Author Topic: Link tracks - maintaining multi-track songs in shuffle  (Read 5704 times)

AdamDesrosiers

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I've never seen this in any music player before, but I'd love to see an option to keep certain tracks always linked, even when they are included together in a shuffled playlist. For instance, in an album where two songs blend seamlessly into one another and may be properly considered one song, adding them in a playlist that gets shuffled disrupts the song. Hearing the second half of the song without the first half is just odd and listening to the first half abruptly break off is jarring.
No doubt, this would be a feature that hardly ever gets used. But I'd use it :)

frankz

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I made the decision long ago to just keep these types of songs (Golden Slumbers medley from Abbey Rd, for example.  Brain Damage / Eclipse, etc) as one track when I rip.  If they truly "may be properly considered one song," it's the most elegant solution and the only one assured to work across platforms.

AdamDesrosiers

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I made the decision long ago to just keep these types of songs (Golden Slumbers medley from Abbey Rd, for example.  Brain Damage / Eclipse, etc) as one track when I rip.  If they truly "may be properly considered one song," it's the most elegant solution and the only one assured to work across platforms.
You have more foresight than I!
I may just go back into my albums to do this. I was also specifically thinking of Abbey Rd as I wrote this wishlist ...

psychoadept

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There are actually multiple ways to do this.  The most direct, but ultimately the hardest to maintain, is to use the "keep album tracks in sequence when shuffling" setting in the Tag Editor.

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Tagging#Settings

However, recently Steven has added support for grouping by work, grouping, or other tags for auto-dj and auto-playlist selection. I find that much simpler to deal with, and very effective. You just need to figure out which tag you want to use for it, and make that tag consistent between tracks.  MusicBee will sort out play order based on track#, etc.
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frankz

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You have more foresight than I!
I may just go back into my albums to do this. I was also specifically thinking of Abbey Rd as I wrote this wishlist ...
Ha! I wish I could take credit for being that smart, but this was raw experience.  I stubbornly clung to my original rips of Beatles albums from 1999 until 2009, frustrated each time one of those songs would come on and abruptly end.  When the 2009 remasters came out I really thought about how I wanted to handle it and decided there would never be a time when I'd want to hear one of the medley songs on its own.  Luckily, EAC has a "Rip as range" (or something similar) setting.  Made it dead simple to manage.
There are actually multiple ways to do this.  The most direct, but ultimately the hardest to maintain, is to use the "keep album tracks in sequence when shuffling" setting in the Tag Editor.

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Tagging#Settings

However, recently Steven has added support for grouping by work, grouping, or other tags for auto-dj and auto-playlist selection. I find that much simpler to deal with, and very effective. You just need to figure out which tag you want to use for it, and make that tag consistent between tracks.  MusicBee will sort out play order based on track#, etc.
Those are fine for those situations and work well, especially for classical (where you would sometimes want to hear one movement without the others and it's worth it to keep them separated), but in situations where you would never, ever want to hear one track without the others, it's much easier to just keep them together at the source.

psychoadept

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Those are fine for those situations and work well, especially for classical (where you would sometimes want to hear one movement without the others and it's worth it to keep them separated), but in situations where you would never, ever want to hear one track without the others, it's much easier to just keep them together at the source.

I agree, but there are many cases where that hasn't been an option.  I suppose one could find a way to re-merge MP3s, etc...
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jameshands

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Winamp used to have a plugin called "Linked Tracks".  You would highlight two or more songs, right click, and a context menu would allow you to "Link Tracks".  A tag was added to each file indicated what other song to link to.  When the playlist encountered one of those tracks, it would add the other songs to the playlist in the correct sequence.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes not.

Just something to think about I guess



plugin options

*derp.  I just found the keep tracks in sequence flag and am experimenting with it. Maybe this is what I want.
Last Edit: June 12, 2018, 04:03:29 PM by jameshands
Yoi

henryr99

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This is an old "wish" and never got added to the software?

If so, some more info based on advice above (and thanks for that advice):

I use NCH CD Ripper to rip my CDs. It has an option to combine tracks into a single track, but it then doesn't add any of the metadata to the combined track. Oh well.

You can also combine tracks that you've already ripped:
https://www.videoconverterfactory.com/tips/flac-merger.html

From that page, I tried out:
https://audio-joiner.com/

This is an online tool that doesn't require you to install any software. The process if fairly straightforward. It adds some metadata to the combined track, but it still needs  a lot of editing, plus it annoyingly embeds its logo as an image into the merged file, which can obviously be fixed while you edit the rest of the information.

hiccup

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This is an old "wish" and never got added to the software?
The OP of this topic has received answers to his post more than 5 years ago and his questions/issues seem to have been resolved to satisfaction back then.
It's unclear to me why you are reviving this very old topic and what you are asking for now.