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[Dr.Funk]

Hi Guys,
I am a JRiver virgin and I would appreciate some help in my initial setup please. I used my trial period to play with about 30 albums in a folder (Windows 10), I got used to editing and tagging within MC. Everything appeared fine and I used mp3's, wave, flac and dsf files without a hitch. So I bought a licence to start my journey streaming music to my Cambridge Audio Cxn v2.
Yesterday I cleared the 'test' library from within MC to create my new library, pointing to a USB3 4TB portable drive connected to my desktop pc. The library file, within the C 'user' profile is on my 1TB SS, with 32GB Ram. Just giving this background to save any 'system' queries off the starting blocks.
Within this drive the hierarchy is set out as follows;
Main Folder is MusicBox
Within MusicBox are two folders - Flac & Wave  and MP3
Within Flac & Wave there are 352 folders, 351 individual albums/folders and 1 folder called Compilations, containing 40 albums, each within its own folder.
Within MP3 there are 273 individual albums/folders and 1 folder called Compilations, containing 290 albums/folders.

With my first attempt I created a new library, selecting MusicBox only. The import went okay, however everything was mixed up, as can naturally happen on first import, some compilations were split up into multiple files (I expected that and knew there would be some maintenance to be done). But all the albums from each folder were also mixed together. By that I mean, the structure was not the same as the drive, Flacs and Mp3's were side by side.
In my subsequent clearing and recreating a main library I tried importing first the compilation folder from Flac & Wave and then the remaining folders within Flac & Wave. The results were the same as my first attempts, repeated for the MP3 folder too

I found this in the forum, "How to import and maintain folder structure"   https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=110352.0
but it seemed to get diverted to the issue of tagging and then started talking about writting code, which went right over my head!

A friend who has better knowledge than I regarding data relationships suggested that I need to create individual library's for Flac & Wave, Flac & Wave Compilations, Mp3 and Mp3 Compilations and then nest them all under the MusicBox folder.
Could someone please confirm or deny my friends method and explain to me how I go about this.
Thank you
Regards
Andy
aka - Dr.Funk
If I don't respond directly, it is because I am in Australia and the sun does not always shine at the same time for me!

[wer]

Welcome to the forums. I will try and give you a bit of help, even though you are an Australian. 

It's good you found that other thread. It's not so good you had the reaction to it you did, because the advice that other user received was very good.  The other thread didn't "divert to the issue of tagging"... I'll explain why, because this is crucial for you to understand.

Metadata, or the data in the files' tags, is absolutely central to how JRiver organizations music. Folders are irrelevant. Where you keep things on your hard drive, is irrelevant. If you have your music spread across 10 different drives, that is irrelevant.  And if you have every single music file you own totally disorganized and lumped together in one single folder, that too is irrelevant to how JRiver presents your music.

When you look at your music in Windows Explorer, the locations and folders are all that matter. JRiver is the opposite.

When you import your music into JRiver, it reads all the metadata in the files, and it then presents the music to you organized by the metadata: Album Artist, Album, Genre, etc.  The location of a file doesn't matter.

If your music is being presented in an incorrect way, it's because your metadata needs correction. To put it more briefly: fix your tags.  This is why the other thread took the direction it did. It's not a digression; it goes to the very heart of the matter.

An example: if two tracks have the same [Album] tag and the same [Album Artist] tag, they are by definition part of the same album.  If you keep them in two different folders, because one is the 1967 original version and the other is the 2017 remaster, they are still the same album because the tags match. Change the [Album] tag on the second one to include "(remastered)" and immediately JRiver will consider them as two different albums and show them separately.

You do not need separate libraries for separate types or music or files. Your friend made a very silly suggestion.  You just need to clean up your metadata.  This is often the case with people who are coming from software that relies on folder organization. The tags are often a mess, because the folder organization masks the problems.

Once you have your metadata cleaned up, you can configure MC to present your music any way you want. It is infinitely flexible in that regard.  But you have to start with good metadata.

This wiki article will point you at how to get started with the mechanics of tagging your music in MC:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Tagging

You can configure views in MC to only show you flac, or only show you mp3, or whatever you want. But by default, MC doesn't discriminate: music is music, regardless of location or format. 

If you want to provide some screenshots of specific things that are being combined that you want to display separately or not at all, we can look at that.  MC also has fields, one is called [Filename (path)], that shows the location of a file, and you can add that to a view to help you sort or filter.

A metadata error is the cause behind the problem you mention in your other thread, by the way.

I hope this helps...

[rec head]

Wer is absolutely correct in what he said but it sounds like your issue isn't even tags but just the View you are using or Sort Order. If you click at the top of the Columns you can decide how your view is sorted. Example sort: Album Artist, Album, File type. That would list the album in Flac then the MP3 version. In a Panes View you can also switch between the file types. Or even make a view of only Flac. You can make as many views as you want, save them, copy them delete them, etc.  All this happens in one library.

The point is pull all your files into MC then start sorting it out. Doing it the way you are starting with just the Musicbox folder is a good idea to get used to it.

I'm horrible at remembering what all the different parts of the interface are called so if I'm not clear I hope someone straightens me out.

[wer]

We know for sure he has some metadata problems, rec, because he exhibited one in another thread: mismatched tags causing an album split.

In my opinion, it's better to clean metadata first, because bad metadata will confound his attempts at custom views.

But it might be best if he just imported one file type at a time, cleaned those, and then moved on. E.g. Mp3, then flac, then wav.  And convert the wav to flac so they can be tagged properly. Eating the elephant a bit at a time might make it more manageable.

[rec head]

With my first attempt I created a new library, selecting MusicBox only. The import went okay, however everything was mixed up, as can naturally happen on first import, some compilations were split up into multiple files (I expected that and knew there would be some maintenance to be done). But all the albums from each folder were also mixed together. By that I mean, the structure was not the same as the drive, Flacs and Mp3's were side by side.
In my subsequent clearing and recreating a main library I tried importing first the compilation folder from Flac & Wave and then the remaining folders within Flac & Wave. The results were the same as my first attempts, repeated for the MP3 folder too

I missed the other thread but I read the bolded sentence above as just a sort order problem. I'm not saying all his tags are correct but that they might not all be wrong. I almost never edit any music tags and my imports work out.

[wer]

Yep, he'll need both. Tag correction, and a bit of view customization to make it more familiar.

We shouldn't assume his files of different formats actually should be separated. I mean, I'm sure you want to keep all your Falco albums in the same view, even if you have some in flac but others only in mp3!

[Dr.Funk]

Thanks everyone for your help and advice.
I shall address this post to Wer, as it would seem that most of the advice and explanation has come from that quarter.
You have assumed that as I live in Australia, I am an Australian, I was in fact born in Brighton, England. I emigrated when I was 34, 26 years ago! I hold a dual passport but, a condition of entry is a partial lobotomy, whereby a meat pie is inserted and you are asked, “would you like sauce with that?” That is my excuse why I need assistance with MC and I’m sticking to it.

Thank you for your reply, it was very informative and easy to follow. I have beavered away today on my flac/compilations and I feel I have made some good headway. Of course, as one delves deeper other questions do arise, so, if you would be so kind as to answer some more questions, I can progress further.
The reason I want to keep Mp3 files (both standard and compilations) separate from Flac/Wave and DSD’s is because when I sit to listen to my decent system in the lounge, I don’t want to pick through hundreds of Mp3 albums, viewed on my 6” tablet controller, to find the best audio files to listen. I use the Mp3’s for wireless transfer to the outside living area.

In your second reply you mention eating the elephant one bite at a time, deciding whether I start at the tail, a foot or the trunk is the million-dollar question. I started with the flac / compilations because I felt that it was a good combination of not being too large and plenty of tagging issues. I have at least 3,000 albums to sort out in total, so getting to the part whereby I can configure MC to present my music the way I like, maybe a way off!
I went to the wiki link you gave and came across a problem in the Tagging Mode section. I was going through the motions to see how helpful it maybe. In section 4, having selected Standard View from the View Scheme, I tried F4 (nothing happened) and then Edit>Tagging Mode (was not visible). I blundered on and I think I got the view I was meant to. However the check boxes do not give me anything to check that is relevant to the album I was looking at, not sure if I am making myself clear, I have added a screenshot of the Tagging Mode that I could see, perhaps you can tell me if this is the correct view and what/how is it meant to help me? I understand the example given (regarding family members in photos) as I am used to using keywords in Adobe Lightroom. I fail to see how three column choices, Genre, Artist and Album helps? Sorry really lost here.

I have included two screenshots, Feel the Difference Disc 2, shows how AudioRanger sees the metadata of this particular album. As you can see, Track number and disc number (2) are clearly there. But in the screenshot, Feel the Difference – track numbers missing within MC, having imported the album into MC, the track numbers are missing, the disc number 2 was put there by me, manually, because that was missing to. What have I done wrong in this example? I have got other compilation albums whereby the track numbers and disc numbers are missing, but are visible in the metadata when viewed in AudioRanger.
This is very tedious to enter manually, is there a way to select the empty boxes of the track numbers for the given range, say 1 to 12, then have MC fill in those numbers in order?
I apologise for all the questions, I feel like a one legged man in an arse kicking contest, doomed to fall over!
Cheers
Andy

[wer]

When you said you were in Australia, I naturally assumed you were Australian because, well, who would be there that wasn't legally required to be? But your (tragic) story sounds like you were taken there at a young age, so of course you are not to blame, and you have my condolences.

I don't know anything about Audioranger, so I don't know why it would display different info. Are you sure you aren't looking at cached or database info in Audioranger that you have not yet written out to the tags?  If you wrote the data to the tags in AR after you imported into MC, then MC might not have picked up on the changes. You can select the files in MC, right click, and do an Update library from tags. That will re-read the tag info. There have been cases where non-standard tag data is not read correctly, but this is rare and I don't think I've heard of it with track#. But there definitely have been cases of 3rd party taggers that weren't writing tags in a compatible way.

In tagging mode, you can right-click on the header row up above to add and remove categories, so you can tag more than just genre/artist/album. You can likewise right click on the lower header row to add/remove columns in the file list so you can view whatever data you want.

There is a right click option "fill track # from list order" that you can use to auto fill track numbers. Get the tracks you want to fill alone in the view and sorted correctly first.

Incidentally, if you had really been Australian, one of our members would have come over to your house to fix all this for you. He does that for all our Australian users. But I doubt you'll be able to trick him into doing it now that you've claimed to be English. So I guess you missed out on that and will have to muddle through...

Hope this helps...

[Dr.Funk]

Hi Wer,
Your humour is very dry, if you think 34 was a young age to be 'taken' to the colonies! The meat pie labotomy makes me an Australian by default. . . .

I think in this current pandemic it is the safest place to be. Here in Perth, Western Australia, we became an island within an island when we closed our borders to everyone. As a consequence we have had no lockdowns, 9 deaths in total from a WA population of 2.6 million, 6 of whom were international sailors when their ships birthed. Apart from our geographical isolation from the rest of the world, we are fortunate to be in a position of not living in dense population, unless we choose to live in the heart of a city. In my area houses are situated on half acre blocks, so isolating from our neighbours was an easy task. We are able to social distance, if need be, by sitting 3 or 4m apart on our fence line when we need to have a chat with a neighbour. I have empathy for those less fortunate. Hopefully the antidotes will be as successful as the world hopes.
If there is a member in Australia who is willing to help, I would be more than willing to take my chances of being rebuked by a 'true convict ancestor'

AudioRanger gives one the ability to 'save' all your changes; and you view that in real time. You can also move or copy a complete adjusted album to a holding folder of your choosing. It has been 95% successful in transfering complete metadater to MC, it is just when MC doesn't accept it, it is puzzling as to know why. Intermittent faults are always harder to find. AudioRanger has a fully functioning trial period, limited to 10 tracks at a time, I managed, during the trial to complete 5 disc compilations, by adding 10 tracks at a time and saving before I did the next. I had tried many taggers before I settled on AudioRanger. Lifetime updates for a total of about 30 Euro, good value too.


Would you be so kind as to give me a screen shot of these suggestions of yours please.

In tagging mode, you can right-click on the header row up above to add and remove categories, so you can tag more than just genre/artist/album. You can likewise right click on the lower header row to add/remove columns in the file list so you can view whatever data you want.

There is a right click option "fill track # from list order" that you can use to auto fill track numbers. Get the tracks you want to fill alone in the view and sorted correctly first.
How do I get the tracks I want alone in the view first? So far I can highlight the tracks, with the currently numbered tracks still in the frame. Also, because the tracks have no track numbers as yet, they are in alphabetical order for the whole of disc two. I cannot find a way to place them in the right order, before I number them en mass. Of course I can highlight one track at a time and 'tag', filling the track field in the Tag window on the left pane, I may die of old age before I complete my task!

in a previous post you suggested I convert my wave files to Flac, why was that?

My apologies for the constant questions, I am learning, hopefully some screenshots will give me an Aha moment and I will leave you in peace.
Kind regards
Andy

[RoderickGI]

Well actually Will, my Dad was English born, so I might have given Andy a hand. A trip to Western Australia would have been nice a while back, but now Victoria is safer.

I haven't been following this thread though, so no home visits. Will is looking after you though. 

[wer]

Ah, I misread your post. I thought you said you had emigrated 26 years ago and were now 34. My mistake.  But since you "emigrated" as an adult, was it in the traditional involuntary way, or being instead voluntary, must we now consider your sanity suspect?

In either case, no screenshots I'm afraid.  I'm traveling and don't have access to MC for the time being. Do you know how to sort the file list in the bottom pane by clicking on the column headers? If not, you're more inexperienced with the software than I had feared. However, I think you may be able to learn what you need by reading Marko's excellent tutorial:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=68960.0

You're going to need to get more familiar with the software or you'll encounter difficulties in remediating your tag issues, unless Rod decides to grace you with a home visit.

There are also some videos that were done a while back that demo how to use the software. I think the last one might help you with your view questions.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=111775.0

Take a look at those and see if that helps...

[Dr.Funk]

Wer,

When I click on the  bottom pane colum headers I am offered to, Sort Inside Groups or Sort All Files By (dependent on the column), removes grouping temporarily. I do not know what this means, your fear factor can go all the way to 10!
I shall work my way through your tutorial links, much appreciated.
Hopefully Ron will read this and take pity on me.

Thank you for the reply, safe journey.

[wer]

Just experiment changing the sorting and see the effect. You won't do any real damage. You can sort by multiple columns, most recent takes precedence. If you click track #, then album, then album artist, you will see all the tracks sorted first by album artist, then by album, then by track within album.

[JimH]

I just said goodbye a few months ago to an Aussie couple who moved back to Perth.  A great loss for me personally and for Minneapolis.  Perth sounds like a really nice place.

[Dawgincontrol]

A view that may help you in your effort to keep files separate to your eye is available in Standard View.

Under Audiio in the left tree, select "Files".  At the top of this view are headers of "Location" and "File Types".

Under these headers you can select only folders from "Locations">All Locations>etc. or typeof files (FLAC, WAV, MPS's, etc.) under All File types.  You can dive as deep as you need to here. 

Under Files in above the listings is a down arrow.  Select this for different ways to view.  I personally like the "List Style" of Details when looking for specific types and folders, but that's a "to each his own" scenario.

Good luck.

[Dr.Funk]

Hi Dawgincontrol,
That is a wicked suggestion. That is a very powerful tool. Thank you for that suggestion.

When I select 'List Style" [Album Thumbnails] plus utilise a singular file type, I get exactly the view that I want.
Do you know if there is a way of combining the above 'List Style', all file types, then the million dollar question - present them so that the file types present in their individual file type 'panes', one under the other, like a continuous scroll down from dsf, to flac, then to wav or mp3?

The reason I am trying to get this is so that, when I am in my lounge listening to my main hi-fi system, I can get this view on my Samsung tablet 'controller' and scroll between the hi-res files only, ignoring the mp3s.

I can have any view whilst sitting in front of my computer, playing music through the speakers connected to that, but can I send the chosen view to my tablet?
Cheers
Andy

[wer]

That's exactly what a panes view does. You can have the files grouped or sorted however you want, including by file type. If you have one of the categories/panes at the top be file type, you can select whichever of them you want to instantly filter them.

Configuring a panes view is described in great detail in Marko's tutorial I gave you.

If you just want to see a browsable tree reminiscent of Windows Explorer, you can right-click on Audio, and add a Library View called "Disk Location"; you'll see the template for it in the Add Library View dialog box.  It's not as powerful as a Panes view though.

[Dr.Funk]

Hi Wer,
I appreciate your reply, I am sure the video link has all the info. I am just being courteous and responding to a post, before I have chance to look at all of Marco's video.
I can see that you can select whichever file you want, or all file types, but can you select say two of three file types, or three of 5 for example?
Can I send my chosen view (selected on my pc) to my streamer, viewed in the same way on my Samsung tablet?
Regards
Andy

[wer]

Yes, you can select 1, 2, 4, 22, or any combination; the standard Windows conventions of ctrl-click and shift-click apply.  You should try it.  A few clicks are worth a thousand words.

If by "send your chosen view" you mean can you send all the tracks to a DLNA device for playback: yes.

If you mean can you send the actual visual view for browsing and display: No, MC doesn't do that on any platform. You can use one of the remote apps like JRemote, or Panel, or JRemote2 for Android.  The views look different on the remotes, and they don't have the Panes view. JRemote is a very nice remote, but that sort of power is available only in the MC desktop client. If you want a panes view on your tablet, run a remote control app.

[Dr.Funk]

Wer,
Up until now I have been sending the tracks to a DNLA server, via my Cabridge Audio app (remote control app) StreamMagic6.

I have not used/tried the JRemote2 app as there was no trial first, buy later option. Hence my questions regarding views I 'could' possible see on my tablet.
Currently on my app I am seeing all the tracks, in all the formats. I still want that, but to separate the formats. I am sure I will get there via the video links you sent.

When someone responds to my post, I try to respond in turn, taking the opportunity to ask pertinent questions. Perhaps I would be better off to, shut up, go away for a month and review the information that has come forth, coming back only when I have digested the information.

I am appreciative of all your advice thus far, just impatient to see and choose from my digital music library. Currently it is quicker to go to my 4,000 cd/vinyl, Reel to Reel, cassette 'physical' library, choosing a format and play something. Rather than scroll on a tablet to a mixed format list.

I am sure people reading this are rolling their eyes and thinking to themselves, " all he needs to do is x y z", I wonder if, instead, they then said to themselves, "hang on a minute, he doesn't know what I know, because he is a Newbie", would they would loose their frustration in me not picking things up faster.
I truly appreciate that there is a forum like this and that there are helpful people like yourself. No disrespect intended but I feel people want me to run before I can walk. partially driven I am sure by me wanting to get to the end result 

I was one of the managers that built this amazing building,
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=perth+arena&sxsrf=ALeKk03p8rgAc9P-WZpTFeqn8Ko0uJDJEw:1606712600840&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi22tDuvqntAhX2wzgGHbpiAmcQ_AUoAnoECAgQBA&biw=1920&bih=1125

27,000sqm with a retracting roof weighing 500 tonnes!

If I gave you the plans and said, " right Newbie - call me when you have some questions?", I am sure the majority would go "what the fudge!!"
Regards
Andy

[wer]

Building complicated structures takes years of study and experience, as does building complicated systems and networks (my profession).  Learning to use a software package is much easier.  I'm sure once you spend a bit of time with it, you'll pick it up easily.

It can be tricky to help people on forums, in a way that it often isn't in professional life.  If you told a contractor on your building the specifications for installing a mechanical linkage, and he asked you "What's a torque wrench?"... Well, you wouldn't expect to see him on your job site. But that happens all the time with forums like this.  One has no way to know the knowledge level of the person communicating with you.  And people often get offended if you assume too much knowledge, because they think you're rushing them and aren't patient. And people get even more offended if you assume too little knowledge, because then they think you think they're stupid.  And some people have such false confidence in their own abilities that anything they can't do must be a problem with the software and they get offended if you even imply they're misunderstanding something.  And some people are too lazy to lift a finger to help themselves.

If I thought anything bad of you, I wouldn't bother trying to help. You have reasonable questions and seem to be willing to try to find the answers. So like I said, I'm sure you'll pick it up easily as you experiment a bit and you get some of the fundamentals. Besides, since my friend Roderick is living proof that a native Australian can master the software, you with a portion of your original brain left can definitely conquer it! 

[JimH]

It can be tricky to help people on forums, in a way that it often isn't in professional life.  If you told a contractor on your building the specifications for installing a mechanical linkage, and he asked you "What's a torque wrench?"... Well, you wouldn't expect to see him on your job site. But that happens all the time with forums like this.  One has no way to know the knowledge level of the person communicating with you.  And people often get offended if you assume too much knowledge, because they think you're rushing them and aren't patient. And people get even more offended if you assume too little knowledge, because then they think you think they're stupid.  And some people have such false confidence in their own abilities that anything they can't do must be a problem with the software and they get offended if you even imply they're misunderstanding something.  And some people are too lazy to lift a finger to help themselves.

Excellent summary of how wide the range of skill levels is and how easy it is to step on someone's toes.

Perhaps half of the questions could be answered by a Google search.

On the other hand, it's fun to see new users come up to speed and brighten when their problems are solved.

People like wer and RoderickGI are of immense help to both the community and JRiver.

[Dr.Funk]

Hi JimH,

Yes I agree that Wer did describe the range of skill levels well.
He or anyone else had not stepped on my toes, i was merely giving a good account of what it is like to be in the Newbie corner. Even Lord Vader needs to be told he needs a tray in the Death Star Canteen!

I always search Google first, but it is not always the 'pond of all knowledge'. It can, very quickly, become 'quicksand', were the quest for basic knowledge of a subject can be exhausting, because it is not always in a logical sequence. Many of my questions, after many hours or research amounted to dead ends, this forum was sometimes my last resort, not my first
I am a keen photographer who uses Nikon DSLR's. Their camera manuals are around 500 pages per camera body. If you try and read the manual like a novel, front to back, believing it to be written in a logical order, you will never reach the end, because page 10 tells you to go to page 153, whereby page 153 tells you to go to page 48 and so on and so forth. That's just to put the battery in and see the pretty lights!

For the past 5 hours I have 'tagged' 62 compilation albums, some are 5 and 9 disc boxed sets, some tracks were so out of sequence I had to download images of the album back to get them in the right order.

I have come up against issues of no available Cover Art, despite using Google till my fingers bled (even Album Art Downloader doesn't have them), so I created my own using a myriad of software (there is nothing worse that looking at a sea of musical notes). Then, something I cannot resolve is random missing track and disc numbers; despite using the tagger built into MC; and yet being able to see both disc and track numbers in VLC, Foobar and anything else I throw it at, but not JRiver? I am not saying there is anything wrong with the software ( I wouldn't be that stupid) but as a Newbie, I am missing something, but what?
Andy

[wer]

For these files with "missing" track numbers, have you tried turning on track number display in Windows Explorer? You can add it as a column in details view.

If Windows can read a track number that MC can't, then I'd be inclined to think that's something in MC that needs to be fixed. If Windows can't see the track number in a FLAC or MP3 file, then the tag isn't properly written to the file, and there's nothing for MC to see.