What do you use to catalog your mp3s?

[Psyber]

Posted a similar question on Programming forum, but only got 3 responses, hopefully someone on ATOT would have some more insight.

What's the best program to catalog mp3s? Something that is simple to use and set up
where I don't have to do much manual data entry. I prefer a free one, but if it's really
good and reasonably priced I might pay for it.

So far someone suggested I go to webattack and download some of those and a couple ppl told me to get musicbrainz. Any experience from others using musicbrainz or webattack apps.

I figured it'd be best to post this detail on the top:
I currently organize them by folder (the files in these folders have good names, but the meta tags are a bit screwed up)
/music/genre/

However, I have an unsorted directory where the metatags AND files names are screwed up. I'm a bit too lazy to manually organize them. I heard that there are programs that help you rename your meta tags and/or file names intelligently. I am also looking for some type of jukebox system that will organize my mp3s by genre, artist, year, or whatever attribute for that matter.

More Detail:
Tag&Rename seems really promising. Anyone have any more jukebox-like programs they can recommend? And I am on windows so I can't use Itunes.

On a different note.... has anyone used mp3gain? is it reliable? Should I have the program create a backup before adjusting volume?

Thanks for the all the input so far!!!

 

[Mr N8]

Its called Windows Media Player. Nice and easy.

 

[Psyber]

Originally posted by: MogulMonster
Its called Windows Media Player. Nice and easy.

Do you mean version 9? I'm using 7 because I don't like how version 8 shows the play controls when I play movies, haven't used 9 yet.

 

[Viper GTS]

Nothing.

We have a shared folder on our network.

T:\Music\Artist\Album\Artist - Album - Track # - Title.mp3

45 gigs worth, 90% ripped & encoded by us at 320 VBR.

Viper GTS

 

[waylman]

Sadly, Windows doesn't have anything that comes close to ITunes. I use MusicMatch Jukebox. It's pretty good.

 

[piku]

I just have EAC rip everything in Track # - Artist - Track Name format then place them into a artist/album directory hierarchy.

 

[Sid59]

i don't bother ...

Artist (year) Album

i usually know what artist i want to hear, not genre.

 

[Mr N8]

Originally posted by: Psyber

Originally posted by: MogulMonster
Its called Windows Media Player. Nice and easy.

Do you mean version 9? I'm using 7 because I don't like how version 8 shows the play controls when I play movies, haven't used 9 yet.

Yeah, I use 9. You can hide the controls or skin it, so you don't see them. I really only use it when I want to search by genre.

 

[randomlinh]

WMP8 will hide the controls... it's an option somewhere... i think it does it by default, just don't have your mouse over the controls and it pulls away.

anyway, i rip everything as Artist/Album/Artist (##) Title.mp3. there, categorized

 

[dman]

Just have file folder w/ category (rock, pop, country, jazz, classical, etc) and in there by artist - song name.

I try to avoid album dirs, for same reason I don't like full albums, most songs are crap. (Some albums are an exception, but, even on the best ones there's usually a song or two I don't care for).

 

[WinkOsmosis]

What do you mean "catalog your mp3s"? I don't understand... do you want them all listed in a book or what? I keep my mp3s in folders. I add these folders to Winamp playlist to listen. What more do you need?

 

[Flatline]

Directories

 

[FuzzyBee]

Originally posted by: piku
I just have EAC rip everything in Track # - Artist - Track Name format then place them into a artist/album directory hierarchy.

same here, but w/o the artist name in the track title

 

[Psyber]

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
What do you mean "catalog your mp3s"? I don't understand... do you want them all listed in a book or what? I keep my mp3s in folders. I add these folders to Winamp playlist to listen. What more do you need?

I currently organize them by folder (the files in these folders have good names, but the meta tags are a bit screwed up)
/music/genre/

However, I have an unsorted directory where the metatags AND files names are screwed up. I'm a bit too lazy to manually organize them. I heard that there are programs that help you rename your meta tags and/or file names intelligently. I am also looking for some type of jukebox system that will organize my mp3s by genre, artist, year, or whatever attribute for that matter.

 

[notfred]

I use iTunes.

 

[pennylane]

I rip my albums using EAC with the format: "Artist - Year - Track Number - Track Title" for albums. I do classical music a little differently. "Composer - Track Title" (I put artist as part of the album).

I use this to tag.

When I rip to mp3 or ogg, I sort it with directories. I put albums and classical music in different directories. With albums, I make a directory for each artist, then sub-directories for each album. Then I make a playlist for each album.

My directories for albums look like: My Music\MP3\Albums\"Artist Name"\"Album Name."
The playlists would be found in: My Music\MP3\Albums

With classical music, I put a directory for each composer with no sub-directories (I may change this later).

My directories for classical music looks like: My Music\MP3\Classical\"Composer Name"

I find this works extremely well. I know where everything is. I know everything I have. I suppose there could be a problem if most of the mp3s you have are downloaded, but mine aren't so I'm good.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Originally posted by: Psyber

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
What do you mean "catalog your mp3s"? I don't understand... do you want them all listed in a book or what? I keep my mp3s in folders. I add these folders to Winamp playlist to listen. What more do you need?

I currently organize them by folder (the files in these folders have good names, but the meta tags are a bit screwed up)
/music/genre/

However, I have an unsorted directory where the metatags AND files names are screwed up. I'm a bit too lazy to manually organize them. I heard that there are programs that help you rename your meta tags and/or file names intelligently. I am also looking for some type of jukebox system that will organize my mp3s by genre, artist, year, or whatever attribute for that matter.

You can edit the tags with Tag and Rename or whatever that program is called.

 

[Derango]

Originally posted by: piku
I just have EAC rip everything in Track # - Artist - Track Name format then place them into a artist/album directory hierarchy.

You stole my organizational method!

 

[ViperVin2]

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis

Originally posted by: Psyber

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis What do you mean "catalog your mp3s"? I don't understand... do you want them all listed in a book or what? I keep my mp3s in folders. I add these folders to Winamp playlist to listen. What more do you need?

I currently organize them by folder (the files in these folders have good names, but the meta tags are a bit screwed up) /music/genre/ However, I have an unsorted directory where the metatags AND files names are screwed up. I'm a bit too lazy to manually organize them. I heard that there are programs that help you rename your meta tags and/or file names intelligently. I am also looking for some type of jukebox system that will organize my mp3s by genre, artist, year, or whatever attribute for that matter.

You can edit the tags with Tag and Rename or whatever that program is called.

Tag&Rename - a really good prog.. saved me so much time when i was fixing my tags

 

[Sid59]

here you go ... taken from my EAC

%D (%Y) %C\%D - %C (%N) %T

mppenc.exe
--quality 7 --xlevel --ape2 --artist "%a" --title "%t" --album "%g" --year "%y" --track "%n" --genre "%m" --comment "rip by sid --q7 --xlevel" %s

bat file for replaygain
replaygain.exe --auto .\
sweep "replaygain.exe --listallreport .\ > Replaygain.txt"
dir /d > sid.txt

all self contained.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Originally posted by: Flatline
Directories

Same here. I just use EAC and name them Artist - Track - Title, then put them in C:\My Documents\My CD's\Artist Name - Albulm Title\

I tried making a folder for each artist, then putting all of their albulms in there but I didn't like it. I usually listen to stuff at random, and that was one more click than I was having to do before. It sounds lazy (and it probably is), but that adds up to alot of clicking.

 

[Psyber]

Tag&Rename seems really promising. Anyone have any more jukebox-like programs they can recommend? And I am on windows so I can't use Itunes.

On a different note.... has anyone used mp3gain? is it reliable? Should I have the program create a backup before adjusting volume?

Thanks for the all the input so far!!!

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: dman
Just have file folder w/ category (rock, pop, country, jazz, classical, etc) and in there by artist - song name.

I try to avoid album dirs, for same reason I don't like full albums, most songs are crap. (Some albums are an exception, but, even on the best ones there's usually a song or two I don't care for).

Exactly

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: piku
I just have EAC rip everything in Track # - Artist - Track Name format then place them into a artist/album directory hierarchy.

Same here... I use CDex for ripping

 

[phreakah]

i have all 4,000 mp3's named 1.mp3 thru 4000.mp3 in a folder called mp3's