Author Topic: FreeBox JukeBox (Read 14312 times)

Visitor Q · « **on:** February 20, 2009, 07:30:57 am »

So I tried a bunch of Jukebox software out the other night and FreeBox seems to fit the bill for me. Since I am not too familiar with Jukebox software and this seems to be a pay to use program, I was wondering how the support was before purchasing it?

How many of you guys use it?

Does it have good support?

Does it get updates often?

Is the programmer involved in this forum?

Thanks.

Space Fractal · « **Reply #1 on:** February 20, 2009, 09:00:56 am »

Its Barcrest is behind this software, and yes it he still fully and have a excellent support of his software, here and his own forum (which he of course monitor more often than this).

Visitor Q · « **Reply #2 on:** February 20, 2009, 12:25:02 pm »

This is good to hear cause I really like this one the best out of the 3 or 4 that I tried.

Barry Barcrest · « **Reply #3 on:** February 22, 2009, 07:51:32 pm »

Add me to MSN if you want to chat.. barcrest@hotmail.com sorry for the delay in replying i have been away this week and only really checking my own forums.

Space Fractal · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2009, 02:17:32 am »

domain gone again, earlier and earlier end in the month...... The major problem with Freebox is the homepage itself.

Visitor Q · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2009, 07:14:41 am »

Quote from: Space Fractal on February 23, 2009, 02:17:32 am

domain gone again, earlier and earlier end in the month...... The major problem with Freebox is the homepage itself.

Their site really has a lot of broken links.

Barry Barcrest · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2009, 07:19:53 am »

I know, this is why i am trying to get the new host set up. It's a bit hard when I'm the only one doing everything so you'll have to bear with me. I do have the new host in place etc but I don't fancy moving the forum over it's not going to be easy...

Visitor Q · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2009, 12:46:44 pm »

Quote from: Barry Barcrest on February 23, 2009, 07:19:53 am

I know, this is why i am trying to get the new host set up. It's a bit hard when I'm the only one doing everything so you'll have to bear with me. I do have the new host in place etc but I don't fancy moving the forum over it's not going to be easy...

Barry... Check your PMs please, I would like to donate to this project.

Thanks.

ps. I don't have MSN here at work but I can try you on there when I get home later if I don't here from you in the meantime.

MameDownUnder · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2009, 11:53:52 pm »

Freebox is alright

actually i use it every day, i personally think its the best one out there for me anyway. i would recommend anyone using it

Visitor Q · « **Reply #9 on:** February 24, 2009, 07:10:21 am »

Yeah... I am trying to purchase it but Barry is very difficult to get a hold of. I never had so much trouble trying to give someone money.

Hopefully I will hear back from him soon as I really do enjoy the software, otherwise I think I will purchase Touchtone.

Space Fractal · « **Reply #10 on:** February 24, 2009, 07:15:06 am »

hehe that is a problem when Freebox Jukebox homepage is down end of the month, where this type of problems can accour.

Hope it finannly got that fixed, since it might avoid costumet to order the software.

Flake · « **Reply #11 on:** February 24, 2009, 04:47:56 pm »

Is your music organized into a artist/album/mp3 structured directory? Also all your music must be properly tagged. If either of these is missing with your music and you dont feel up to task to correct it then you may want to consider other options. Oh, and all your cover art must be named .cover.

I have about 70 GB's of music and I've been ---smurfing--- around with this for months. Its really a boring, laborous process. Imagine having to rename all your Mame roms and video preview movies about 15 different times over. Thats about what its like.

I suppose its a credit to Freebox that I hate the process this much and am still doing it.......

kizer · « **Reply #12 on:** February 24, 2009, 05:01:51 pm »

Yep just make sure you have a cover.jpg for your image in the folder with each album if not there is an app that will help you find covers. It will also reduce your cover down to 170x170 so it speeds up the viewing while your looking through tons of albums.

As for trying to give him money the site should be up on the 1st which it always is and hopefully if all goes well this will be the last month of having problems.

Barry Barcrest · « **Reply #13 on:** February 24, 2009, 06:36:47 pm »

Sorted it out on MSN...

BTW your cover art can be called what you like but it must have the same filename in each folder if you want to use the smalled thumbs when browsing through albums. Otherwise you can set it to first voer found... The only think you have to make sure of is that it isn't hidden like the default FOLDER.JPG that media player creates.

Thanks For the input guys, i'm busy moving house right now. Site will be back on the 1st and i can be back replying then.

Visitor Q · « **Reply #14 on:** February 25, 2009, 07:24:45 am »

Yup. All good and all strait, thanks Barry!

I am now on board with the project.

I tried a few of these jukebox programs and this one I like the best, especially the look of it.

My music collection is up to about 700GB but I don't plan on installing that all. Right now I am doing to double up on my arcade cab as a jukebox too but in the future I may go with a touch screen standalone.

As far as the renaming goes of the mp3 information inside the mp3, currently I am using winamp to do this one track at a time and the results have been great... However is there a program out there that will do an entire album with one click? I'm sure if there is that would save me a bunch of time as I could not find a way to do this with winamp.

Barry Barcrest · « **Reply #15 on:** February 25, 2009, 08:08:41 am »

Tag & Rename will do it via an amazon search. It will also do all files based on the filename if the filename has the correct info. There is a 30 day trial on their website... You could probably get everything tagged in that time, i do really recommend purchasing it though i have found it invaluable.

Visitor Q · « **Reply #16 on:** February 25, 2009, 08:27:19 am »

Here is the direct link to what I think you are speaking of.

http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

Barry Barcrest · « **Reply #17 on:** February 25, 2009, 09:14:23 am »

Yes that's the one.

newman25 · « **Reply #18 on:** February 25, 2009, 01:48:16 pm »

I've used a few different tagging programs out there and I would say Tag & Rename is by far one of the best ones out there.

When I was getting my library straightened out, I used Tag & Rename for tagging, Album Art Downloader for covers, MP3val to validate my MP3s and MP3Gain to normalize.

Visitor Q · « **Reply #19 on:** February 25, 2009, 02:00:49 pm »

Other than Tag and Rename, are those others free?

newman25 · « **Reply #20 on:** February 25, 2009, 05:53:59 pm »

Yes they are free.

MP3Gain:
http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

MP3Val:
http://mp3val.sourceforge.net/

Album Art Downloader:
Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/
Forum: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=57392

I use Album Art Downloader in standalone mode and it took a little getting used to but it searches several sources for album covers and you choose the one you want to use and save it....

kizer · « **Reply #21 on:** February 25, 2009, 06:09:26 pm »

I highly recommend using MP3gain. Set all your tunes to the same volume so when your kicking back your tunes don't raise and lower in volume and drive you bonkers.

I normally rip an album with AudioGrabber
Check my tags with http://www.mp3tag.de/en/
Grab covers with Freebox or that other app Lars put together
Run MP3gain
Throw it all on my MP3 drive.

Sure its a few steps, but hey its all worth it in the end. Its all done and I never hopefully have to worry about it again.

MameDownUnder · « **Reply #22 on:** February 25, 2009, 09:15:27 pm »

lol if you want a detailed one, this is what i do...

i am very anal when it comes to my mp3 collection

1. All my collection is in artist/album
2. All mp3's are labeled %track - %artist - %title
3. All mp3's are normalized to 92
4. All albums have album cover
5. All mp3's are tagged with the correct year, title, album, artist and genre (genre is in the eye of the beholder)
6. All covers are named Folder.jpg

Tools i use are...

Covers
Album Art Downloader (http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/)
Jukebox Cover Manager (http://home.online.no/~llindga)

Mp3 Tagging
Tag And Rename (www.softpointer.com/tr.htm)

Mp3 Validation
Mp3Val (http://mp3val.sourceforge.net/)

Normalization
Mp3Gain (http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/)

Mp3 Management
Helium Music Manager 2009 (www.helium-music-manager.com/)

Jukebox Program
Freebox Version 4 (http://www.freeboxjukebox.com)

How i use this...

Juekbox cover manager goes through the directories and downloads walmart, buy, amazon and album exchange covers. I pick the one i want rename it to Folder.jpg and delete the rest

For the ones Jukebox Cover Manager does not find, i use Album Art Downloader, which i search manually across about 20 different sites

Once i have all the covers, i use tag and rename to correct tagging, i make sure all mp3's have the correct year, title, album, artist and genre (genre is in the eye of the beholder)...oh also i save the album cover inside the mp3. Once the tags are complete i rename all files to %track - %artist - %title

Then i run Mp3Val to make sure all my mp3's are in good nick

I then mp3 gain all mp3's to 92

Now they go into the collection for Freebox. I do use Helium Music Manager 2009 for doing searches, just incase i forgot to remove certain names ie (Bonus Track). I run this process every month or so...not all the time...

Visitor Q · « **Reply #23 on:** February 25, 2009, 11:06:41 pm »

I'll have to try Tag and Rename because MP3tag did not do that great of a job. Infact so far I have not found a tagging program that is as good as the source winamp pulls from. Are there any tagging program that uses the same source as winamp? Does anyone know if there is a setting I am missing in winamp that will tag the tracks one after another rather than taggging them one by one via the play list?

Album Art Downloader is great by the way...

Still sorting before I use MP3Gain.

javeryh · « **Reply #24 on:** March 02, 2009, 12:27:29 pm »

What do you guys use to rip CDs? I was using EAC but there were tons and tons of discs that would get errors even though they played FINE on the same computer. It was making me mental.

Hoopz · « **Reply #25 on:** March 03, 2009, 01:00:57 pm »

javeryyh have you read through this post?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=19496.0

It's pretty inclusive of everything about it.

javeryh · « **Reply #26 on:** March 03, 2009, 10:52:54 pm »

Quote from: Hoopz on March 03, 2009, 01:00:57 pm

javeryyh have you read through this post?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=19496.0

It's pretty inclusive of everything about it.

yeah, that's the post I followed! I don't know why I can only rip about 75% of my CDs when 99% of them play just fine...

Barry Barcrest · « **Reply #27 on:** March 04, 2009, 04:21:56 am »

Quote from: javeryh on March 02, 2009, 12:27:29 pm

What do you guys use to rip CDs? I was using EAC but there were tons and tons of discs that would get errors even though they played FINE on the same computer. It was making me mental.

Personally I use AUDIOGRABBER, It's free now as well.

Visitor Q · « **Reply #28 on:** March 06, 2009, 07:30:42 am »

I use "Exact Audio Copy".

When using MP3 Gain, what do you guys set your dB rating to? 89.0 is the default...

kizer · « **Reply #29 on:** March 06, 2009, 02:31:46 pm »

I just used the default.


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