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[EnglishTiger]

Background Info - I was using MC25 to play a CD so that Audials could record the tracks in Flac format directly from the soundcard and also had Auto Import running in the background so that the tracks ended in my MC25 Library.

Whilst this was going on I realised I need to make some edits to a couple of tracks already in my MC25 Library so I clicked on a Playlist Group and entered the name of the Group "Smokie" in the Search Box and selected the as Artist Option.

As the 1st picture reveals MC seemed to be Implying that there are at least 8 Copies of each Smokie track in my Library but as the column entitled "Dupe", which is a tag I added, shows there are only 2 copies/duplicates of some of those tracks - A fact that is revealed in the 2nd picture.

Now for the real wierdo, that 3rd image - for some totally inexplicable reason MC25 has translated/assumed me pressing the Print Screen key and then using Photo Shop to paste the results into an image file, so that I could ad evidence to this posting, into me adding the "cover art" for the tracks it was importing, even though MC has been told not to import any cover art. It even added that screen print to the Tags.

[tij]

Check tags of those tracks ... they might have been tagged incorrectly resulting in weird search result

By the way ... that’s a weird way to rip your CD ... the result will not be identical to what you have on CD as your chain is

Digital from CD > possible DSP in MC > analog from sound card > back to digital by Audials

Why not use MC to directly rip digital data from CD ... or if don’t like MC, tools like dbpoweramp or ExactAudioCopy or CUETools are what mostly ppl use to rip exact copy of CD (these 3 tools can compare your rips to other ppl rips so you can be more certain that ripping process produced exact copy ... CUETools can also repair bad rips that often happen if your CD is badly scratched by comparing what you have against other ppl rip)

[RoderickGI]

I agree with tij. Making audio files by going digital to analog to digital is bound to reduce the audio quality. You can just set the play range using [Playback Range] for tracks to exclude silent portions at the beginning or end if you don't want them to play. Using the Duration of a track digitally ripped from a CD can make matching that track to find metadata much more accurate.

If you wanted to remove the silent sections at the beginning and end of the files completely, just;
1. Rip the CD digitially directly to FLAC.
2. Determine the start and end positions you want to use for actual playback, which can easily be seen using the spectrum analyser in the header, avoiding any lag in hearing the audio and reaction times.
3. Update the [Playback Range] tag to reflect that start and end positions, using the format "hh:mm:ss.xxx-hh:mm:ss.xxx", so to three decimals places of seconds. The [Duration] in MC will now reflect only the defined playback range.
4. Optionally use the Convert function to "convert" the FLAC file to FLAC, which will only convert the Playback Range you have defined, without any actual conversion. That would just trim the file.

Then you get no digital to analog to digital conversions, and you get a FLAC file that only includes the audio you want.

Your first image doesn't show any evidence that MC thinks there are 8 copies of the tracks. In fact, it doesn't show much at all, because it doesn't show the filename and path of the tracks, and you said you selected the Playlist Group and then searched for "smokie", but the image doesn't show the group that was selected or what is included in it. Basically, it looks like you have those tracks in multiple Playlists, and so your search for "Smokie" shows the multiple instances. Form a better search process and you will be able to confirm what you have there.

Finally, if you hit Printscreen Windows copied the screen image to the clipboard. If you had multiple files selected in MC, and tried to paste the image into Photoshop but still had MC in focus in Windows, then MC did exactly what you told it to do, and pasted the screenshot as Cover Art for the selected file.

[tij]

Can you provide a rule/expression that generates your playlist ... if it’s a complex one that involved several other smart playlist ... there can be your source of “trouble”

I don’t think Roderick is defending MC (he doesn’t even work for them)  ... as the saying goes - if it needs justification there is something wrong with it ... he just trying to understand how you arrive to your multiple track listing to determine if MC needs fixing or there is something in your expression that generated those dublicates

Also ... converting flax to flac won’t get rid of leading/trailing silence ... what Roderick suggest is using MC feature that can start playing track at certain point and end playing track at another point ... similar to chapters in video? ... I know this feature exist but never used it ... so cannot offer much help there

In nutshell ... Roderick suggest you keep your rip in original format ... bit to bit perfect ... but “bookmark” those tracks so MC skip silence when playing this track

Believe me ... at one point you will realize (like so many other ppl have) that having exact copy of CD is way to go in case your original CD is damaged ... you can always use that original copy to generate any other mixes you want (even your Audials version) ... but you never be able to generate original CD quality from your Audials mixes

For me Digital to Analogue is biggest no no ... soundcard DAC adds noise level ... while it’s small depending on quality of DAC it’s circuitry and ambient interferences ... it’s still there ... and is retained when you convert back to digital for storage

When u playback that noise is there ... and will be added to noise that Digital to Analogue conversion has again

[BigSpider]

When you click on a playlist group MC will evaluate and show all of the contents of all of the playlists in that group. If a track appears in more than one playlist then it will be shown in the file listing more than once. You seem to be selecting a group made up of smart playlists, as a result you are forcing MC to evaluate and display the results of all of the smartlists in your quite large grouping which is resulting in multiple listings of the tracks. I am afraid MC is just doing what you are telling it to do. To avoid this confusion you should open the playlist group using the little triangle next to it's name and then select the playlist you want to look at. That way MC will only be asked to evaluate the contents of one playlist.

[RoderickGI]

Good explanation BigSpider.

EnglishTiger, I didn't make any assumptions, I just understand how MC works. I was right.

Just to demonstrate I created a Playlist Group called "Demonstration" and added to it five Smarlists, each of which had a condition of "[Name] contains {some part of a chosen track name}". I named the Smartlists based on the portion of the track name that was used for selecting the tracks to include. This results in my chosen track, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)", appearing in each Smartlist just once, with no other tracks appearing.

The attached image shows the "Demonstration" Playlist Group selected (highlighted for clarity), with a search added for the Artist, "Scott McKenzie" (highlighted for clarity). My selected track appears five times, and again for clarity I have show the full path to the track in the View, so that you can see that it is exactly the same track appearing five times, in the Playlist Group.

Again, for clarity, I have also attached an image showing just one Smartlist in the Playlist Group selected, and highlighting that there is only one track in that Smartlist. All the other Smartlists show the same result.

As I said;

Your first image doesn't show any evidence that MC thinks there are 8 copies of the tracks.

I'm afraid you don't understand how MC works as well as you thought you did. That's okay, it has a steep learning curve.

[RoderickGI]

So on this issue;

Now when it comes to the "screen print" being added to tracks as the art work, can you, or anyone else, please explain how MC added that artwork when the command "to paste from the clipboard" was issued in Photo-Shop pro especially since that option is in a totally different place in both programs and it was Photo-Shop window and not the MC window that had the focus. What makes it even more inexplicable, I'd minimised MC to the taskbar so that I could access the desktop to open Photo-Shop and therefore couldn't have told MC to paste anything from the keyboard.

My answer was incomplete.

Finally, if you hit Printscreen Windows copied the screen image to the clipboard. If you had multiple files selected in MC, and tried to paste the image into Photoshop but still had MC in focus in Windows, then MC did exactly what you told it to do, and pasted the screenshot as Cover Art for the selected file.

Of course, a simple "Ctrl+V" to paste an image while files in MC are highlighted won't copy the clipboard contents to the image tags in the selected files. You need to use the "Cover Art > Paste From Clipboard (image or URL)" command.

However, in my (admittedly older) version of Photoshop, there is no "paste from the clipboard" command, just a "Paste" (Ctrl+V) command, and "Paste Special" commands; "Paste in Place" (Shift+Ctrl+V), "Paste Into" (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+V), and "Paste Outside" (which doesn't have a shortcut key sequence). So I'm not entirely sure what you did to paste the screenshot into the image tags on those files. However, I tried to replicate the issue and could not.

One explanation is that you have set up a Global Keyboard Shortcut in MC to issue the "Paste From Clipboard (image or URL)" command, MCC 23042, in the "Resource.xml" file MC uses. If you have added such a shortcut, perhaps you activated that while in Photoshop.

If you can repeat the process, and document the steps required for someone else to reproduce it, I'm sure JRiver would have a look at it.

[RoderickGI]

Oh before I went the Audials Route I tried the convert Flac to Flac option and both files had the same stated duration and exactly the same amount of leading and/or trailing silence.

Your explanations of using Audials to identify which track to keep, particularly if you choose to use one of the original CD rips in the end anyway, and you are aware of MC's "Do Not Play Silence" function, make no sense to me.

I explained how you can do the same thing in MC using the spectrum analyser in the header.

2. Determine the start and end positions you want to use for actual playback, which can easily be seen using the spectrum analyser in the header, avoiding any lag in hearing the audio and reaction times.

If you are recording audio from Streaming Services using Audials so that you can add them to your Library, I don't care. Audials clam that is legal. Just don't pretend that your process for identifying the best track to retain is any better than the process I described using MC to remove silence from the beginning and end of audio tracks. It isn't. It is silly.

[RoderickGI]

#Plays is less than 1

BTW, you would probably find it better to use a rule based on the [Last Played] field, rather than the [Number Plays] field. Then you wouldn't need to go back and change the rules after you have listened to all tracks.

i.e. Tracks not played in the last 50 weeks.

[Last Played]=>50w