Unfortunately when backing up my music collection, boredom got the better and I decided to check the tags of music that I had previously created for "correctness" *boredom*. You know the sort of thing, correct capitalisation, punctuation, stuff in brackets like '(Bonus Track)'. So I wrote a little Foobar script to check the track titles and filenames ... now I wish I hadn't. Looks like I've got a few hundred tracks to put right *fool* I think i'll save that for another rainy day ... which surprisingly it isn't on this Bank Holiday. How many of you are as OCD when it comes to organizing your music library?
OCD Tagging
- Thread starter tino
- Start date
jjbomber
Well-known member
tino said:
Definitely me. It is one of the problems in bootleg land of keeping things organised. Concerts go in date order, such as 2016.05.30 for today. I can then sort them easily into date order. However, if the torrents come down as 2016-05-30, the - would sort those dates last. So 2016.12.31 would appear before 2016-01-01. And they say computers are intelligent!!!
So I am OCD but have to be.
steve_1979
Well-known member
tino said:
I once spent about three hours systematically going through each album in my collection (5000 tracks) to check for mistakes.
Thanks to my OCD I can now sleep easier at night knowing all is well.
busb
Well-known member
I do edit the genre field regularly to keep so-called Smart playlists consistent. I also edit out the compilation field for single songs so they appear under the artists & edit the album artist field to group colloborations under the main artist.
Another problem is with classical music where I want to group by composer by surname rather than say conductor or pianist. Most programs don't handle classical music very well, especially with other genres as well.
Another problem is with classical music where I want to group by composer by surname rather than say conductor or pianist. Most programs don't handle classical music very well, especially with other genres as well.
Gray
Well-known member
I do regret the amount of time and effort I've spent (in what after all is a short lifetime) painstakingly ensuring that metadata is consistently perfect and artwork is of the highest resolution, but I couldn't have it any other way.
You must have, like me, laughed at what some of the metadata finders come up with. The unbelievable spelling mistakes and wrong words used by some when entering their album details. It's often clear they have no idea what they've actually ripped. But they neither know nor care and they haven't wasted as much time as the OCD brigade - so who are the fools?
You must have, like me, laughed at what some of the metadata finders come up with. The unbelievable spelling mistakes and wrong words used by some when entering their album details. It's often clear they have no idea what they've actually ripped. But they neither know nor care and they haven't wasted as much time as the OCD brigade - so who are the fools?
I've got it bad .. I even double check Wikipedia etc. to check the genres, release dates of albums are correct *crazy*
tino said:
I have a serious problem. I've ripped all of my CDs (several hundred) on (I think) 5 occasions. First 2 times I made errors and the albums wouldn't play in order on my streamer (av receiver), so I did them all again, but every CD gets ripped 3 times, once with track#-artist-title, then artist-title, then just title.
I also have over 2000 records, and I've reorganised the filing system for those on numerous occasions, probably 2 or 3 in the last 12 months alone.
Gray
Well-known member
steve_1979
Well-known member
tino said:
I just delete all of the dates. I don't care about that and it saves time. For the genre I replace it with where the track came from such as CD, Amazon or YouTube etc
busb
Well-known member
Gray said:
Automatically every night on my Mac Mini but not hourly though.
Many years ago when I had a PC, I used to use Drive Image that backed up drives sector by sector under Dos then rebooted back into Windows. It restored a whole drive within 30'. A friend:
"I can't afford to play around with MY PC like you do because I use mine professionally!"
"OK, what backup s/w do you use?"
I got no answer.
steve_1979
Well-known member
Gray said:
Yes I have 4 separate upto date backups, 2 of which are stored off site incase of a house fire or burglary.
I also have another backup which only gets updated once per year incase I change, delete, or edit anything then later decide that I prefer the older version. A sort of historical 'rollback' version of a backup if you like.
Gray
Well-known member
Short of nuclear war I think you're covered there Steve, but I don't blame you. All of mine's doubled, some tripled. Not sure we'll get any advance on your 4/5 backups though.steve_1979 said:
steve_1979
Well-known member
Gray said:
I've spent literally hundreds of hours over the past ten years working on it. Ripping, tagging, downloading, adding pictures, recording audio, editing audio and selecting which tracks to keep and which ones to delete etc.
With that amount of time and work invested it would be a huge shame to have to start again from scratch. I'd probably cry at the prospect.
jonathanRD
Well-known member
OMG - I think you fellas should dig a hole in your garden, create a pond with a waterfall/fountain feature, buy some really comfortable reclining garden chairs, and just chill listening to the trickling water and bird song. Then take up gardening *smile*
jjbomber
Well-known member
tino said:
Extremely. To an annoying level. But I recently switched to Roon, and my work has payed out. All beatifully arranged, partially because of my proper tagging. Or that is what I want to believe ;-)
nopiano
Well-known member
I like to have pop/rock/jazz music organised by artist, and classical by composer - except for discs featuring just one artist such as "A portrait of....".
One reason I struggle with downloads is the rubbish metadata, and even streaming services seem to find multiple ways to spell the same composer. As two of my favourites are Shostakovich and Rachmaninov they are particularly susceptible to variations. It is ridiculous that an album is called "Symphony no 2", not Sibelius or Mahler!
Ultimately, I think I prefer physical media for that reason. And I'm unconvinced we will be playing today's downloads in 40 years, whereas I have perfect LPs from the sixties and seventies. Not so say that some are now worth upwards of fifty quid a record, Decca SXL for example, so have been an appreciating asset!
One reason I struggle with downloads is the rubbish metadata, and even streaming services seem to find multiple ways to spell the same composer. As two of my favourites are Shostakovich and Rachmaninov they are particularly susceptible to variations. It is ridiculous that an album is called "Symphony no 2", not Sibelius or Mahler!
Ultimately, I think I prefer physical media for that reason. And I'm unconvinced we will be playing today's downloads in 40 years, whereas I have perfect LPs from the sixties and seventies. Not so say that some are now worth upwards of fifty quid a record, Decca SXL for example, so have been an appreciating asset!
nopiano said:
Metadata can always be changed / updated so it's not as bad as it seems. I use Foobar 2000 and meta data editing is a breeze, errors are easy to spot and correct.
nopiano said:
If you keep any physical object for long enough, it's bound to be worth more than what you paid for it at some point. You could play rips of your albums and keep the actual discs in a box and in tip-top condition forever because you wouldn't need to play them
nopiano
Well-known member
Both valid points, tino. I guess I'm not keen on having to label music which I think should be properly labelled in the first place. It's not as though it is coming from a dodgy file sharing site. But suppliers cannot be bothered to correctly and consistently catalogue their products, some of which I may have already bought before!
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