Thanks for the advice; it is well taken. I have been reading the Wiki, but probably not as much as I should. Sometimes I learn best by trying (and failing) to figure things out. Click this or that and see what happens.
Phred; I agree with your suggestion to test with a couple of files. Besides that, I am creating regular backups of my MB config files.
At this point, I have Classical and Rock music in separate folders on my SSD, but keep them all in the same library in MB, and using filters to sort them out.
Before this, I was trying to keep two separate MusicBee libraries. It was making my life more complicated than it needs to be.
An interesting note about file names:
Do you recall when I said that MB wasn't reading some of the tags? Well, I think I was mistaken; it was the FILES that MB wasn't reading.
For some mysterious reason, MB would refuse to read the contents of certain folders in my music library.
I tried File > Scan Folders for New Files, and Send To > File Rescan but those tracks would not appear anywhere in MB.
I disabled all filters, so even if the files were mis-tagged, I should have seen them, but that was not happening.
Finally, last evening I figured it out. Here's what I found (with examples)
The files in a folder 'Classical \ Beethoven \ Symphony #8_Cleveland" were not being read by MB.
I tried changing the name of the folder, thinking that MB didn't like that I used an underscore in the name (even though it is a perfectly legal folder name in Windows). That did not help.
Then I started looking at the file names in that folder. The following files were located in the suspect folder:
05 Symphony No. 8 in F major Op. 93-i.flac
06 Symphony No. 8 in F major Op. 93-ii.flac
There were two more files in the folder, but they have the same naming scheme so no need to list them.
I suspect the file names were created by EAC when I ripped the CD.
So I thought perhaps the combination of the dash and the letters -ii.flac immediately before the .flac extension might be causing the problem.
I removed the dash from the file names and replaced it with a space.
Now I did a Scan Folders for New Files, then a Send to > File Rescan.
The missing tracks suddenly appeared in the main window of MB.
Since I had already set the tags in Tag & Rename, the new tracks were properly organized.
This has led me to ask what other file names does MB not like?
I am going to do some experimentation with this over the next couple of days, but in the meantime, perhaps I will find the answer in the Wiki, or someone will post it in reply to this thread.
This can all get very frustrating when all I'm trying to do is organize my music library.
At one point, I gave up on MusicBee and installed MediaMonkey. I didn't take a close look at the listing in MM, so I don't know whether it read all of the files and tags.
In any case, I didn't like MM as much as I do MB. Partly because I have been using MB for some time, and also because I do like MB's UI better than MM.
I think that MB is far more 'configurable' than any other music management software, and that is the reason it has a steeper learning curve.
If I had wanted simple and maintenance free (at any cost) I would have kept my sub with Spotify and left my own music library in archives. But I like having control over my music library.
In addition, I don't have an unlimited data plan on my Android phone, so I would have needed to download music to the Spotify app on the phone.
But probably what made me leave Spotify (after a free trial and a couple months paid) was that I found myself listening to the same music I already owned on my SSD.
What is the point in paying $10/mo to listen to tracks you have already paid for and spent the time ripping to PC and/or phone.
And then there's the quality issue. Although I was streaming at the highest quality Spotify allowed (I think 320Kbps), it did not sound as good as what I played from the files on my PC.
Perhaps it might be worthwhile to sign up with Spotify (or another streaming service) for the sole purpose of searching for new music I want to purchase.
While I could use iTunes for free, it will only play a short cut of any track.
Of course there's YouTube, but it's not as convenient as Spotify or iTunes.
OK. I think I've said enough for one post. Thanks for reading.
Ultrarunner