Messages

16

Questions / Re: Import Playlist

« on: May 14, 2023, 09:45:44 AM »

Open one of the playlists with missing files in a text editor and see what path it is using to find the songs. A common issue here might be that originally the songs were on D drive, but now they're on E drive. Figure out WHAT has changed and then in MusicBee go to File->Library->Relink MusicFile Paths and enter the OLD path and the NEW path. Hopefully you only need do this once, but if any other tracks are still missing, repeat the process.

17

Questions / Re: Best Naming Convetion for music files/tracks

« on: May 14, 2023, 09:39:02 AM »

It all depends on how you use your music.

Personally, my file-based arrangement of my files is completely separate from Artist/Album considerations, so the only factor I need to consider for naming files is that they're unique - i.e. need to differentiate between Radio cut, live, acoustic versions etc

In the tags - Title contains the Title and any differentiation info - the cut, mix etc. Artists go in the Artists tag - I see no need to duplicate in the Title.

Remember that MusicBee has virtual tags - as long as info is recorded ONCE somewhere, it can be processed and combined with other tags in a visual column. If you want to display/work with a field that includes BOTH artist and title, you can simply create a virtual tag that combines the two.

.

18

Questions / Re: MusicBee integration with iTunes

« on: May 14, 2023, 09:16:16 AM »

I would think most of your questions would get knowledgeable answers on an itunes forum.

I think there are rather more people in the world who use iTunes than MusicBee!

So why would i post a question about integration between MusicBee and iTunes, on an iTunes forum where likely very few people use MusicBee?

19

Questions / Re: MusicBee integration with iTunes

« on: May 13, 2023, 11:17:24 PM »

Darn it - torpedoed at first hurdle. I didn't know iTunes didn't support FLAC files, which is 99% of my library.

20

Questions / Re: Remove dead files from library

« on: May 13, 2023, 10:25:41 PM »

Can you not just bring up the entire library in the viewer by clicking on the Music node, and include the file path in the displayed fields. Then sort by file path and delete all the "L" entries?

21

Questions / MusicBee integration with iTunes

« on: May 13, 2023, 10:22:14 PM »

I've read a few other threads on this, but none are quite my use case and some are quite old so things may have changed?

I use Traktor for DJing, but all of my music is currently managed by MusicBee. I'd like to be able to create and manage playlists in MusicBee and simply use them in Traktor, but the only way it appears I can do that (other than quite expensive 3rd party software), is via iTunes, which I haven't used in decades so I'm unfamiliar with that bit too!

I've a number of questions before I set about potentially messing up my library - I hope someone has some experience and can answer.

1) The starting point is to export the library from MusicBee and then presumably import the xml file into iTunes right? Can I do this without an Apple account?

2) Once in iTunes, I believe the integration with Traktor is seamless - all the playlists should show up right?

3) Presumably I still only have a single copy of the files on my computer?

4) So far I've been using a duplicate set of files for tracks imported into Traktor, but Traktor doesn't seem to be messing up the metadata so I think I'm safe to use the same files for all three?

5) The big question - how do I maintain it all? If I move things around in MusicBee, I guess I have to re-export into iTunes right? Is it a case of blitzing the existing library there and starting again or does it pick up changes?

22

Questions / Re: some files are not imported

« on: September 24, 2021, 10:10:15 AM »

View them in the folder as you are doing, but right click on the column headers and set displayed fields - Add Category to the displayed list.

Category can have one of three values, Music, Inbox, None. Music means it's in the library.

You can move files into the Library by right clicking on the file and selecting Send To => Music Library.

23

Questions / Re: Anybody Know How To Customize The Sort String

« on: September 22, 2021, 12:29:49 PM »

I had a very specific reason (which I can't remember now) for using || in Artists. In many other fields I use ; and split the field. I know I encountered an issue - it may have been in Traktor which only displayed ONE of the Artists if I used ;.

So you can just swap out the || in the RegEx for ;

$Replace($Replace($Replace($Replace($Split(<Sort Artist>,"; ",1),-,1),',1)," ",),.,)

24

Questions / Re: Anybody Know How To Customize The Sort String

« on: September 21, 2021, 09:15:00 PM »

The way I handle this is I separate Artists by || instead of ;
I have a virtual tag called FirstArtist defined as "$Replace($Replace($Replace($Replace($Split(<Sort Artist>," ||",1),-,1),',1)," ",),.,)"

I use Sort Artist rather than Artist here to strip of the "The" etc. The Replace functions are to strip out superfluous characters.

So if for example my Artist is "The Chainsmokers || Winona Oak" - the FirstArtist field will have "Chainsmokers"

I then define a CustomSort based on FirstArtist, followed by Title.

25

Questions / Re: Help with ripping and apostrophes

« on: September 21, 2021, 05:34:59 PM »

Suggest you search and replace ALL apostrophes with a character that is unused anywhere in that field - e.g. ^
Then search and replace the character you've just used with the apostrophe format that you want to keep.

26

Questions / Strange error with Paths

« on: September 21, 2021, 01:45:12 PM »

I use MusicBeePortable on both my desktop and my laptop. When I travel, I sync the library on a portable drive from my desktop - work with it while I'm away and then sync it back to my desktop on return.

The complete paths for the music files are the same no matter which machine I use. The only difference between the two, now corrected is the musicbee application is stored in a slightly different path along with the library files and playlists.

Recently, I've noticed that the paths to the music files are sometimes altered when I update from one to the other and I have to use the "Relink music file paths" function to correct them. The pattern is that if say my music files are located on E:\MyMusic and on my desktop my library is located in E:\Apps\DJ Music and on the laptop drive in E:\DJ Music, then when I sync the files back from my laptop drive to my desktop, the music files are all listed as in E:\Apps\MyMusic which doesn't exist. I fix this with the Relink function as mentioned above, but here's the strange bit: I have playlists in folders - if I select a playlist that I created on the laptop then despite using relink paths, all the tracks in the playlist are listed on the wrong path and are unplayable, but if I instead select the folder containing the faulty playlist, all the music files within are now in the correct place and are playable!

Edit - to correct a playlist - e.g. one not in a folder, or in a folder with lots of others,  I've found I can create a new empty folder X and move the faulty playlist inside. Then I create a new playlist and drag the contents of the folder X into the newly created playlist. So presumably MusicBee doesn't store absolute paths within a playlist, but uses a relative path and calculates the absolute path differently depending on whether you're viewing the playlist itself, or a folder.

27

Questions / Re: Need Sorting Help!

« on: September 04, 2020, 01:45:38 PM »

If you right click on a column header, you'll see the Sort By option pop-up, through this select Define Custom Sort in the sub-menu.

From there, define a new Custom Sort with the Date and Track# fields you wish to use.

28

Bug Reports / Moving files in a playlist with duplicates deletes the file without warning.

« on: September 03, 2020, 09:26:13 PM »

If you have a playlist that contains duplicate entries, and you select all the tracks in the playlist and MOVE them to a new folder, the files are simply deleted. However, the playlist continues to reference them in the moved-to location.

I only noticed when I went to play one of these files and musicbee told me it couldn't find it, so I looked in the recycle bin and there it was!

Music Bee ver 3.4.7499

29

Questions / Re: Player access to tempo controls

« on: July 27, 2020, 01:48:16 PM »

My apologies Steven, I hadn't seen this and I hadn't looked recently (my bad) - I had looked a while back and didn't think to see if anything had changed.
However sadly it's still not useful to me though as 10% is still way too crude.

My Use case is that i'm a Dance DJ and I frequently need to tweak the tempo of tracks up and down when I am appraising them for possible use, 5% would be about the average tweak, 10% and higher rarely. Normally I'd start at 2% and work my way out in 1% changes until either the tempo was in the right range, or the track SOUNDED like the tempo had been changed.

Please don't get me wrong btw, it's great that I can change the tempo AT ALL within MusicBee - so I hope that this doesn't sound like a criticism - it's not - I was just wondering if I'd missed anything.

30

Questions / Re: What is your source for tagging Genres? MusicBrainz/Discogs, or something else?

« on: July 26, 2020, 09:38:10 PM »

Internet Genre Databases are pretty much useless.

It's better to make your own - takes longer, but far more useful in the long run.