Author Topic: MusicBrainz Picard q & a thread  (Read 89812 times)

Forcen

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I tried adding the script now but do i have to run it manually? It's not really clear when it runs, when I save?

Also this script seems to make it so that tracks i tagged previously don't get detected automatically.

I'm trying to wrangle all the tag stuff but i can't get it to work, I will get back to it.

hiccup

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I tried adding the script now but do i have to run it manually? It's not really clear when it runs, when I save?

Scripts for which you have the checkbox checked will be applied automatically when you load (or refresh) recordings.
(You can also manually run them by using right-click)

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Also this script seems to make it so that tracks i tagged previously don't get detected automatically.

That would be weird?

alec.tron

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i just discovered acousticbrainz

Neato... still hoping that one day, there'll be some way to cross-reference Discogs ID with a MBID, either via MusicBrainz, or Discogs...
c.

bogie

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Hi Hiccup,

I just discovered MusicBee today and also this forum.  I have a general question perhaps you can help me.

I currently use iTunes (with PC) and have probably over 30,000 albums (I actually don't know how many, mostly complete operas, many classical singer albums, some symphonies and some pops etc.).  With iTunes, I organized my horde with Genre (let's say, opera), then with Title (Wagner: Tristan & Isolde), then Artist (B.Nilsson, W.Windgassen).  But since I have many Tristan recordings, and several with these two principal singers, I have to play tricks by adding additional names to the artist column to distinguish one album to another.  Then within each album, I have either one track per act (the track title might say Act 3), or one track per pre-defined CD track (for example Act 3: (aria) Liebestod (Isolde)).

My 1st question to you is, with your article on using Picard with MusicBee, can I organize my MusicBee so that eventually I can click on W and all composers under W will appear, then I can click Wagner and all his works will appear, opera or otherwise, then I can click on Tristan and I will see a list of all the full length opera I have on this, and also various aria albums that might contain a track on Tristan.

If the answer to the 1st question is YES, is how do I import my iTunes album information into MusicBee so that I can achieve this?

I have been trying to find a replacement to iTunes, and I hope MusicBee with Picard is the answer.  Thanks in advance, and I hope this is the right way to ask question.

hiccup

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Hi Hiccup,
I just discovered MusicBee today and also this forum.  I have a general question perhaps you can help me.

Welcome to the forum bogie.

The answer to 'can it be done so that...' is yes.
Depending on how savvy with computers you are, it will take time to master Picard and it's scripting, and you probably will get frustrated in the beginning once in a while.
But at the end it is absolutely worth it.

I cannot help you with Apple related stuff, but there is a lot of info on that to be found on the forum.

Also, understand that you are currently in the Tips and Tricks board.
For questions, there's 'Questions' ;-)

(Tip: when searching the MusicBee forum, use google, not the build-in forum search)

hiccup

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For those using Picard, but perhaps not following it's development that much:

Picard 2.4.2 was released today.
There have been substantial improvements, so I would suggest considering updating…

sveakul

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Just a question about the 2.4.4 download options:

If you use 7-zip to extract the contents of the version labelled "portable", MusicBrainz-Picard-2.4.4.exe, you end with a bunch of installer-type compressed files;  if you extract the contents of the one labelled "installer", picard-setup-2.4.4.exe, you end up with exactly with what you'd expect to see from a PORTABLE version, i.e., all the actual program files/folders.  Are these two packages actually misnamed, or am I missing something?  At this time of night, the latter is a distinct possibility.

hiccup

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Just a question about the 2.4.4 download options:

If you use 7-zip to extract the contents of the version labelled "portable", MusicBrainz-Picard-2.4.4.exe, you end with a bunch of installer-type compressed files; ...

That's strange; when I download it I always get a single .exe file.
You then create a Picard folder where you want it, copy the file there, and run it. It will then create an additional folder that contains .ini and plugins etc.

Did you dl it from here?:
https://picard.musicbrainz.org/downloads/

sveakul

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Yes, from there.  The download itself is a single exe, but since it's referred to as "portable", my experience with other portable apps is that those offered as an exe download instead of a zip are a self-extracting package of all the files, already "made."  So I normally opt to extract those myself using 7-zip to avoid any possible "payloads" or just to take a look at the contents.  But in this case I ended up with the contents below, normally signature of an installer package:


So I guess in this case, it's an "installer" in the case of it needing to be run to create what it needs, but it creates everything only within the folder that you made for the downloaded exe, which makes it actually "portable."  That's cool with me!!

What I had done when I first encountered this was just go for the PortableApps version.  And found that one isn't 100% "portable" as when run it creates a folder "network" in users/username/AppDate/local/cache with about 8 subfolders.  Just an observation.

Thanks hiccup.  BTW, this is quite an app, bound to keep me busy for a while!  I'm a "late arrival."

hiccup

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Yes, from there.  The download itself is a single exe, but since it's referred to as "portable", my experience with other portable apps is that those offered as an exe download instead of a zip are a self-extracting package of all the files, already "made."

I understand.
But I am using winrar, and while for some .exe files it will sometimes also present an 'extract' option in the context menu, for this one it doesn't. So I was never tempted to unpackage it.

Also the portable edition has not been around for long. It took some begging and persuading to the programmers to create one.
So it may indeed work slightly different then other portable programs, and it does create some files on the system drive.
I believe I raised the latter on their forum a while back, and they explained why that happens, and why it shouldn't be a problem.

Since I am very happy they now have a great working portable version to begin with, I am not complaining anymore ;-)


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BTW, this is quite an app, bound to keep me busy for a while!  I'm a "late arrival."

If you are like me, you may get (very) frustrated with it in the beginning because it does pretty much everything differently than other tagging software.

Don't give up, I am convinced the effort is really worth it.
And you have the benefit that since this year there is a great online tutorial to be found:
https://picard-docs.musicbrainz.org/en/introduction.html

good luck

sveakul

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Thanks hiccup for the pointer to the excellent online manual, I'm gonna need it!!


sveakul

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To those interested, Picard 2.5 has been released:

https://blog.metabrainz.org/2020/10/22/picard-2-5-release/


Thanks, just grabbed the Portable version!  In reference to my last post about being confused on how the portable worked, here is what happens for those interested:

1.  Place the file as downloaded (MusicBrainz-Picard-2.5.exe) into a folder of your choice

2.  Running the exe then creates a subfolder "MusicBrainz-Picard", and inside that an ini file and two more folders for cache and plugins

Every time you actually run the exe, it creates a folder in the Users/username/AppData/Local/Temp folder of the PC that contains all the other 90+ components it needs to operate;  when you exit the app, that folder is completely removed automatically.

A very unusual implementation of "portable", but one that works, and does NOT create the external "network" folder that the "PortableApps" version does.


MTVhike

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Does MB have a link to MusicBrainz Picard to create the tags, or do I have to do the tagging manually?