I may be guilty of severe thread necro here, but I came across this via a Google search looking for something else and thought I’d toss my 2 cents in the pot in case somebody else finds this thread.
I’m a musician, and as such, I have a rather extensive digital media collection (measured in hundreds of Gigs of data). Over the years, I have tried/used just about every tagging app and media player you can think of on either Windows or Linux platform. For me, MediaMonkey has always been the clear front-runner as far as a tagging app that balances power and intuitive design of the GUI. However, every person is going to have a different level of comfort and a different level of need and expectation of what they want out of their tagging app and media player.
To anyone reading this, I cannot stress this one point strongly enough. No matter what tagging app you go with, and no matter what media player you go with, one core principle will save you time and time again across the board. Organize. Have a plan, have a system, and never deviate from it.
When it comes to the embedded metadata in audio tags, every media player is, in some way, going to use them differently than other players. That’s a fact. Some players will list your audio by the “Artist” field. Others may ignore that field and use “Album artist” field instead. Some players will, by default, group albums under the various artist heading based on a “compilation” value in a field, while others may use “various” as the flag it’s looking for. Some media players (specific attn to iTunes here) use a lot of wonky proprietary types of metadata structures because they felt some obligation to reinvent the wheel. It all comes down to knowing the minute details of what you’re using, how it’s structured, and what its specific capabilities are.
The same way that different media players handle metadata differently, so too do the actual tagging apps. The surest way to get your collection out-of-whack is to keep jumping back and forth between tagging apps. All it takes is having one app that auto-saves tags without a confirmation prompt, on you’re well on your way to word salad for tags.
Also of note is that some players don’t actually change tags at all when you edit information from within the player instead of using an outside tagging app. Many players have their own internal databases, and won’t change the actual tags, but instead, just put the info in the internal database and form a symbolic link to it. There’s nothing more frustrating that thinking your collection is perfectly handled and arranged, then syncing to a device that, upon attempting to read the track tags, returns half your stuff with no cover art, missing track numbers, jacked up album names, and a billion other things you thought you corrected months ago. Well, you did… it just didn’t save to the tags, just the player’s internal database. And that does you exactly no good once you’re in a situation where you share media between computers and/or devices.
My nickel’s worth of free advice is this. Set aside a few hours and download every player and tagging app that you see mentioned frequently. Play with each one for about 15-30 minutes each. Figure out which ones feel comfortable and seem to meet your individual needs and expectations. Then go all-in and delete everything except the ONE player you like most, and the ONE tagging app you like most. No fuss, no muss, done. Use them and get your current library in order. If you’re using a player or tagging app that offers the ability to auto-arrange your actual library files and file names, take advantage of it. There’s nothing but benefit to be had by having your actual library and your virtual tag library BOTH ship-shape and sorted. And have a pre-sort / pre-edit system in place. NEVER EVER EVER (infinity evers on this one) download new media and just toss it directly into your default media library. Always have a second folder set up elsewhere that you can use as a temporary “quarantine” location for your media until you can run the tagging app on it and get it perfect, and THEN stick it in your library. It makes things about a billion times simpler in the long run. On the other side of that coin, never have your media player pointed at the folder you use as the default download folder of your torrents/downloads to monitor and auto-add to your player library. Lastly, embed your album art in your tags. It makes it so much simpler in the long run when you know that if something comes up and you’re just grabbing a random song here and a random song there to put on a portable device instead of whole albums, you’ll still have everything looking perfect and functioning.
Oh, I guess that wasn’t last. This is. Do yourself a favor and don’t mix file types. If you have a collection, odds are you already know what sound quality you want. If you have a portable device, you already know what files types are and aren’t supported by it. Pick a file type and stick with it. Take the time to convert if you have to. If you’re a FLAC guy/gal, then make everything FLAC. If you rock out with APEs or OGGs, then stick to that. If you’re a standard MP3 type, then rock it like you own it. The reason being is that every player and every tagging app will do / won’t do certain things with certain file types. Avoid the hassle and the heartache.
Happy tagging, happy listening. Front-load your work and make the investment. I think I spent a day or two getting everything in place when I first seriously started my collection. Over the past few years, that day or two has easily saved me cumulative time that can be measured in weeks, most likely.
