obsessive digital music cleanup for the mac heads
So I've decided to clean up my mp3 collection. Basically what i want is to keep it under 80g so that I can sync the entire thing to my iPod.
While I'm doing this, well, I need to fix the tags. Titles, years, genre, artwork, etc etc. It's a lot of work. Luckily here's two things that will help.
Musicbrainz Picard
This will search the enormous musicbrainz database to match your mp3s and update the tags. It works really well, but it takes some getting used to. The main workflow that you're going to use is:
Drag and drop an entire album (the folder or the files..) into the Unmatched files folder
Press the "Cluster" button - this will group your files into a "Cluster"
Click on the cluster and click 'Lookup'. If it found something, it'll be in the right panel. It may find more than one match. After that you make sure that the files on your drive (on the left) have all been matched to the search results - then you click save. That's it you're done.
The tricky part is that if you're using iTunes and you're drag & dropping files from iTunes and it's set to "Keep my music folder organized', you'll have to force it to refresh. Easiest way is to select all the tracks from the album you've just updated, click Apple+I to view the information and then update a field and click okay. I usually type "update" in the comments field.
That's it! For album art, Picard can help you but ultimately you'll find better/higher quality covers with Google Images. Select the entire album in iTunes, click Apple+I to view the information and you can drag & drop cover images directly from Safari or Firefox.
Second tool is Max
This is a super useful tool for transcoding between format. I mainly use it to go from FLAC to Apple Lossless. It's pretty easy to use.
Have fun wasting innumerable hours!
While I'm doing this, well, I need to fix the tags. Titles, years, genre, artwork, etc etc. It's a lot of work. Luckily here's two things that will help.
Musicbrainz Picard
This will search the enormous musicbrainz database to match your mp3s and update the tags. It works really well, but it takes some getting used to. The main workflow that you're going to use is:
Drag and drop an entire album (the folder or the files..) into the Unmatched files folder
Press the "Cluster" button - this will group your files into a "Cluster"
Click on the cluster and click 'Lookup'. If it found something, it'll be in the right panel. It may find more than one match. After that you make sure that the files on your drive (on the left) have all been matched to the search results - then you click save. That's it you're done.
The tricky part is that if you're using iTunes and you're drag & dropping files from iTunes and it's set to "Keep my music folder organized', you'll have to force it to refresh. Easiest way is to select all the tracks from the album you've just updated, click Apple+I to view the information and then update a field and click okay. I usually type "update" in the comments field.
That's it! For album art, Picard can help you but ultimately you'll find better/higher quality covers with Google Images. Select the entire album in iTunes, click Apple+I to view the information and you can drag & drop cover images directly from Safari or Firefox.
Second tool is Max
This is a super useful tool for transcoding between format. I mainly use it to go from FLAC to Apple Lossless. It's pretty easy to use.
Have fun wasting innumerable hours!