freebox problems...i feel stupid

[hulkster]

okay, dumb moments ahead so prepare yourself....

k so i got freebox installed.  got all my mp3's on my potential juke PC.  all my mp3's are in C:\Music....most of my songs are just in that folder, and not necessarily in sub folders.  however, my wifes songs are in C:\Music\Other. 

when i click "generate library" it looks like its only scanning the Other folder, because it only shows 815 songs.  why is it not seeing my mp3s?  do i have to add something or create folders or install a codec to get it to see them?  it seems very simple to generate the mp3 list, but i dont understand why its not seeing my 3000 songs.

[kizer]

When you create it are you telling Freebox to scan the Music folder? Or a folder within that folder?

I would have it scan the Music folder because it will dive into folders within it.

Normally it likes the following structure.
Music
--\Artist
----\Album
------MP3s

As well make sure you tag your Mp3's so your IDs are correct because it reads them to display the correct album and songs.

[Barry Barcrest]

Because it ignores files at the root of where you scan. If you move you files into a folder under music it will then pick them up.

However freebox likes files organised into folders it treats each one as an album and as such doesn't work so well with a large collection of mp3's dumped into one folder.

Hope that helps you out...

If you do want to try a singles based jukebox you might want to try Dos/Win Cab as i think that will work with a folder full of mp3's.

[hulkster]

well i got all my mp3's to show up, but do i have to create album folders myself??  that will take forever!  i have lots, if not all my mp3's as singles basically.  any suggestion on how to make it easily organized?

[leapinlew]

well i got all my mp3's to show up, but do i have to create album folders myself??  that will take forever!  i have lots, if not all my mp3's as singles basically.  any suggestion on how to make it easily organized?

waha...

I'm not laughing at you - ok, maybe a little, but I know where your coming from. What your experiencing will be the same no matter what jukebox software you use. You'll want to organize your music into folders and put album art in each folder. Oh... yeah - also get your MP3 tags straightened up.

It's a lot of work. I had to do it. In fact, what I did was start by ripping all my cd's and downloading some other albums. 

[kizer]

This is the program I use to create folders within folders of artists and whatnot. Personally I think its one of the bets out there. It tags and creates folders..

http://www.magic-tagger.com/eng/index.php

So far I've ran it against 600+ albums with pretty good results.

[Barry Barcrest]

Or if you can code you could develop simple juke that i posted the source code up for. That will work with a folder full of mp3's but the source i posted up is very basic. Really you are better going through the pain barrier of organising your mp3's.

[hulkster]

oh wow....so basically i was right and i just have to do it all myself.  well that kinda sucks, but i guess thats what i figured.  ill use that program though to organize them.  well i guess this will take a very long time to do....awesome.

[leapinlew]

oh wow....so basically i was right and i just have to do it all myself.  well that kinda sucks, but i guess thats what i figured.  ill use that program though to organize them.  well i guess this will take a very long time to do....awesome.

If you find a magic program that properly tags, organizes by band name/album name, normalizes and finds album art please let us know. Till then - I guess we'll just have to be a bit more organized. 

[hulkster]

um, yeah...ill uh....get right on that.

[unclet]

Yeah, grouping thousands of songs in one directory does not really make a lot of sense to me when wanting to use a jukebox application to display all the songs in a nice format.   Using this type of format when trying to add album art files and lyrics files would be crazy for me.   

My jukebox software requires the "\Artist\Album\Song" directory structure format.    I did not want to spend time trying to allow other formats to work with my jukebox, just never made sense to me.    You can organize all your mp3 files into this structure with album art in a few days, then your done and you will have a very nice jukebox software application to use on it.

[unclet]

However ..... just to let you know, you can easily create a "C:\MyMp3s\Artist\Album\Song" directory structure somewhat easily to test out the jukebox software.

I would assume jukebox software (like mine) has a limit of how many songs can be placed in the "Album" directory.  My software's limit is 99.    Anyway, you can create the follwing directories and make sure you only place up to 99 songs in each Album directory.  You do not have to put album art in the "Album" directory for the software to function properly.   Having no album art will just result in a default "No Album art" JPG being displayed for the art.

So you can create the following directory structure quickly to test:

C:\MyMp3s\MyArtist\MyAlbum1\(put 99 songs here)
C:\MyMp3s\MyArtist\MyAlbum2\(put 99 songs here)
C:\MyMp3s\MyArtist\MyAlbum3\(put 99 songs here)
etc .. etc...
etc... etc...
C:\MyMp3s\MyArtist\MyAlbumN\(put 99 songs here)


Using this format, you will have one Artist (ie: "MyArtist") which has many albums (ie: MyAlbum1 --> MyAlbumN).   That is all you need to do to test the software out.

Now, in my software simply go into the "Options\Music Directory" menu and point to the "C:\MyMp3s" directory and click "Update"

Hope this made sense ... good luck

[Barry Barcrest]

No limit on freebox from what i can remeber

[hulkster]

k lets all calm down and remember that everyone's software is equally the best in the world and leave it at that.

i'm using freebox honestly because i liked the screenshots better.  uncle t's jukebox screens just looked like they were made with MS Paint.  im sorry, not meaning to be insulting and im sure its a great piece of software, i just went with freebox because the look of it appealed to me personally.

and when i say screenshots, i guess i mean the actual skins of the software.  im guessing you can customize what skin/background is on it, but i didnt see that anywhere. 

[kizer]

Personally its all up to what you like and what works best for you. Ive used many Jukebox apps and each worked well in certain areas and lacked in others.

Just a matter of trying each one. Either way you have to orginize your files so you can easily find them and whatever program you use will thank you.

[Space Fractal]

If your files is allready tagged correctly, you could use software like TagScanner or ID3-TagIT To move and rename files in one go. It a lots faster than doing it manually.

Otherwice you can use the same type of software to get them tagged....