Even though this Tip & Trick is not pertaining to MusicBee solely but needs an external tool (MusicBrainz' Picard), I feel that the results are so nice that it's worthwhile to post it here.
The goal of this is to get your music tagged with as many genres as possible, but restricted to only appropriate and sensible ones.
It also should produce genre names that are conforming to, and thus line up with how MusicBee knows and recognises them.
Which is important if you e.g. use MusicBee's Tag Hierarchy panel.
The second post after this one provides additional background info and details on the workings.
This start post will only explain how to set things up:
- Download and install MusicBrainz' Picard.
I strongly suggest the portable version, if only for the benefit of making it possible to have more than one Picard installation for different purposes.
- Navigate to: Options > Metadata
Make sure these two are checked:

- Navigate to: Options > Tags > ID3
set it to use ID3v2.4
(Well, I strongly suggest this. If you have reasons to stick to v2.3 so be it.)- Navigate to: Options > Plugins.
In the right panel scroll down to Wikidata Genre, and click the green arrow icon. (download and install)
- Apply [Make it So!], and restart Picard.
- Under Options > Plugins there should now be an options tab for Wikidata Genre. (you can leave everything there as is)
- Check the other Option tabs to set other personal preferences if so desired.
- Important suggestion: You will probably want to uncheck everything under Albumart to prevent downloading and writing of artwork! (Options > Cover Art) stricken-through since I have changed my opinion about using the Wikidata plugin (I don't use it anymore)- Navigate to: Options > Genres
Set the checkboxes and values as in below screenshot, and copy the genre whitelist into the include/exclude box.
update:
By now the whitelist and the scripts have grown to such lengths that the forum engine doesn't allow including them in this post as code anymore.
(exceeding maximum length)
So, I have made the whitelist and the scripts available as a download here.Next, another essential part: adding scripts.
I have provided two of them that are needed for this to work well.
- The first one makes it so that the retrieved genres are named and written in a uniform way, so that they will align well with MusicBee and the (optional) Enhanced Genre Hierarchy List.
- The second one is very important, since it will make sure only the Genre tag gets written, and all your other tags will remain unchanged.
(experienced Picard users can probably ignore this since they will likely already have their own 'unset' scripts in place)How to add the scripts:
- Navigate to: Options > Scripting
- Check the checkbox at the top next to:'Tagger script(s)'
- Paste script #1 in the blank pane on the right.
- On the left, rename 'My script 1' to your liking, e.g. 'Genres'.
- Click [Add new script]
- Paste script #2 in the blank pane on the right.
- On the left, rename 'My script 2' to your liking, e.g. 'Unset tags'.
- Make sure the checkboxes for both scripts are checked.
You then should have something like this:

- Apply and close.
That's pretty much it.If you don't want the original 'Genre' tag to get written/updated, but have another tag set up for this purpose (e.g. a 'Subgenre' tag), see post #2 for how to do that.- - - - - - -
Detailed explanations on the actual use and workings of Picard are beyond the scope of this topic.
There are very good tutorials on that to be found (like the
quick-start and the
full documentation), so here is only a quick-and-dirty to at least help to get started a bit:
- Drag an album folder to the left panel.
- Press 'Cluster'.
All album tracks should now get gathered as an album.
- Select the album and click 'Lookup'.
It then will usually get matched and moved to the right panel.
(if that failed try 'Scan' instead of 'Lookup')
When next, you select the album in the right panel, you will see all present tags, and the suggested genre tag changes in the bottom panel.
Only the 'Genre' tag should be written in either
green or
light brown. (which indicates that a tag has new or altered content and will get updated and written to the file if you press 'Save')
- If the info displayed in the bottom panel is to your satisfaction, press 'Save'.
Now if you (re)scan the tracks in MusicBee you should see the newly added genres.
I also strongly suggest to check out the
Enhanced Genre Hierarchy List, since it will allow you to get the most out of navigating through your genres, and is fully compatible with the above scripts, the whitelist and the genre names this workflow produces.
As always!!! :Do your first (and second, and third) tests on copies of your music files!Especially if you are new to Picard.
It is a very powerful tagging tool that can easily be configured to do things you did not intend or may not like.
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