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[Tolga]

BACKGROUND:
I have expressed my view that MC don't have to support all small feature that can be done with small external utilities. What makes MC so great is its inovative features and its focus should be organization (i.e. rather than for example to try to replace photoshop). I view MC more as a replacement for explorer than a player. (although it is an excellent player as well).

It is important that you can use MC's organization to access the data using external program. External Tool support is a big step towards that goal; although it needs improvement.
(See:http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1042150189)

MAIN POINT:
I want to open a discussion, what program people use in addition to MC. I am talking about things that handle little things.
I use mp3utility to find errors in mp3 files.

http://www.geocities.com/mp3utility

and recently Mp3 Bookhelper to verify the data in mp3 files have not changed.

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1042953742

I used to use some tagging programs, but since MC9, I do most of my tagging with MC.

I wonder what other programs people use for everyday use?

[Tolga]

some problems with the links above. oh, well ; just copy and paste. :-/

[Mastiff]

RazorLame for conversion with Lame, MP34 Gain for (what else?) Album gain that's permanent and not dependent on being in a media library and MP3 Tag Studio for tagging/renaming when I do it with many files. Exact audio copy for ripping/converting from CD, and Psychic MP3 for finding correct names for full albums (I had a bunch of old albums that were ripped to the name format 1.mp3, 2.mp3 and so on in each subdir, and I wanted them converted to 01 - Track Name.mp3 and Psychic fixed that greatly).  

[KingSparta]

some problems with the links above. oh, well ; just copy and paste. :-/

I Fixed It, But you can edit your own messages.

[KingSparta]

I Use

1. MP3/Utility To Find Some Mpeg Errors

2. Helium To Find More Mpeg Errors And Does A Much Better Job Than Mp3 Utility

3. I Also Own Dr. Tag But Don't use it anymore since MC9 tagging does a much better job than it did in MJ. It would be nice for MC9 to support all ID3v2 Fields.

4. Chart & Lyrics Finder MJ\MC Plug-In (It's A Wonderful Program). Who Ever Wrote That Program Is Tops In My Book.

5. MJ Plugin Dup Finder: It Works But Could Work Better. It Takes Many Passes Before It Finds All Matches With The Same Settings. I Think It Is A Bug, There Has Been No Updates Since September.

[KeystoneCop]

Chart Finder Plugin
Dupfinder Plugin (it does need work)
Gonkultor (who needs THE anyway)

Used to use Mp3TagTools v12  But Media Center now does it better.  (but would like to remove unused tags to save space)

Mp3tag V.2.06 http://www.mp3tag.de/index.html only need this casue YADB is not feeling well yet.  

have tried 100 of others,  That's why I ended up with media Center,  and KingSparta's plugins...

[phelt]

MP3 Tag Studio
and
MP3Gain
and occasionally
VBRFix

[nila]

• EAC for ripping (I LOVE the ability to set ripping profiles and quickly change between them - I have two fixed ones I always use - New CD's (rips them darn fast) and Old CD's (uses EAC's great error checking rip method).
  
• Razorlame for encoding .wav files to mp3's due to it's HUGE abundance of easy to set options.
  
• cdtag for re-naming and tagging all my files and creating the .sfv and .m3u for the album after I rip it.
  
• mp3 Utility for checking for errors.
  
• enc spot pro for checking older albums I have or ones I've downloaded to just get a rough approximation of the quality (I know it's not perfect but it's a good rough guide)
  
  
  Those are the main two, Dr Tag also has some nice features I like but on the whole I just use MJ for anything else.

[Lou Busch]

I am writing (and using) a VERY beta program that scans AMG for artist and album htm files, loads them to my computer then decodes them for inclusion in ID3/MJ8/MJ9/MC tags.  I started many months ago with MJ8 but it's taken so long I decided  to switch to MJ9/MC.  I have encountered some problems with field mapping after the conversion, detailed at the end of this message.
Here is a generated INF (my extencion choice, probably bad) file from an AMG htm:

[Scan]
1/12/2003
[Artist]
13th Floor Elevators
[Group Members]
Roky Erickson, Dan Galindo, Ronnie Leatherman, Benny Thurman, Stacy Sutherland, Tommy Hall, John Ike Walton, Danny Thomas
[Genre]
Rock
[Styles]
Garage Rock, Psychedelic
[Lables]
Collectables, Thunderbolt, Texas Archive, M.I.L. Multimedia, Get Back
[Tones]
Intense, Menacing, Fiery, Ominous, Nihilistic, Trippy, Druggy
[Bio]
Featuring the yelping vocals and visionary, occasionally demented lyrics of Roky Erickson, the 13th Floor Elevators were one of the original acid-rock bands. (..more deleted)
[Albums]
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor... (Azrom968o3ep3)
Easter Everywhere (Ayj9hs38ba39g)
Live: I've Seen Your Face Before (Ai3ke4j870waw)
13th Floor Elevators Live (Aosr67ul0h0ja)
Bull of the Woods (A37jeeal04xd7)
Avalon 66 [live] (Amroibka96ak9)
You Really Got Me (Aelf6zfjheh6k)
Out of Order: Live at the Avalon Ballroom (Aj8jeeay24x87)
(..more deleted)

The program uses the album ID's to DL the relevant album info:

[Scan]
1/12/2003
[Artist]
13th Floor Elevators
[Album Title]
Bull of the Woods
[Date of Release]
1968 (release) inprint
[Genre]
Rock
[Styles]
Psychedelic, Garage Rock
[Cover Art]
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc500/c506/c50664s3372.jpg
[Review]
Guitarist Stacy Sutherland wrote most of the songs on the band's final studio album, as Roky was largely absent due to drugs and problems with the law. Decent psychedelic rock -- pretty straight-ahead and disciplined for the genre, actually -- that doesn't match the inspired heights of their previous material. The closing "May the Circle Be Unbroken," with its wads and wads of reverb, may be the strangest thing the band ever cut.  --  Richie Unterberger
[Tracks]
01. Livin' On (Hall/Sutherland) - 3:23
02. Barnyard Blues (Sutherland) - 2:52
03. Til Then (Hall/Sutherland) - 3:18
04. Never Another (Erickson/Hall) - 2:27
05. Rose and the Thorn (Sutherland) - 3:37
06. Down by the River (Sutherland) - 1:50
07. Scarlet and Gold (Sutherland) - 5:00
08. Street Song (Sutherland) - 4:57
09. Dear Dr. Doom (Hall/Sutherland) - 3:13
10. With You (Leatherman) - 2:12
11. May the Circle Remain Unbroken (Erickson) - 2:42

It also DL's the artist and cover art.  My plan was to include all this info into mp3 tags so they could display during playback.  Now the problems:

I had MJ8 working when I tried MJ9b.  I liked a lot of the changes in MJ9 so decided to add MJ9 capability.  I am now able to add DB fields that show up within MC9 in the extended properties list. I added a Charted field for Billboard/HitList ect.  I simply mimicked the MC tag structure :
COMM____MediaJukebox: Charted_
and it appears in my extended file properties. Unfortunately,  I can not access it outside of MC for inclusion in the Trackinfo display (TRACKINFO_INSERT_CHARTED, or equivalent). I didn't REALLY expect to be able to do that, but I AM using the old MJ8 Custom 1 field for Styles, and even this is unavailable in MC9.  I think this is the the problem outlined in the "Custom Field" thread a while back.  
Other fields haven't mapped well, either.  The older MJ8 MJGN (general notes?) field remains as the MC9 "Notes" field, even though MC9 adds a COMM____MediaJukebox: Notes_
field of its own.  This doesn't display.  It's still early days for the conversion, but if anyone has any thoughts on the DB structure and how to access all the extended fields via generated htm files, I'd be interested. Also, any pointers to DB documentation would be appreciated.

[Autoelph]

I use Tag&Rename 2.1.6
Without a doubt, the best tagging utility with hookups to freedb and Allmusic.com. The latter will automatically retrieve album art and reviews that can be saved to file as well (within image or external directory.)

I rip LAME using EAC

And encspot is quite valuable to those who collect from other sources. It gives you a wealth of info on your files:
encoder used, bitrate, stereo\joint s, HQ and a nice quick color coding to easily fnd the troubled files.

[RhinoBanga]

Ripping:  AudioGrabber using LAME
Tagging: Helium2


I only use MC/J as a playback engine and the very occasional burning of a CD.

[rocketsauce]

Tag & Rename - for quick MP3 tagging directly from Windows Explorer or files that aren't being imported into MC.  I us MC for tagging other formats (MPC, OGG, APE).

http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

Feurio! - for burning audio CDs.

http://www.feurio.com/English/index.shtml

Exact Audio Copy - for ripping to wav, although lately I've been using MC for ripping more and more.  It does a good job since all of my CDs are in pretty much "new" condition.  I always rip to wav and then convert to MPC aftewards.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Plextools -  for ripping with Plextor CD-RWs only.  It "technically" is only available to European Plextor owners.    I've used it to rip a few CDs that no other program (EAC, MC or Feurio!) was able to do without producing audible errors.

Speek's Encoder Frontends - for using various command line encoder to convert wavs to the desired format.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/speek.htm

Various other tools used from time to time and the command line encoders are available from these sites:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/

http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jfe1205/

http://audio.ciara.us/rarewares/

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jfe1205/others.html

Rob

[Rands]

Ripping:
EAC+LAME

Tagging:
MP3 Tag Studio

Burning:
Nero
Record Now! MAX (testing this right now)

[newhere]

MP3 Tag Studio
and
MP3Gain

Ditto that especially MP3 Tag Studio I like it.
Oh and EAC and Lame served me well. Oh and to play songs WinAmp served me well. Come to think of it MC 9 is the greatest in Playlist and Smartlist organization I have not tried ripping yet and for the ocasional tag change it is good too but playing Music is still an issue (qualitywise) at least for me.

Payam

[SeanC]

I also use EAC & Lame.  I really should try ripping in MC9 again - I just got used to how EAC works.

[gpvillamil]

EAC & LAME for ripping & encoding
Tag & Rename for... tagging and renaming - I like the sense of control, and the integration with freedb/allmusic

MJ/MC does have the best file organization and playlist/smartlist features I've seen so far.

[zevele10]

EAC to rip .Because you put cds one after one in 2 cd drives.
Mp3 utility
enc spot
gonkultor
a program to check double-i do not remember the name
musicmatch supertag to get tags and sleeves at once

Last time i burned was last june so... but for a part i have to use EasycdCreator because of a problem with long names needing to be make shorter