Author Topic: Where are you putting your library? + library help  (Read 1474 times)

Muchmoremusic

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Hello forum.

First off I am loving Music Bee. It is the greatest music library software I only wish I DL'd it sooner for PC and I wish it was available on Mac. I would gladly pay. for a mac version.

My real question is where are people putting their music libraries? In the default d:/Music or are you putting it inside the Musicbee folder? I only ask because I started separating libraries: My library vs songs I have to have/play for clients (I DJ weddings and such), Bless my clients but I don't want their music in my library unless I like it myself.

Right now I have it set up like:

Dougie's Music (my default)  D:/Music/MusicBee/Dougie's Music
Client's Music D:/Music/MusicBee/Client's Music


However, I want it to be set up so I can see everything but if I choose I can see only My music or only client's music by changing what library I am looking at. Does this mean I should set up like:

All Music D:/Music
Dougie's Music D:/Music/Dougie's Music
Client's Music D:/Music/Client's Music

But how do I go about these changes? I should use the Moving utility in MusicBee to retain all information? Don''t really understand how to change my default library from Dougie's Music to an All library. I created an All library but there is nothing in it. Do i need to scan it?

I am worried about screwing up my library.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks





frankz

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There are two things: The "Library" (the mdb database and the files associated with it, which MusicBee creates/maintains to house information about your music files) and the "Music Files" (the actual music files mp3s, flacs, etc).

Each of these can be anywhere on your system.  Your music files can be in many different places on your system and brought together in a single "LIbrary" (database+supporting files).  

If you want one library that shows everything, though, rather than having separate "Dougie's Music" and "Clients' Music" and "All Music" libraries, your best bet would be to just create the "All Music" library and then create filters for "Dougie's Music" and "Clients' Music".  If the music files for each subset are in separate locations, you could filter based on that.  It doesn't need to be that way, though.  You could create custom tag or repurpose an unused tag, tag each file for which subset it is in, and then use the appropriate filter set to this tag for when you want to see a subset.  You'd use no filter when you want to see everything.  You could even have all three available at once, each in its own pinned tab.

Maintaining separate Libraries is not easy and is not necessary with filters.

Muchmoremusic

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Hey, thanks for the quick reply. I understand what you are saying. It's given me more to think about.

Música

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D:/My Music on my prime manager/organizer NUC, and (256GB)-SD card/Music or C:/Music on each device containing my full library (2 tablets, two music-friendly phones, and a hi-res music player. Beyond that, it's organizing or listening-arranging using people-playlists such as SO list, relative 1 list, etc., especially on my main phone, the most portable/everywhere device. This assumes/is limited to playlists being subsets of my collection. Although I back up the NUC regularly, having my entire library on multiple devices yields additional backups.

psychoadept

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In general I agree with frankz' analysis.

If you ARE going to maintain two libraries, I would recommend using two separate portable installations. It's much less headache.

I do this for my "working" library and my backup library. The former is on my laptop and the settings, tags, playlists, etc are very personalized. The latter is on a shared server and contains not just my files but all my roommates' as well.
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Coogan

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My library is stored on an external HDD.  Western Digital 6TB, that I keep backed up on a separate external HDD.
My MusicBee Version:
3.5.8842