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[hit_ny]

As the subject says, is it possible to do AA on mp3 files without saving BPM, intensity, replay gain etc tag info in the file but ONLY in the library ?

And then be able to make use of BPM, replaygain gain etc in smartlists etc.

[Cmagic]

Hi,

The only way I see you can do want you want, is to go to Options/General and uncheck the box 'Update Tags when file info changes' before you do your analysis.
Don't forget to check it again when you want to do some tagging.

It could be possible to uncheck the 'Store in file tag' box in the definition of each fields (Options/Starup Settings) like Replay gain, BPM, etc.. but unfortunately this is not possible for default fields.

In any case those 4 values stored in the tags are totally harmless. They don't modify the musical data in any way.


HTH,

C.

[Cmagic]

Hi again,

Please note that if you do an audio analysis w/o writing the tags and that later you decide to update some other field (comment, rating) and write them in the file then all the default tags will be written including Replay Gain, BPM...

C.

[hit_ny]

It could be possible to uncheck the 'Store in file tag' box in the definition of each fields (Options/Starup Settings) like Replay gain, BPM, etc.. but unfortunately this is not possible for default fields.

In any case those 4 values stored in the tags are totally harmless. They don't modify the musical data in any way.

Could not find the "store in file tag' box

i also wanted to be able to do this for ratings as well, as well as most of the other fields , bios, comments etc.

My ideas to prevent MC from tagging files range from.
- making the directories/files read only so the files are untouched. IS it true if MC cant save to the files it saves to teh library itself. Would this work at all ?

- Tools->Plugin manager->Input->MP3 plugin->Configure

there are 2 items there for iD3v1 & ID3v2,

Dont save ( ignore existing).....what does this mean, will it leave the orginal as is ...itsnot very clear to me somehow ?

The idea of not saving anything to the files it self , is to use MC as an abstraction layer over the files. I wanted to see to what extent usability of MC depends on writing to files.

i wanted to play around with this, so when i recommended MC to others, it did not modify anything at all in their collection, and saved everythgin to the library.

once people got more comfortable with MC, they could  use the library to populate the files. Though i wonder wheter that is even necesaary at all. Is it possible to use just the library, making all tagging changes in the library leaving the files untouched.

What benefits are there to tagging the files, instead of relying on the library to use MC leaving the files as is ?

[Cmagic]

Hi,

if you do not want MC to write ANY tag in your files just go to Tools / Options / General and uncheck the box labeled 'Update tags when file info changes'.
This will prevent MC to write any tag.

Could not find the "store in file tag' box

Tools / Options / Tree & view settings then select a library field and click 'Edit' there is a checkbox labeled 'store in file tag (when possible)'.
Note that this box is greyed out for default MC fields like Replay gain, BPM, etc..

Dont save ( ignore existing).....what does this mean, will it leave the orginal as is ...itsnot very clear to me somehow ?

Ok, if you are only using mp3s and don't want any tags written you can select the Don't Save Option for both ID3V1 and iD3V2. Two options here :
Ignore existing will left the tag unchanged, Remove existing will wipe off any existing tag.
So, if you don't want to touch anything here select Don't Save (Ignore existing).

What benefits are there to tagging the files, instead of relying on the library to use MC leaving the files as is ?

Well, some benefits include:
If you share files with folks they will get the same information as you do in your own library.
If you have a portable player it will probably be able to read some data from the tags.
if you happen to experience a disk crash and your lib file is gone you will be able to retrieve som useful data from within the files you had recovered.

Voila,

C.

[hit_ny]

Thanx for the helpful replies.

Well, some benefits include:
If you share files with folks they will get the same information as you do in your own library.

True if the others used MC as well, then again they might not be able to use MC at all if for instance they are on *nix machines. It is for this reson i was curious whether it was posible to use MC without relying on writing any tags. From the answers you have given, it seems so, that is good.

If you have a portable player it will probably be able to read some data from the tags.

Are there any portable players out there that can read MC specific tags ?

if you happen to experience a disk crash and your lib file is gone you will be able to retrieve som useful data from within the files you had recovered.

This is something that needs to be handled with proper backups etc.

THe other idea i had for using only the library was to speed things up. Most ppl have an avg of 128Mb on their machines. Would it be possible to create a RAM disk and store the library there. ( i'm guesing 10,000 files = 10MB approx library size).

So if a ramdisk of say 20 MB was created, would this result in a huge speed increase in MC use ?

[Cmagic]

Hi,

No, no portable player that can read MC specifics tags, AFAIK !! maybe one day ??

I just meant the basic tags : Album / Artist/ Name / genre / year / Comment, that are standards for mp3(ID3V1 & V2).
Also MC can read/write some MusicMatch specific tags (Mood/Tempo/Situation)

This is something that needs to be handled with proper backups etc.

THe other idea i had for using only the library was to speed things up. Most ppl have an avg of 128Mb on their machines. Would it be possible to create a RAM disk and store the library there. ( i'm guesing 10,000 files = 10MB approx library size).  

Yeah, proper backup is allright, but I like the idea to have the data duplicated inside the file tag and in the library.

Speed ? I think the basic organization tasks inside MC are always done on the library content not on the file tag content.
I currently have 10928 audio files with a lot of information (composer, featured artist, source, lyrics for some,..) in my MC 9.1 lib and the library file ( mediafiles.jmd) is 4.4 MB.

I'm not sure about the speed improvement a Ramdisk would bring. Maybe Matt or someone from JRiver might comment on that....

best,

C.

[hit_ny]

Speed ? I think the basic organization tasks inside MC are always done on the library content not on the file tag content.  

Precisely why i wondered about creating a Ram disk for the library.

one of things i dislike about MC is when creating a smartlist, i need to click on the playlist group, i see "gathering files" in the status bar in the bottom. WHy does it need to gather anything, i just clicked on the group name. i need tro click on the group name so any smart list created lives under the group name.

The same laggy behavior if you click on Auto Smartlists (music), the automatically generated smartlist group. I dont understand why i it needs to do any work when you click on the group name, it should start doing work if i click on any of the items inside the group.


.

I'm not sure about the speed improvement a Ramdisk would bring. Maybe Matt or someone from JRiver might comment on that...

Yes am waiting for that

[Matt]

You won't see any practical speed improvement from putting your library on a ram disk.

The same laggy behavior if you click on Auto Smartlists (music), the automatically generated smartlist group. I dont understand why i it needs to do any work when you click on the group name, it should start doing work if i click on any of the items inside the group.

You're asking it to mush like 30 searches.  Turn that off on the bottom of the smartlist view ("File in playlist or below" -> "File in playlist") and it'll be way faster.

[hit_ny]

You're asking it to mush like 30 searches.  Turn that off on the bottom of the smartlist view ("File in playlist or below" -> "File in playlist") and it'll be way faster.

Thanks Matt, great improvement The lagging stopped immediately once i click the groupname and  selected "Files in playlist" at the bottom of the list view. Its much snappier now.

"Files in Playlist" displays nothing at the root playlist group level which is what i wanted. But "Files in Playlist" as a term does not make sense to me. What playlist are we talking about here ?


I would suggest that "Files in Playlist" this be made the default setting rather than "Files in Playlist or below" (As its currently), in the playlists group as it tends to give the false impression to any newbie that MC is slow.