Author Topic: This is why I'm old school about using directories to organize music.  (Read 5397 times)

musicbee4dwd

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Under the Library module, I have "Music" and "Music Explorer." The library has been rebuilt.

I've never really trusted music players to sort music for me.

For instance, I can organize my local music in directories thus:

Blues
--Artist
----Files
--Artist
----Files
--etc
Rock
--Artist
----Files
--Artist
----Files
--etc

And a BIG THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, MB for allowing a "computer" module (directories).

So, this is why I don't trust grouping. When I use the Library and click on either Music or Explore Music, it doesn't spit out all of the artist I have organized in directories. Of course, if I didn't have them organized into directories, I'd never know they were missing in the first place. You might think this has to do with meta data not being filled in correctly for the specific sort type, such as on Artist. But in the Paying module, you can see that the playing module does  pick up the files in the directory and list the "artist" also (Except for one entry.

In the library, I tried sorting with every possible combination but it simply won't pick up my UFO collection. I can even add the display "filename" and the library simply will not touch my UFO collection.

Anyway, I don't lose too much sleep over it. It just bothers my logical side knowing other people aren't even seeing all of their music because they have no clue what a "directory" or a "local file" is in the first place.


Directory Example--Yep, there it is: UFO. Note in the right bottom panel, under artists--UFO (Except for that one entry).



Library Example--NOPE, won't do it! Note that this is organized alphabetically, and there is no "UFO" listed.

Last Edit: March 25, 2017, 07:03:37 AM by musicbee4dwd

psychoadept

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Just out of curiosity, would you post a screenshot of the menu when you right click on one of the UFO files and go to the Send To  menu?

Also, what happens if you search the library for UFO?
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musicbee4dwd

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Good call on the search function.

So, when I am in Library>Music and search for UFO, it will bring up all six songs for UFO; but when doing the same search using "Music Explorer" it misses the one file--although does show all of the other 5 files. I left out sort "filename" on for Library>Music just to see if it would find them, and it did.

Library>Music: Shows all six files when searching "UFO"



Library>Music Explorer: Misses one of the files



Image of File>Send To


psychoadept

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The one that's missing is probably the same one you have selected in the last screenshot, because it is missing the Artist tag.  If you add an artist tag of UFO, I bet it will be included.

As for your earlier screenshot, where there is no UFO in the Artists in the main panel, do you have that grouped by Artist or Album Artist?  What is the Album Artist for these tracks?
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musicbee4dwd

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The one that's missing is probably the same one you have selected in the last screenshot, because it is missing the Artist tag.  If you add an artist tag of UFO, I bet it will be included.

As for your earlier screenshot, where there is no UFO in the Artists in the main panel, do you have that grouped by Artist or Album Artist?  What is the Album Artist for these tracks?

Agreed about the meta tag missing, but that was my entire point: We would never even see the file unless we were aware of the files in the first place. That's why I posted another thread asking to use a "sort" by directory structure in the main file window. e.g., sure, we could add missing "sort" parameters to the meta data, but how would we know what files were missing that data in the first place?

In Library>Music, using both Artist and Album Artist, the missing file is still not there.

Another example of why having a sort by directory option is a good idea is that I have thousands of songs that I "saved" from streams using the Winamp and AIMP "capture"  option--to save each song from a stream as an mp3 file. This option, if you were wondering, does not record the file then creates new mp3 for it. it actually captures the mp3 at whatever bit-rate is streaming. So instead of getting a re-compressed mp3 (shjitty) you get teh original file that was streaming. (I've also requested thta option for MB, as stated, both Winamp and AIMP have that option).

Anyway, in order to see what files are actually missing meta data, and thus are no showing up on sort functions, the only way I see to get around that is to have a sort option that somehow sorts by directory, so that you could see waht files are missing necessary meta data:

e.g.,

Sort header

Directory | Artist | etc

This is important: Even when I go to the parent directory and select "C:\MyMusic\

MB won't find the missing files. I have to click on the specific directory in order for it to show ALL files in that directory.

e.g.

C:\MyMusic

Shows all files in all sub-directories in the man window, but misses files w/o necessary meta data. (It shouldn't do that actually, at least not for the "computer" file browsing option. To me, it should show all of the directors (and any files not in sub-directories) below that directory. Or, it should really show ALL FILES, even those with missing meta tags.

C:\MyMusic\UFO

NOW we see all of the files, including the missing file (No artist name).

psychoadept

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I understand what you're saying, but I'd still like to figure out what's going on with these files and why they aren't showing up where you expect them.  The missing album tag is part of it, clearly, but MusicBee has no trouble showing all my files when I go to my Music directory, metadata or not.

As for why they're not showing up in the Artists view, you haven't answered my question: what is the Album Artist value for these files?

You can do a search for "<Tag> has no value" to find files missing various tags.  You can also use the "Show Files with Missing Tags" filter from the Tools menu.

When you say the files are missing from the higher directory view, how are you looking for them?  Is it that they're really not there, or that they're being sorted wrong because of the missing tags?  What happens if you sort by Path?
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musicbee4dwd

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The missing album tag is part of it, clearly, but MusicBee has no trouble showing all my files when I go to my Music directory, metadata or not.

As for why they're not showing up in the Artists view, you haven't answered my question: what is the Album Artist value for these files?

You can do a search for "<Tag> has no value" to find files missing various tags.  You can also use the "Show Files with Missing Tags" filter from the Tools menu.

When you say the files are missing from the higher directory view, how are you looking for them?  Is it that they're really not there, or that they're being sorted wrong because of the missing tags?  What happens if you sort by Path?
local

1. Right, if you are talking about going to Computer>Directories where you have files. In that case, it shows everything. It jsut ahs Album Artist as blank.

2. There is no information in those fields for meta data.

3. Library>Music: Found it. Instead of listing it under UFO it is showing it at the top with other files that have no Album/Artist information! And that makes perfect sense.

So it is showing, but for Library Music Explorer, the sort options are not the same as Library Music (e.g., no filename)

If I do sort by "filename" in Library>Music, it will show all of the files, but since the filenames are not always sequential, they are not found together--and that's my point about allowing sort on directory. (Of course, I could go through my billion files and rename/tag them for good housekeeping, but I have a day job too :)

e.g.,

UFO-LetItRoll.mp3
OutOnTheStreet-UFO.mp3

Means they sort in different areas according to file name.

If we could sort in Library on Directory, then we'd only have to find the directory and click on it, then all respective songs would be in that location, without the others in different directories clogging things up. Mostly, under any one directory, if you have a directory structure like this:

-Music
--LedZep

---Album 1
---Album 2
---Album 3

You will never have  a problem finding songs regardless of tags or naming convention, since each album will only have a small number of songs (5-15 average).