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[urbanhusky]

Hi,

I've been using foobar 2000 for a long time now and really enjoy the sound that MC 17 produces.
However, I'm struggling hard with transitioning to MC 17.

I organise my music into several folders. Each file has a proper filename and sorting happens on filename/path-basis. I cannot work with any other way of sorting my music.
In foobar I had several playlists. Some were simple sets of specific folders, others contained each and every subfolder. These playlists were easy to switch and pick songs from. Playback ran and looped over the entire playlist, regardless of folder and groupings.

I grouped the songs by the (sub)folder they were in. This made for a very logical and convenient display.
For reference, it looked like


I managed to imitate some of the playlists I had by creating smartlists for the folders that contained all music of specific types (eg. "Music\FLAC\Goa"). I haven't found a way to conveniently select specific folders without importing all kinds of non-music files too.
One of my biggest problems now is, that I'm trying to group the display of the tracks like I did with foobar. When I do select "Group By -> Filename (path)" I do get a similar list, but playback is stuck in one of those groups (eg. after the last track in "Contingency", playback would stop instead of continuing with the first track of "Impostor Nostalgia"). This kind of grouping also doesn't seem to work on playlists.

I'd also like to know if there is a way to set certain songs (via keyboard shortcut) to be enqueued to be played as the next track (or after tracks already enqueued)

For audio settings I'm using the native ASIO drivers of my ASUS Xonar D2X. I'm running a -25dB parametric equalizer as DSP to protect my ears and use the internal volume for fine-tuning.

best regards,
urbanhusky

[forbigd]

I haven't found a way to conveniently select specific folders without importing all kinds of non-music files too.

I am sure you will get other answers, but if you want to make a playlist for an album or artist, use file view, drill down to the artist, lasso the files and Send to Playlist.
That will fix your stopping between albums too. Make a playlist with both albums and play that.

Don

[urbanhusky]

I'd still like to know if there is a way to "group" songs by their folder without restricting playback to that group - and how to do this with regular playlists.
I also still don't know how to enqueue (multiple) tracks - and how to view this queue.

Any further help would be greatly appreciated

[MrC]

Sounds like you want to change the Double-click behavior from Replace Playing Now (all) to one of the other options that suits your usage style.  (Tools > Options > General > Behavior > Double Click)

You can always select the set of files you want to play, and right click > Add to Playing Now to queue them to the Playing Now playlist (the zone's Playing Now playlist determines what is playing/to play, and this is what you affect with you double-click files, or use any of the various Play commands).

[urbanhusky]

Sounds like you want to change the Double-click behavior from Replace Playing Now (all) to one of the other options that suits your usage style.  (Tools > Options > General > Behavior > Double Click)

You can always select the set of files you want to play, and right click > Add to Playing Now to queue them to the Playing Now playlist (the zone's Playing Now playlist determines what is playing/to play, and this is what you affect with you double-click files, or use any of the various Play commands).

This would require to select the entire rest of the playlist since I want the playback to continue at the point I selected in the playlist. (Anyone who knows foobar 2000 knows what I'm trying to achieve).

[MrC]

The "limitation" occurs because of where you are clicking, and what you are doing.  Don't use the File list view to initiate playback if you want other "groups" of items to play.  Use a panes view, for example, where you can select the criteria you want for playback, and then double click an item there.  See attached view I constructed so you can see how I created a view whose Album and Artist columns are derived from the Filename (path) field (also shown).

I think you're going about using MC the wrong way.  It was designed so that the Views help you select and play the way you want.  You appear to be manually constructing lists, instead of letting the MC database and view system drive and filter for file selection.

btw. I skipped responding to this thread when I read it Friday, as you mentioned you cannot work any other way.  I think this will limit your understanding of how MC works, and won't allow you to easily do things that you are now manually trying to do.  MC is not foobar... and foobar is not MC.

[urbanhusky]

I'm not comfortable with criteria based playback. This comes from having a large music collection that cannot always be grouped by such criteria and from preferring to listen to various music throughout the day, without further (manual) setup. I prefer to have a large overview over my music and being able to pick a song to initiate playback from.

For example: albums could have been part of a special bundle, or other meta-information that is not contained in any tags. I do not want to have to pick a new criteria when the limited result-set for the previous criteria is done playing. Even my "mp3" player does folder based playback for that very reason

The different approach to sorting and displaying music is giving me a hard time. The only reason I would like to prefer MC over foobar is the sound quality and resulting audio signature.

[MrC]

I'm confused; the example I gave allows folder-based playback.  (I narrowed the folder list via Search filtering for illustrative purposes.)

There is also Explorer View.

[urbanhusky]

I want to be able to sort and group by folders, but not constrict playback and listing to those criteria.

[MrC]

It sounds like you're asking for a Play Remainder of View / List (from point of selection).

[urbanhusky]

It sounds like you're asking for a Play Remainder of View / List (from point of selection).

That would still not solve the limitations with setting up groups and I'd need to replace the playlist constantly :\

[rick.ca]

That would still not solve the limitations with setting up groups and I'd need to replace the playlist constantly

There are no such limitations in MC. If you've been using something else for a long time, MC will take some getting used to. Expecting or trying to make it work like foobar 2000 is not going to help. It's already far more flexible and advanced than foobar 2000, and it's not going to be changed to be less so.

If you prefer to organize your media by the inflexible hierarchical structure of the file system, you may do so in MC. You can also do so in combination with other criteria and/or playlists—in a much more efficient manner than the tabs in your screenshot suggest you're used to. Your objection seems to come down to the inability to select one track and command playback of every track in the view from that point. The reason for this is that MC uses a Playing Now playlist to control and manage playback. All that means is you have to be more explicit about what is to be sent to Playing Now, and how it's to be added. If you want to play all the tracks in the view from a certain point, just select them and Play. Or one of the 10 different Play options (for replacing, adding, shuffling, etc.).