jprobs on 21/2/2006 at 03:59
I am not really arguing with you Tonamel, you bring up an interesting point. I myself have alot of MP3s stored on my main PC. If I am sitting in the office working and I want to listen to Heavy I open up network places, go to my shared drive, hold CTRL and select Iron Maiden, Helloween, Metal Church, Testament, etc until what I want is highlighted. In explorer under music tasks, I hit "play selection"..check off shuffle on Windows Media player and I am set for many hours of uninterrupted random music. If I am in an 80s hair mood, select Motley Crue, Ratt, Dokken, etc....
Point is, I have spent alot of time organizing my MP3 files instead of trying to find a perfect media player to do what I want. I don't really see a need to have a "super" playlist. I make it as I need it.:thumb:
aguywhoplaysthief on 21/2/2006 at 04:14
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
a 35,000 mp3 library
I take it that you're not much of a music fan?
Scots Taffer on 21/2/2006 at 04:22
I take it your sense of humour was surgically removed?
Tonamel on 21/2/2006 at 04:42
Quote Posted by jprobs
Point is, I have spent alot of time organizing my MP3 files instead of trying to find a perfect media player to do what I want. I don't really see a need to have a "super" playlist. I make it as I need it.:thumb:
Yeah, I've got my mp3s organized by genre and artist, which is really the only way to do it if you want to find files quickly and easily. The problem is that I don't (often) listen to my music that way. I listen by mood, which would be a horrible way to organise files, because albums would be broken apart and scattered to the four winds.
I'd like to make it as I need it, too, which is really what this whole conversation has been about.
Aja on 21/2/2006 at 04:48
Foobar is open source... has no-one made a plugin that could work for you? I tried it once, but installing plugins was difficult so I gave up :(
Tonamel on 21/2/2006 at 05:01
I keep hearing that foobar is kind of a nightmare to get working, which is why I haven't tried it yet. I suppose I should at least give it a go, so I can know for sure that it's as unfriendly as I've heard.
Edit: Verified!
aguywhoplaysthief on 21/2/2006 at 06:37
Quote Posted by Scots_Taffer
I take it your sense of humour was surgically removed?
No, but I think yours has.
Scots Taffer on 21/2/2006 at 06:45
Haha, yeah!
Andruha on 21/2/2006 at 11:14
jprobs has a very good point - one has to spend time to classify/organise music. There is no player that can read your mind and your memories and give you a playlist with songs you forgot or forgot to listen. Make dynemic playlists by means available in your player: manual selections (like jprobs described), shuffle, sorting by fields (e.g. by number-of-time-this-song-has-been-played), browse, etc.. Forget static playlists.. Instead spend time classifying your collection (but make sure your efforts are not locked in a proprietory format, which will make it hard to migrate your collection to a different player).
Speaking of classification:
Quote Posted by Tonamel
Yeah, I've got my mp3s organized by genre and artist, which is really the only way to do it if you want to find files quickly and easily. The problem is that I don't (often) listen to my music that way. I listen by mood, which would be a horrible way to organise files, because albums would be broken apart and scattered to the four winds.
What you describe is organising music in a rigit file structure according to a dynemic subjective classification (in doing this, information about songs is encoded in the hierarchy (author, album, etc..)). It is NOT POSSIBLE and if it were, it is MEANINGLESS as your
subjective perception of songs changes with time. No player will do it. Stop looking at files. A database-like approach is better. iTunes is doing it. It is true that they maintain file hierarchy, but it is based on a possible
objective classification - songs are children of albums, albums are children of artist.. - it is a compromise/legacy stuff. Since no hierarchy is better then a bad hierarchy, I would just keep all music files in one folder and name them automatically (but that's me).
So, provide rich descriptions of your music and don't do it via file or other static structures. Then you will be able to do advanced stuff with your collection. (But it also means that owners of 35000+ music collections are out of luck for now).
Tonamel, I don't want to come accross as someone patronising, but you have to get open-minded to find answer to your question.
P.S. I would not use "Tag and Rename" to manage my collection due to the above reasons. However, it might be a good tool to migrate music to other player.
Andruha on 21/2/2006 at 12:23
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
You're right. I did forget that it had OR and NOT options, but that's simply because their piss-poor implementation makes them virtually useless. Having them be all AND or all OR, means OR is pointless 99% of the time. And without being able to choose the order of operations, it's difficult to imagine using NOT effectively either.
- Did you know that NOT works within a rule?
- Did you know that order does not matter?
- Did you know that you can combine existing smart/playlists and do not have to write complex queries?
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No, my frustration comes from the fact that I
have to override it in order to prevent it from doing things that are totally counterintuitive and make my ipod useless. And furthermore, the fact that I have to override it ENTIRELY when it's behaving wrongly, rather than just on a case by case basis. Including such lovely quirks as it either syncing ALL of the music on the ipod (not an option when you have three times as much music as your iPod will hold), or none of it. It shouldn't be too hard to force it to sync certain subsets I designate, and then let me add to it on a case by case basis, rather than having it take any option of control out of my hands the moment the software is responsible for syncing.
..
And I love the fact that if you tell it to manage only certain playlists, it helpfully just erases everything else on the damn ipod. Nice touch there, Apple. Really useful.
Can you be more specific?.. By Sync, do you mean Autofill?
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Or the fact that suddenly there are 3000 songs done by "Various artist" because Apple, in their infinite wisdom, uses ONLY the "album artist" tag to sort by. Making the "album artist" tag totally fucking useless since it now has to be coordinated with the "song artist" tag to be useful in the management software. Oh yeah, btw, try having it do a batch rename copying the 'artist' field to the 'album artist.' Get back to me when you've got that one all sorted out.
1. Select proper files in the Library (not in a playlist).
2. Right-click->"Get Info" will give "Multiple song information".
3. Select "Yes, Part of compilation"
4. Press "OK".
Result: Artist fields of the selected files will contain song artists, not album artists.
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batch tag all of it to "remember playback position" without writing a custom script.
I would use the last played field if I ever need to restart from the same position. But yes, iTunes does not start where it left last time. Is it a big deal?
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Or better yet, clear out the dead links in itunes for songs that have been moved or renamed.
Good point. It is annoying when it happens. But It happens rarely as I never manage files behind iTunes. I manage music with iTunes.
Quote:
"Hey I want it to shuffle, but only a certain subset of songs.". It doesn't even have to be perfect, as long as I can tweak the list so that it's useful. And it should be able to do that WITHOUT having the hassle of setting them up manually or retagging each and every song..
I am doing just that (shuffle, but only a certain subset of songs) everyday. I am wondering what are you doing with iTunes..
Quote:
Try organizing a 35,000 mp3 library with itunes and then come back and tell me what kind of an option that is, mmm kay?
Once you're done syncing the artist fields, try this one on for size, grab a 200 file audiobook, and batch tag all of it to "remember playback position" without writing a custom script. Tell me how that works out for you. ;)
I am extensively managing my collection. It is only a ~1000 songs.. and it takes seconds to handle it with iTunes.. No problem. Will it be as easy with 35.000+ collection? Provided that songs are well described (not only id3 tags, but itunes metadata) - YES. The big problem is that I have to assign my subjective values to tags and fields - iTunes (nor any other player) cannot do it for me.
