iTunes files on a flash drive

[MTVhike]

OK, success (sort of)! The iTunes organization got lost - all files are in the root of the drive, but that's OK. One problem is that in many cases I have two files with all the tags identical - except for time, and these turn out to be two movements from the same work. In most cases the original filenames were preserved, so I can figure it out.

Regarding file size, I selected one less than the maximum quality, and my 45GB of M4A files got reduced to 15GB. I'm listening to some of the music on my computer which has acceptable speakers and they sound fine. Now to see if it will play in my car!

Thanks for your perseverance and help.

Oh, and the Genres seem to be screwed up, although that might be a holdover from iTunes. Being that this is for Classical music, there are many sub-genres (Baroque, Romantic, Late Romantic, Modern, and many more) and some pieces which appear twice may have different Genre tags. Is the Genre in some sort of database somewhere?

[frankz]

45 down to 15 sounds like they were ALAC (lossless) M4A files - good news.

The better news is that, now that you know how to do it and you still have your original files, you can work out the kinks with the duplicate file names and genres and do it again as many times as it takes to get the result you want.

Congrats.

[Zak]

Is the screenshot before or after converting them?
If you right-click the column headings in MusicBee and add Bitrate and Kind then post another screenshot we'll be able to tell what you're starting with and suggest best options to compromise between file size and quality.

On the other hand, if you're already happy with how the converted files sound I guess it doesn't matter any more.

45 down to 15 sounds like they were ALAC (lossless) M4A files - good news.

Or they were 256 kbps and now they're 80.  

I'd usually expect to see a higher ratio than 3:1 between lossless and lossy, but for classical music it's probably about right.

[MTVhike]

That screenshot was from the source drive (F:). Note the size of some of the files - several are over 100MB. Most are M4A (ALAC?), although a few are AAC.

My next step is to find which files which are on my backup drive (F:) and copy some of them (without conversion) to my main computer's MB library. What's the best way to copy files, maintaining all the tags and artwork?

[frankz]

select the files -> right click -> Send To -> Folder (Copy)  then select either folder or organized folder.

For basic nuts and bolts info like this, the wiki is a great resource.

https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/File_Organization

[phred]

What's the best way to copy files, maintaining all the tags and artwork?

While we're here to help when we can, some of the questions you're asking are fairly basic and covered in the Wiki, and often in the forum. I suggest you spend some time looking at the Wiki and searching the forum. Look for 'organizing files' or something like that. I also suggest starting with the Wiki article on "The anatomy of MusicBee."

With every new application there's a learning curve. You'll learn faster if you search for the 'how' and then if you have trouble, ask in the forum.

[MTVhike]

Well, another problem. I took my flash drive out to my car this morning and, although the files sound fine, the only thing that shows up on the display is the filename, many of them are "03 Track 02" or something like that. If I play them, then the tags show up, but with maybe 1000 files, that's not very convenient.

Can I reorganize the files into folders within MB, or should I repeat the conversion, using the file organization suggested by MB? If I remember correctly, the default choice was <Album Artist>\<Album>\<Disc-Track#> <Title>. I know I can change this using the Template Editor, but I'm not sure what would happen. I assume in the example given that a folder with the name of the Album Artist tag would be created, with a subfolder with the name of the Album and a file Disc-Track#, but is there a missing "\" before <Title>? Being that this is mostly (but not totally) for classical music, I could select <Album>\<Composer>\<Title>\<Disc-Track#> (this would keep all the tracks which came from the same original CD (which is an album) together. But, for popular and or jazz, the Composer tag may be blank.

I just noticed that while I was typing this I received two new replies which basically said "do my own research", which I shall do, but please bear with me. I found this: "https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/File_Organization" especially informative!

[MTVhike]

So I did my own research (really, just by trying things out), and tried copying my entire library to another location (one that would have a shorter path) on the same computer, using copy files to organized folder, selecting as my template: <Album>\<Composer>\<Artist>\<Disc-Track#> <Title>). (I used this template because, in general, the album name would have been the name of the original CD, which might have mixed composers and/or artists). That worked very well, but some of the tracks were missing the Album tag, so a folder named Unknown Folder. If I now go through those files and add the correct tags, how to I create the correctly named folder? I guess I could "copy to organized folder" the entire root folder to another root folder using the same template.

On a related topic, I discovered a flash drive containing WAV versions of many of my earlier MP3 files. (Remembering my workflow then, I would rip a CD to a WAV file, then create the MP3 version), If I copy them to the new root folder, using the same template, would that work?