MP3 organizer

[fustercluck]

Looking for a way to organize my mp3 collection. I only listen to it on the computer, and via Winamp. Getting album art for as many tracks as possible would be nice. Along with auto-updating the tags. Winamp has some features that are supposed to be able to do this, but they don't work very well. Any good software out there for this sort of thing? I don't want it to screw up anything either

I don't know if there's anything that can really help more than annoy me in some way. I might just have to do it all manually to get things to my liking.

 

[stlcardinals]

I know many people like to use MediaMonkey.

 

[Gooberlx2]

If your tags are mostly intact, most of the organizers should work fairly well (WMP, iTunes, Zune, MediaMonkey, Winamp, etc...).

If not, are the files at least in a consistent folder structure? That way you can use something like mp3tag to fill in the tags from the folders.

Auto-getting cover art is probably the biggest hassle, but it's at least a LOT easier if good tags are there.

 

[MJinZ]

Welcome to 21st century where people use iTunes.

Winamp. Lol, I remember that... when I was 10 years old.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Welcome to 21st century where people use iTunes.

Winamp. Lol, I remember that... when I was 10 years old.

Well, Winamp can operate pretty much the same way as a media library manager. My guess is the OP's files aren't well tagged, which creates lots of issues bringing his old music up to snuff for management via library.

I remember what a PITA it was manually re-tagging my music, album by album, when I switched from the "old ways" of manual/folder-based music management to the "rip it, tag it and forget it" ways of Media Library management.

In my case I used a batch tagging program (id3tagit I think, mp3tag is better now) to tag files from my folder structure, and then the "find album info" feature inside WMP to fill in the rest of the data and grab cover art.

 

[fustercluck]

Welcome to 21st century where people use iTunes.

Winamp. Lol, I remember that... when I was 10 years old.

People use itunes on their desktop?

I'm stickin with good ole' winamp. Newer isn't better.

Thanks for the program names. My tags are hallllllright but I'm sure they could be much improved.

 

[TheStu]

People use itunes on their desktop?

I'm stickin with good ole' winamp. Newer isn't better.

Thanks for the program names. My tags are hallllllright but I'm sure they could be much improved.

It is the file vs library concept. WMP12 and Zune are the same as iTunes in that regard. They are all about managing a LIBRARY of files, where you only deal with the music via the player, not messing with the files and folders, you let the program handle the rest.

WMP used to have a pretty good tagging and artwork system, not sure if it still is there or how good it is if it is, but you might want to check that.

 

[Gooberlx2]

It is the file vs library concept. WMP12 and Zune are the same as iTunes in that regard. They are all about managing a LIBRARY of files, where you only deal with the music via the player, not messing with the files and folders, you let the program handle the rest.

WMP used to have a pretty good tagging and artwork system, not sure if it still is there or how good it is if it is, but you might want to check that.

I have no idea why, but MS removed the advanced (mass) tag editor in WMP12. 'Find Album Info' works well though.

 

[TheStu]

I have no idea why, but MS removed the advanced (mass) tag editor in WMP12. 'Find Album Info' works well though.

Alright, well not nearly as fast as it could be, but at least doing it an album at a time will still save some time.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

MP3Tag works really well. It does album art too.

 

[fustercluck]

who's the winner between MP3tag and media monkey?

 

[fustercluck]

Anyway I can copy all the songs on my winamp playlist into another directory? I wanna keep a backup of my mp3s incase something goes haywire. I got a buttload of MP3s on my computer but only care to backup the ones on my 'best of' playlist. I don't want to go through manually and pick them out.

 

[BlueWeasel]

who's the winner between MP3tag and media monkey?

I prefer MP3tag, but I don't see it as being great if you have a bunch of random songs with no tags. It works wonderfully for getting complete tag information and album art for complete albums, though.

 

[fustercluck]

Hrm I don't quite get how to use MP3tag or media monkey (both of which are very similar, btw). I was hoping the programs would go through my mp3s and auto tag them/download album art as much as they could but they both seem to want me to do it one track at a time. Hope there's a way to tag a whole MP3 folder at once. Bout 850 tracks in there.

 

[billyb0b]

itunes is bloatware

winamp went to crapware once they started packaging it with so much extra crap

try AIMP2, it's very nice!

 

[fustercluck]

itunes is bloatware

winamp went to crapware once they started packaging it with so much extra crap

try AIMP2, it's very nice!

Looks like it's just a media player and doesn't auto-tag or aquire album art or anything like that.

Winamp is still winamp if you just disable all the new extra bullcrap they've added over the years.

 

[zerogear]

Winamp is actually fairly good at autotagging stuff -- as gracenote is much more accurate than freedb. Though I personally like pulling tags from Amazon.com (MediaMonkey) and it auto downloads covers into the ID3 Tag and save it as folder.jpg so the folder shows the album art.

 

[fustercluck]

Winamp is actually fairly good at autotagging stuff -- as gracenote is much more accurate than freedb. Though I personally like pulling tags from Amazon.com (MediaMonkey) and it auto downloads covers into the ID3 Tag and save it as folder.jpg so the folder shows the album art.

Do you have to manually work with it on every mp3 though? I was hoping MediaMonkey or MP3tag would do their best to tag/album art my whole collection and then I could clean up the guess work.

 

[wirednuts]

i still SWEAR by jrmediajukebox/jrmediacenter. it does large music collections good. mediajukebox is free and mediacenter isnt expensive and comes with mp3 encoders and such, to make transferring songs to your mp3 players easy as pie. forget itunes, that software is crummy.

 

[fustercluck]

Just for the record OP never mentioned iTunes and an option

 

[Gooberlx2]

Hope there's a way to tag a whole MP3 folder at once. Bout 850 tracks in there.

Single folder with no organization consistency for filenames or subfolders denoting album/artist/track# etc...? That makes it hard for any program.

You could use something like musicbrainz, which utilizes acoustic fingerprinting. Even then, it's not incredibly accurate.

 

[zerogear]

Do you have to manually work with it on every mp3 though? I was hoping MediaMonkey or MP3tag would do their best to tag/album art my whole collection and then I could clean up the guess work.

No, but I do it by albums, I only tag individually if there is something wrong with the tags on the mp3.