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[RonH]

I am in trial to purchase MC 30.0.18. There are a few odd things going on.  One is under Audio the "Album" selection has suddenly disappeared.  Also when I try and import the wav folder for example JJ Cale “Naturally”. It splits it into 2 albums.  Should I delete the program and re-install or install MC 29?

Also with over 3,500 wav albums / folders, I would love to bulk look up and add folder.jpg Album Art as well as the basic Tag info including Genre to each album folder. I can then also convert these folders to FLAC or uncompressed FLAC for Digital portable players thru JRiver.

Any advice / guidance would be much appreciated

Thank you!

[blgentry]

One is under Audio the "Album" selection has suddenly disappeared.

Weird.  That view is locked and should't be very easy to delete.  You can recreate it if you want.  Or you can drop your library, make a new one, and import your media again.  Or reinstall MC30 again and import your media again.  That shouldn't happen, but I'm guessing it was just some kind of "fat finger" type mistake where you pressed delete accidentally or something.

Also when I try and import the wav folder for example JJ Cale “Naturally”. It splits it into 2 albums.

That's a common "problem" with MC with some albums.  Take a look at the [Artist] field on each song.  They are probably not all the same.  Probably one of them is different.  Thus MC thinks they are two different albums.  The fix is one of two things:

1.  Make the [Artist] field the same for all songs.  This is the correct fix if there is a subtle typo or similar and the album really does have only ONE artist for all songs.
2.  If it's a compilation album, or has individual guest artists credited on an album that has one major artist, then you should set the [Album Artist] tag for all songs to be a single value.  A good example of this is Santana's album "Supernatural".  It's a Santana album so he is the [Album Artist].  But every song has a guest artist and the [Artist] field is set to those individual artists for each song.

See this article for more information:  https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Album_Artist_and_Album_Artist_(Auto)

Also with over 3,500 wav albums / folders, I would love to bulk look up and add folder.jpg Album Art as well as the basic Tag info including Genre to each album folder.

So your collection has no metadata at all?  I don't have much experience with using MC for doing metadata lookups.  MC has "Library Tools > Lookup information from online database".  But I've almost never used it.  If you try, try it with one or two songs.  Then an album or two.  See how it works.

Album art is a bit easier.  Highlight some files or albums.  Then do "Cover Art > Get from internet".  That will give you choices for each album.  It's pretty fast.  I suggest doing no more than about 20 (albums) in a batch. Give it a try with one.  Then do a few more.  Then do a batch.  The idea being that you don't want to get confused and do something you aren't sure about.

You probably want to make sure your cover art settings are set the way you want BEFORE you start.  Tools > Options > File Location > Cover Art.

Audio mode:  I like "same folder as the file".
Also store image in the file's tag:  This writes the cover art INSIDE the audio file if it supports it.  FLACs support it for sure.  I don't know about WAVs but I suspect they do not support this.

When I first got MC and started importing and tagging and things my tags weren't great.  What I figured out is this:  MC gave me much more visibility into my collection.  It showed me things that were wrong.  I wanted everything to be as well tagged as I could reasonably do.  So I spent quite a bit of time fixing things. Then I spent lots of time ripping new things and making sure they were correct as I ripped and imported them. This is the big thing:  To do ongoing maintenance of your collection as you build it.

Starting with such a large untagged collection is probably going to be kinda hard.  It might be quite time consuming.  The question is, do you want a well tagged and curated collection?  If so, you must become your own digital librarian.  You are in charge.  The level of detail and attention are up to you. 

Good luck to you.

Brian.

[RonH]

Great Advice, Thank you for taking the time. I wanted to let you know the reason I am considering MC30.  I currently use Roon and they have made the foolish choice to require continual internet to listen you your local music.  No Internet, no local music.  So I need to switch media players and it is back to Apple Music/itunes or MC30 and considering both.

[HaWi]

Weird.  That view is locked and should't be very easy to delete.  You can recreate it if you want.  Or you can drop your library, make a new one, and import your media again.  Or reinstall MC30 again and import your media again.  That shouldn't happen, but I'm guessing it was just some kind of "fat finger" type mistake where you pressed delete accidentally or something.

That's a common "problem" with MC with some albums.  Take a look at the [Artist] field on each song.  They are probably not all the same.  Probably one of them is different.  Thus MC thinks they are two different albums.  The fix is one of two things:

1.  Make the [Artist] field the same for all songs.  This is the correct fix if there is a subtle typo or similar and the album really does have only ONE artist for all songs.
2.  If it's a compilation album, or has individual guest artists credited on an album that has one major artist, then you should set the [Album Artist] tag for all songs to be a single value.  A good example of this is Santana's album "Supernatural".  It's a Santana album so he is the [Album Artist].  But every song has a guest artist and the [Artist] field is set to those individual artists for each song.

See this article for more information:  https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Album_Artist_and_Album_Artist_(Auto)

So your collection has no metadata at all?  I don't have much experience with using MC for doing metadata lookups.  MC has "Library Tools > Lookup information from online database".  But I've almost never used it.  If you try, try it with one or two songs.  Then an album or two.  See how it works.

Album art is a bit easier.  Highlight some files or albums.  Then do "Cover Art > Get from internet".  That will give you choices for each album.  It's pretty fast.  I suggest doing no more than about 20 (albums) in a batch. Give it a try with one.  Then do a few more.  Then do a batch.  The idea being that you don't want to get confused and do something you aren't sure about.

You probably want to make sure your cover art settings are set the way you want BEFORE you start.  Tools > Options > File Location > Cover Art.

Audio mode:  I like "same folder as the file".
Also store image in the file's tag:  This writes the cover art INSIDE the audio file if it supports it.  FLACs support it for sure.  I don't know about WAVs but I suspect they do not support this.

When I first got MC and started importing and tagging and things my tags weren't great.  What I figured out is this:  MC gave me much more visibility into my collection.  It showed me things that were wrong.  I wanted everything to be as well tagged as I could reasonably do.  So I spent quite a bit of time fixing things. Then I spent lots of time ripping new things and making sure they were correct as I ripped and imported them. This is the big thing:  To do ongoing maintenance of your collection as you build it.

Starting with such a large untagged collection is probably going to be kinda hard.  It might be quite time consuming.  The question is, do you want a well tagged and curated collection?  If so, you must become your own digital librarian.  You are in charge.  The level of detail and attention are up to you. 

Good luck to you.

Brian.

Brian, I hope you don't mind if I chime in
I believe [Artist] can be anything as long as [Album Artist] is populated and identical for all tracks of an album, but I think that's what you were saying anyway.
I am not very familiar with .wav but I remember that they have very few tags inside files which is why I switched to FLAC
Regarding tagging, if Ron were to convert his .wav to .flac there are some options for semi-automatic re-tagging. I have been looking into MCUtils lately and this is an amazing resource. MCUtils is not for the faint-hearted as it requires CLI but there is a good tutorial doc and I am making slow progress in learning how to use it. MCUtils allow to automatically pull comprehensive tags from sources like AllMusic, MusicBrainz and Discogs using MCWS.
Cheers,
Hans

[RonH]

Thanks HaWi !!!!  I appreciate your advice.

[cshl]

Hello HaWi

Brian, I hope you don't mind if I chime in

I am not very familiar with .wav but I remember that they have very few tags inside files which is why I switched to FLAC

Here is some info about wav files
WAV file formats use containers to contain the audio in raw and typically uncompressed “chunks” using the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF). This is a common method Windows uses for storing audio and video files— like AVI— but can be used for arbitrary data as well.

WAV files are generally going to be much larger than other popular audio file types, like MP3, due to the fact they are typically uncompressed (compression is supported, though). Because of this, they’re mainly used in the professional music recording industry to retain the maximum quality of audio.

[blgentry]

Because of this, they’re mainly used in the professional music recording industry to retain the maximum quality of audio.

WAV files have this weird reputation among audiophiles as being "more correct" or "higher resolution" than FLAC or MonkeysAudio.  I'm guessing this is an artifact from when there were only a few choices and almost everything other than WAV was LOSSY compressed and therefor measurably inferior.

But today, with FLAC, and MonkeysAudio and ALAC (and others I'm not remembering right this moment), there's essentially no reason for a consumer to ever use WAV.  WAV files are an anacronysm.  They are old, outdated, and technically inferior.  Not SONICALLY inferior.  Technically inferior. 

WAV files have very poor tagging support and compression is not standardized.  So they have essentially no tags and are the largest size they could possibly be for the data they hold. 

FLAC, on the other hand, has nearly unlimited tag support, which includes storing Cover Art inside the file.  They also have good lossless compression.  So they take up less disk space, yet have no sonic compromise.  The compression is fully reversible on playback and produces data that is identical to the data stored in the WAV file.  ALAC and Monkeys are similar.  (Fun note, MonkeysAudio was invented by the principle author of JRiver MC.  Our own Matt!)

Most people reading this probably know all of this.  I write this on the off chance that someone reading is still clinging to the idea that WAV is the only "pure" format available.  It is not.  It's a poor format in a modern world.

Brian.

[Matt]

For people convinced that somehow decoding APE or FLAC makes the sound quality worse than WAV, MC has a memory playback feature that loads the entire file decoded into memory as playback starts.  This means the data in memory will be identical between WAV and APE.  So there being any difference is simply impossible.

[JimH]

For people convinced that somehow decoding APE or FLAC makes the sound quality worse than WAV, ...

Which it doesn't.

JRiver's position is this:

Any lossless format is better than any lossy format.

FLAC or APE or ALAC are better than WAV.  They are smaller and support better tagging.

If you must use WAV, it is fully supported in MC, including internal tags.

We don't ever recommend beating a dead horse.