[djdube525]

I figured people here have their favorites... so that said....

I've pretty much ripped the entire CD collection to FLAC using EAC.

I ended up pulling information from Freedb. As a result there are many cases where ID3 tags need to be updated.
For instance, on some CDs, the artist was listed as Lastname, Firstname whereas others are Firstname Lastname.

Genre's is another area of annoyance.

I typically store music (directory structure wise) as:
./FLAC/Artist/Album (then Disc One/Disc two if applicable)

It would be nice to select multiple files, then update all the ID3 tags as possible at one time.
In otherwords, select all the files that are by Dave Mathews Band, select all the applicable files,
and then apply the common artist name to all files... the same genre to all files, etc.

Any advice/suggestions are appreciated!

Dave

[bprice2]

MP3 Tag is the one I use and it will easily do what you described.  It's also free.  Check it out.

[Wayne1]

Look into Jaikoz

It is not free, but it is very reasonable.

It does support automated re-tagging and fixing album art.

It uses MusicBrainz database. If it cannot find your song in there in can compare it with an Acoustic ID.

Very powerful and very easy.

It does take a long time to go through large collections, but I feel it to be worth it.

[djdube525]

Thanks guys!

Wayne - Quick Q...

Jaikoz... it sounds like you point it to your collection, and then sit back and let er rip? Interesting.

Also... you menion fixing album art. I was adding cover pages via a util I found... is there a "standard" size one should use or doesn't really matter? I've seen 300x300ish pixels as well as 500x500ish pixels...

Hopefully, will get a chance to try at least one of these (late night last night - could use some rest).

Dave

[Wayne1]

Dave,

You can choose what you want Jaikoz to look at and fix. Such as genres, album titles, artists or everything.

You can highlight particular songs, albums, artists or a whole drive.

Click on it and walk away. Give it a few (many) hours if you have a large drive.

I have both 500x500 and 300x300. It just depends what is available. My display on the DUET Controller will resize it to fit.

[Bob in St. Louis]

MP3 Tag is the one I use and it will easily do what you described.  It's also free.  Check it out.

This is the one I use. Seems to work very well as you can use the [shift] or [ctrl] keys to highlight the groups you want to edit.
My only beef with it, is that every time you open the software it has to re-scan the entire drive. Which of course, depends on how large your drive is and how full it is. If it's a biggie.....you better go have a potty break, cause it's going to be a while.
Other than that, it works great.

Bob

[andy_c]

My only beef with it, is that every time you open the software it has to re-scan the entire drive.

I had this problem at first, but it's easily defeated in the options dialog.

Just go to Tools, Options and select General.  Uncheck "subdirectories" and that problem goes away.  Also, it helps to choose a "favorite directory" in this dialog, and enable "start from this directory".

[Bob in St. Louis]

EXCELLENT! 
Thank you very much Andy, that's GREAT to know!!!!!!!

Normally, I would say "You 'da man", but I've already said that once today.
Can't do it twice. 

Bob

[andy_c]

EXCELLENT! 
Thank you very much Andy, that's GREAT to know!!!!!!!

The only downside to this comes about when you really want to show all the files in some directory and all subdirectories underneath it.  To do that, first navigate to the desired parent directory, then go into options, general again and enable "subdirectories".  Then hit F5 (refresh), or click the "refresh file view" button, or do a "view, refresh".  After doing this, don't forget to go back and uncheck "subdirectories" again.  This is a bit clunky, and I wish there was a special "refresh subdirectories" button and/or menu option.

[JEaton]

The only downside to this comes about when you really want to show all the files in some directory and all subdirectories underneath it.  To do that, first navigate to the desired parent directory, then go into options, general again and enable "subdirectories".  Then hit F5 (refresh), or click the "refresh file view" button, or do a "view, refresh".  After doing this, don't forget to go back and uncheck "subdirectories" again.  This is a bit clunky, and I wish there was a special "refresh subdirectories" button and/or menu option.

The way I use Mp3tag the majority of the time is to work on either one album (one folder) or one artist (a folder and its subfolders).  The way I call up Mp3tag 99.9% of the time is to use the right-click (context) menu in Windows Explorer.  Find the folder that you want to work on, right-click it, then choose 'Mp3tag' and it will load only the files in that folder.  I leave the Mp3tag subdirectories option enabled so that if I'm working on all of an artist's albums, they're all loaded at once.  Even if that's a couple dozen albums it takes only few seconds on a reasonably quick PC.

It's extremely rare that you'll perform a tagging operation on your entire library in Mp3tag, so there should be no reason to enter the program with the whole library loaded.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Great advise fellas. Thank you. 

The only exception to the last post is when you're updating genre tags. Then it's helpful to have the entire library on the screen.

Bob

[djdube525]

Finally got to looking at this a bit more. Downloaded MP3 Tag and am giving it a spin now...

The first objective is to make the artist name and genre consistent... and I can say for that
this program is working rather nicely.

Thanks all for the recommendation!

Dave