Topics

1

Questions / Permenantly Adjust The Volume Of An Album Or Track By A Certain Amount

« on: September 26, 2021, 12:52:22 AM »

Every so often, I run across an album that has average peak volumes of -6 or -7 dB. Usually these are remastered SACD Hi-def, etc modern remasters. Well, that is way too low a volume for rock, etc. Around -2 to -1 is better for modern ears as long as the RMS does not go below 13ish.

Say that I want to permenantly adjust the volume for each track by exactly +5 dB. As I can see it, there is no easy way to do this in MusicBee. I did it the following way, track by track.
Starting out with an album in lossless format:
1) Send each track, one by one to the volume analysis and add +5 dB. This writes replay gain tags.
2) Send the adjusted tracks one by one to the format converter. I check the "permenantly adjust volume" & "tracks to the same volume" checked.
3) I verify with foobar DR plugin that the tracks volume are permenatly adjusted - they are.

If you do not do this track by track, MusicBee will adjust the volume relative to the album or all tracks selected, because that simply is the only options available. I wish there as an option to only adjust a group of tracks only by a specified amount.

Is there a better way to do this in MusicBee?

2

Questions / Font Color

« on: September 10, 2021, 10:19:39 PM »

I assume that font colors are controlled by the skin that is used and can only be changed by editing the skin? If not, how? There are several places I would like to change the font color slightly without having to edit the skin files.

3

Questions / Artist / Album View, Album Display Question

« on: September 09, 2021, 02:22:51 PM »

When you view the main panel using the Artist view, click on an artist, the list of albums appears. If the artist has a lot of albums the album runs off the right side of the panel and you have to click the < or > buttons to navigate the list of albums. Is there anyway to allow musicbee to stack them in multiple rows (wrap them) under the artist instead of running them off the side of the panel?

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Tips and Tricks / Using Filters To Create "Sub" Libraries

« on: September 08, 2021, 08:36:08 PM »

Instead of creating separate libraries in MusicBee for specific purposes, you can use filters instead to split up a combined library. I still keep the audio files separated on my PC in different locations. I personally keep my multimedia files rather structured. I have one "multimedia" directory that contains "main sub directories" for audio, video, etc. In my audio directory, I keep lossy & lossless (archive) files separated. I also keep audio books, podcasts, comedy, radio shows separate from my music files.

The challenge is how to keep these separated in a multimedia manager like MusicBee. I could (and have in the past) create a separate library for each purpose. But everytime you move the library, or make major changes, it is a bit of a pain to modify. If you have 5 libraries, you have to modify all 5. Using filters can solve this.

Also, you can specify that a filter or filters can be only apply when using a certain view to increase flexibility of your filters. In the upper right of the popup window when creating a filter is the option to "display using view".

I will just post a couple of examples of filters that I use on one big combined library in MusicBee. Based on my file structure on my PC, I could just add the "multimedia" folder, or add the "main subfolders" instead to create the library. Then I create a few filters.

Music Filters:

[1] Lossy Music Filter (this is a nested filter using "and"):

Kind > is any of > AAC audio file; MPEG audio file; WMA audio file
       and > Genre > is not any of > Audio Book; Podcast; Radio Show

To nest ("and") you have to click [.] on the right side of the first line of the filter.

[2] Lossless Music Filter (this is a nested filter using "and"):

Kind > is any of > ALAC audio file; FLAC audio file; OGG audio file; Wave audio file; WavPack audio file
       and > Genre > is not any of > Audio Book; Podcast; Radio Show

To nest ("and") you have to click [.] on the right side of the first line of the filter.


Other Media Filters:

[3] Podcasts (simple filter):

Genre > is > Podcats

[4] Audio Books (simple filter):

Genre > is > Audio Book

If you have a lot of audio books or podcasts & you use the Genre tag, then you can make a custom tag in MusicBee and call it Podcast, Audio Book, etc. Then you can add that tag in place of Genre. I only have 1 genre of audio books & two of podcasts, so I use the Genre tag differently than most people.

One thing to understand. If you want to create conditions for a filter, you have to nest it using the "and / or" function. For example the following filter will not work. If fact it does nothing.

This filter works (simple filter, no conditions):

Kind > is > MPEG audio file
Kind > is > AAC audio file
Kind > is > WMA audio file

This filter does nothing (by adding "is, is not, etc" breaks it):

Kind > is > MPEG audio file
Kind > is > AAC audio file
Kind > is > WMA audio file
Genre > is not > Audio Book
Genre > is not > Podcast
Genre > is not > Radio Show

Instead use this:

Kind > is any of > AAC audio file; MPEG audio file; WMA audio file
       and > Genre > is not any of > Audio Book; Podcast; Radio Show

To nest ("and") you have to click [.] on the right side of the first line of the filter.

5

MusicBee Wishlist / CD's With Pre-Emphasis

« on: September 07, 2021, 02:34:56 PM »

Many older CD's (especially those from the 1980's) have pre-emphasis on them. Pre-emphasis is when the frequencies of the original recording are modified according to a pre-set EQ template before transferring the music onto a CD. It was done to address some distortion issues. CD players were designed to detect this and then "de-emphasize" the CD so that it sounds as intended. There is a small file placed on the CD in the header area that flags the CD as pre-emphasized. But most multi-media players do not detect pre-emphasis nor correct it. A pre-emphasized CD sounds like absolute crap to put it mildly. One such CD that has pre-emphais that I ran across recently is Heart's self-titled 1985 album. The original pressings if not de-emphasized, it sounds like someone went nuts with the treble settings & took out all the mids. Modern recording techniques / transfers do not require this.

Any chance of adding pre-emphasis detection and have MB de-emphasize the tracks? The affected files would have to have a custom tag added by the user (I.E. "PRE_EMPHASIS" with a value in the tag such as 1 or yes) for MB to detect it. I only know of one multi-media player that has a plug-in for this at the moment (foobar).

If the capability was added to MB, it would need to be done in a pre-process way. That way you can take the pre-emphasized tracks, convert them and they will be permenantly de-emphasized. If it is a dsp type effect, it will not work as that is post-process. I have done this with a few CD's via foobar.

EDIT:

If MusicBee could detect the pre-emphsis flag on a CD (and apply de-emphasis pre-process), the plugin/tag method would not be needed when rippiing from a CD. But the issue comes when you have tracks already ripped that are not de-emphazied. Then you need the tag method, because the flag may not have been included in the track data.

6

Questions / Filter Issues

« on: September 06, 2021, 11:57:22 PM »

I am using MusiBee 3.4.7805 & Windows 10. I created one large library. I then played around with filters to create *sub* libraries. Two filters I made were Lossy Music & Lossless Music. Each filter contains several parts using the following:

Kind > is > chose a format

This works fine. But it includes things that are not music. So I added more lines to the filter to filter out audio files that were not music:

Genre > is not > choose tag
or
Genre > is not any of > choose tag.

By adding "is not" or "is not any of" to the filters above, they completely break the filter & the filter stops working. If I make a separate filter that only contains "is not" or "is not any of" that filter works on its own. Is this behavior correct or is something broken with filters?

7

Questions / Shortcut To Open A Specific Library

« on: September 05, 2021, 08:50:52 PM »

Instead of going through File>Library>Open Library>choose library, is there anyway to create a shortcut command on the toolbar to open a specific library?

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Questions / CD's Recorded With Pre-emphasis - Anything MB Can Do With This?

« on: September 04, 2021, 07:32:20 AM »

I have a CD recorded with pre-emphasis. It is the only one so far I have found in my collection. It really hurts my ears to listen to it. Is there any plugin or option I can use in MB to de-emphasize the CD? Or is there some freeware that I can use to rip the CD with de-emphasis?

I have the original CD & flac rips. The bad thing is I no longer have a dvd burner in my computer, because I needed the spot on my motherboard for a hard drive.

Edit 1:

I do not intend to plug other players vs MB, but I found out that foobar has a dsp component that allows you to de-emphasize almost any format. You have to write a custom tag for the dsp to recognize the track to apply the effect. https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=99394.0.

It seems to work. If I then use foobar to convert the track with the flag, I can remove the flag and it sounds as if it has been permanently de-emphasized. But my CD sounds a bit high pitched still. I have nothing to compare the cd with but itself. I do not have a working CD player to compare the de-emphsized .flac file with the live cd.

Edit 2:

I think it works. I had to go to YouTube and compare a remastered version with my de-emphasized version. The pre-emphasis should not be on the remastered versions. My de-emphasized converted file sounds like the YouTube remaster for my needs. I think the album just had a crappy mastering to start with. It was recorded in 1985 and was a bit *thin*. But the de-emphsized vs the pre-emphasized versions are night and day difference.

Edit #3

With the plugins above, permenant de-emphasis is only possible with lossless formats. The reason is the plugin that works for lossless formats is pre-process where the dps plugins are post-process effects. I think I got that right.


I still want to see this happen in MB if possible.

9

MusicBee Wishlist / Nesting Within The Main Panel

« on: August 12, 2021, 09:23:28 PM »

Steven,

Would it be difficult to add 1 or 2 layers of nesting to the main panel? More explicitly let me explain exactly what I want to do with it. This can also be used in a variety of ways.

In the main panel I have MB display / sort by artist. If I click on the artist picture, I get the list of albums for that artist. When I click on the album picture, I get the list of songs, etc for that album. That is fine for one version of the same album. But what if you have multiple versions of the same album? I.E. 1995 Original Mastering, 2005 Remaster, 2010 Special Limited Edition Remaster, etc. It gets complicated or messy & you have to do some work arounds. What I would like to be able to do is when you click on the artist then the album there would be another *layer* under the albums to allow me to add multiple versions of each album according to a custom tag or standard tag. So I would click the album and I would have say 3 icons pop up (one for each of the masterings I listed above). Then under each of those 3 icons would be the albums that only apply to that mastering. I create a special tag called "Album Mastering" & put mastering information in it.

To be more flexible, this nesting layer could be allowed for other headings as well (artist, genre, etc). I know there are ways to work around this already. I do it now by adding additional album mastering as discs. So in each album I have multiple masterings each defined as a disc that is sorted by a custom tag I created called "Album Mastering". So my display under each album has multiple tiers of songs each separated by the custom tag title. That is all good and fine if you only want to listen to one album. The issue is it creates a lot of manual work to listen to multiple albums at a click. I cannot simply double click the artist or an album (which sends the songs to the playlist) and listen to exactly which mastering I want. If I wanted to listen to say the first 3 albums of an artist, I have to manually click all the songs for the mastering I want to listen to and add them to the playlist. The loss of flexibility is the drawback to adding masterings as discs.

Thanks for your time.

10

Questions / [Portable Music Bee] Changing Library Locations Via Search & Replace

« on: June 15, 2021, 05:21:03 AM »

Using MuscBee portable. I just copied all my media from one drive to another. All the files on the new drive have exactly the same paths as the old drive. The only difference it the drive letter. I do not want musicbee to move anything. I have 4 separate libraries. Editing them via the musicbee settings is a bit of a pain for me because for every library I have to re-click the location of each set of files that are part of the library.

So to get to my point, can I simply open each library file (\Musicbee\Libraries\<library name>\MusicBeeLibrarySettings.ini) and change the drive letter from the old one to the new one? All I have to do is a simply search & replace command changing the old drive letter with the new one. Will this do the trick? Is there some other file or settings I need to change?

11

Questions / Vorbis (.ogg) Metadata Support

« on: February 20, 2021, 10:13:17 AM »

I am having a heck of a time to get MusicBee to read .oog metadata. I can write the tags just fine in  Mp3tag & Foobar. Both save the tags & retrieve them later. But MusicBee will not. I can edit them in MusicBee tag editor, save, come back to the file later, and all tags are gone. MusicBee will play the files just fine & even convert them to .mp3. But the converted mp3 has the exact same problem with the metdata.

Does MusicBee just not support tags for this format?

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General Discussions / Easier Navigation with Artists on Thumbnail Browser

« on: October 05, 2019, 10:46:22 PM »

In the musicbee wiki - Useful Virtual Tag Formulas there is a topic about using the AZ bar in the thumbnail browser (music explorer). I already use this script for the AZ bar in the main window. How do I add the AZ bar to the thumbnail browser window? I do not seem to find that option.

13

MusicBee Wishlist / Additional Grouping / Sorting Options For the Main Panel

« on: October 04, 2019, 01:49:55 AM »

Can we please get an option to group / sort albums into multiple rows in the main window under artist/album view? This is my idea from trying to handle multiple masterings of the same album via this thread that I started https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=29674.msg165622#msg165622.

The current options to group / sort different versions of albums (masterings for example) currently available are sort of workarounds that can become messy over time or are not fully efficient. In my opinion there is not an efficient way to handle this in musicbee at the moment. I have found a workaround that I am not 100% happy with by using the disc # option for each mastering (see the thread).

This is the idea (just a random example): I have an artist with a large discography of 15 albums. I want to keep 3 versions of the discography: #1 the original masterings / reissues, #2 2008 remasters, #3 2017 remasters. That is potentially 45 albums. Unless i name the same albums different names there will be 3 of the same album side by side 45 albums long (not efficient). Can we please have an option to sort multiple versions of an album (or by any user defined tag) into multiple rows. If I have 3 versions of the albums, when I click on the artist, instead of one row of albums appearing - three rows appear (one for each mastering or whatever tag that I choose). That would be an efficient way to handle this I think. Please consider this. It has more uses than just the one I want to use it for.

<Edit> Also, an optional header about each row would also be great (based on a custom tag).

14

General Discussions / Tagging Multiple Album Versions - How Do You Do it?

« on: September 24, 2019, 01:09:14 AM »

I am curious how other people handle multiple versions of the same album (s). If for example you have an entire discography of a bands original mastered releases & you also have remastered copies of the same albums (or several). For whatever reason, you keep both. How do you all tag them?

As my first attempt I tried this, for example: Artist tag 1 (Original Masters): Iron Maiden [OM]. Artist tag 2 (Remasters): Iron Maiden [2016 RM]. Then there are special editions such as deluxe or expanded that may be a different remastering, etc. I am not 100% sold on the example I provided. I also thought about using the album tag instead of the artist tag. But then I would have a mess of albums to sort through when I went to listen to something instead of distinct categories in the musicbee main window.

How do you all handle this?

15

Questions / Mutliple Artist Tag Issue

« on: August 24, 2019, 05:18:12 PM »

When I add multiple artists to an album, in the main panel I would expect these albums to show up under the name of each artist that I put in the artist field. But it does not.

Example:

In the tag editor, I open an album by Brazen Abbot. In the artist field, I change it to Brazen Abbot; Joe Lynn Turner. I save it. I reopen the tag edtior & click the "..." which pulls up the split artist panel. In the "display artist" field it shows Brazen Abbot; Joe Lynn Turner. Both names also appear on separate lines under the "artist" header. Under artist/instrument header they are labeled both as "Artist". All looks good, right? But when I go back to the main panel where my music collection is shown by artist, these albums do not show up under Joe Lynn Turner.

What am I doing wrong?