My Music - Albums

[BKeadle]

As I move to dumping all my multimedia management to SageMC, I dumped my music collection to a music import directory. However, when I go to My Music and view by albums, I get this view (SageMusic1.jpg), which looks mostly like tracks.

My directory structure shown here (SageMusic2.jpg) is in "Album - Artist" format. What must I do to get a more coherent view of my imported music in SageMC?

[medwynd]

Did you do a refresh import directories from inside of Sage?

Did you do a refresh import directories from inside of Sage? Also is the tags on your audio tracks added properly?

EDIT: Bah Double post

[BKeadle]

I did do a refresh - looks the same.

Forgive my ignorance, but what about "tags" on my audio tracks? Is this something I'm supposed to do? How would I know if they're added properly? If I point my MediaMonkey software to the directory structure, it's reading Album and Artist information correctly - so does that mean that the audio tracks are tagged correctly?

[BKeadle]

Is there any technical reference or tutorial about how Music is supposed to work - or guidelines about how I should be naming folders (e.g. Album - Artist), and what/how/where metadata is supposed to be or look like? Would .my files play a role at all?

As to my original post, scrolling further down, I am seeing some album folders, but they have the wrong album art. Where/how is that album art coming from?

There are a number of other inconsistencies that just don't make sense. I think I need to move them out of the way, refresh so I have an empty music list, then move them back and do a new import scan. But before I do this, I'd like to get my music collection "healthy" by organizing/populating it as I should so that viewing by Artist, or album, or even genre display correct information. Basically, if I should start from scratch, what is the best practices for using SageMC as my music interface?

Thanks!

[medwynd]

Originally Posted by BKeadle

Is there any technical reference or tutorial about how Music is supposed to work - or guidelines about how I should be naming folders (e.g. Album - Artist), and what/how/where metadata is supposed to be or look like? Would .my files play a role at all?

As to my original post, scrolling further down, I am seeing some album folders, but they have the wrong album art. Where/how is that album art coming from?

There are a number of other inconsistencies that just don't make sense. I think I need to move them out of the way, refresh so I have an empty music list, then move them back and do a new import scan. But before I do this, I'd like to get my music collection "healthy" by organizing/populating it as I should so that viewing by Artist, or album, or even genre display correct information. Basically, if I should start from scratch, what is the best practices for using SageMC as my music interface?

Thanks!

I don't know what the best practices for using it are, I just dropped mine in and they worked so I will describe what mine looks like.

I used MediaMonkey, same as you to tag all my albums. I don't know how you stored your cover art, I choose to embed it in the tag because I don't care about the extra file size.

My folders are organized as such:
Artist
|----Album Name
|-------Track Name.mp3

EDIT: Bah post stripped my white space, but you get the idea. Tracks in the album folder, album folders in the artist folder.

I find the best way for tracking down a problem is with baby steps. I personally started with only a single album to make sure it was the way I wanted and started adding them en masse once I was sure it was looking the way I wanted.

[BKeadle]

Thanks. I'll start from scratch, and do the baby steps as you suggest.

So your Sage view of by Artist, by Album, etc. show the way you would expect?

[medwynd]

Yes they do. Screenshots attached.

View by album


View by artist


Album detail


Song Playing - Show Cover


Song Playing - Song Detail

[BKeadle]

Thanks again for the post.

So I dragged 2 folders in. I can view by Artist:


and I can view by Album:


But I don't see Cover Art. No .jpg in the folders. How do I generate/get those?

but I can't view by Song:


When I arrow over to select the artist, notice how the selection overwrites the text:

That's irritating - any idea how to fix that?

So once I "go down" one level to the artist, or album, *then* I can view by song and album:

Is that normal?

BTW: thanks for the "tip" of using imageshack.us for posting images, nice.

[medwynd]

Originally Posted by BKeadle

Thanks again for the post.
But I don't see Cover Art. No .jpg in the folders. How do I generate/get those?

You can get them from MediaMonkey. I don't know what format they need to be in if you do not embed the image in the tag.

How I use MM:
1. Put your albums in the library
2. Sort by album
3. Select all the items from 1 album
4. Ctrl+L to auto tag from web
5. From the information found in the search choose the album that best matches what you want from the drop down list on top of the dialog
6. Make sure the cover check box is checked
7. Check any tracks you want updated, by default I believe it is all of them that it could match with songs
8. Click the autotag button
9. Check save image to tag
10. Hit ok

Voila you now have cover art embedded into your mp3 tag.

Originally Posted by BKeadle

BTW: thanks for the "tip" of using imageshack.us for posting images, nice.

Can't beat auto thumbnails

I'm in middle of some other stuff around the house right now but I'll try to answer your other questions when I get back.

[BKeadle]

You rock! Thanks for your help.

Yeah, did that stuff with MediaMonkey. I'm getting album art now. However, I now have two instances of one album, as shown here:



One has all the tracks, the other has just one track. Coincidentally(?), the one with the one track is the track I actually played using Placeshifter (testing the streaming).

Any ideas why the second instance, and more importantly, how to get rid of it?

[BKeadle]

OK, this is just getting weird...

So the two albums - now they have all the tracks, but one album shows the tracks in the correct order:

With the first track being "Things Have Got To Change" which is correct.

The other "duplicate" album shows the same tracks, but in different order:

with the first track being "Somebody Elses Princess", which is incorrect.

[medwynd]

You sure you do not have a copy of the album floating around in the import directories that it is picking up on with all the testing you have been doing?

I've just ran into that the other night after ripping about 300 gigs of dvd's I was like where the heck is this other disk at.

It sounds like one album is tagged correctly and the other isn't.

Also have you been refreshing your data after you make changes to the file tags or move them around etc?

[HuMan321]

I have heard there is a limit to the # of songs/albums, etc. that you can point Sage at. Is this true and if so, what is the limit?

Also, I think there is another thread floating around about a music wall add-on

[medwynd]

Hey I was just looking at your image and may have figured out why you have two instances of one album.

I think the one song is tagged differently. One says 30 Odd Foot Of Gr... the duplicate says 30 Odd Foot of Gru...

Notice the change in case on the word "of", one is in caps and it may be picking it up as another band.

[medwynd]

Originally Posted by HuMan321

I have heard there is a limit to the # of songs/albums, etc. that you can point Sage at. Is this true and if so, what is the limit?

I don't really listen to music, I just put the girls music on there lol. I think I own 10 cd's so don't really have enough of a library to push its limitations.

Originally Posted by HuMan321

Also, I think there is another thread floating around about a music wall add-on

From what I recall when I started that thread is that there are some works in progress but nothing really concrete.

[BKeadle]

Originally Posted by medwynd

Hey I was just looking at your image and may have figured out why you have two instances of one album.

I think the one song is tagged differently. One says 30 Odd Foot Of Gr... the duplicate says 30 Odd Foot of Gru...

Notice the change in case on the word "of", one is in caps and it may be picking it up as another band.

Wow, it would be that sensitive? And no, Sage is pointed to the Music folder, under which I only had the 2 folders (remember, baby steps), both by the Artist, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, but two separate albums. Yes, I was refreshing.

[medwynd]

Not sure if it is case sensitive or not, but worth checking. Just depends who wrote it if things are case sensitive or not

[razrsharpe]

most of the grouping/sorting etc is all case sensitive in the default SageMC (and i think the default UI too)... and yes it can be pretty annoying when your metadata isnt perfect

[xxLJLxx]

Originally Posted by BKeadle

Wow, it would be that sensitive?

I have also spent quite a bit of time having to manually edit Artist and Album names. You might have to use a tag editor to change some of the info. It may not be necessary but I've had to in the past.

[medwynd]

MediaMonkey seemed the easiest and most accurate. I just tagged whole albums at once and didn't have a problem