Having trouble getting albums and tracks identified automatically

[rajdude]

A big hello to everyone!

Total newbie to MB here. Switching from MediaMonkey, so not a stranger to like programs.

I am trying to understand if I am expecting too much from MM. I have a medium sized collection of albums and tracks on my network server (just a Windows 10 machine).

Why is MB having a hard time trying to scan and identify albums when other programs have no issues?
Is there a setting to be changed somewhere or a plugin needed to be installed?

More specifically:
I have around 100 albums in the server.
For many of those albums MB separates the tracks into different albums, 01, 02, 03, etc, with just one or two tracks in each of them.
In contrast an really old program (Logitech Media server) consistently found albums and tracks just fine, all on its own, without me manually editing the library.

To be fair to MB, MM also seems to be doing that but not that badly.

There must me something I am missing.

Any tips are highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

-Raj

[psychoadept]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

Have you looked into the settings in preferences, sorting/grouping? You can set what defines an album there, including having albums defined by folder.  Look on the wiki for more info.

[rajdude]

Thanks for your response.

No I haven't looked at setting or preference, it's all stock. I'll check those next. All my folders have the album names. I think it goes like this...

Artist ...album...cd# {if any}

[psychoadept]

Sounds like albums by folder might work well, at least until the tags are in better shape. The underlying issue is probably that album and/or album artist aren't the same for all tracks in an album.  You could use the infer and update tags from file names command to import the tags from your folders. (Test before using on the whole library!)
You can also use MusicBee's auto tag by album feature to look up tags

[rajdude]

ok so I changed the preferences>> sorting / grouping >> grouping >>  to "files for each..."

That made no difference. I closed and re-opened MB, hoping it will group or detect or something......looks like it tried to read files again (judging from high network activity for a couple of minutes)......but in the end.........the library still looks like the same....

01,02 etc, no cover art for these bogus albums.

Sure, maybe my tags are messed up.........but I am not too sure about that.........maybe I am expecting too much............but the other programs I have used, windows media player, MM, windows 10 own player (what is its name. Groove?)...Logitech..........they do not want me to spend a large amount of time editing tags.......sorry, not complaining...........this is just my observation :-(
I really want to use MB :-)

As for artist and tracks, I think it is fine.... check this out:

[hiccup]

Psychoadept's first reply is essential.
Do check and understand the 'what defines an album' setting, and make sure your files contain the corresponding tags in a consistent way.

Maybe focus on one single album to begin with, post a screenshot of the tags of a couple of it's tracks to see if you can get further assistance here.

[psychoadept]

Hiccup gives good advice.

The thing about MusicBee is that it's very flexible so that it can meet the needs of a wide variety of users, but that does mean that you might have to take a minute to figure it how to get it to meet your specific needs. Windows Media player, Groove, iTunes, all do things basically one way, their way, and other programs like Media Monkey may be configured to work with those set ups because they're very common. MusicBee doesn't make as many assumptions or impose as many restrictions on how your library is organized. That makes tags essential, because no matter where the file is, MusicBee can still identify it and manage it effectively.

[hiccup]

Hiccup gives good advice.

Same as you, only not always as diplomatic, friendly and patient ;-)

So allow me: Do learn and understand at least the basic principles of metadata (tags) in relation to music files.
Even if you only use album, album artist, artist, title.

If that's not an option (not addressing anyone personal here) just stay away from any sophisticated music managing software.

[rajdude]

Hmmm...ok maybe I should learn about how to update metadata for my music files.
Is there a good starting point (maybe a tutorial) which is relevant to MB?

A few more questions:

1. Where does the metadata go? In the file or MB's own DB?
I would hope it goes to the files themselves, so that next time I have to re-install MB or switch to another music management application, all my hard work would still be there ;-)


2. In MB, after I changed the 'what defines an album' setting in MB to "own folder"..... nothing changed.
My files are properly placed in folders, shown in the screenshot I posted above. I also did "rescan all files".......but why was there no change in the MB library?


3. Looks like the albums which are ripped in wav format are the ones MB is having the most trouble with.
I heard wav has very little metadata support (but not totally zero). I really do not want to re-encode wav as flac (mostly because my car is able to read wav via USB)

Edit: I just found out that this is not true...check out the screenshot. These files are mp3 and do have tags, MB just thinks those tags are inconsistent.......not sure why........it seems OK to me

[hiccup]

What MB version are you using exactly? (help > about)

If you hover over the small 'i' icon on the left of the file you highlighted, what does the pop-up say?

Probably that the 'album artist' tag is absent?
That is a quite essential tag to keep an album together and recognized as such.

edit:
since you say you currently have the option '...are in their own folder...' selected, can we assume you have a folder named "Indian Ocean - MTV Unplugged", and that it contains only these five tracks that show in your screenshot?

[rajdude]

Sorry for the delay in responding.....holidays ;-)

1. I am using version 3.3.7261

2. Hovering over the i says "Missing tag: year"

3. Yes, as shown in the screenshot, album artist is absent.

4. I posted a screenshot of the folder structure earlier. See my post above, dated "December 14, 2019, 01:31:36 AM"
Yes, this album consists of a folder called "The Very Best of MTV Unplugged Vol.1"
Then there is a CD1 and CD2 underneath it.
Those folders contain many tracks, not only those 5 shown in my screenshot, they are from other artists.

So I think I can see what the problem is now:
This particular album is a compilation, of various artists, not just Indian Ocean.
And I have kept that folder under \Indian Ocean. I think this is incorrect. This album should be under \Various Artists.

Am I correct?

As for missing album artist tag...what should it be? "Various Artists"?

[phred]

As for missing album artist tag...what should it be? "Various Artists"?

When/If there is no <album artist> tag, MB assumes <artist> equals <album artist>
When you have a compilation, use "Various Artists" as the <album artist> and use the actual track artist as <artist>

[psychoadept]

And I have kept that folder under \Indian Ocean. I think this is incorrect. This album should be under \Various Artists.

If you're asking MusicBee to treat each folder as an album, then this is probably the problem.

[rajdude]

As for missing album artist tag...what should it be? "Various Artists"?

When/If there is no <album artist> tag, MB assumes <artist> equals <album artist>
When you have a compilation, use "Various Artists" as the <album artist> and use the actual track artist as <artist>

Thanks for validating my suspicion. I will update both the location of that album and update the "album artist" tag and check if that makes a difference.

[rajdude]

And I have kept that folder under \Indian Ocean. I think this is incorrect. This album should be under \Various Artists.

If you're asking MusicBee to treat each folder as an album, then this is probably the problem.

Ummm.... this comment I am not clear about. Could you please clarify what the problem is?

Are you saying that setting the preference "files for each album are organized in their own folder" is the problem? Should choose the other option underneath this option?