Recommended tagging utilities

[SoundAdikt]

Folks,

Last night I finally got round to sorting out some of my compilation albums that were incorrectly tagged, ie. COMPILATION with a value of 1. I primarily use Linux but really struggled to find a solution that would work reliably over an SMB based shared drive to my Synology drive. Yes, they could see the files although almost all I tried didn't show the mapped drive in the open file dialogue - I had to rummage into /run/user/1000/gvfs/ and from there, select the mapped drive. All failed at being able to save updated tag file properly - meaning EasyTag, Kid3 and MusicBrainz Picard - I gave up trying others.

Under VMware I then tried the trusty MediaMonkey under Windows. This has no problem accessing the shared folders but I couldn't find a way of setting the COMPILATION tag. I can change the dialogue to change CUSTOM1 to COMPILATION under options, but this only changed the dialogue, the file is still tagged with CUSTOM1. Eventually, I resorted to using MP3TAG under Windows which worked fine, but crikey - what a large amount of effort for something that should really be not that difficult.

Thoughts welcome.

SoundAdikt.

[rompolompo]

This is the fastest one I had tagging files over SMB shares:

http://qoobar.sourceforge.net/en/index.htm

[Glandwr]

I use MP3tag and am very pleased with it's capabilities especially now I'm refining my metadata as the filtering function is excellent. The easiest way is to list all my tracks by starting at the upper 'FLAC' directory and filter out those I'm interested in, but as my music is on a NAS and accessed via WiFi, it can take a while to load (and I've only got 5000 tracks so far). I'm interested in Qoobar as a comparison...

[DavidHB]

(30-09-2016 09:46)Glandwr Wrote:  I use MP3tag and am very pleased with it's capabilities especially now I'm refining my metadata as the filtering function is excellent. The easiest way is to list all my tracks by starting at the upper 'FLAC' directory and filter out those I'm interested in, but as my music is on a NAS and accessed via WiFi, it can take a while to load (and I've only got 5000 tracks so far). I'm interested in Qoobar as a comparison...

I haven't tried Qoobar (nor feel the need as MP3Tag is so good), but the speed of access will be a function of your network rather than the software, and will (as you have surmised) inevitably get slower as your collection grows. My answer to this problem is twofold.

Firstly, I organise the folder structure within the music directory on the basis of Genre > Composer > Album (for classical music) or Genre > Artist > Album (for all other genres). This allows me, more often than not, to select a subset of the library to work on, so that the MP3Tag grid populates quickly. I still use filtering on the subset. One oddity of MP3Tag is that its own file selection dialog does not allow the selection of multiple folders at the top level, but if you select multiple folders in File Explorer and open them in MP3Tag via the context menu, this works perfectly well.

My other (in fact my main) method is to keep two copies of the music library - the master copy on the desktop and the production copy on the NAS. All ripping, downloading and tagging is done in the master library. I also run MinimServer on the desktop, so that I can rescan there and identify any issues in the master library from the log. Then, using SyncToy, I synchronize the master copy with the production copy, and rescan the latter. This process automatically generates a backup and is much less dependant on network speed.

I hope these thoughts are of interest.

David

[Glandwr]

Absolutely of interest David. Thanks.
I now like MP3tag very much thanks to your previous help and I realise that the network is a limiting factor, but " if you select multiple folders in File Explorer and open them in MP3Tag via the context menu, this works perfectly well." is another little gem which could work for me - great.
I haven't used Genre in my folder structure so I will also consider that when I've got the whole Genre thing ironed out; what a dilemma!
Any tips on a good 'standard' or spec. for non-classical genres appreciated

[rompolompo]

I always tag the files on my desktop before moving them to the NAS. Makes my life much better.

[DavidHB]

(30-09-2016 12:20)Glandwr Wrote:  Absolutely of interest David. Thanks.

My pleasure. It's good to share this stuff.

(30-09-2016 12:20)Glandwr Wrote:  I now like MP3tag very much thanks to your previous help and I realise that the network is a limiting factor, but " if you select multiple folders in File Explorer and open them in MP3Tag via the context menu, this works perfectly well." is another little gem which could work for me - great.

I'd been using MP3Tag for more than a year before I discovered the trick, by accident. Why the MPTag dialog doesn't allow multiple selections is a mystery.

(30-09-2016 12:20)Glandwr Wrote:  I haven't used Genre in my folder structure so I will also consider that when I've got the whole Genre thing ironed out; what a dilemma!

Genre is something you can easily over-think. If you don't do classical music, you may well not need it in your folder structure in any case. I have it because I need different structures for the different genres.

Not everyone would agree, but I've found it easier to divide my collection into a small number of 'top level' genres - classical, jazz, folk, world, pop etc. Apart from the folder and tagging schemes, the primary use of this categorisation is to filter out those items that are obviously not relevant to my current search.

(30-09-2016 12:20)Glandwr Wrote:  Any tips on a good 'standard' or spec. for non-classical genres appreciated.

There is no one 'right' answer, just what works for you. The really good thing about MinimServer is that it allows you to follow different browsing paths as occasion warrants or as the fancy takes you - essentially, you are limited only by which tags are populated and in the indexTags setting. As new thoughts about browsing occur to you, you can edit the tags and change the indexTags property, and, after a rescan, the new browsing options are ready for use.

A good starting point is to think how you preferred to arrange the CDs on the shelf, and how you selected the CD you wanted to play. At the very least, your Control Point, supported by MinimServer, should be able to mimic that process. And always make sure that your Artist, Album and Track Title tags include any terms on which you like to search; a search is often much quicker than going through a lot of browsing steps.

David

[Glandwr]

Great stuff David, thanks again.

PS
I'm busy adding AlbumArtist to all my albums! EAC doesn't automatically populate this so all my early ripping is without it and I have quite a few Various artist albums so selecting Artist presents quite a choice!

[SoundAdikt]

(22-09-2016 18:33)rompolompo Wrote:  This is the fastest one I had tagging files over SMB shares:

http://qoobar.sourceforge.net/en/index.htm

Interesting - this still doesn't work for me, I can see the network share, I can access files but it still fails when writing any changes back. Not sure what is happening here, in Neutilus, with the same network share, I can create files, directories, etc. so it would appear I have the right privileges. For the moment, I'm sticking with mp3tag under Windows.

Thanks.

[SoundAdikt]

I've just moved to Mac now, using brew (package manager) and cask (install GUI apps) mp3tag is available using Wine under the covers. It works fine and now my collection of files are now reasonably well tagged, in particular my compilations and genres which were previously all over the place.

SoundAdikt.