# Music Organising Software, alternatives to iTunes etc



## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

Is there a piece of software I can point at my slightly chaotic mp3 collection that will order it all nicely for me based on tags and filenames?


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## Crispy (Oct 19, 2006)

How do you mean?

Sort into folders?
Re-tag badly tagged files?
Re-name tagged files?

Be a bit more specifific...


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

Sorry, sort it into folders, ie, sort out the file structure. That's how I normally play tunes.. rather than use the library features on players, I just browse using windows explorer.


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

I found something called fixtunes.. gonna give it a go. Will report back!


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## bruise (Oct 19, 2006)

in the meantime, can anyone explain how to undo the mess iTunes made of my collection?


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

bruise said:
			
		

> in the meantime, can anyone explain how to undo the mess iTunes made of my collection?



This is the root of my problems.. fucked it up a couple of years ago, royally fucked it, and since then I haven't been bothered ever sorting it out.

fixtunes is shit, crashes, then blames it on an mp3.. hates chemical brothers for some reason. mp3's seem fine otherwise, so fixtunes gets the boot.


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

Trying magictagger now.


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## bruise (Oct 19, 2006)

post back a solution when you get one?


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## Crispy (Oct 19, 2006)

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Give up. Stop wasting your time micromanaging your music, when you can just give in and let itunes do it for you. I don't know where my music is and I don't care. I haven't Explored to E:\mp3 music\ for literally years now, because there's no need at all. I no longer worry, a weight is lifted from my shoulders. Join me. Join me now and feel the goodness


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

I don't like iTunes and hate what it did to my file structure. iTunes will die, should I ever take power of a new world order.

Impressed by magic mp3 tagger thus far.


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## Crispy (Oct 19, 2006)

But the file structure *doesn't matter*!

*leaves it*


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

It doesn't if you use itunes, it does if you use your fle structure to browse your music!


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## jæd (Oct 19, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> I've said it before and I'll say it again. Give up. Stop wasting your time micromanaging your music, when you can just give in and let itunes do it for you. I don't know where my music is and I don't care. I haven't Explored to E:\mp3 music\ for literally years now, because there's no need at all. I no longer worry, a weight is lifted from my shoulders. Join me. Join me now and feel the goodness



Yep... Switched to Itunes yonks ago... Now I can one part of my mp3 collection on one computer and the other on another. Just press play on iTunes and it, well, plays...

But I think some people either (a) enjoy wasting time or (b) like to be contrary...!


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## jæd (Oct 19, 2006)

ChrisFilter said:
			
		

> It doesn't if you use itunes, it does if you use your fle structure to browse your music!



So... You would rather play with your file structure than play music...?


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

jæd said:
			
		

> But I think some people either (a) enjoy wasting time or (b) like to be contrary...!



Or don't like itunes, find it heavy on resources, don't like the interface and don't like that it fucked a file structure they were master of.

Why do people find it so hard to accept that some people just like doing things the old fashioned way sometimes?


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## Crispy (Oct 19, 2006)

But why browse with explorer in the first place? It's impossible to, say, play all your "Punk" tagged music at once, right? My guess is that you actually enjoy the organisation - I know I used to.

*don't bother crispy, mate, he's not worth it etc. etc."


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## ChrisFilter (Oct 19, 2006)

Maybe I do enjoy the organisaton.. who knows, I just prefer it this way!


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## hiccup (Oct 19, 2006)

I try to keep all my music neatly sorted as a courtesy to anyone browsing the files through soulseek.


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## Dubversion (Oct 19, 2006)

ChrisFilter said:
			
		

> Or don't like itunes, find it heavy on resources, don't like the interface and don't like that it fucked a file structure they were master of.
> 
> Why do people find it so hard to accept that some people just like doing things the old fashioned way sometimes?




I don't like I-Tunes one bit and far prefer using the folder structure like Filter


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## hiccup (Oct 19, 2006)

Dubversion said:
			
		

> I don't like I-Tunes one bit and far prefer using the folder structure like Filter



Which I appreciate when I rob all your music


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## bmd (Oct 19, 2006)

ChrisFilter said:
			
		

> This is the root of my problems.. fucked it up a couple of years ago, royally fucked it, and since then I haven't been bothered ever sorting it out.
> 
> fixtunes is shit, crashes, then blames it on an mp3.. hates chemical brothers for some reason. mp3's seem fine otherwise, so fixtunes gets the boot.



iTunes did this to mine too and I eventually found a program that took them out of iPod order and back into my order. I was absolutely furious that it utterly fucked my system.

Sorry CF I can't remember what I used other than I had to install the latest version of .Net before I could use it. It worked though so there is an app out there that can do this.


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## bruise (Oct 19, 2006)

hiccup said:
			
		

> I try to keep all my music neatly sorted as a courtesy to anyone browsing the files through soulseek.



there's that reason - plus the reverse when i'm searching someone else

plus - it adds micro categories that are useless - i can't search by artist - cause every va collection has been expanded. f***king useless. 

and it does matter when you also (stupidly) bought an iPod (admittedly only cos it was cheap) - try circling that wheel through there


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## fortyplus (Oct 21, 2006)

I don't know about iTunes, never used it, never plan to.

But basically there are three places you keep information about the music: in the ID3 / vorbis comment tags in the files themselves, implicitly in the filesystem structure through the folder names, and in the database maintained by your music application. A well-behaved music application shouldn't mess with either the id3 tags  or the file locations, in fact imo it should only  have read permissions on the filesystem that contains the music, except when ripping/downloading, and where it puts stuff when doing that should be configurable (although why anyone would choose anything other than artist/album/tune is a mystery to me). 

the app can do what it likes with its own index though.


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## mauvais (Oct 21, 2006)

Tag&Rename will probably do it pretty well.

As for why keep it ordered, why wouldn't you? I have no idea how iTunes works nor have I any wish to, but I'd rather sort it out myself. My iRiver MP3 player is directory-based, I share stuff over a network, I frequently play albums through the 'play folder' mechanism, and it's how I got it in the first place.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 21, 2006)

Keeping all your crap in one big folder called "Music" or "Documents" seems easy enough, especially if you have a search program or a player which catalogues things, but you really, really regret not filing things in proper directories when it comes to migrating to another system, or when you've got to use a program which _doesn't_ have access to some other program's index.

Catalogues are tied to one program, usually on one OS. Directory structures and proper filenames aren't.


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## jæd (Oct 21, 2006)

FridgeMagnet said:
			
		

> Catalogues are tied to one program, usually on one OS. Directory structures and proper filenames aren't.



Well... One fun thing about having iTunes handle my music is that it stores all the info in an xml file... At one point I wrote a quick perl script that parsed this, grabbed the real song location (my music collection is spread across a laptop and a desktop) and then burnt it to a dvd for backup.


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## bmd (Oct 21, 2006)

jæd said:
			
		

> Well... One fun thing about having iTunes handle my music is that it stores all the info in an xml file...



You sound like one of those dudes from a shopping channel.


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## Chorlton (Dec 7, 2006)

*Music Organising Software*

I am absoultely never ever again touching iTunes after what it did to my 60 odd gb of music before (taking every 'various' song and giving it a folder of its own) but i would quite like something that makes it nice and easy to search for music on a new shared network drive i have - ideally a windows and a linux soloution - any suggestions?


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## mack (Dec 7, 2006)

I've been using various "solutions" to my fairly modest 20 gig music folder, wmp11, itunes, winamp, songbird, but I've now settled down with mediamonkey. I like it and it 

seems fairly flexible with plenty of options to set it up however you like. If you need a key to get the full version then I know a guy who can help.


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## dervish (Dec 7, 2006)

Chorlton said:
			
		

> I am absoultely never ever again touching iTunes after what it did to my 60 odd gb of music before (taking every 'various' song and giving it a folder of its own) but i would quite like something that makes it nice and easy to search for music on a new shared network drive i have - ideally a windows and a linux soloution - any suggestions?



Apple claims another victim.  

I still haven't found anything that will sort it all back for me automaticlly. I've been using combinations of Windows Search and Copernic Desktop Search and gone back to Musicmatch. Not perfect and I still have hundreds of folders to sort out but most of my stuff is accessible, just.


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## jæd (Dec 8, 2006)

Chorlton said:
			
		

> I am absoultely never ever again touching iTunes after what it did to my 60 odd gb of music before (taking every 'various' song and giving it a folder of its own) but i would quite like something that makes it nice and easy to search for music on a new shared network drive i have - ideally a windows and a linux soloution - any suggestions?



You know that there is an option for it not to organise your music for you...? At the moment I have a iTunes on a laptop with the files on a network share... If I want to play music on the computer that has the network share I use Rhymnbox...


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## Chorlton (Dec 9, 2006)

jæd said:
			
		

> If I want to play music on the computer that has the network share I use Rhymnbox...



i'm googling that and not finding a lot.


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## bmd (Dec 9, 2006)

jæd said:
			
		

> You know that there is an option for it not to organise your music for you...?



True, but is there any other app you can name that makes such huge changes to a folder structure and doesn't give you the option of reverting back to how it was before?


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## Boris Sprinkler (Dec 10, 2006)

Chorlton said:
			
		

> i'm googling that and not finding a lot.



He means Rhythmbox, that's why..    @ Jaed


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## Dubversion (Dec 10, 2006)

i still use the windows folder structure and it works like a dream. then just drag n drop onto my player. really don't see the need for anything else


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## jæd (Dec 10, 2006)

Bob Marleys Dad said:
			
		

> True, but is there any other app you can name that makes such huge changes to a folder structure and doesn't give you the option of reverting back to how it was before?



If you don't want it to organise the music for you then don't tick the box... Not the hardest thing in the world...!


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## Numbers (Dec 29, 2006)

*MP3 management software advice.*

Mine have got a bit out of hand, to say the least.

I'd like to just run something that will totally sort out my music library.

recommendations please.

peace


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## A Dashing Blade (Dec 29, 2006)

Tag&Rename for sorting out tags, filenames etc.
Totally intuitive, does what you thing it should & then a bit more
(rename files from tags, get tags from filename etc etc etc)

Worth shelling out the $20 or whatever for the proper version

http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm


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## Crispy (Dec 29, 2006)

Depends.
If you want complete control, and like to know what folder everything's in (also, if you have an old computer), then ADB's suggestion would be good.
Otherwise - iTunes. Simple, easy, hides all the complications from you.
If you don't want itunes to move any files around, there's a setting in preferences (so skip the 'scan for music' step right at the beginning)


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## Numbers (Dec 29, 2006)

Any experience of MP3 Boss?


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## bmd (Dec 29, 2006)

No boss, I have my music in ogg format. 

Ho ho ho, just a little sound compression format humour there.

 

Sorry.


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## dervish (Dec 30, 2006)

I use musicmatch but I bought the full version years ago which has super tagging, without the supertagging it's not all that good for organising, with it it's one of the best

Mediamonkey is very good as well. www.mediamonkey.com it's got some very intuitive sorting options

iTunes COMPLETLY messed up my music folders I wouldn't recommend it at all.


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## Firky (Dec 30, 2006)

Winamp does everything I need and I have about 200GB of MP3s.


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## bmd (Jan 1, 2007)

firky said:
			
		

> Winamp does everything I need and I have about 200GB of MP3s.



I have 200.0001GB.


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## Wintermute (Jan 2, 2007)

If you like the look of Tag&Rename, but don't want to shell out $20, you might want to look at The Godfather - pretty much the same thing, only free. I'm not sure if it supports all the Apple formats (m4a, m4p etc) but it will do ogg, flac, aac, and mp4 among others. And  it's incredibly flexible - you can write your own scripts for batch processing, if you're that way inclined.


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## sorearm (Jan 4, 2007)

Bob Marleys Dad said:
			
		

> I have 200.0001GB.


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## editor (Aug 2, 2007)

*What's a great program for sorting out my MP3s?*

I'm fed up battling with the chaos that it my half-arsedly filed collection of MP3s, so I'm looking for a program that can add track info, flag up duplicates and do lots of other useful stuff.

At the moment all my MP3s are scattered on a drive in various folders but it takes me forever to find stuff. 

Any suggestions*? I don't mind paying for a boss program.




*but not iTunes, thanks


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## madboy23 (Aug 2, 2007)

check out www.thefilter.com or www.beatunes.com 

Mike


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## editor (Aug 2, 2007)

Cheers. What was that other program that had a bird or an egg as its logo?

(Bit vague, I know, but it was recommended here)


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## hiccup (Aug 2, 2007)

Songbird?

http://www.songbirdnest.com/


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## hiccup (Aug 2, 2007)

I really like the Quintessential Media Player. Probably not quite what you want, but easy mp3 tagging, browsing, sorting etc

http://www.quinnware.com/development.php


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## editor (Aug 2, 2007)

hiccup said:
			
		

> Songbird?
> 
> http://www.songbirdnest.com/


That's the fella!


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## editor (Aug 2, 2007)

hiccup said:
			
		

> I really like the Quintessential Media Player. Probably not quite what you want, but easy mp3 tagging, browsing, sorting etc
> 
> http://www.quinnware.com/development.php


Is this in English?


> For those new to QMP, consider it QCD with an integrated Media Library plug-in. However it is much more than that. QMP includes all the strengths of QCD, with the additions of more capabilities for plug-ins, more skinning capabilities, and more powerful features for users. QMP still uses QCD's core software so all existing plug-ins and skins will work with QMP (with the exception of Library plug-ins).


Wha'?!


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## Citizen66 (Aug 2, 2007)

editor said:
			
		

> Is this in English?
> Wha'?!



It sounds like it's refering to an old version of the software compared to the existing one...?


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## hiccup (Aug 2, 2007)

Citizen66 said:
			
		

> It sounds like it's refering to an old version of the software compared to the existing one...?



Indeed it is


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## editor (Aug 2, 2007)

I'm reading a lot of rave reviews for MediaMonkey
http://www.mediamonkey.com/

Anyone tried it?


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## editor (Aug 2, 2007)

I'm warming to this mediamonkey prog, although Songbird looks mighty purdy.
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/...-ultimate-music-player-and-library-organizer/


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## Chorlton (Aug 3, 2007)

editor said:
			
		

> I'm reading a lot of rave reviews for MediaMonkey
> http://www.mediamonkey.com/
> 
> Anyone tried it?




yeah thats what i use (free version - doesn't rip but seems to do evertything else)

I like it - it sometimes frustrates me but that is probably more due to me pulling music over a NAS than media monkey - the auto tagging from amazon is a great feature as is multi-editing names - i like this prog quite a bit actually - and it is going someway to sorting out the 80gb of music that itunes absoultely fucked over


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## editor (Aug 3, 2007)

Chorlton said:
			
		

> yeah thats what i use (free version - doesn't rip but seems to do evertything else)
> 
> I like it - it sometimes frustrates me but that is probably more due to me pulling music over a NAS than media monkey - the auto tagging from amazon is a great feature as is multi-editing names - i like this prog quite a bit actually - and it is going someway to sorting out the 80gb of music that itunes absoultely fucked over


I think I might just take the plunge and buy the program. It's only a tenner.


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## Roadkill (Aug 3, 2007)

editor said:
			
		

> *but not iTunes, thanks



At the risk of asking a silly question, what's wrong with it?  My ex uses it and it seems fine to me.  

But then, I'm a skint luddite who still has a CD walkman and listens to vinyls at home, so what do I know?


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## Chorlton (Aug 3, 2007)

Roadkill said:
			
		

> At the risk of asking a silly question, what's wrong with it?  My ex uses it and it seems fine to me.




it ripped apart 80gb of my mp3s lovingly hadn reared in their little directories by album and flung them across my hard drive organising them by a method of its own making - the worst of it is when i go on messageboards expecting help or even sympathy the most i get is 'aye, but you could have switched that option off'.


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## tarannau (Aug 3, 2007)

Yeah, but you could have  just turned that option off. it's not even hidden away deep in the read me somewhere, it's a blinking obvious check box option.

 

I never really understand the problem with itunes. It's just taken over 80gigs mp3s off 4 separate hds, consolidated them automatically into one file store, organised by album and artist. 

Since then I've run some freeware to eliminate dupes, with the excellent MPFreaker (shareware) churning through my library overnight, adding album covers, lyrics, year of release and other info to the vast majority of the tracks. It's even automatically set up playlists for each individual album.

Pretty effortless really, albeit I'm on a mac.


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## Firky (Aug 3, 2007)

http://www.thejukeboxer.com/



> The JukeBox'er - the ultimate home jukebox system.
> 
> 
> Are you also tired of having all your CDs laying around, every time you are having a party?
> ...


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## Chorlton (Aug 3, 2007)

tarannau said:
			
		

> Yeah, but you could have  just turned that option off.


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## Hoss (Sep 11, 2008)

*Software to organise your music?*

I'm transferring all of music files over to the new Mac and have noticed that the files are not as tidy as I thought.

Anyone know a good piece of free software that will sort media files?

Mediamonkey comes recommended but it is only for PC.

E2A: I can't do it on the PC as it is on it's death bed and everything takes about 1000 years to do.


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 11, 2008)

Er, well, iTunes? It sorts everything into artist/album directories unless you tell it not to.


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

**£"$%ing iTunes - is there an alternative?*

I'm having a bit of trouble with iTunes, which is no longer recognising my ipod.

After putting a few dozen CDs onto iTunes yesterday (win 7 pc) I tried to sync with the ipod classic, but itunes said the device was corrupt and could not be read.

I let itunes do a factory reset and software update on the ipod, and then tried to sync again this morning. It copied about 10 albums and then said the ipod couldn't be recognised and needed to be reformatted for windows.

I've spent about 5 hours trying to fix this now and am getting exasperated. I upgraded to the latest version of itunes and it put a load of other crap on the machine - 200mb - and is running very slowly.

I defragged the hard drive to see if that would help, but still no joy.

Is there a programme that can import my entire itunes library (80gb) and sync painlessly with the ipod? I tried songbird but apparently ipod sync is no longer supported 

Me + iTunes +


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## editor (Mar 19, 2010)

Yes!  Media Monkey is a far superior music player/organiser (although your problem may be with the iPod and not iTunes). 


Ape eats Apple: Why MediaMonkey is an iTunes killer
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-9933993-12.html


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2010)

It might be that your iPod actually _is_ fucked of course.


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

Ah, tried that too but it stopped importing the library after about 500 tracks - maybe the settings were wrong?


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## Crispy (Mar 19, 2010)

itunes on windows is shit  it started bloated and crap, went through a period of being quite good and has gone back to being bloated and crap again 

I blame the iphone - they make itunes do so much now that it's become unwieldy. needs stripping back or separating into multiple products.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2010)

Did you reformat it? It's not the same as factory restore.


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It might be that your iPod actually _is_ fucked of course.



But it was fine until I tried to sync... it's about two years old and gets bashed about a bit but there was nothing to indicate it was on the way out...

Meanwhile, it's syncing again - although it might have frozen because the spinning arrows have stopped.


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Did you reformat it? It's not the same as factory restore.



Do you have to do that in itunes or can I get windows to do it?


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## kained&able (Mar 19, 2010)

.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2010)

iTunes is a dreadful, dreadful product on Windows. MediaMonkey is free, but it's well worth paying for the full version.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2010)

ovaltina said:


> Do you have to do that in itunes or can I get windows to do it?



Ah actually it seems that iTunes does it as part of a factory restore.


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

editor said:


> iTunes is a dreadful, dreadful product on Windows. MediaMonkey is free, but it's well worth paying for the full version.



I'd happily remove itunes and never let it near my PC again but MM didn't import all of my library, just a couple of hundred tracks - might be because it was the free version? Am going to Google a bit more...


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

So when I left to take the dog for a walk it was still syncing, and when i got back there was an error message saying the disc was unreadable. It got as far as the Bs. I'm going to uninstall and try media monkey, which means losing about 20gb of new uploads.


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## WWWeed (Mar 19, 2010)

ovaltina said:


> Is there a programme that can import my entire itunes library (80gb) and sync painlessly with the ipod? I tried songbird but apparently ipod sync is no longer supported :



not painlessly no. if you dont like this shit dont buy propriety apple products! 

sorry I wish I could be more help!


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

WWWeed said:


> not painlessly no. if you dont like this shit dont buy propriety apple products!
> 
> sorry I wish I could be more help!



Well I'm trying MediaMonkey again and it's going well so far - has found 20,000 tracks and imported 5,000, and it's still finding more tracks, so I reckon it might find all 30,000 ish tracks in the itunes library. I was close to wiping the whole thing and starting again but that might not be necessary.

If the ipod doesn't sync with MM then I guess it really is fucked, which means I'll have to use the netbook with an external hard drive as a media player until I can afford to get another MP3 player.

"It just works" my arse.


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## XerxesVargas (Mar 19, 2010)

WWWeed said:


> not painlessly no. if you dont like this shit dont buy propriety apple products!



this is not quite true. It depends on whether you save your music to iTunes as AAC or MP3. The default is AAC, however if you have saved them as MP3's then all you need do is either point your new player at the Itune folders or you may have to drag and drop them to a new location.

If you have saved them as AAC then is proper arse ache to get them into a format to be used elsewhere.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2010)

Any decent player made in the last few years should play AAC. Even my old N73 played them.


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## XerxesVargas (Mar 19, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Any decent player made in the last few years should play AAC. Even my old N73 played them.



Or really? Didn't realise that. I use itunes but I know that Windows Media Player can't play em. So I extrapolated.

Then surely that's even better? Just an import of the data to the new player?


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2010)

That would be because Windows Media Player is a load of old pony. (Even it will play AAC if you install a plugin or something.)


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## XerxesVargas (Mar 19, 2010)

Of course it is, utter shite.

I quite like itunes mind - never had any probs with it at all (and no I'm no apple fan boy).


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## ovaltina (Mar 19, 2010)

Desperate times call for desperate measures - I've reinstalled Windows (a few other things were annoying me) and put MM on it. It's now happily copying across what's left of my mp3s 

The player on MM is really nice, makes the most out of my little USB speakers and makes Kate Bush sound top notch, which of course she is


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## ExtraRefined (Mar 19, 2010)

Foobar 2k is the one true choice


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## mitochondria (Mar 19, 2010)

^^
nothing comes close


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## Sunray (Mar 20, 2010)

I had exactly the same issue with an old iPod I had.  The disk was kippered.   Get to x number of tracks and then would stop letting me put more on.

There is a disk scan on an iPod that can repair the disk sometimes.      

Hold down Menu and Play until it reboots and you see the Apple logo.  As soon as you see the Apple logo, press Rew/Fw/Menu and the center menu "Select" button all at the same time. That will start the full scan.


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## ovaltina (Mar 20, 2010)

Can't get that to work but I've got windows doing a disc scan... will see what it says. Apparently it's not too difficult to replace the HDD in an ipod

http://joshhighland.com/blog/2005/12/24/replacing-the-hardrive-of-an-ipod/


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## ovaltina (Mar 20, 2010)

wtf? Apparently there's a problem with the ipod - Windows disc checker found this:







No idea how Neil Diamond got on there in the first place  

I'm still not getting on with Media Monkey so will see if this fixes it...


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## Sunray (Mar 20, 2010)

That is standard to all iPods from the 2nd generation, might be the wrong keys for your model, try again.  

http://www.command-tab.com/2006/03/30/hidden-ipod-commands/

Need the hard reset then disk mode combo when the apple icon is displayed after the reset.


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## Doctor Carrot (Mar 22, 2010)

Winamp has never let me down.  Can get loads of pretty nifty plugins for it and you can skin it so it looks like this


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## alsoknownas (Apr 5, 2010)

Anyway, anything do a better job at organising a music collection than iTunes?


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## editor (Apr 6, 2010)

alsoknownas said:


> Anyway, anything do a better job at organising a music collection than iTunes?


Yes. Media Monkey.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/

There's a more recent thread on this, so I'll merge this one shortly.


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## alsoknownas (Apr 6, 2010)

editor said:


> Yes. Media Monkey.
> http://www.mediamonkey.com/
> 
> There's a more recent thread on this, so I'll merge this one shortly.


Exactly what I'm looking for, ta.  Apologies for the bump, I did search!


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## kained&able (Apr 6, 2010)

Have i ever mentioned how great songbird is?

http://www.getsongbird.com/

Lots and lots of plugins that go off and find lyrics/tabs/album art and tell you bout the artist and if anyone in your playlists are on tour and seemless last.fm integration and all sorts of clever shit and it plays FLAC and ogg and anything else i have ever thrown at it.

I fucking love songbird.


dave


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## wemakeyousoundb (Apr 6, 2010)

foobar2000


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## mauvais (Apr 6, 2010)

Foobar takes a bit of work customising but it is excellent, _especially_ if you bothered to organise your stuff. Here's mine:






I'll happily provide my copy of configs etc if anyone wants it.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Apr 7, 2010)

If your music is tagged properly foobar will actually organise it for you via masstagger, this is _the one_ software I miss from windows, I haven't tried it via wine yet but I read it works less than thean well that way.


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## boskysquelch (Apr 7, 2010)

Linux co_0mmunity is carrying on where Songbird left...http://getnightingale.org/


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## Kidblast (Apr 12, 2010)

I think that MusicBee deserves a mention.

I've been using it for a month or so with a 2nd Nano and it's really quite excellent.

Handles all your tags etc..

In constant dev by the looks of it, active forum for help.


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## ovaltina (Apr 12, 2010)

I still can't get my bloody ipod working... after lots of tinkering it came up with the error 1439, which is discussed on this forum: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1630117&start=75&tstart=0



> Okay, this is nuts. I got a 120GB iPod as a gift. I am running the latest version of iTunes, and I also have two iphones. Everything is up to date. When I tried to sync my 120GB iPod classic, I got a message that the ipod was corrupt and needed to be restored. The restoration process does not work, and I end up with error 1439 every time. I have tried everything, from different USB jacks, to new cables. I have restarted my computer, reset my ipod, tried to go into disk mode - I even tried (without success) to reformat my ipod - and still - the same error. I have owned ipods for years, and never had any problems. Maddening.
> I have also tried the solutions listed throughout this forum - from retrograding to an old version of itunes, to renewing drivers with the windows batch file. None of this has worked. To make it worse, I tried to return the ipod to Wal Mart, where it was purchased, but they would not take it back. They told me they have had too many problems, and I should send it back to Apple. Thanks for standing behind your stuff Wal Mart.
> APPLE!!!! Fix this crap. This is hurting your reputation more than you can believe. How is it possible that there are thousands of people with this problem, yet no one can come up with a fix? This is seriously lame. Please help!



So... it's either the cable or the wrong version of itunes or the disk needs reformatting or something or whatever.

I can't be arsed - am using CDs instead.


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## fractionMan (May 24, 2010)

*Best music management software*

So I've got a new laptop and there's no music or music software on there right now.  I had winamp previously, but it didn't really keep my music in any sort of sensible order.

What's the best mp3 software to go for?  I'd like to import a bunch of CDs and MP3s.

Windows 7 btw.


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## killer b (May 24, 2010)

i've heard good things about songbird, although i didn't gel with it much myself...


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## flutterbye (May 24, 2010)

mediamonkey


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## souljacker (May 24, 2010)

flutterbye said:


> mediamonkey


 

This


Stay away from Songbird. It's not ready IMO.


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## Orang Utan (May 24, 2010)

iTunes is wicked


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## The Groke (May 24, 2010)

Orang Utan said:


> iTunes is wicked




Not so much under Windows to be honest.

I love it on my Mac, but it pisses me right off on my Windows desktop.


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## Orang Utan (May 24, 2010)




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## fractionMan (May 24, 2010)

Liking the look of mediamonkey.

cheers!


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## editor (May 24, 2010)

*threads merged.

I'm still using Media Monkey, btw. iTunes is horrid.


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## Kanda (May 24, 2010)

Pioneers Recorbox software is now free to download.


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## Kidblast (Jun 30, 2010)

Gapless playback has been an issue for me with Musicbee and I have reverted to Mediamonkey. Great manager and just been updated.


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## gorski (Sep 30, 2010)

None of these, it seems to me, can go to the net and correctly update/replace the incorrect/missing info...

Did you manage to use an app to:

1) correctly and without fail recognise track/artist/album/"style"/etc.

2) embed the information it found in the file, renaming it from "Track 01" etc. to the correct name and so on

3) organise the library accordingly

???

If so, which app can do it and how, please?

MediaMonkey Gold, SongBird, TheGodFather - none worked as I hoped they would...

Even Roxio 2011 Pro, which uses Gracenote, even though it recognised stuff correctly, embedded the info into the files - couldn't rename the file, so one can see the correct name of a track, when browsed with, say, Windows Explorer...

Is there something even more powerful to do the tagging, renaming and organising properly, please?

The reason I am asking is that my Synology's [approximation of] SqueezeBox Centre can only scan a drive/folder/subfolders and recognise what's already in a library but not scan it, go to the net, bring the info back and create a list... Which is what I need, because it would take ages to go through it all album by album and sort it out, "map it" and create lists etc.


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## kained&able (Sep 30, 2010)

ive gone to media monkey as song bird started crashing on me lots and lots.

Which is a shame as its by far the prettiest of the media players.


dave


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## kained&able (Oct 9, 2010)

media mo9nkey is pissing me right off it seems incapable of playing a playlist properly.

Ask it to play a list an hit fast foward and suddenyl its randomly going through my entire libery. what the fuck?

Oh no scratch that its just started randomly adding loads and loads of songs to my playlists that i have definatly not asked it to do.(as in i haven't even played the songs in querstion let alone added them to any playlist)

it's shit an i'm going back to songbird, crashing every so often is preferble to not doing what i tell it to do.


dave


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## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 14, 2010)

gorski said:


> None of these, it seems to me, can go to the net and correctly update/replace the incorrect/missing info...
> 
> Did you manage to use an app to:
> 
> ...


 
something related to http://www.musicbrainz.org would do it, but quite slowly I would have thought especially if you have a massive library.


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## gorski (Oct 14, 2010)

Appreciated! Must do summat in Ubuntu first and then.... Can MP3 sort out other formats, as well, please? Any words of wisdom, from your experience, please?

P.S. I don't mind if it's slow, so long as I don't have to do it manually, one by one...


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## ovaltina (Feb 3, 2011)

So I'm going to have another go at putting all my old CDs onto my computer. I was looking for something that could tag, rip and name CDs automatically - pop the disc in the drive and let it do its thing, then the drive opens when it's done, without me having to press mouse buttons or get involved beyond moving the CDs around. It turns out that Windows Media Centre does this job very well.


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## Fiended*** (Jun 4, 2012)

Microsoft Zune


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## editor (Jun 4, 2012)

Yeah, that was really worth an 18 month bump.


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## Voley (Jun 4, 2012)

Just trying MediaMonkey and it seems to split albums up into blocks of two or three songs, even when the album title's all tagged the same. Weird. Doubt I'll stick with it.


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## MBV (Jun 4, 2012)

I started with Winamp and despite trying others keep returning to it.


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## Voley (Jun 4, 2012)

I think I'll end up sticking with Windows Media Player for all its faults. I like the way you browse by album title, I like the way it'll crossfade tracks and I've got a nice psychedelic visualisation thingy for it. I always end up missing these three things when I use another.


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## Fiended*** (Oct 17, 2012)

7digital apps are the best. can sync your music on all devices soon.


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## Pingu (Oct 17, 2012)

not 8?


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## TopCat (Dec 14, 2012)

I have just started using media monkey. Early days but all seems good thus far.


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## Sasaferrato (Apr 3, 2013)

jæd said:


> Yep... Switched to Itunes yonks ago... Now I can one part of my mp3 collection on one computer and the other on another. Just press play on iTunes and it, well, plays...
> 
> But I think some people either (a) enjoy wasting time or (b) like to be contrary...!


 
Or hate Apple with a passion.


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## Sasaferrato (Apr 3, 2013)

Chorlton said:


> *Music Organising Software*
> 
> I am absoultely never ever again touching iTunes after what it did to my 60 odd gb of music before (taking every 'various' song and giving it a folder of its own) but i would quite like something that makes it nice and easy to search for music on a new shared network drive i have - ideally a windows and a linux soloution - any suggestions?


 
What would it do to my 4Tb then?


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## Crispy (Apr 3, 2013)

Sasaferrato said:


> What would it do to my 4Tb then?


If you untick the "keep my library files organised" option, nothing at all.
If you tick it, a whole world of pain.


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## mwgdrwg (Apr 10, 2013)

I've not had to even think about organising and renaming music since using iTunes. An absolute pleasure to get rid of that pain-in-the-arse job and I must have saved tens of hours


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## TopCat (May 10, 2013)

Music Bee is a brilliant free program.


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## TopCat (May 10, 2013)

TopCat said:


> I have just started using media monkey. Early days but all seems good thus far.


It turned out to be shit


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## The Groke (May 10, 2013)

TopCat said:


> Music Bee is a brilliant free program.


 

Aye it is what I use under Windows - works just fine.


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## ovaltina (Dec 29, 2013)

I'm trying Google Play Music, pretty impressed so far. You upload up to 20,000 tracks to Google and can then access them on any device linked to your Google account, so it works on my Android phone and Chromebook. Ipad app is rubbish though.


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## TopCat (Jan 24, 2014)

I still find that Music bee takes forever to load and slows the whole laptop down. It's shit that I end up using youtube for convenience.


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## Gated (Oct 6, 2014)

Try doubletwist, super easy and free until you get to air syncing, works across android as well which is a nice feature.


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## Mindles$ (Apr 9, 2015)

Anybody else using Kodi? I'm running it on my hudl2 & my laptop .

Awesome


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## friedaweed (Apr 14, 2015)

Mindles$ said:


> Anybody else using Kodi? I'm running it on my hudl2 & my laptop .
> 
> Awesome


Still using the gotham xbmc on mine. Will get round to updating to kodi soon. Have you used istream on it yet?


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## Mindles$ (Apr 16, 2015)

friedaweed said:


> Still using the gotham xbmc on mine. Will get round to updating to kodi soon. Have you used istream on it yet?


I just installed it..not bad...it has the optimus streams!


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## TopCat (Nov 27, 2015)

I'm installing Kodi now. Here's hope.


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## redchris (Mar 2, 2016)

Mindles$ said:


> Anybody else using Kodi? I'm running it on my hudl2 & my laptop .
> 
> Awesome



I used to use XBMC a bit but remember it being a royal pain in the arse to set up.  How is Kodi?  My young un is nagging me to set something up so he can access his movies via his hudl2.  Are there any clear set up instructions you can point me towards?  Thanks.


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## dervish (Mar 2, 2016)

I'd probably use plex over kodi for streaming movies and stuff, requires very little setup and is very easy to use.


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## Mindles$ (Mar 6, 2016)

redchris said:


> I used to use XBMC a bit but remember it being a royal pain in the arse to set up.  How is Kodi?  My young un is nagging me to set something up so he can access his movies via his hudl2.  Are there any clear set up instructions you can point me towards?  Thanks.



Hi

Kodi:
Downloads | Kodi

Add ons for Kodi for movies, sports &tv:
Top 10 Kodi Addons February 2016

I mainly use Kodi to access my music on my PC now as I like the trippy screensaver playing on my big TV & I watch the occasional football match on whatever channel its on & I've recently watched the revenant & hateful8 in 1080p thanks to Phoenix

I use my hudl2 for everyday internet browsing. Did you know tesco have stopped selling them? I was hoping for a hudl3 that took a sim card.

Enjoy


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## redchris (Mar 7, 2016)

Mindles$ said:


> Hi
> 
> Kodi:
> Downloads | Kodi
> ...


Thanks Mindless.  I'll take another look when I get the chance.

I didn't know they'd stopped doing the Hudl. I've had both 1 & 2 for my kid and the 2 in particular is a great tablet for the money.


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## phillm (Mar 5, 2017)

Media Monkey user for over a year with 40k flac files - playback over HDMI to optical Tos splitter to AV amp gives awesome studio quality. Very happy with the library and rating (stars) system. Used foobar before for low-tech great audio but it is really too stone age for me now.


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## sarahjo (Apr 3, 2017)

dervish said:


> I'd probably use plex over kodi for streaming movies and stuff, requires very little setup and is very easy to use.


Is plex free to use worldwide? Or do i need to pay any subscription?


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## dervish (Apr 3, 2017)

No, you can get a plex pass which unlocks certain features and the apps for mobile devices cost about £4 which is reasonable. But the application itself is free.


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## izz (Nov 11, 2018)

Bump ! !

I have an old laptop that I love, irrationally. I've used a mixture of various versions of iTunes and something called mediago which came with a sony Walkman (I love the Walkman, awesome sound quality and mediago allows me to 'throw' music from said old laptop at our Sonos system and play *my* music, which is lovely) _however_, the time to replace old laptop is nigh, has anyone found anything useful for rounding up all music files, identifying what they are and putting them into some kind of order for when I wish to port my collection onto a replacement laptop ?

e2a yes I know people have identified packages up there, upthread, but not for a while and even a couple of months is a long time in software.


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## editor (Nov 11, 2018)

izz said:


> Bump ! !
> 
> I have an old laptop that I love, irrationally. I've used a mixture of various versions of iTunes and something called mediago which came with a sony Walkman (I love the Walkman, awesome sound quality and mediago allows me to 'throw' music from said old laptop at our Sonos system and play *my* music, which is lovely) _however_, the time to replace old laptop is nigh, has anyone found anything useful for rounding up all music files, identifying what they are and putting them into some kind of order for when I wish to port my collection onto a replacement laptop ?
> 
> e2a yes I know people have identified packages up there, upthread, but not for a while and even a couple of months is a long time in software.


MusicBee is still pretty good.


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## phillm (Nov 13, 2018)

JRiver Media is excellent and well worth paying for you can bitstream output directly to a DAC for the best quality. It organises and tags all kinds of media very easily and accurately.

JRiver Media Center


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## editor (Nov 13, 2018)

phillm said:


> JRiver Media is excellent and well worth paying for you can bitstream output directly to a DAC for the best quality. It organises and tags all kinds of media very easily and accurately.
> 
> JRiver Media Center


1999 called and asked for its web interface back


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## Winot (Dec 25, 2018)

Have been using Sooloos for years which was devekoped by Meridian. Then the developers left and set up Roon which is much better. 

Stuck with Sooloos cos couldn’t be arsed to change but they have just stopped supporting Apple 

So have been trying to do a native export of my 1500+ albums which are in Sooloos format into flac so Roon can read them. This has involved:

1. Trying to run software on old Mac and failing. 
2. Remembering old Mac has Windows 7 set up as dual boot. 
3. Remembering how to run Windows.
4. Finding authentication code for Windows
5. Updating Windows
6. Running Sooloos software on Windows
7. Realising HD isn’t formatted for Windows. 
8. Remembering how to format HD. 
9. Running export to HD

Am kind of wishing I just used Spotify.


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