Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Topazworm]

Im sorry in advance for any confusion this might cause, Ill try to explain best I can!

I have every Ricky Gervais radio show as a series on mp3's, over 900 to be exact.
I had them in MC working fine. In the playlist there are in the follow order:
There is usually 6/7 tracks per section. so:
Date: 01-05-01
And each other section of that days radio show: 02
03
04
05
Then the next week:
08-05-01
02
03
04
05

and so forth!
Artist name is the seaon, say season 1 then 100 tracks later, season 2. Right up to season 4
And the album is: Ricky Gervias XFM Radio Show.

The order they are in are CRUCIAL! Listening to them out of order is almost painful. However, me being me, I fiddled with the order slightly, and without thinking renamed the tracks from sequence and renamed the actual file name too.
the filenames read: Track01-Season 1-Ricky Gervias XFM Radio Show.mp3
However DISASTER, they are out of order, so the tracks mean nothing. I basically overrode the previous track numbers.

Finally my question. I have an old library backup of my library which allthough obviously wont help me with track numbers (since I changed them) but it does retain the sequence. Which is crucial. Is there a way of somehow using the previous backups sequence order to put my current collection back to life. If i restore the backup file and use it, the songs are still all out of sequence.
Sorry I cant be more descriptive but its a very complicated problem! It would save me months of work If i could restore the right order.

Thanks

[JimH]

Save a copy of the files before you do anything more.

Then try selecting a few and do right click/Library Tools/Lookup track from YADB.

You might get lucky.

[Topazworm]

There might be another way.
Ive restored an old library and looking at the playlist, it plays the files. But the tags in the playlist dont match to the tags in the actualy mp3
Is there a way or "resetting" the playlist to re-read all the tags but still keeping the sequence? If i can do that the problem is solved! 

[Alex B]

If you have a standard "static" playlist inside MC (in the Playlists part of the MC tree) it will preserve the track order when you do:

Library Tools > Update Library (from tags)


However, I don't understand how your old library can work with your renamed files. Did you really rename the actual disk files?

[Topazworm]

Ill try to explain.
I used MC to rename the actual files based on my new order (which is wrong).
When I loaded up a old library backup and looked at the gervais playlist, the order the playlist is in, is the order I want.
However because the file names were different, MC couldnt find the files.

Thinking about the problem more, I dont think there is anyway It can be done. the track tag has been changed and so has the actual filename.

[Snarglefarg]

I don't suppose you can sort the mp3's by date and use that to get the order right? Then it would be a matter of renaming the files manually. Not a task I envy but better than nothing.

[Alex B]

I don't suppose you can sort the mp3's by date and use that to get the order right? Then it would be a matter of renaming the files manually. Not a task I envy but better than nothing.

This could work. The Date Imported field should be unchanged in both libraries.

Topazworm,

You could try the following:

1. Organize the files in both libraries in "Date Imported" order. You can make the column visible in "Customize Current View".
2. Give the files new track numbers from 1 to 900+ (MC can do this automatically).
3. Rename the files from properties in both libraries. Use only the plain tack number as a filename rule.

Make the changes first to your new library.
Then disconnect the files by renaming the base folder(s) temporally and make the changes to your old library (i.e. work offline).
After renaming the base folder(s) back your old library should be correctly linked with the disk files and you can rename the files properly. Be careful this time!

EDIT

You can also copy the original track numbers to some other field before starting the procedure. You can copy them back afterwards. (Library Tools > Move / Copy Fields)