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[Hyekk]

Hi all

First post, have just started with MC. Easy problem (I think), but can't seem to solve it.

A number of years ago I ripped a bunch of CDs to FLAC with XLD. I foolishly didn't bother tagging them. I now want to effortlessly (drag drop click done) tag these FLACs using an online database. I poked around with Picard, Media Rage, Metadatics and couldn't seem to get it done. I can open files as disc in XLD, click metadata then 'transcode' or rewrite the entire FLAC with new metadata but this seems outrageously inefficient. Does anyone know the easy way to do this? Can MC itself do it?

Thanks for any advice, apologise if this is an FAQ with an easy solution.

[blgentry]

I'm assuming that the filenames and directory names have most of the metadata in them right?  Otherwise, how would you know which file is which?

MC has a function called "fill properties from filename".  Library Tools > Fill properties from filename .

You tell it which parts of the directory and/or file name contain which fields and MC fills them in.  Try it with a file or two to start.  Then do an album or two at a time.  Then do a group of albums.  Eventually you can do a whole big bunch of albums at a time.

Good luck.

Brian.

[Hyekk]

Thanks for the quick reply.

No, the file names don't contain any information either. All are 'untitled' unfortunately. The directories have a key word or two like Beethoven, Sonata, Kempff, but that's it. What I most need are title/names for each of the tracks. I just thought that online databases could recognise the FLAC file itself and assign a tag to it, with checksums or some other unique data point, I really don't even know if it works that way. If XLD can do it almost instantly with no tags and no other info, surely the others can right?

Thanks again.

[Fred1]

Wondershare TidyMyMusic does a quite good job for tagging unknown files.

[RoderickGI]

MusicBrainz Picard does a reasonable job of recognising unknown music, using AcoustID's of the sound itself. There are other applications that use AcoustID's as well, and the commercial ones are supposed to be better. Picard may struggle with classical music though.

XLD just looks up the free CDDB by the look of it, so if it can almost instantly recognise the music there must already be tags in the file. It doesn't look like it looks up metadata when you play a file, just when you convert a file. But I could be wrong in that. XLD also uses AccurateRip to check the RIP integrity. So I suspect there are some tags in the files already.

Have a read of this post, and look at the images that show how to check what tags are in a file using MC. Specifically;

You can check what tags have been written to any media file from within MC. Just highlight the file, open the tag window, and click on the first line at the top of the tag Action Window, which shows the file type, duration, and size for audio files. See the first image. Then the tags stored in the file are shown in the Action Window. See second image.

Of course if there are tags in the files, MC should have picked them up during import. But if it didn't, and tags are in the files, you can use the Update Library From Tags function to get the information into the MC library.

[blgentry]

Wow, how do you find your music at all with no tags and no file names?

Anyway, others have outlined various ways.  Music Brainz Picard can do this stuff too.  I've only played with it a bit and it works, though it requires some manual effort.  It's probably worth looking into other solutions like Tidy that the other posters have mentioned.

Good luck for sure!

Brian.

[JimH]

MC can use audio fingerprinting to identify some of them.  Select a sample of, for example 50 files.  Right click and choose Library Tools > Look up track info from online database.

The database that provides this has never been very well populated, mainly because we've never asked people to help fill it up.

If anyone is willing to help, just select files and choose the Submit track option in the same location.  Thanks.

Re-ripping the CD's is also not very hard to do.

[Hyekk]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried Jaikoz and TidyMyMusic. Jaikoz couldn't recognise the files. TidyMyMusic seemed to have difficulty with FLAC. Just in case I've frightened anyone out there, know that the untitled and tagless portion of my collection is very small! Most of it is neatly tagged.

@JimH
I did try to look up some of the files with MC's online database without any luck.

@RoderickGI
Thanks for the suggestion. The only tags are technical ones like sample rate, channels, etc. It seems like the quickest solution is still XLD. It means rewriting the entire FLAC but this only takes 40 seconds or so per disc. You're right, it does use CDDB but seems to match the tracks with one click. Not sure why the others aren't able to do the same. Maybe they just have difficulty with classical music.

[JimH]

How many did you try?  You should get at least a few.

[Hyekk]

I tried about 100 files (all classical) none of which were in the database. Just tried some jazz files (about 40) and all of those were in the database. It works beautifully when the files are in the database!

[JimH]

I wonder if the classical tracks are more of a problem because there are so many different recordings.

MC is doing a fingerprint of the beginning of the audio.  It needs a very good (not perfect) match.  Two orchestras performing the same piece wouldn't do it.

Try uploading a few, then checking from a different computer to see the accuracy.

If you have a friend who has a similar collection, they could to that for you, even with the trial version.