[rajacat]

I'm looking for software that will retroactively scan my hard drive music files and automatically add the album art. It would also be great if it could also include any written info included with the album such as band members, instruments, etc. Thanks in advance.

-Roy

[JRace]

I use:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art


Both manual and automatic searching

Will not do and info though.

[oldmp3]

I would recommend MP3TAG: mp3tag.de/en.  The name is a bit misleading as it tags a large number of different format including mp3, flac, aac, wma, apple lossless, etc.  It works great for me and is free.

From the web site:

"Mp3tag supports online database lookups from, e.g., Amazon, discogs, or freedb, allowing you to automatically gather proper tags and cover art for your music library."

[1000a]

Thanks for this post

starting to get the itch to see album art for my flac files also.

rajacat could you please let us know which one you try out and how it works for you.

thanks

1000a

[rajacat]

Thanks for this post

starting to get the itch to see album art for my flac files also.

rajacat could you please let us know which one you try out and how it works for you.

thanks

1000a

Still evaluating the programs. They're not exactly plug and play for me on my computer.... some installation problems.

-Roy

[1000a]

thanks for the update Roy, are you running XP?

I am a little afraid of trying, I guess I will make a copy folder with just a few albums in it and see how it works for me.
The MP3TAG at a glance sounds easier- but until I try I will not know.  I'm too swamped currently with priority projects
to jump on this yet.

1000a

[BradJudy]

I prefer Album Art Aggregator, although it's dead software, so you have to get it from someone who has it.

I just installed and tried MP3Tag.  It might be good if you need to clean up tags in general, but it's not set up well for just grabbing album art.  Since it always wants to scan all of the tags, it also takes a long time to start up if you have it set for your whole collection directory.  It seems like you have to use it one album or artist directory at a time to be usable. 

I tried Album Art Downloader a while ago and didn't like it as much as AAA. 

[ted_b]

I prefer Album Art Aggregator, although it's dead software, so you have to get it from someone who has it.

I just installed and tried MP3Tag.  It might be good if you need to clean up tags in general, but it's not set up well for just grabbing album art.  Since it always wants to scan all of the tags, it also takes a long time to start up if you have it set for your whole collection directory.  It seems like you have to use it one album or artist directory at a time to be usable. 

I tried Album Art Downloader a while ago and didn't like it as much as AAA. 

Agree.  I LOVE MP3Tag but it's not an automagic album art tool as much as it's a great tagger.  And BradJudy you can point it to larger folders (parent folders) to pull in all the tracks, but yes, you need to do it an album at a time if finding album-based stuff.  It's really best for things like standardizing artist names across many albums, or finding that one album that has Grateful Dead spelled Greatful, or those two R.E.M. downloaded songs listed as R.EM.

I have a zip file of the source code for AAA, but it's here too:
http://www.seorf.ohiou.edu/~ad180/

[rajacat]

I prefer Album Art Aggregator, although it's dead software, so you have to get it from someone who has it.

I just installed and tried MP3Tag.  It might be good if you need to clean up tags in general, but it's not set up well for just grabbing album art.  Since it always wants to scan all of the tags, it also takes a long time to start up if you have it set for your whole collection directory.  It seems like you have to use it one album or artist directory at a time to be usable. 

I tried Album Art Downloader a while ago and didn't like it as much as AAA. 

My experience is the same is yours. Mp3tag was a PITA so I just gave up and deleted it. I haven't been able to find a well designed program that is user friendly and will scan your music files and automatically download cover art for your whole collection. Album Art Downloader wouldn't load on my computer.

 I have Album Art Aggregator but for some reason it doesn't work anymore. It never was very effective to use for batch cover art downloads.


-Roy
-

-Roy

[ted_b]

Is this the same as the Album Art Downloader you refer to (that doesn't load on your pc)?
http://www.unrealvoodoo.org/hiteck/projects/albumart/

[rajacat]

Is this the same as the Album Art Downloader you refer to (that doesn't load on your pc)?
http://www.unrealvoodoo.org/hiteck/projects/albumart/

No, it isn't. I'll give the voodoo a try.

Thanks,

Roy

[BradJudy]

Roy - I don't know of a tool that will do a whole batch automatically.  Given the inconsistency of the available tools, I don't think I'd want an automatic tool.  

[rajacat]

Roy - I don't know of a tool that will do a whole batch automatically.  Given the inconsistency of the available tools, I don't think I'd want an automatic tool.  

Yeah, In retrospect I should have been downloading the cover art from the beginning. Now I have to go back and do each album individually. I'm using EAC. Hmm....does dbPowerAmp download the cover art when you burn to the hard drive? I'll have to check that out.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I've not found any buttons in EAC/dbPowerAmp that loads art along with the tags.
I'm in the same boat as you Roy, very little art in the library.

The though of finding, choosing, and saving art for thousands of albums one by one is dreadful.
On the other hand, I'd worry about a single click of the mouse that relinquishes control of my entire library. 
Imagine the possibilities. 

Bob

[BradJudy]

dbPowerAmp will grab artwork as you rip, but you may need the pay-for version. 

The one that Ted just linked seems decent.  It's similar to AAA, but with more options.  Watch the default settings though, you might want to change the format and add search sources.

[Wayne1]

Bob,

You might want to check which version of dbPowerAmp you have. It has been able to load album art automatically for some time.

You also might want to look into Jaikoz It can automatically find and add album art and auto correct your tags. If you have a large collection, it may take some time, but I have found it well worth the money.

It can also look up songs by their acoustic ID, allowing a song to be identified by the actual music, so it can do a match even if you have no metadata, but that takes a bit longer.

[Bob in St. Louis]

It can also look up songs by their acoustic ID, allowing a song to be identified by the actual music, so it can do a match even if you have no metadata, but that takes a bit longer.

Well that's pretty cool, very useful. I assume it doesn't give a dozen silly "probable options" like some of the software since it actually "hears" the music.

Good point about the version of db I've got, that very well may be the case.
Thanks Wayne,

Bob

[jrebman]

If you get the paid -- a.k.a. "reference" -- version of DbPoweramp it will indeed grab album art automatically, plus it uses 3 or 4 different tagging databases and has intelligent logic for getting the most accurate tag info between the differnt databases.  Two of these databases are paid subscriptions but annual renewal is $5 for the pair.

Also, Quuxplayer has a feature for scanning your library and pulling album art of amazon.  I haven't tried it myself yet as I'm still writin screen reader config files for quux so it works better wiyth speech.

I used to use EAC, but find dbpower amp far more convenient, faster, and more powerful for all but a small handful of trouble discs.  For example, during a typical day I can rip 50 albums or more while I work on other things -- probably twice or 3 times that if I was doing nothing but ripping -- but I think I'd rather shave with a belt sander than do that.

-- Jim