advice for new user

[finfan313]

I'm not sure I am as computer savvy as most people here. But I am music savvy. To me this is definitely the better of the music players. I hate itunes and WMP. To many bugs and issues with both. I have trouble getting rid of extra music files and wish there was something that could help that.  I am just now redownloading wind10. 1st go round was horrendous with all the sound issues and error messages from all of my music players. I hope it is all fixed. Any advice on using this player including downsizing my music collection to 1 copy of each piece ( I have at least 3500 pieces on this computer alone and I am trying to figure out how to store the rest that I have on external drives without losing files.) Also advice on using this player with windows 10 is greatly appreciated. By the way I started out when it was only "vinyl" 45's 10 inch and 12 inch. So don't be to harsh on my lack of computer savvy. Thanks in advance, Pamela

[hiccup]

Welcome to the forum Pamela.

A few advices to start with:

Since you are in the experimental stage, first experiment with MusicBee's extensive features on back-up files before working on your precious original files.

Learn to navigate this forum. Specific questions belong in the 'General' topic, but first always perform a search on the forum and the wiki for already existing questions and solutions.
(this posting of yours should have been in 'general' also, so I took the liberty of moving it there)

Concerning Windows 10, that should not be very different from previous versions, but it might be important that your soundcard is supported with well-working and updated Windows 10 drivers.
And be careful to start-up build-in Windows 10 music applications (or 'apps') from now on.
They tend to change your music files without any warning. This could for instance effect  the tagging and albumart of your files.

have fun!

[vincent kars]

Any advice on using this player including downsizing my music collection to 1 copy of each piece

This is what we call duplicates
Have a look at Tools > Manage Duplicates

[finfan313]

Hey thanks for your responses. I'm  not a new user but have had Musicbee for a couple of years now. I really love it. I'm just new using windows 10 and the newest version of MB. I had trouble when 10 1st came out with error messages. I did get it re-installed and the drivers for my computer and the MB update. I appreciate your answers about duplicates also, I know about that, my issue comes because I was not savvy enough when putting music on my computer. Way to many extensions and so my music files are duplicated over and over every where. I would like to delete all files except the MB files and my amazon files. I just have no idea where to start. My music collection with all of it contains at least 10,000 pieces. It's a real mess. Thanks again...back to Dolphin football! (took me 15 minutes or more to write this cuz I can't miss a play) lol Pamela

[hiccup]

There can be different approaches to clean up duplicate files.

When each and every song has basic tags present for at least the title and artist, and are all scanned, imported, and visible in your MusicBee library, as vincent said, you can do a lot from within the MusicBee duplicates feature.

If lots of music files are really scattered around your drives, and are not all properly tagged, and/or not successfully imported in your MusicBee library, you could use external duplicate finder tools to do the job.

That could still be a lot of work though.
Songs with the exact same artist/title could still be different versions. (different recording, live version, etc.)
Files that have different file sizes could still be the exact same song. (different album art, different encoder used, etc.)

If you want to try external tools, here are a few mentioned:
 
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-duplicate-file-remover.htm

(I remember in the past trying a few out, and preferring the one from digitalvolcano)

[finfan313]

Thanks I really appreciate your time. I did not see this response for some reason. I am going to do the new update and hope all that goes well. Your advice is solid but sometimes the forum has topics with answers assuming that the reader has a certain given knowledge. Whether it's about The Bee or involving computer lingo. So a lot of times I have to decipher as best I can. Again I appreciate your time and info. Pamela

[hiccup]

You're welcome.

Thankfully there are a lot of helpful members in this forum. If you know how to word your questions or challenges in an understandable manner, with as much relevant info as possible, chances are high somebody here will help you to the next step.
Don't worry about your 'level of knowledge'.
That's usually not the biggest problem. A lack of effort to explain the situation and giving sufficient info usually is.

good luck, and let the hive know when more help/advice is wanted.

[Leodj]

I guess you must update your computer first and get well installed the Drivers for the PC.. while the music files you can copy them and keep them in a safe storage while you fix your PC and have them in a carpet of music or something like that.