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Author Topic: Can I just overwrite old versions of files with new ones from within MC?  (Read 1708 times)

lalittle

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I have a CD that, due to errors when it was mastered, has the track boundaries at the wrong places for a few songs.  I fixed this by ripping the tracks as wav files, pasting the tracks together, and cutting them at the correct places, then re-encoding them.  I then just copied and pasted these right on top of the previous files in order to keep all the tag info the same -- I did this from within MC using the MC "Copy file" tool.  Does this "work" okay, or do I need to completely delete the old tracks and import the new ones?  My thinking was that pasting the new files on top of the old ones would be similar to re-ripping on top of the old songs -- is this the case?

I am wondering because I noticed that the track info did not reflect the new information right away -- it took MC several seconds to update the time and bitrate info.  Also, when I did a new "Analyze" on these files, I saw some of the "format" information change.  I'm therefore wondering if I may have ended up with a slightly "confused" library with regard to these files, and how I should proceed.

Would it have been better to do this differently, or did I accomplish the task at hand in the "correct" manner?

Thanks for any feedback on this,

Larry
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Alex B

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Re: Can I just overwrite old versions of files with new ones from within MC?
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2008, 07:03:46 am »

When I replace old audio files I do the following.

1. Replace the files outside MC
2. Update Tags (from library)
3. Update Library (from tags)  -- this updates the format info

If I have more than a few files to replace I may first rename the old files using only the track number in the rule (I may include the disc number too if needed). Then the new files don't need to contain any other info than the correct track number in the filename. No CD info lookups and typing are needed. The old and new filenames will match exactly.
After the procedure I rename the files again using my preferred rule.

Naturally, it would be better to disable Auto-Importer when doing things like this.

Quote
I am wondering because I noticed that the track info did not reflect the new information right away -- it took MC several seconds to update the time and bitrate info.  Also, when I did a new "Analyze" on these files, I saw some of the "format" information change.  I'm therefore wondering if I may have ended up with a slightly "confused" library with regard to these files, and how I should proceed.

Would it have been better to do this differently, or did I accomplish the task at hand in the "correct" manner?

I think that was normal. Auto-importer updated the file info after detecting the changed files.

You can always use the "number 3" from my list for making sure that the format info is correct.
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lalittle

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Re: Can I just overwrite old versions of files with new ones from within MC?
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2008, 05:53:33 pm »

Thanks Alex.

I'm curious why you do the overwrite outside of MC -- does this make a difference?

Larry
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Alex B

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Re: Can I just overwrite old versions of files with new ones from within MC?
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2008, 05:15:40 am »

I'm curious why you do the overwrite outside of MC -- does this make a difference?

Actually, "outside the current library" would be a more accurate.

I want to preserve statistics. An easy way to achieve this is to never make the files disconnected from the old library data. When I replace the files externally the library remains unchanged until I do the step 3.

I may use MC with another library for ripping and renaming the new files before I replace the old disk files.
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