1. Welcome! Please take a few seconds to create your free account to post threads, make some friends, remove a few ads while surfing and much more. ClutchFans has been bringing fans together to talk Houston Sports since 1996. Join us!

[Help] Organizing a huge music library into smart playlists w/tags

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by dmc89, Feb 21, 2011.

Tags:
  1. dmc89

    dmc89 Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2009
    Messages:
    3,816
    Likes Received:
    255
    I have ~15k songs that need to be organized. I wish to make playlists with names like 80s alternate rock or more complex ones with multiple criteria (i.e. New Age vs Ambient vs Lounge), but it would take me days to scan through my music collection and drag/drop the exact songs I want.

    And since I have limited memory on my phone, I have to delete playlists to make room for others (it gets boring listening to the same one) so I can rotate through my library over time. At this point, it is too costly time-wise to bother making a playlist. Is there a fast or efficient way to do this? I've Googled to no avail.

    I used Media Monkey to correctly label and organize about 100 songs today and it took me an hour :(

    By organize, I mean tagging them like the well-labeled mp3s I buy from iTunes, with Album Art, Genre, multiple Artists, etc. Many songs just say track_01.mp3 and so on.

    Btw, the collection is located in folders on three hard drives (primary, backup, 2nd backup). Each folder represents the batch of music I uploaded onto my PC. Majority are FLAC and mp3, but some are AAC, Ogg, WMA, and WAV from the late 90s.
     
    #1 dmc89, Feb 21, 2011
  2. lionaire

    lionaire Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2010
    Messages:
    5,717
    Likes Received:
    7,624
    <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Z3qK8gT5LLg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


    ...Automagically.
     
    #2 lionaire, Feb 21, 2011
    1 person likes this.
  3. SwoLy-D

    SwoLy-D Contributing Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2001
    Messages:
    37,617
    Likes Received:
    1,448
    Most of the MP3s you have would have already had IDv3 tags that iTunes or any other music player like WinAmp or Windows Media Player will use to put together in albums, genres, artists, etc.

    iTunes will let you add songs for a library without copying them to another drive. It will also let you make "smart" playlists where you can specify criteria like "matches this but doesn't match that", etc.

    Still, I don't know why you don't just try using either one of those players. :confused: What have you actually tried, besides wasting time on Google?
     
    #3 SwoLy-D, Feb 21, 2011
  4. dmc89

    dmc89 Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2009
    Messages:
    3,816
    Likes Received:
    255
    TidySongs
    MediaMonkey
    MusicBrainz

    Many of the files don't have tags, and looking them up via their signature only yielded partial results where I had to supervise the correct album vs greatest hits compilation, featured artist in the correct field separated by commas rather than parentheses, specific genre rather than a broad one, etc.

    I wish my entire music collection could be like the sample music files included in Windows. You click on their file properties and everything including Year and BPM are there. I needed something that automatically did as good of a job as I did manually using Amazon Music and Wikipedia without me having to be there. Guess I'm being anal by asking too much from software.

    I don't use iTunes because it's too bloated. Even if I did, Genius isn't as good for my needs. Its search criteria is too narrow and limited based on the quality of the tags in my library, which suck. The ultimate playlist creator needs dozens of personalized tags like Pandora uses for song descriptions.

    Thanks anyway.
     
    #4 dmc89, Feb 22, 2011
  5. CrazyDave

    CrazyDave Contributing Member

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2002
    Messages:
    6,027
    Likes Received:
    439
    What you do to clean up a library like yours is going to be time consuming, but you can do it, and it doesn't have to be a chore. I know of no way to automate generic untagged music, beyond automating and organizing a system of pseudo-manual entry.

    Start with what is important to you... say... year. Then you make a smart list (one formed from tags, in this case, make a list of songs that contain no info in the "year" tag) in whatever music software that you think is anti-bloated enough yet robust enough to make such a list. iTunes works great for this, but I'm sure there are many other solutions. Anyway, make a smart list that only contains songs that DON'T have a tag for "year".

    Examine the list, and if you like select songs/albums that you know or are willing to tag. AFter that, then listen to that list frequently, and as you listen to the songs, enter the year. Seems like a big deal, but if you have albums, etc, it will go fast. Once you enter them, the songs will remove themselves from the list as you go (might want to enter the data after song plays so that you don't stop every song you hear as you enter). Eventually all your songs will have the year tag.

    Now, repeat this for any tag you wish to propagate. Eventually, your process will have everything tagged, and you don't have to do it all at once. This works especially well with a tag like "rating" (in iTunes, at least) especially if you get a plugin that allows you to use key commands to rate a song. Eventually, you have all your songs rated, and can make lists according to your rating of the song.

    It takes a while, but if you're patient, eventually you will have a well organized library of tunes, and the ability to make powerfully constructed lists almost automatically. But until you get those tags in there, making lists manually is all you can do, beyond helping automate and organize the process of manually entering them.

    Not having song names etc. is going to be the real pain.
     
    #5 CrazyDave, Feb 22, 2011
  6. Uprising

    Uprising Contributing Member

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2000
    Messages:
    42,259
    Likes Received:
    5,428

    This.


    <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/17008069" width="400" height="220" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/17008069">TuneUp Tour Video</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/tuneup">TuneUp Media</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
     
    #6 Uprising, Feb 22, 2011
    1 person likes this.
  7. CrazyDave

    CrazyDave Contributing Member

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2002
    Messages:
    6,027
    Likes Received:
    439
    repped assuming it works. That's awesome.
     
    #7 CrazyDave, Feb 22, 2011
  8. SwoLy-D

    SwoLy-D Contributing Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2001
    Messages:
    37,617
    Likes Received:
    1,448
    If I ever become an artist or have a band, we will be named "Unknown Artist", make an album named "Untitled Album" with tracks named "Track 01", "Track 02", "Track 03", etc., etc. :eek:

    I wonder if there's already one... :confused:

    EDIT: dmc, is most of your music from CD's? Why not just re-import the ones without names (assuming they are from CDs)?

    Have you been "borrowing" this music from friends? :p
     
    #8 SwoLy-D, Feb 22, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2011
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)

Share This Page

Toggle Width
Style
ClutchFans Original

  • About ClutchFans

    Since 1996, ClutchFans has been loud and proud covering the Houston Rockets, helping set an industry standard for team fan sites. The forums have been a home for Houston sports fans as well as basketball fanatics around the globe.

  • Rockets Content

  • Support ClutchFans!

    If you find that ClutchFans is a valuable resource for you, please consider becoming a Supporting Member. Supporting Members can upload photos and attachments directly to their posts, customize their user title and more. Gold Supporters see zero ads!


    Upgrade Now