MP3 tag software

[mike boss]

I'm very much a noob to this entire thing & am looking forward to using your program.
I like to read all I can prior to starting any project.

On other sites that promote other software they suggest using software to tag your MP3's.

Do you suggest this be done,and if so do you have a program you like to use ?

thanks

[unclet]

MP3 tags is a way to embed the artist, album, genre, year, etc, etc, etc  within the actual MP3 file itself.  This way software can read the tag information from each MP3 file it encounters and can build the library hierarchy (ie: load all the songs) accordingly.  This way you do not have to have all of your MP3 files in a certain folder format for the jukebox software to load all of the songs.   The software will simply read the MP3 tag information from each MP3 file and setup the library automatically.

Anyway, my software does not support MP3 tags.    

My software requires all the files to be in a "musicDir/artist/album/song" folder format instead.   I personally did not want to take the time to tag all of my MP3 files, plus I have a bunch of video files which can not be tagged so the video files would not get read in automatically anyway.   I found it easier to simply have this type of folder format to categorize all the audio/video files.   Once you set it up it will be there forever and it helps to load the music and regenerate the library (when you add new songs) rather quickly.   Also, whenever you add new songs you do not have to first edit the MP3 tag information for each new song, you simply have to put it in the correct folder and that is it.

Just go to my site and read the FAQ for exact descriptions of everything.

Feel free to ask questions here of course, although I am going away for a week on vacation so I will not be around to answer stuff in the short term.

PS:  To answer your question, if you choose to use other jukebox software for your jukebox because you want to use MP3 tags then I think "Tag and Rename" is software which has been mentioned a few times around here.  Although your best bet is to simply ask for the best MP3 tag editor within the Audio/MP3/Jukebox forum.

 

[mike boss]

I have my heart (and mind) set on using your program. From what I read, and what others say it works great.
I also saw your project, which as I said is TOP SHELF....I'd be willing to bet there is no way you would halph ass your software.

Being that i'm new to all this I just wanted to make sure it would all run smooth. I have all my music now backed up to my external hard drive. Every album is its own folder. IE - Coldplay X&Y has its own folder, I had it where there would be a folder called Coldplay and inside all the albums I changed that.

I should be able to point your software to this entire music folder and be ok should I not ?

[unclet]

I have one base folder (ie: MyMusicCollection).
Within this directory each artist has it's own folder.
Within each artist folder then each album has it's own folder.   
Within each album folder I place the audio/video files (prefixed by the track number) as well with the image album art file.

See the attached picture of the hierarchy I use.

Ok, leaving on vacation now, be back in a week.  Good luck

[mike boss]

Awesome, thanks !

I have picked up the PC I will be using for my Jukebox.
I installed your software and placed the EXE in my start up.
So now when I power on the CPU it goes right into your program.
All the music is installed and seems great. Some albums dont display the art, but I'm sure that can be fixed. How do I get rid of the toolbar on the bottom of my screen ?
I am running Uncle T's in fullscreen mode, however I still see my start menu bar.

Anyway I guess this is the wrong thread  for my questions.

[unclet]

Hmmm..... when I start up my software in fullscreen mode then in covers up the menu bar on the bottom of the screen.   Not sure why yours still displays over the jukebox.  Although I do not have my jukebox application start up automatically when the computer starts up.  My guess would be that my jukebox software does not have the current focus (ie: is not the active application) after the computer starts it up.   When it is in this state after it starts, does the menu bar disappear if you click on the jukebox application window with a mouse pointer?

[mike boss]

I'm sorry I should have updated this post with respect to my question.
Using XP SP2 (as I am) all I had to do was right click on my menu bar. There was an option to hide it in the properties section. It works flawlessly and does exactly that.... Hides it !

Now when I turn on the PC jukebox starts up right away which was the desired effect. However it doesnt go into the fullscreen mode, I have to maximize it myself.

I have started to shutdown the computer right from Uncle T's, as this is the sole purpose of this PC. I haven't really been on there messing around the last few days. However I will give it a shot tonight and see if that makes the difference. Prior I would hit ESC, then power down via my start menu bar. Again, now I just do this all from Uncle T's itself. I love that you added that feature.

[drventure]

About tagging, I use J River's Media Center.

http://www.jrmediacenter.com/

It's not free, but it is very nice for tagging, esp if you have a lot of files to tag. You can edit tags in a spreadsheet like grid, which makes the chore go quite quickly, and you can batch tag easily where it's applicable.

[mike boss]

thanks for the tip !

[Dermbrian]

My favorite tagging app is MP3Tag.

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html

For compatibility with most freeware/shareware jukebox apps, you'd need to go into the program OPTIONS - ID3 area and set MP3Tag to use ID3V2.3 ISO-8859-1.  Otherwise, some jukebox apps display extra strange characters in the song titles or artist fields if you leave this at the default Unicode format (UTF-16).

Not a problem with Uncle T's jukebox, since it doesn't use tags. 

If you set the directory in MP3Tag to the top directory of your music or MP3 folder, you can easily spot tracks that have bad or missing tags and fix them on the fly.

Brian

[Greene]

Some time ago I had to face a problem of choosing a good and easy MP3 tag editor. At download.com I found dozens of freeware and shareware tools. I chose a program that had good functionality and was easy to use: mp3Tag Pro.