Audio Question

[a06lp]

Hi,

I am a VERY recent migrator from Meedio to XL. I'm going to need some help setting this up...

I have all my mp3's stored in my "Music" folder. I can get XL to scan them, but for some reason it wants the "album" to be the folder name (all the songs are under one album).

I want all sorting to be done based on my METICULOUSLY perfected ID3 tags.

How can I do this?

I want different views:
1) Artist-Album-Track
2) Genre-Artist-Track
3) ONLY songs with a SPECIFIC "Band" tag
4) Songs after 2005 (via the YEAR tag)

How do I do all this?

[Colby]

What template, and checkboxes are checked (in the template) are you using on the import? I didnt think Xl got albumname from folders but from tags. I would have to double check the Metamask. Did you say all your music is in one folder? If so why?

Once you import your music correctly, You will be able to filter and sort the 1st 2 ways you want. The "Band" tag if thats a custom database tag you can sort it, If its the artistname you could sort that. You can filter by year, but not year through current. SO no 1980 & on filter.

[a06lp]

What template, and checkboxes are checked (in the template) are you using on the import? I didnt think Xl got albumname from folders but from tags. I would have to double check the Metamask.

I'm sorry, but as I said before, I'm VERY new to this.

I don't know what you mean by template or checkboxes...
I just used the default skin, and imported my music.

Did you say all your music is in one folder? If so why?

It's all in the same folder because every file is properly tagged, and any program that reads id3 tags should be able to sort by the tags themselves, not by location of the file.

The "Band" tag if thats a custom database tag you can sort it, If its the artistname you could sort that.

It's sometimes also called the "Orchestra" tag. It's an ID3v2 tag.
Could you tell me exactly HOW to accomplish these things? I'm trying to set up XL, and I sort of need pretty step-by-step directions to accomplish these tasks.

You can filter by year, but not year through current. SO no 1980 & on filter.

Thats upsetting. You can't say something like: 'Year' >= '2005' ? That's how I did it in Meedio.


Thanks so much for your help!

[rembetis]

The default music import was primarily designed for people who archive entire albums, or at least group files by album, rather than a big collection of tracks. So you may find it a little trying to get your single folder collection to sort and display exactly how you like. Pretty sure it's possible, just not as plug n play as maybe Meedio was.

In Colby's response, he was referring to the manual options for import, which can be found under F2 > Databases > Import tab. Under the "music" template, you will find the default options. To create your own custom import, it's better to create a new template than muck with the default (type a name in the template field and hit New Template).

From there you will need to experiment with the options below to configure a good import. If I have a chance today I will mess around with the options and see if I can come up with a good config for your situation.

[rembetis]

OK, I did a little testing and searching and according to this thread you are going to have problems until you sort your files into folders by album. See the next to last post in the thread for a link to software that will create a directory structure by parsing file tags.

If someone has an alternate solution (meta masks?) please chime in...

[a06lp]

Ok,
I've managed to make a file structure like so:

Folder: MUSIC\Folder: ARTIST\Folder: TRACK

So, for example:

Music\REM\Losing My Religion.mp3

I do not want albums involved other than to show up on the "Now Playing" screen.

How can I accomplish what I want now?

1) I want a screen of all my artists. Selecting an artist, brings up a list of all their tracks. Selecting a track plays the track (or adds it to playlist).


2) Screen of all genres. Selecting a genre brings up a list of all Artists with songs in that genre. Selecting an artist brings up a list of all that artists tracks which are in that genre.

3) Only songs that have a "occassion" tag of: "Wife". (This is for my wife's playlist - her songs are directly tagged). First screen has Artists who have a "Wife" tag. Selecting an Artist, brings up the tracks that artist has which are tagged with "Wife"

4) Screen of all artists that have any songs with a year greater than 2005. Selecting an artist brings up a screen of their tracks. (This is my "current music" list)

Can anyone help me set these up, please?


EDIT:

Q: How do I get it to read the id3 tag?
Colby: If you use the music template to import via id3 tags that is what it does.

You can see this in the music database, if you click edit db in the setup menu. Here will be all the info of your music. That is where you type in the sort order.

Can someone help me understand that? I know my tags are correct, but I'm somehow getting "Various Artists" in my structure.

[Colby]

a06lp I would be glad to walk you through everything. It will take some time, do you have an instant messenger preferably MSN?

I do not want albums involved other than to show up on the "Now Playing" screen

What do you have against albums? Thats how music is made isnt it?

#1 You may want to import using the music template, id3 import type, and the Artist>Album view. This my naturally take care of #1

#2 You can easily filter by genre. Or you could set up buttons that do custom search of the music database for given genre. I believe that genre has to do with album or song rather than artist, since some are cross genre. Not having albums could present problems. I doubt it though.

#3 Your "Wife" things can be accomplished with variable set and unset. Making a custom tag. I think the Dragon Skin has a favorites bookmarker like what youre wanting.

#4 As i said you cant have a >,<,=, expression. The closesest thing you could do is filter the year. Or create and save playlist of the 2005+ years by filtering, adding, filtering, adding... etc.

The reason you get various artists is because you have multiple Albums under one folder. Or multiple genres or years or whatever. Cant really tell you.

[a06lp]

hi colby,
I have AIM.

[rembetis]

Check this thread. The French Team just created (yet another great) tool that might prove very helpful for you.

[a06lp]

Yay!

Steven added better id3 importing for me to fix this problem!

SOLVED!