I love MusicBrainz for everything they did but I don't think using a tagger as a separate program you have to open and point to a file is good UX, even if the tag lookup is fully automated.
It should be a daemon that auto tags all new files in the background and only prompts you when there's a problem. And if it finds a new song with metadata that's not in the database you get the option to upload it. Even better if it scrapes CDs and streaming services. Maybe I'll build it one day.
I'm personally a fan of the tagging being a separate explicit action, it suits my flows at least: Download to staging folder -> Picard (tags, grabs artwork, normalises file names, I intervene where needed) -> automatic transfer to streaming server when it's finished.
Ehhhh, people are specific about their albums. I recently used this auto tagger and it would tag a song in a strange album. Like song Ocean Avenue from Yellowcard was not from their album Yellowcard but some compilation album that I had never heard of.
Man, I could be wrong, but I would venture to guess that the number of people using this has decreased massively. In my teens and 20s I remember religiously scanning my entire MP3 collection through Picard and also gleefully scanning disc IDs into the database. Haven't used MusicBrainz in over ten years at this point.
Anecdotally - I, and several people I know, have independently started using CDs, Soulseek and Bandcamp to rebuild personal audio collections after becoming annoyed with streaming apps. LLMs have really helped organizing and tagging music efficiently.
I got back into it around a year ago, highly recommend. Very refreshing to experience parts of the old world that have survived like soulseek and torrents again.
It's unfortunate that not all of their official plugins were ported before the update was released. I do use a few that aren't available (AcousticBrainz Tags, Wikidata Genre, etc.) and that makes it difficult to choose the update and then missing out on the tags.
EDIT: I installed it on a separate machine, and there is a setting in the wizard called "Fetch detailed track relationships". I'm unsure if that means it will contain AB tags or the Wikidata genres though.
Recently me and a bunch of DJs reinvented how we manage metadata for our collections.
The TL;DR is use SQLite for everything. Both a local central database describing the entire catalog, and one “sidecar” database for every song representing its individual metadata.
The huge advantage is it stores metadata that ID3 tags never imagined like beat grids and phrases and cue points.
The other advantage is agents crush manipulating data that is in SQLite. Chatting with my music collection feels better than any music library app did.
Of course tools also import and export to native audio file tags and use the musicbrainz API.
Looking for feedback and other music nerds that want to collaborate on this approach.
I've got a large, local library in Apple Music—the application, not the service, they need a naming czar—amassed over decades of purchases. The auto-lookup from iTunes/Music is fine, but I find a real joy in having correct metadata. All those mix CDs from high school!
I care less about high-quality album art than Apple execs do, I think, and I likewise don't bother too much with all the meta tags, but it's surprising how often the CDDB or Gracenotes or whatever Music.app uses are wrong, have typos, miss information, etc. I scrobble listens, so it's a natural progression for anything new or clearly wrong.
I think of it like tending a garden, and find it quite peaceful. It's clearly not for Regular People™ like so much else here. Every other person in my life is happy with "Unknown Artist - Unknown Album - Track 2" or just using a streaming service.
I just recently went through my whole library with Picard and it worked well while the UI was definitely geared for power users. Really happy with the end result.
There was one UX papercut that ended up messing some data on tracks that I had to correct later: fields with multiple values, like "Artists", show the multiple values like "Beats and Styles; Toni W.". But the field in the UI is also editable as a text field, and if you manually write that with the semicolon, it stores one artist with the semicolon included! It took me a while to realise that I can right click to open an editor where multiple values can be entered and edited separately.
Picard was extremely useful to me when I decided to put all my audio on a streaming server in a local container (Navidrome). I used it extensively about five months ago. I find MP3 tags (and all the various formats and syntax) a nightmare usually but this was bearable. Picard was great.
I've used it to successfully organize my messy library of (then) 50 thousands songs back in 2014. It's great if you can wrap your head around the weird ass workflow.
The plugins/extensions have also been proving quite useful, there are now quite a lot more available and useful ones. I've managed to incorporate some into my workflow.
I am. As the other commenter mentioned the workflow is very odd, and the UX of the app could do with massive improvements (haven't checked V3 yet), but it does a good job and I'm grateful to the devs for it.
2. Even when you do import a full album, it often struggles to match tracks. Here's part of a transcript I saved:
Match (29.3%):
StarSystems - Lift
≠ artist, album, tracks, unmatched tracks
MusicBrainz, CD-R, 2019, GB, None, None, None
https://musicbrainz.org/release/7c68b7ff-27c0-4da7-8430-d4228c6f6ff8
≠ Artist: -> StarSystems
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Arrival [2238026155].mp3 (1:08) -> (#1) Arrival (1:08)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Slipstream [1268364723].mp3 (6:23) -> (#2) Flower (6:25)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Trigger Fish [1805252711].mp3 (5:06) -> (#3) Party Time (5:03)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Moth [857985311].mp3 (4:51) -> (#4) Moth (4:51)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Vortex [1717930774].mp3 (5:38) -> (#5) Vortex (5:38)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Flower [3129604796].mp3 (6:25) -> (#6) Slipstream (6:23)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Party Time [545976708].mp3 (5:03) -> (#7) Trigger Fish (5:06)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Lift (feat. Jordan Rudess) [3330158657].mp3 (8:09) -> (#8) Lift (feat. Jordan Rudess) (8:09)
≠ (#0) StarSystems - Disengage [526901544].mp3 (2:01) -> (#9) Disengage (2:01)
Unmatched tracks (1):
! (#0) (5:06)
Apply, More candidates, Skip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums,
Rescan directory, Enter search, enter Id, aBort?
Look at tracks #2, #3, #6, #7. Why is it trying to switch the names around, even though the original name + length is right, and the new name + length is wrong?
Picard has worked flawlessly for me so far, it's just a shame it can't be automated.
Welp, looks like it's time to re-rip / re-tag my CD collection at higher quality
I love MusicBrainz for everything they did but I don't think using a tagger as a separate program you have to open and point to a file is good UX, even if the tag lookup is fully automated.
It should be a daemon that auto tags all new files in the background and only prompts you when there's a problem. And if it finds a new song with metadata that's not in the database you get the option to upload it. Even better if it scrapes CDs and streaming services. Maybe I'll build it one day.
> Maybe I'll build it one day.
Someone beet you to it [1]
1. https://beets.io/
Beets isn't a daemon like GP asked for. You have to import files manually.
I'm personally a fan of the tagging being a separate explicit action, it suits my flows at least: Download to staging folder -> Picard (tags, grabs artwork, normalises file names, I intervene where needed) -> automatic transfer to streaming server when it's finished.
Ehhhh, people are specific about their albums. I recently used this auto tagger and it would tag a song in a strange album. Like song Ocean Avenue from Yellowcard was not from their album Yellowcard but some compilation album that I had never heard of.
Man, I could be wrong, but I would venture to guess that the number of people using this has decreased massively. In my teens and 20s I remember religiously scanning my entire MP3 collection through Picard and also gleefully scanning disc IDs into the database. Haven't used MusicBrainz in over ten years at this point.
Anecdotally - I, and several people I know, have independently started using CDs, Soulseek and Bandcamp to rebuild personal audio collections after becoming annoyed with streaming apps. LLMs have really helped organizing and tagging music efficiently.
I got back into it around a year ago, highly recommend. Very refreshing to experience parts of the old world that have survived like soulseek and torrents again.
Yeah it has been 10 years for me too. But yesterday I downloaded the RC to have my ChatGPT Agent run through my catalog and normalize everything.
Time to pull up Bandcamp and Soulseek and keep adding to my collection.
Same. Also reminds me of similar apps I used heavily and all of it vanished with the rise of streaming platforms
It's unfortunate that not all of their official plugins were ported before the update was released. I do use a few that aren't available (AcousticBrainz Tags, Wikidata Genre, etc.) and that makes it difficult to choose the update and then missing out on the tags.
EDIT: I installed it on a separate machine, and there is a setting in the wizard called "Fetch detailed track relationships". I'm unsure if that means it will contain AB tags or the Wikidata genres though.
I'll splurge for the boxed set - with hardcopy manual, and community support included !
Kudos to the team being able to get a new major release out. Robert would be proud.
Love musicbrainz.
Recently me and a bunch of DJs reinvented how we manage metadata for our collections.
The TL;DR is use SQLite for everything. Both a local central database describing the entire catalog, and one “sidecar” database for every song representing its individual metadata.
The huge advantage is it stores metadata that ID3 tags never imagined like beat grids and phrases and cue points.
The other advantage is agents crush manipulating data that is in SQLite. Chatting with my music collection feels better than any music library app did.
Of course tools also import and export to native audio file tags and use the musicbrainz API.
Looking for feedback and other music nerds that want to collaborate on this approach.
https://deadca7.com/blog/deadca7-open-music-database-specifi...
Anyone here still using this?
Absolutely!
I've got a large, local library in Apple Music—the application, not the service, they need a naming czar—amassed over decades of purchases. The auto-lookup from iTunes/Music is fine, but I find a real joy in having correct metadata. All those mix CDs from high school!
I care less about high-quality album art than Apple execs do, I think, and I likewise don't bother too much with all the meta tags, but it's surprising how often the CDDB or Gracenotes or whatever Music.app uses are wrong, have typos, miss information, etc. I scrobble listens, so it's a natural progression for anything new or clearly wrong.
I think of it like tending a garden, and find it quite peaceful. It's clearly not for Regular People™ like so much else here. Every other person in my life is happy with "Unknown Artist - Unknown Album - Track 2" or just using a streaming service.
I just recently went through my whole library with Picard and it worked well while the UI was definitely geared for power users. Really happy with the end result.
There was one UX papercut that ended up messing some data on tracks that I had to correct later: fields with multiple values, like "Artists", show the multiple values like "Beats and Styles; Toni W.". But the field in the UI is also editable as a text field, and if you manually write that with the semicolon, it stores one artist with the semicolon included! It took me a while to realise that I can right click to open an editor where multiple values can be entered and edited separately.
Picard was extremely useful to me when I decided to put all my audio on a streaming server in a local container (Navidrome). I used it extensively about five months ago. I find MP3 tags (and all the various formats and syntax) a nightmare usually but this was bearable. Picard was great.
I've used it to successfully organize my messy library of (then) 50 thousands songs back in 2014. It's great if you can wrap your head around the weird ass workflow.
The plugins/extensions have also been proving quite useful, there are now quite a lot more available and useful ones. I've managed to incorporate some into my workflow.
I am. As the other commenter mentioned the workflow is very odd, and the UX of the app could do with massive improvements (haven't checked V3 yet), but it does a good job and I'm grateful to the devs for it.
When I get back to organizing my Bandcamp downloads, I do: what I set years ago still works
What other options are there? Genuinely curious about what else exists
I use beets and it works well for me: https://beets.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
I'll second this. beets is excellent.
I wanted to love beets as I prefer the CLI, but it just seemed very finicky for me.
1. Tagging doesn't work if you don't import every song in an album at once (see https://www.reddit.com/r/musichoarder/comments/1j0wnbz/need_... and dev comments on https://github.com/beetbox/beets/issues/5014)
2. Even when you do import a full album, it often struggles to match tracks. Here's part of a transcript I saved:
Look at tracks #2, #3, #6, #7. Why is it trying to switch the names around, even though the original name + length is right, and the new name + length is wrong?Picard has worked flawlessly for me so far, it's just a shame it can't be automated.