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Music and computers entry level question


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This is my first post.

 

In fact it is my first attempt to handle my music files. Over the years I have collected albums on my computer - I suspect most of the files are .mp3.

 

I recently bought a smartphone transferred some of these files to it, and tried to play them. I am using N7 player, and whilst they are copied into folders on the sd card the songs are all over the place in the software ie multiple track 1's etc. The files are stored in SDcard/audio/music/artist name, and the artist name is a name I have given it eg fmac for Fleetwood Mac.

 

I believe that my problem concerns some standardised information that are held about each track, and the music software looks for this info in order to organise the music. I have never done anything about this and need to do something about it now.

 

It might be better for me to manually enter stuff for each track etc.

 

I don't know where to start looking to solve this problem as I do not know the appropriate terminology. Please can someone suggest a URL that explains this, and might help guide me through the mess.

 

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best,

BillZ

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I have downloaded and installed media monkey. It has "catalogued" my albums. I also notice that it could have accessed my smartphone. Can I use this software to copy files to the sd card on my smartphone so that N7player will recognise the files?

 

BillZ

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I believe that my problem concerns some standardised information that are held about each track, and the music software looks for this info in order to organise the music. I have never done anything about this and need to do something about it now.

 

It might be better for me to manually enter stuff for each track etc.

 

I don't know where to start looking to solve this problem as I do not know the appropriate terminology. Please can someone suggest a URL that explains this, and might help guide me through the mess.

Tags & tagging - good place to start:

The Well-Tempered Computer

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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I have begun work on this. I have downloaded MP3tag. All my music is in a folder bzmusic, and I have catalogued the music files using MP3tag. And the result is a long list of filenames many of which just list track 1,2,3 etc. And there are many fields that are blank. I don't know whether this is a sensible question but which fields are important?

 

More specifically with reference to N7player.

 

When I open N7player it shows a tag cloud with a list of artists (there is a choice of genre as well) - I think this corresponds to the artist column in MP3tag. I think the information for album is also transferred.

 

Another screen shows "album covers" but these are sporadic and erroneous. Mostly they are blank film reels but one picture is that of Douglas Adams "Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy".

 

So my question is what is really necessary to add to my own MP3tag database to make what appears in N7player more informative?

 

Bill Z

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I can answer in part myself. I changed the name of an artist, deleted the file on the smartphone, copied it across with the new tag, and it showed the new name in the tag cloud on N7player. This is good news for me.

 

I can see some light.

 

So are there any shortcuts such as databases already done on the internet. Typically I have an album "after the goldrush" by Neil Young and it does not show track names, how would I find the titles of the tracks? Do I have to enter titkes of all the tracks manually or is there a quick way?

 

What do I do about album covers?

 

Thanks again, Cebolla, this is what I was after.

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If you still have the original music on cds you might consider reripping them with a program that automatically fills in the tags while it is ripping--most programs do this as long as the computer you're using is connected to the internet at the time.

 

Chris

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Chris, Thanks for the idea. A good half of my stuff is rips from my own CD's and at the time I never bothered with all this tagging as I never had a use for it. Now that I am using the smartphone as a player I have a problem with the 50 track 1's!!!

 

Anyway I have bitten the bullet, and have decided to organise everything - 36 GB!!

 

I am mainly using MP3Tag and getting covers from Amazon with MP3Tag - seems to be working. I just hope when I've finished and the stuff is on the phone I don't find I have to edit everything again!!

 

In a way it's fun as I click on the music. :)

 

Bill Z

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If you have all your music without tags; MusicBrainz Picard - MusicBrainz may actually be a better application than MP3Tag for you. You can also get MP3Tag to add artist and album title from the folder names if you are currently storing music in an <<Artist/Album name>> folder structure.

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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Eloise,

 

Thanks for this.

 

"<<Artist/Album name>> folder structure." MP3Tag has done that for some of my files so I guess I was lucky. I am going to stick with the MP3Tag, it is slow going but I am getting there - on artists beginning with K now. It would take me time to get used to something different. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Bill Z

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