node (for external changes in the filesystem)

« on: April 25, 2025, 05:46:05 AM »

You're ignoring the people - including the guy that wrote MusicBee - who have said that pressing F5 works just fine to refresh the displayed folders.
I just tried it on my second MusicBee installation on my home PC that monitors my music folder and it updated the folders without even having to do that.

If I create the folder C:\foobar\ or someone rename a folder on a share S:\Music\gazonk_renamed\ after MB was started, I should see these changes in Computer Node without having to do anything. No F5, no rescan, no preferences, no nothing.

Think about how that would work from a programming perspective.

If you create a folder in File Explorer, it isn't then going to tell MusicBee, "Hey, there's a new folder here for you to display.". Windows just doesn't work that way.
Nor is MusicBee going to look for new folders every second. It could, but that would be bad programming.

What MusicBee can do, is ask Windows to let it know when folders are updated. That's what the continuous monitoring checkbox in the Library preferences is for.
You can't choose not to use that and then complain MusicBee doesn't work the way you want it to.  

2

Bug Reports / Re: The inconsistency of the Search submenus

« on: April 24, 2025, 08:13:27 AM »

Find Similar (whatever "similar" means - which is also problematic BTW due to the extreme vagueness).

I think this uses an online service like last.fm to find artists that sound similar to the searched artist.

3

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Refresh Computer Node (for external changes in the filesystem)

« on: April 24, 2025, 08:04:49 AM »

F5 to refresh the folder nodes works for me.

F5 (refresh) will not work because you're changing things outside of MB, you need to rescan the file(s) otherwise MB doesn't know you've made changes.

In MB select the fife(s) that you changed > right-click > send to > file rescan

OP is asking about updating the displayed folders, not the tag values.

If you're on a lappy you may need to use it with another key, don't recall which one.

Some laptops also have a Function lock key, which if not enabled means F5 might function as a media key or something else.
Do the function keys work as expected in other programs? Does F1 open help? Does F2 rename files in File Explorer?

I go back to MB and press F5.
The navpane to the left collapses.

That's weird. Check your hotkeys preferences to make sure you haven't accidentally assigned F5 to a different MusicBee command.

4

Questions / Re: Unable to edit tags on certain WAV files

« on: April 15, 2025, 07:32:20 AM »

Any ideas?

[Raises hand]

5

Questions / Re: Exclude format from being added to library

« on: April 15, 2025, 07:25:27 AM »

The label under File Types in the Preferences says Enable MusicBee in Windows Explorer and context menus, so it has nothing to do with importing or filtering file types.
There is actually no setting to prevent specific file types being added to the Library from monitored folders.

I see two solutions:

1. Save your m4a files in a completely different folder structure to your FLAC files so MusicBee won't see them at all.
Though if it's already an issue, I assume your m4a and FLAC files are saved side-by-side, so instead...

2. File > Library > Manage Filters

Create a filter that uses the Kind or .Ext fields to hide the m4a files from your Library view.

6

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Zero button for Volume Analysis slider

« on: April 13, 2025, 04:54:24 AM »

For now, a quick-ish way to set the slider to zero is to press the End key to move the slider to the far-right, then press Page Up six times to set it back to zero.

7

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Export - & crossfade - playlist to one single file?

« on: March 28, 2025, 01:02:15 AM »

It's an interesting idea, but something that would be technically quite complicated to implement.

Admittedly, my audio programming experience is very limited, but I'm not sure that's true.

The program would just do what it's already doing, but instead of sending the decoded audio stream to a device, it would send it to a new file.
This means it would also take into account other settings like crossfading, other audio effects or custom start/end times etc.

And because there is no intention of listening to it at the same time, it wouldn't take the playtime of the playlist to complete.
It could be done as quickly as the computer it's running on can pump through the decoded data.

I have made playlists for parties and events in the past where I've applied custom cross-overs between tracks, and would have found this feature very useful for later transferring the finished playlist to a different computer.

8

Questions / Re: Adding a folder to the active playlist opened in MB (not adding to queue)

« on: March 26, 2025, 06:26:13 AM »

How to configure the program and the registry win 7 so that when you right-click on a folder with files from the Windows Explorer, they are added entirely to a specific playlist or active playlist opened in the program (similar to how it was implemented in Foobar2000). This is not about adding a folder to the queue

As has been mentioned - among other unrelated things - it is not currently possible because MusicBee has no means of accepting files from Explorer for adding to a playlist.

What hasn't been mentioned, is that is possible to drag and drop a folder from Explorer onto a playlist in MusicBee - either into the open playlist itself, or a playlist entry in the left navigation panel - and add the tracks to it that way.

If (a) you insist on doing it with a context-menu entry for some reason, and (b) you're using the plain text .m3u playlist format in MusicBee - it would be trivial to write a helper program that adds selected files paths to a specified playlist.

9

Questions / Re: Create asx file from single mp3 file

« on: March 25, 2025, 04:13:36 AM »

I've not yet tested manual creation of a multi-part asx file, but am hoping it would work in MB as indicated above - playing all tracks included therein, together and in sequence.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. That's what I tested with an ASX file that I manually added multiple tracks to - it doesn't work.

The ability to create "virtual albums" that comprise existing tracks but with their separate tag values has has been requested for many years in various forms.

Excuse my lack of imagination but I am just wondering what might be the advantages of creating a 'virtual album' over a playlist?
(I guess one would be the ability to create your own compilations/collections and view them in amongst your 'proper' albums)

Yes, the ability to create compilations where each track has its own tag values, but still uses the original track for playback.
e.g.



In this case, only the third file would contain the audio stream. The first two would just be a reference to that file but appear on separate albums with their own values for album-specific things like Album, Year, Artwork, Album Gain etc. This means the other two copies don't take up unnecessary disk space by duplicating the entire file.

Obviously it's possible to create a playlist for each album and just add the required tracks to it, but as you've noted, that's not the same as having a compilation album that actually appears as any other album.

Years ago I tried using ASX files to achieve this, but gave up when I found MusicBee's support for them to be a bit unintuitive and unpredictable.
There may have been improvements made since I last tried, but can't recall seeing anything specific.

10

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: add .asx to the formats available for the 'send to' format converter

« on: March 24, 2025, 05:02:41 AM »

As a separate command on the Send To menu perhaps, but not in the Format Converter.

Creating an ASX file for an existing file isn't converting anything, and trying to force ASX options into the same command would be very confusing.
Based on previous posts, it's not hard to imagine someone "converting" their files to ASX, deleting the originals, then complaining their tracks don't play any more.

11

Questions / Re: Create asx file from single mp3 file

« on: March 24, 2025, 04:50:24 AM »

Thanks again @hiccup.
If the multi-sectioned asx file works...

It doesn't work. It appears that if MusicBee ever does anything that updates the .asx file, it only saves the first <Entry> tag when it rewrites the file.

A multi-sectioned asx file would also enable a hierarchy independent of Artist > Album. We could effectively embed an album ("Martha and the Vandellas Greatest Hits") to consistently play inside another album ("60s Girl Groups").

The ability to create "virtual albums" that comprise existing tracks but with their separate tag values has has been requested for many years in various forms. It has never been supported in any way beyond creating .asx files in what can best be described as a "hack", and not a very good one. I guess as disc capacities continue to increase, having duplicated files becomes less of a concern.

For sake of clarity, "send to asx" shouldn't replace the existing mp3 file, but generate an asx pointer in another folder / Library location.

No confusion there, because if you remove the original file the "pointer" file has nothing to refer to.

12

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Expose UI selections to virtual tags

« on: March 17, 2025, 07:46:03 AM »

The original idea was to create a group heading to show tracks by the selected artist that have been covered by others.
e.g.



It is possible to compare Artist and Original Artist to determine which tracks are covers, with a virtual tag like this...

Code

$IsNull(<Original Artist>,F,$If(<Artist>=<Original Artist>,F,T))

...but not to distinguish between cover songs by other artists and cover songs that the selected artist themselves have performed.
e.g.

This is not the desired outcome:

13

General Discussions / Re: Export shuffled Playlist?

« on: March 13, 2025, 08:44:52 AM »

In the left-hand navigator panel, right-click your library and select Play Library Shuffled:



Select all the tracks in your Playing Tracks list (which will now include all of your tracks in random order).
Right-click the list and select Include in Playlist > External Playlist... and select a folder and file name for your randomly sorted playlist.

14

Questions / Re: Virtual Tag to remove the currently filtered artist

« on: March 13, 2025, 08:33:15 AM »

Under Tom Jobim, I'd like his main discography to be first, and then the other headers should be "With Elis Regina" and "With Frank Sinatra". When I go to Frank Sinatra's or Elis Regina's albums, they should have that album under "With Tom Jobim".

You won't be able to do this because there's no way for a virtual tag to know which artist you're currently looking at.

Almost three years ago I posted a wishlist request for this functionality, but it didn't gather any momentum.

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=36446.msg199731#msg199731

(And I probably didn't explain it very well)

15

Portable Devices / Re: Syncing: Setting which file formats are accepted by a device (e.g., microsd)

« on: February 26, 2025, 05:54:57 AM »

I thought there was a setting in the past where I can highlight the device and configure file formats that it accepts so that I can do the file conversion on-the-fly for unsupported formats.

For example, I desire to select flac, mp3, m4a, aac, ogg, and opus as acceptable formats for any device I wish to sync, including a microsd card that will go into an Android tablet.

No, there was never an option to specify which formats to keep, only these ones with a focus more on reducing the amount of storage space required on mobile devices.

In this example, a .mod file will get converted on-the-fly to whatever format I set for conversion.

Sounds like .mod files are the only ones not already catered for by the current settings, which isn't surprising, given they're not an audio stream in the same way the other codecs are.
Is it even possible to transcode those in MusicBee? Can you use the Format Converter in MusicBee to convert them at all, even when not as part of a syncing operation?