[cloudbaseracer]

Hello Guys,

I have MANY albums that I put on the Sooloos system and now I have downloaded these to use at a different location with a Squeezebox Duet.  The great thing about the Sooloos is all the information that it tags discs with as well as the fact that it makes an mp3 copy of everything.  The problem is that now the files are not really tagged properly, even though all the info is there.

When I open my hard drive I get the following:

MAIN FOLDER LIST



ONE LEVEL INTO RY COODER



CONTENTS OF RY COODER DISC 2



ONE OF THE XML FILES




The thing is that the FLAC files are not labeled correctly but the mp3 files are.  I have downloaded MediaMonkey and had it scan this folder to see what would happen.  It is able to gather the mp3 tagging information correctly but not the FLAC files.  Those files are simple called 01.flac, 02.flac, 03.flac- etc. 

You will also see the large amount of data in the disc 2 folder under the info.xml   XML Document file.  There are several of these type files and this is the first one listed after the cover.jpg file.  Not sure of the difference between each of these xml files.

I am really hoping someone can tell me how to use these FLAC files without having to burn each and every disc again just to get proper tagging.

In reviewing this I can see that it may be difficult for you guys to read the screenshots accurately.  Just let me know if more clarity is needed and I will see what I can do.

Thanks,

James

[cloudbaseracer]

Well I hoped some of you guys would be able to help. Is it that my question is not clear or is it that no one really has an idea of how to correct this? 

I hoped there was a way to rescan and re-tag at the same time?

James

[ted_b]

MP3tag will help with FLAC metadata.  I love it.  Just load the folder, tell it what it is (Ry Cooder, Meeting at the River) and MP3Tag will properly tag it from various sources (Amazon, etc.)

[cloudbaseracer]

Ted,

Ok, I downloaded this program and figured out how to open up Music by Ry Cooder disc 1 folder.  This folder has both the FLAC and correctly Tagged MP3 files in it.  I then highlighted the 18 FLAC files and then selected "Tag Sources"/"FreeDB" and it seems to have gathered the information. 

NOW WHAT?  It seems like it is saved in the Mp3tag program but did not change the information at the original location on my local drive?  That information is still the same as prior to importing. Is this correct?   Am I supposed delete the original and then transfer the "re-tagged" files? 

Also, do I have to do each individual folder?  I have 2300 discs loaded and it would be great if there was a way to scan the whole drive.  The current drive is about 1.2 TB of music so I may have to buy another matching drive to make this happen correctly?  The laptop I am working on has a 60 Gig HD so I wonder what would be the best way to transfer/re-tag?  If I am correct that it imported the original into the Mp3tag program, then it will double the space needed?

Sorry to be so boneheaded with all of this.  I really just want to do it right the first time.

I do appreciate your time and effort!!

James

[ted_b]

Did you hit the save button, and did MP3Tag come back with a "saved 10 of 10 files" or something like that?  You need to save the tags, but the files don't need to be duplicated or swapped or whatever.  The tags should simply appear once you go back to them in the folder.  And yes, you can load larger parent folders into MP3Tag but it still won't help you tag each album (i.e you wouldn't to give 1000 songs the same album name).  Those large batches are good for tagging whole genres (jazz), etc.

[Wayne1]

James,

You may want to take a look at Jaikoz

You will have to pay for full use of the program, but it is the easiest tagging program I have found.

You can select an entire drive and it will scan all the folders, correct them AND find album art for them. It can take many hours for this to be done, but I have found it to do a very good job.

[cloudbaseracer]

Wayne,

Thanks- I will look into that program.  It is too bad that there is not a way to use the information that the Sooloos has already downloaded since it is one of the most complete databases I have ever seen.  It gives cross references of artists that played on the album and all kinds of crazy data. 

Do you see a problem with scanning the whole drive since each artist/album folder has BOTH flac files and MP3 files within it?  Will it edit the MP3 files as well?  There does not seem to be an easy way to separate these out. 

Do you suggest I make a back-up of the drive first? 

James

[JEaton]

Do you see a problem with scanning the whole drive since each artist/album folder has BOTH flac files and MP3 files within it?  Will it edit the MP3 files as well?  There does not seem to be an easy way to separate these out.

I would avoid working on both the FLAC and MP3 files at the same time.  It can be tricky, as the field names aren't the same and Mp3tag maps its own field names to the actual field names in the files.  It's a shame that the Soloos system plunks the MP3 files that it creates into the same folders along side the FLAC files.  But you can also use MP3tag filtering (F3) to only work on the FLAC files.

Do you suggest I make a back-up of the drive first?

Yes, yes, and yes again.  Make a backup before you go screwing around with a powerful tag editor.

As an extension of that... As you develop a method to tag the files that are missing metadata, make a copy of a few folders of files and then work in Mp3tag on those copies until you figure out what you're doing.  Don't work on your main library until you know exactly what you're doing.  Test your methods on copies of files, then test again, and again and again.  Only when you're positive you know exactly what's happening should you unleash it on the whole library.

[cloudbaseracer]

Do you see a problem with scanning the whole drive since each artist/album folder has BOTH flac files and MP3 files within it?  Will it edit the MP3 files as well?  There does not seem to be an easy way to separate these out.

I would avoid working on both the FLAC and MP3 files at the same time.  It can be tricky, as the field names aren't the same and Mp3tag maps its own field names to the actual field names in the files.  It's a shame that the Soloos system plunks the MP3 files that it creates into the same folders along side the FLAC files.  But you can also use MP3tag filtering (F3) to only work on the FLAC files.

Do you suggest I make a back-up of the drive first?

Yes, yes, and yes again.  Make a backup before you go screwing around with a powerful tag editor.

As an extension of that... As you develop a method to tag the files that are missing metadata, make a copy of a few folders of files and then work in Mp3tag on those copies until you figure out what you're doing.  Don't work on your main library until you know exactly what you're doing.  Test your methods on copies of files, then test again, and again and again.  Only when you're positive you know exactly what's happening should you unleash it on the whole library.

Good information about practicing with a few folders.   I have begun to do that just to get my feet wet.  Just played around with the filter (F3) you mentioned and it worked well although I only had one "album" open with both mp3 and flac files within.  It filtered and supplied only flac. 

The MP3 files are properly tagged so I do not need to do anything with them at this time. 

Are you saying there is a way to get the Mp3tag to do the whole drive at one time?  That is to say and still keep the folders properly set-up? If not I am looking at a long process to load each individual album, since many artists have multiple albums within their respective folder.

I am going to try the free trial of Jaikoz as well and see how that is different. 

I want something that will grab the album art and correctly deposit it within the folder.  EVEN THOUGH the jpeg is already there from the Sooloos download it is not being picked up for some reason.  I should clarify, it is not being picked up with the flac version but it does show up on the mp3 version without any additional effort.  They seem to sort things tremendously different between the two formats.

James

[JEaton]

Are you saying there is a way to get the Mp3tag to do the whole drive at one time?  That is to say and still keep the folders properly set-up? If not I am looking at a long process to load each individual album, since many artists have multiple albums within their respective folder.

Yes.  First, make sure that in Mp3tag's options, under General, Subdirectories is checked.  Then you can navigate within Mp3tag to a parent folder and it will load the files in the parent and those in all of the folders below.

Or, from Windows Explorer right-click on the root folder of the drive and select 'Mp3tag' from the Explorer context menu.  This is usually how I load directories in Mp3tag.  If when you installed Mp3tag you didn't select Windows Explorer integration, just run the setup program again and make sure you check 'Explorer Context Menu' as one of the components.  A large library will take a few minutes to load up in Mp3tag as it reads all of the tags - just give it time.

Something else you might want to do is preserve the file modification time of the files that you edit with Mp3tag.  This can be done in the options under 'Tags'.  Some software (such as Squeezebox Server) will use the file modification time to chronologically list 'new' additions to the library.  If you let Mp3tag change the mod time when making tag fixes it causes old albums to bubble up to the top again.

[cloudbaseracer]

Loaded about 5 folders with a few sub-albums in each into the Mp3tag program.  I tried the Freedb Tag Source with all the files highlighted and also with the filter on so only flac files were highlighted.  Once I ran the search I got the following statement:

"The server failed to return a valid query response code"

I selected only the 1st artist but all of the files within that album returned this:

"No suitable entry found for freedb ID 1c195d1b"

Not sure what this means.  It seems that I cannot get the Mp3tag program to do multiple albums/artists.


I have downloaded and tried using the Jaikoz Audio Tagger.  Very complex program with A LOT going on.  I have spent a bit of time with it but don't fully understand it.  Some songs are not recognized at all which is strange.  I also see no way to just filter and then save only the FLAC files?

This is turning in to quite a task!  I am open for any more guidance that can be given.

Thanks,
James

[doctorcilantro]

As a long time user of J. River, I can vouch for Jaikoz. More intuitive than Picard; a few bugs though. Still, very powerful tool. I've tagged about 25K of my .flac files with lyrics.

Honestly, trying to scan 100K files at a time, which means it tries to pull an acoustic fingerprint for each file, will take a long time. Even with tools this powerful, you're going to have to get your hands dirty and it will take some time.

James,

You may want to take a look at Jaikoz

You will have to pay for full use of the program, but it is the easiest tagging program I have found.

You can select an entire drive and it will scan all the folders, correct them AND find album art for them. It can take many hours for this to be done, but I have found it to do a very good job.

Regarding cover art, it sounds like the Soloos is not embedding/writing the cover art to the tags (like J. River can do), but I think that is the default for mp3, or maybe mp3 is configure to look for folder.jpg in the disk location, can't remember. You could use J. River (Jukebox is free) or maybe mp3tag to look at that metadata field. In J. River it is the Image field. I think Jaikoz writes covert art to the file (metadata); I would hope so. When I tag images with cover art in J. River I have it written to the tags, and stored in the folder just for the hell of it.

[doctorcilantro]

I can understand your frustration. I have most of my archives well tagged but there is a lot to both correct and customize.

I use custom genres and a few custom fields to faciltate organization the way I want in my J. River setup.

One thing the full version of J. River has is something akin to MusicBrainz, but it is there propriety user database. It's growing but by no means as depp as MB.

I tried to tag 3 comp. albums in Jaikoz the other day. Ended up with data from other comps being pulled in which was very frustrating. Honestly, it was faster to just use Fill Properties From Filename in J. River.

I foresee using Jaikoz just for Lyrics & Year fields and for albums that I know are just completely lacking any metadata at all.

Essential tool to have but the fact ot the matter is, imo, that metadata means getting down and dirty. I don't like some of the conventions found on MusicBrainz, and it seems there is really no standard. I always find my self adding or changing metadata even after tagging with Jaikoz.

Still, I bought a license last week for $22.

Loaded about 5 folders with a few sub-albums in each into the Mp3tag program.  I tried the Freedb Tag Source with all the files highlighted and also with the filter on so only flac files were highlighted.  Once I ran the search I got the following statement:

"The server failed to return a valid query response code"

I selected only the 1st artist but all of the files within that album returned this:

"No suitable entry found for freedb ID 1c195d1b"

Not sure what this means.  It seems that I cannot get the Mp3tag program to do multiple albums/artists.


I have downloaded and tried using the Jaikoz Audio Tagger.  Very complex program with A LOT going on.  I have spent a bit of time with it but don't fully understand it.  Some songs are not recognized at all which is strange.  I also see no way to just filter and then save only the FLAC files?

This is turning in to quite a task!  I am open for any more guidance that can be given.

Thanks,
James