Cataloging Your Music Collection: Alternatives to iTunes

[Yohan]

I started cataloging music almost ten years ago in iTunes and it evolved from simply creating order in my chaotic music library to something I enjoy to do on occasion: just import music into iTunes, catalogue it according to artist / genre / year / producer / album etc. I have a library of 70k tracks at the moment, with loads more waiting to be added when I find the time. It's basically a cool way to sometimes discover new music, relax and mindlessly completing some menial tasks. While iTunes was a cool program at first, I'm currently having the following issues:

* With a library of 70k tracks, it becomes slow as hell. I have a good computer (Built it myself in '13, SSD drive for iTunes itself, music on HDD, a good i5 processor and 8 GB RAM) but I'm currently having issues with just browsing through my library. Newer iterations of iTunes have done nothing to combat this, it has only become a worse problem. Adding new music (say a CD of 100 MB) takes ages (up to 5 minutes) and only after having added 2-3 albums this becomes instant again. Needless to say, it's ticking me off.

* The latest version of iTunes is an abomination. Tagging my music has become a real chore through, in my opinion, stupid features and button placement. The menu structures feel a lot less intuitive. After 10 years of usage I feel a little lost and after trying it for a while now I feel like it has gone backwards.

* iTunes has some restrictions on tagging music. I can only tag music according to Apple and not according to myself. I'd like to create playlists based on regions / cities but I can't add the necessary tags to achieve this. I'd like a more customizable experience.

* iTunes caused me to become dependent on my iPhone. I use my iPhone as my mp3-player as well. Ideally I'd like a program able to fully sync with different mp3-players if possible, making it possible to switch to a different brand if at all possible. I like little details such as the amount of times I have played a certain track and sometimes create playlists based on these irrelevant statistics, but I enjoy it.

Right about now I realize I'm coming off as slightly autistic (though perhaps not Wickedesque) and this is definitely the case when I'm organizing my music. So, does anybody else have these tendencies as well? What program(s) do you use? And have any advice for me? I'm seriously looking to switch programs and I'm looking for some good input.

[Sigma]

MusicBee is the best music player/organiser I've ever used and I've tried all of the main ones as well as several of the lesser known ones.

I started a thread about it here, with a bunch of screenshots in it: -

http://www.philaflava.com/forum/viewtop ... 4&t=134250" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's been updated since I started that thread too, so it's even better now.

It's always been super fast. Searches are basically instant. Adding a new album is instant as you can just drag and drop it, although it also uses an inbox system if you prefer to use that. Tagging isn't limited like it is in iTunes and all of the tagging stuff is done using standard formats, not like iTunes where some data isn't stored in the files. It can sync music to all kinds of devices from different manufacturers. In fact, it can even transcode music on the fly when you sync music to a device, so, for example, if you rip CDs to lossless FLAC (as I do), but you want MP3s on your device, you can have it do that for you.

The only potential negative is that there's a learning curve with it. It's easy enough to use, don't get me wrong, but there are lots of configuration options you can tinker with to get it working/looking exactly how you want.

[ChaMerZ]

I was going to come and emphatically endorse MusicBee but Sigma already beat me to the punch. Sigma put me up on it last year. Very stable application, has a lot of great features, very customizable, and if there is any additional feature you want, you can easily contact the developer (only one person!) who will probably implement it in a matter of days.

[ChaMerZ]

The only potential negative is that there's a learning curve with it. It's easy enough to use, don't get me wrong, but there are lots of configuration options you can tinker with to get it working/looking exactly how you want.

Not even. MediaMonkey used to be my favorite music application before you put me up on MusicBee and it had a waay steeper learning curve. IMO, MusicBee runs butter smooth, and all the different features, options are self-evident and easy to navigate.

[malpractice]

gonna hafta check musicbee because i loathe itunes.

[Sigma]

Not even. MediaMonkey used to be my favorite music application before you put me up on MusicBee and it had a waay steeper learning curve. IMO, MusicBee runs butter smooth, and all the different features, options are self-evident and easy to navigate.

Fair enough man.

I think maybe I said that as I've discovered a few things that aren't really self-evident. For example, if you're browsing your music collection and you middle-click on an artist's name, it will show you all of the music you have by that artist.

The developer is pretty incredible, especially because, as you said, it's just one guy. I found a bug in a beta version the other day and a few hours after reporting it, he replied to my thread with a link to a new version that fixed the problem. That sort of thing happens a lot. The same with feature requests. He's currently working on implementing streaming over DLNA, which is really the only thing missing that MediaMonkey has. I would say that aside from that, the only other area where MediaMonkey is better is with remote apps. There are some available for MusicBee, but they're not as good as the one I was using with MediaMonkey. I definitely wouldn't want to go back to using MediaMonkey though.

[Yohan]

Thanks a lot for your replies. I decided to check out MusicBee based on your recommendations and I'm currently importing my iTunes library. Hopefully it's as good as you guys say it is. Based on a first quick glance it does seem a little less intuitive when compared to iTunes but not suprising if the functionalities greatly surpass iTunes. Will be reporting back to thread.

[Sigma]

How's it working out for you man?

[Combo7]

One feature I really wish someone would implement into a music player is a separate field for "featuring." For example:

Artist: Jay-Z
Featuring: Memphis Bleek
Song: Coming of Age

Would be displayed in the player as "Jay-Z f/ Memphis Bleek" but for organizational purposes the artist would still just be Jay-Z. It's a pain in the ass to have an album get split up into ten different artists because the player considers Ghostface Killah a different artist than "Ghostface Killah featuring Raekwon."

[Sigma]

^^MusicBee does that: -

When editing tags, MusicBee allows multiple values to be stored for many fields. Each value is separated using the ';' character. For example, entering 'Justin Timberlake; Ciara' would store both artists and include both artists separately in places like the Track Browser and Library Explorer. You can also click the "..." button to open a multiple value editor. Splitter screens can handle up to about 25 entries; beyond that you should use the Tag Inspector to add more.

The artist and composer fields also allow you to enter a special display tag. For example, you might prefer to display 'Justin Timberlake ft. Ciara' while still splitting the artists. In fact, if the artist was originally entered as 'Justin Timberlake ft. Ciara', opening the Multiple Artist Splitter and pressing the Split button would automatically separate the artists for you, while leaving the original value as the display artist. The artist splitter further allows you to choose a role for the artists listed and adjusts the tags accordingly: Artist, Performer, Guest Artist, or Remixer. (Beware that if you later change the artist or composer in the main tag editor, it will overwrite your split values.)

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Tag_Editor#Tag_Editor" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Although, in any music player you should be able to separate Artist and Album Artist. Even if you put "Jay-Z ft. Memphis Bleek" as the Artist, as long as you've got "Jay-Z" as the Album Artist, it would still group all of the tracks together. The main issue with doing that is that "Jay-Z ft. Memphis Bleek" would be considered an artist, so ideally you would use the tagging method mentioned in the quoted text above. That way, both Jay-Z and Memphis Bleek would be considered separate artists.

[Combo7]

Wow, that's great. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

[Yohan]

How's it working out for you man?

Haven't really found the time to really get into it, but so far very good. The application itself runs like a charm and I've really grown fond of certain aspects. Customizing tags etc. is awesome, though I haven't really looked through it yet. It did become my go-to application to use on my PC.

One major drawback is its inability to sync with my iPhone. This means I have to catalogue my music twice, once in iTunes for my iPhone (which is my mp3-player) and once for listening music while on my PC. Which is a lot. If I can find a better solution, I'm willing to fully replace iTunes in a heartbeat.

Overall very satisfied.

[Sigma]

Regarding the iPhone issue, have you tried this?.....

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/IPod_%26_iPhone_Driver" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Hush]

Personally I've given up on maintaining a collection of music files and just pay for Spotify now. There are gaps in the catalog and they don't have a lot of the really obscure stuff but it covers 95% of what I need to listen to on a daily basis. I also don't bother syncing playlists for offline playback. At 96kbps it sounds fine in the car and the data usage is low enough I can listen on my daily commute and not even come close to my data cap.

[ChaMerZ]

Personally I've given up on maintaining a collection of music files and just pay for Spotify now. There are gaps in the catalog and they don't have a lot of the really obscure stuff but it covers 95% of what I need to listen to on a daily basis. I also don't bother syncing playlists for offline playback. At 96kbps it sounds fine in the car and the data usage is low enough I can listen on my daily commute and not even come close to my data cap.

I still download all my joints, but I will probably jump on the stream bandwagon soon. The main issue with me is bandwidth limitations.

IMO, there's nothing wrong with actually storing the files though. Nothing is ever forever, not even Spotify, and in any case, space is extremely cheap & getting cheaper by the year.

[Yohan]

I'm having trouble adding music to Musicbee, though I haven't really looked into it yet. Purely for playing music on my PC, it's my go to program. Does it have Chromecast support, by any chance?

[EMCEE DARTH MALEK]

it has a feature to re-scan the active folder when you want to update. don't have it in front of me but pretty easy to find.



so what are people using on android? I have the default google music thing and it's mostly fine, but it has this gay ass feature where every time you try to turn the volume up it gives you a warning about listening too loud. click ok then turn up. but im not tryna take it out my pocket every time. this one little feature is fucking up my whole life.

[Sigma]

I use PlayerPro on Android. Trial version: -

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... erprotrial" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Philaflava]

Regarding iTunes issues. I got a brand new powerful PC, yet when I'm doing multiple things or have programs open the music is sometimes choppy. I read this has to do with other Apple products like Quicktime but I wouldn't know where to start or how to fix this shit. Anyone have this issue with the playback?

[ChaMerZ]

Personally I've given up on maintaining a collection of music files and just pay for Spotify now. There are gaps in the catalog and they don't have a lot of the really obscure stuff but it covers 95% of what I need to listen to on a daily basis. I also don't bother syncing playlists for offline playback. At 96kbps it sounds fine in the car and the data usage is low enough I can listen on my daily commute and not even come close to my data cap.

I still download all my joints ...

hilarious to read this now, when I am basically streaming all my ish. i'm using grooveshark though, and it is quite okay for my purposes. it's shitty for discovering music though.

i've literally never even seen how spotify looks like. the website only works for yanks. are still getting the shaft.

is spotify good for discovering new artists? grooveshark is terrible for this.

[Ned Ryerson]

i know canada is terrible but it looks like it is already available to you:

http://www.thestar.com/business/tech_ne ... anada.html

Spotify is basically the itunes store but everything streams. So you can listen to full albums straight through and make your own playlists. The selection is pretty good in the US unless you're looking for more obscure stuff or some older releases. Most new albums get posted the same day they're available at retail. i use spotify to listen to new albums/artists all the time before copping. i'm sure most people don't buy stuff after listening on spotify though and i'm not sure how well they pay the artists if that means anything to you

[Hush]

Personally I've given up on maintaining a collection of music files and just pay for Spotify now. There are gaps in the catalog and they don't have a lot of the really obscure stuff but it covers 95% of what I need to listen to on a daily basis. I also don't bother syncing playlists for offline playback. At 96kbps it sounds fine in the car and the data usage is low enough I can listen on my daily commute and not even come close to my data cap.

I still download all my joints ...

hilarious to read this now, when I am basically streaming all my ish. i'm using grooveshark though, and it is quite okay for my purposes. it's shitty for discovering music though.

i've literally never even seen how spotify looks like. the website only works for yanks. are still getting the shaft.

is spotify good for discovering new artists? grooveshark is terrible for this.

Grooveshark is cool but their catalog isn't curated very well due to all their library being a culmination of music uploaded by the user base. I would probably use it though if it had better support on IOS devices. Spotify is worth the 10 bucks/month for the (mostly) well curated library and IOS app, but it isn't a perfect service by any means.

Lately I've been considering switching to Google Play because of the 20,000 songs you can upload (to fill in the gaps in their library and add the super obscure stuff that nobody has) but I've heard that even the "low" setting on mobile devices eats up a lot more bandwidth than Spotify. Can anyone confirm whether this is true?

[ChaMerZ]

Grooveshark is cool but their catalog isn't curated very well due to all their library being a culmination of music uploaded by the user base.

Well, yeah pretty much. This is actually the biggest flaw of Grooveshark. I don't even listen to super obscure stuff, but I had to upload a few rap albums and some post-punk because either I couldn't find the album period, or the album was there and the tags were messed up, there were shitty remixes, tracklist inconsistencies ... etc. shit sucks. If you like everything pristine clean, then you will go insane trying to tame Grooveshark.

EDIT:

Also, it's hard to judge whether uploading new content is legal. Like I mentioned, I've uploaded a few albums I couldn't find, but I don't know the legality of t. DOn't want to eat a charge

[Hush]

Grooveshark is cool but their catalog isn't curated very well due to all their library being a culmination of music uploaded by the user base.

Well, yeah pretty much. This is actually the biggest flaw of Grooveshark. I don't even listen to super obscure stuff, but I had to upload a few rap albums and some post-punk because either I couldn't find the album period, or the album was there and the tags were messed up, there were shitty remixes, tracklist inconsistencies ... etc. shit sucks. If you like everything pristine clean, then you will go insane trying to tame Grooveshark.

EDIT:

Also, it's hard to judge whether uploading new content is legal. Like I mentioned, I've uploaded a few albums I couldn't find, but I don't know the legality of t. DOn't want to eat a charge

As far as I know all of the legal issues with Grooveshark have been between them and the people suing them. I haven't heard anything about users being brought into the mix, so I wouldn't worry about that.

But yeah, it's like taking all of their users' poorly organized/tagged music collections and mashing them all into one huge poorly organized/tagged collection!