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[Dan69]

The Fill Track Numbers from List Order feature is really great, but you have to select just the group you want to process the counter over. Is there a way to renumber ALL tracks in my collection sequentially at once, restarting at 1 for each album. For example, I have multi-disk sets that I want to be number sequentially. So:

Album	Disc	Track
XXXX	1	1
XXXX	1	2
XXXX	2	1
XXXX	2	2
XXXX	2	3
YYYY	1	1
YYYY	1	2
YYYY	2	1
YYYY	2	2
YYYY	2	3

would become:

Album	Disc	Track
XXXX	1	1
XXXX	1	2
XXXX	2	3
XXXX	2	4
XXXX	2	5
YYYY	1	1
YYYY	1	2
YYYY	2	3
YYYY	2	4
YYYY	2	5

[blgentry]

In MC this is pretty tricky.  There's no built in way of doing it that I'm aware of.  You might be able to do it with global variables; they are rather strange to work with, but they do work.

Another way to do this, is to synthesize a track number that keeps them in order, and is fairly easy to generate.  How about sticking the disc # and track # together to make a new number like:

101
102
103
...
201
202
...

Here's an expression to do it, including detecting if the Disc # field exists, and padding the track # to 2 digits:

Code: [Select]

if(isempty([Disc #]),[Track #],[Disc #]padnumber([Track #],2))
Also, I'd be inclined to save the original track numbers in another field.  Or make a separate repository for these new files with the manipulated track number fields.

Yet another reason for me to hate Microsoft Sync.  That system is just endless trouble.  Ask me how I know. 

Brian.

[Dan69]

Thanks for the response. I had already worked through the concatenation of the disc and track to a new field and this should work, it just leaves gaps in the tracks. Great minds think alike. :-)

Overall, I am satisfied with Sync, but only because I have (through lots of experimentation) gotten it to behave pretty much the way I want. I have a library of over 12K tracks on a USB hard drive that I can access while in my car. By comparison, my wife's new GMC's entertainment system won't even mount the hard drive.

I am curious to hear your experience with Sync and to see what you prefer. It seems to me that serious audio management in mobile audio is embarrassingly bad across the industry.
Dan

[blgentry]

Thanks for the response. I had already worked through the concatenation of the disc and track to a new field and this should work, it just leaves gaps in the tracks. Great minds think alike. :-)

If you were satisfied with just file names, renaming the files so that they are in a folder structure that names the files in order might be another way to go.  Like Artist/Album/01_01_first_song .... 02_01_first_song_second_disc...

It just seems terrible to have to mangle the metadata just so Sync will show them in order.

I am curious to hear your experience with Sync and to see what you prefer. It seems to me that serious audio management in mobile audio is embarrassingly bad across the industry.

I've done a number of projects where we integrated with Sync.  Adding subwoofers, better mid/high speakers, etc.  All of them were failures in some way due to the way Sync works.  It gets very deep into manipulating the sound in ways that aren't obvious to the consumer, but become a real nightmare when trying to add or improve the system.   But that's not your thing I know.  Just my experience.  As part of doing these projects, I've had to use Sync's interface and found it slow, confusing, limited, and just maddening.  Again, this is just me.

I don't have an alternative recommendation, other than a different aftermarket system from head to toe.  I've done a bit of brainstorming about installing something like an Intel NUC running JRiver MC in a car and using a tablet to control it via JRemote or EOS.  I've mostly abandoned this idea because the mode of selecting music in a car is quite different than at home.  In a car, you need to have easy access to a small number of things, with a small number of steps.  Because you're driving!  So attention needs to be kept on driving, rather than on the interface of the sound system, no matter how pretty it is. 

Brian.

[Dan69]

Unfortunately (and, I think, surprisingly), filename isn't used by sync to determine sort/play order (I tried that first :-)). Once you are in an "album", it relies next on track number alone, which for common 2 disk sets means I get something like mvt 1 of a symphony (first track on first disc) followed by movement 3 (first track on second disc) then movement 2 (second track first disk) and so on. It's not pretty.

Ultimately, I am ok with mangling the meta data, because I have to make copies of the files anyway. My source files are all FLAC, but sync wont play flac, so I convert them to wma. The meta data I'm changing is in these copies.

I add music to my source collection (the master) and tweak tags all the time and don't want to keep up with it on a separate copy, so every once in a while I like to just wipe the hard drive with the copies, re-convert all the files and copy them over fresh. The problem is that there is so much tweaking required AFTER I copy to the hard drive. It is the tweaking that I am trying to automate with custom expressions and tags.

I've been tempted to just write a program myself to handle this process, but I can get 98% of the way there with existing tools, I just need to close a couple of more loose ends and I think I'm there.

Thanks again for your help.
Dan

[DJLegba]

Perhaps I don't understand but for operas I use the same "Album" name for all discs, and I assign the disc number manually (it's not something that gets set when ripping). When I play the opera I get tracks 1 through x sequentially from disc 1, then 1 through y from disc 2, etc. When ripping I do include the disc number in the album name, but once I set the disc number in the tag editor I remove it from the album name.

[JimH]

Are you using the Disc # tag?

[blgentry]

Ultimately, I am ok with mangling the meta data, because I have to make copies of the files anyway. My source files are all FLAC, but sync wont play flac, so I convert them to wma. The meta data I'm changing is in these copies.

Oh great!  I feel much better now.    This is a much better situation.

I add music to my source collection (the master) and tweak tags all the time and don't want to keep up with it on a separate copy, so every once in a while I like to just wipe the hard drive with the copies, re-convert all the files and copy them over fresh. The problem is that there is so much tweaking required AFTER I copy to the hard drive. It is the tweaking that I am trying to automate with custom expressions and tags.

Also very good.  Calculated fields are very helpful in doing things like this.  Are you opening the copied repository in MC and then using calculated fields to do some of the adjustments you are talking about, like track renumbering?  If you aren't this is probably worth investigating.

Brian.

[Arindelle]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but might want to look at this in a much simpler way before trying to save time which might take up a lot more later

Are you using the Disc # tag?

This ... if your tags include this you can easily set your views to sort first by disk # then by track number. Most decent rippers should have tagged this automatically.

Perhaps I don't understand but for operas I use the same "Album" name for all discs, and I assign the disc number manually (it's not something that gets set when ripping). When I play the opera I get tracks 1 through x sequentially from disc 1, then 1 through y from disc 2, etc. When ripping I do include the disc number in the album name, but once I set the disc number in the tag editor I remove it from the album name.

and this (although I never have any problems getting this during a rip like DJLegba)... any kind of multiple disk albums when ripped usually are put in as separate cds. Retagging the album name, provided you have the DISK# tag filled in correctly will keep the album together. I do tend to renumber the tracks, but I do not have the track numbers written to the file. That way you have original ordering by cd on your hard drives, but the benefits of keeping entire albums together within a player, while keeping the "original" intact ... this was more important when wanting to burn a copy to a cd of course ... seems sort of silly now I guess. But some players are less flexible than JRiver and that way you can import to other players if needed without any worries.

[blgentry]

DJLegba, JimH, and Ariendelle:

Dan is trying to do this manipulation of the track number PURELY to use these files with this MicroSoft Sync system in his car.  Because Sync apparently does not understand the disc # tag.

Brian.

[Arindelle]

DJLegba, JimH, and Ariendelle:

Dan is trying to do this manipulation of the track number PURELY to use these files with this MicroSoft Sync system in his car.  Because Sync apparently does not understand the disc # tag.

Brian.

ah ok. Thanks Brian missed that  sorry to the OP for any confusion

[DJLegba]

DJLegba, JimH, and Ariendelle:

Dan is trying to do this manipulation of the track number PURELY to use these files with this MicroSoft Sync system in his car.  Because Sync apparently does not understand the disc # tag.

Brian.

Thanks. I knew I was missing something.

Arindelle, I rip with JRiver. How do I set it up to allow me to enter tags other than Album, Artist, Genre, Composer, Year, and individual track names prior to ripping?

[Dan69]

Thanks all, for the input. I think I have this resolved temporarily simply by generating a surrogate track number based on the concatenation of the disk # and the actual track #. This leaves huge gaps in the track sequence, but at least they are all ordered correctly. I'll still tinker to see if there is a way to "fill" the whole library at once, restarting every unique album, but it is not a pressing concern.

Thanks again.