Music library.....help needed!

[russ996duke]

I seem to have accumulated a lot of music, which I have on my windows 8 PC and backed up onto a separate hard drive, as well as on an MP3 player ( creative zen which works well altho the support software is pants)

The issue I have as a pc numptie is managing the music and organising it.

I guess what i need is an app that will do this, the windows 8 "music app" does not seem to be able to do anything like the sort of things I need (import/ copy cds, pick up the associated album info off the net etc)
and the creative app doesnt seem to pick up on the stored music files on the pc.

can the panel recomend an app i can buy or freeware without adverts that will help me?

thanks

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

Have a look at http://www.mediamonkey.com

 

[russ996duke]

Have a look at http://www.mediamonkey.com

thanks will explore this as soon as
russ

 

[RedRick Esq.]

I tunes could be your answer

 

[cookie]

I tunes could be your answer

i thought that was the obvious answer, but then i noticed the poor bastard has a windows computer

 

[Jon]

If you're looking for free or paid for software to do the job for you, accept the fact it won't be 100% accurate. Either album art, track details etc will be wrong on some. Nothing, unfortunately, beats going through each album....... Been there done that.

Mediamonkey is excellent as it shows you all the meta data & you can edit multiple files (ie all album tracks) easily. You can do the same in iTunes, but its not as easy (Apple expects you to buy the album, not put your own on ) and found Mediamonkeys side bar, like windows explorer, dead handy.

You can also set it up to rename files & move them. So you put all your music in one folder & as you edit each album say, get Mediamonkey to move it to a new folder which you can specify. For example, all my albums are by artist and then year;

C:\Data\Media\Music\David Grey\[1998] White Ladder\(tracks would be here in directory)
C:\Data\Media\Music\David Grey\[2002] A New Day At Midnight\ tracks etc

You can also get it to rename the file & meta data differently, so the metadata will say "White Ladder" as the track title, but the file name will be '01-White Ladder-David Gray.mp3"

I ended up doing a few at a time & you soon find yourself whizzing through your collection.

It all depends how accurate you want it - genres etc for playlist & so on.

 

[RedRick Esq.]

i thought that was the obvious answer, but then i noticed the poor bastard has a windows computer

Ha ha yes but you can have i tunes on a windows computer or at least you used to be able to back in my dark pre mac days

I can't understand why people search beyond I tunes for music playing

 

[cookie]

I know that, but IME itunes on windows is not something to be recommended.

Actually, IME windows is not something to be recommended either.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

Itunes on windows! you would be quicker just to delete your music and save the hassle.

 

[Titto]

oh dear here we go again....
Nothing wrong with windows. Just the users.

Nothing wrong with macs. Just the users.

Itunes is tiresome and can be troublesome on both operating systems. Its not the best media manager on either OS by a long shot, but people wont deviate from their "apple" lives...

Please please please check the mac forums for problems with the program, you will be surprised at the issues people have ON A MAC too....

Amazons music application is useful, gives you some online storage too, Media Monkey is brilliant too.

Get used to one and see how you go.

 

[russ996duke]

Excellent thanks for input.......by the way the best thing about my mp3 player is that it is not an iplayer!!!!

mediamonkey here we come

 

[Fluffmeister]

Ha ha yes but you can have i tunes on a windows computer or at least you used to be able to back in my dark pre mac days

I can't understand why people search beyond I tunes for music playing

Because it's shit?

Stick it all in a folder, dump it into Google Play Music and it will do the rest for free, you can dump your music into the cloud and access it using the Player app on the PC or using the app on an iOS / Android device if you want.

iTunes is actually fine, but son't believe the hype I don't like the way it likes to take over your library if you let it. I've dumped 20GB of Music up into Google for free, it's also found all the album art apart from a few obscure titles, and I can get access to it anywere, it also works with my Sonos system at home, don't need to bother with the NAS anymore, I just stream my own music back via Google Play to the sonos.

 

[Titto]

As above.

 

[cookie]

in what way does itunes "take over your library"? do you mean the way it puts things in a nice artist/album folder structure?

just wondering really. i have no great love for itunes, but in my case it does do the job. i just wish it was separate apps for different media. it's all a bit of a jumble at the moment.

 

[Fluffmeister]

If you set the option to allow it to manage your music on a Windows PC it want's to take over the structure of the library and reorder everything under the iTunes folder. Sometimes when it does this I've seen it "copy" the music to the iTunes folder in Windows rather than actually move the music and then you are doubling up on storage. It works differently on a Mac, but it's not really well optimised for Windows.

I just dump all my Music into my Windows Music folder, and have that folder synced to Google Play, it then looks after album art etc etc for me and I play back through the Play Music app. I still have iTunes installed, but mainly for managing the kids iPads and I just bought an iPhone 6 Plus so use it for setting ring tones (Which is a PITA way to do it )

Google Play works really well for me, as the iOS app works perfectly, the Windows program works perfectly and free music storage along with the ability to stream to my Sonos is a good thing.

I'm not anti Apple, but iTunes is not as "pleasant" on Windows.

 

[cookie]

If you set the option to allow it to manage your music on a Windows PC it want's to take over the structure of the library and reorder everything under the iTunes folder. Sometimes when it does this I've seen it "copy" the music to the iTunes folder in Windows rather than actually move the music and then you are doubling up on storage. It works differently on a Mac, but it's not really well optimised for Windows.

I just dump all my Music into my Windows Music folder, and have that folder synced to Google Play, it then looks after album art etc etc for me and I play back through the Play Music app. I still have iTunes installed, but mainly for managing the kids iPads and I just bought an iPhone 6 Plus so use it for setting ring tones (Which is a PITA way to do it )


Google Play works really well for me, as the iOS app works perfectly, the Windows program works perfectly and free music storage along with the ability to stream to my Sonos is a good thing.

I'm not anti Apple, but iTunes is not as "pleasant" on Windows.

i quite agree - see post 8

thanks for the explanation.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

oh dear here we go again....
Nothing wrong with windows. Just the users.

Nothing wrong with macs. Just the users.

Itunes is tiresome and can be troublesome on both operating systems. Its not the best media manager on either OS by a long shot, but people wont deviate from their "apple" lives...

Please please please check the mac forums for problems with the program, you will be surprised at the issues people have ON A MAC too....

Amazons music application is useful, gives you some online storage too, Media Monkey is brilliant too.

Get used to one and see how you go.

Never said there was anything wrong with Windows. I was referring to iTunes on Windows which is bad.

Yes I use Google play to keep my music on but it won't really do what the OP wants on its own.