Topic: Adding "Album Rating" and "Year" to Audio Library (Read 4324 times)

cberry1010 · « **on:** April 24, 2013, 05:49:08 pm »

I have done some research searching the Forum but, I didn't find anything "definitive" on the best way to do this. I am still using MC15 because I only use MC for Audio and, MC15 has been able to do everything I wanted it to. However, I would be happy to upgrade if MC18 offered an easier way.

I have about 2500 albums with "standard" tags all complete and tidy. I also have a spreadsheet containing a list of many of my albums with "Year" as well as "Rating" assignments.

I would like to automate the process of adding these to my MC library, if possible.

Any help will be appreciated!

MrC · « **Reply #1 on:** April 24, 2013, 05:53:43 pm »

Throw the JRiver folks a bone and upgrade, and I'll help you with a script to import your ratings and year, if possible.

cberry1010 · « **Reply #2 on:** April 24, 2013, 06:02:58 pm »

OK. I'll do it MrC! Thanks.

MrC · « **Reply #3 on:** April 24, 2013, 06:08:36 pm »

Great. To be sure we'll succeed, I'll need you to send me your spreadsheet and an export of your library: File > Export Playlist, type: Text File (CSV delimited), Output Range: All, Included Fields: All.

I'll need to be able to match your Albums with MC albums, and this is done by file path, so your albums will have to be in well-structured locations, such as path\Artist\Album\files and Artist and Album will have to be accurate. In other words, for each given entry in your spreadsheet, can it be reliably matched to a file path that MC will use as the key? Does that sound like your setup?

kstuart · « **Reply #4 on:** April 24, 2013, 06:19:47 pm »

Actually, I recently created an "Album Rating" field (with the idea of a Rating that is not the average of the tracks individual ratings).

It is

Data Type Integer
Relational Store one value for each album
Edit Type: Five Stars

but when I click on the stars nothing happens.

cberry1010 · « **Reply #5 on:** April 24, 2013, 06:23:27 pm »

MrC:

Yes, I'm not sure about "well structured". All files are on one 1TB drive but, unfortunately, the directory structure is not completely standard throughout.

Some examples:

I:\Music 2\Back-up 6\Collective Force\3rd Force - Collective Force - 01 - Dance With Me.mp3

I:\CLASSICAL\Antonio Vivaldi\Le Quattro Stagioni (Trevor Pinnock, Simon Standage)\Antonio Vivaldi - Le Quattro Stagioni (Trevor Pinnock, Simon Standage) - 01 - Op. 8 No. 1 - 1 Allegro.mp3

I:\MUSIC 1A\Music 1\JAZZ\Pat Metheny Group\Letter From Home\Pat Metheny Group - Letter From Home - 07 - Beat 70.mp3

Will this be a problem?

cberry1010 · « **Reply #6 on:** April 24, 2013, 06:26:04 pm »

kstuart:

Yes, I used your idea and created an "Album Rating" field. Thanks.

MrC · « **Reply #7 on:** April 24, 2013, 06:26:58 pm »

Let's see what we can do. I'll PM you an email.

cberry1010 · « **Reply #8 on:** April 24, 2013, 06:34:00 pm »

MrC: Take your time. It will probably be a couple of days before I get upgrade.

kstuart · « **Reply #9 on:** April 25, 2013, 01:51:13 pm »

Is it a known bug that user-created fields with edit-type: five stars, do not work ?

MrC · « **Reply #10 on:** April 25, 2013, 01:56:33 pm »

Works here.

kstuart · « **Reply #11 on:** April 25, 2013, 05:44:47 pm »

My "Acceptable Values" was "0-5".

I changed it to your values and it now works fine. Thanks !

And, it points up something which is a weak point of MC18 - Error response. In many cases, user input that will not work, produces no response at all, rather than an error message (such as " Incorrect Syntax - Needs to be in List Format " in this case).

I hope the OP notices this message !

MrC · « **Reply #12 on:** April 25, 2013, 06:00:26 pm »

Yup, that'll do it.

In JRiver's defense, validation can be hard and/or produce lots of code (that has to also be tested), and have minimal relative value.

Since the existing Rating field gives an example, that seems mostly sufficient.

But I do agree - more feedback would be nice. Still, there is the wiki that indicates: May have a semicolon-separated list of Acceptable Values (Note: no spaces after the semicolons).

cberry1010 · « **Reply #13 on:** April 26, 2013, 11:11:51 am »

MrC, I have upgraded to MC18 (no problems at all) and, I have emailed you the 2 required files. Please let me know if you need anything else. Thanks!

MrC · « **Reply #14 on:** April 26, 2013, 04:21:29 pm »

From your library and the spreadsheet, I'm able to easily match 351 albums. Does this sound about right to you?

I'm comparing Artist and Album from both - even a single different character will cause a non-match.

MrC · « **Reply #15 on:** April 26, 2013, 04:30:16 pm »

I've sent you instructions and an initial version of the import MPL file.

cberry1010 · « **Reply #16 on:** April 26, 2013, 05:01:03 pm »

MrC,

Yes, 351 seems about right. I may be able to manually add some more. There are usually more discrepancies in the Artist than the Album name (from my experience).

Also, I have the MPL file you sent me. I will try it and let you know!

MrC · « **Reply #17 on:** April 26, 2013, 06:06:55 pm »

I added some fuzzy matching and came up with another 80 possible matches. Attached is the list. REMOVE the items that should not be matched, and send me back the list or post a zipped version here. Then I'll resend you an updated MPL with the new fuzzy matches added (minus those you didn't want or course).

cberry1010 · « **Reply #18 on:** April 27, 2013, 10:23:53 am »

MrC, I have sent you an email with the revised file. Most all of the files matched!

Thanks again.

MrC · « **Reply #19 on:** April 27, 2013, 12:56:30 pm »

I've sent you via email your new merged MPL file which includes the positive fuzzy-matched items. It also corrects the date (the old one used your existing date, and not the date from the spreadsheet).

cberry1010 · « **Reply #20 on:** April 28, 2013, 10:23:25 am »

OK, MrC, it worked!

Approx. 4500 files tagged with Rating and Year. I still have a long way to go but, this is a good start.

I copied Rating to my Album Rating field. Don't really know why; I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to use this info anyway!

Thanks again for your help.

MrC · « **Reply #21 on:** April 28, 2013, 10:33:16 am »

Great, thanks for the feedback.

FYI: We could have assigned the rating to any arbitrary tag, and MC would have read and imported it so long as was defined in the MC library.

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: Adding "Album Rating" and "Year" to Audio Library (Read 4324 times)