Just want to double check i'm doing this right

[cmdywrtr27]

so most of the tutorials i’ve seen on youtube start out with the basis that the user has the music already in separated folders, which i do not. i have one folder named ‘music’ and 5,000 mp3’s in that folder. it’s just the easiest way i know how to find a song, i keep that folder open and when im in the mood for a certain song i know exactly where to look for it instead of remembering the album it was in and the artist and having the search for it.

so i added my folder to the app which i can see in the left hand pane, so next i drag that folder to the unclustered folder in the middle pane? then select a handful and click ‘cluster’? then it sends a bunch to the clusters folder beneath it? then select a few and click ‘scan’? which will move them to the far right pane where i select them and click ‘save’? but everything that didn’t transfer over i need to ‘lookup in browser,’ tag it, then save it?

i already have a new folder created for the ‘finished’ files but am i doing this right so far? some files i see are already labeled kinda funky giving credit to a random dj instead of the artist and a lot of files are left behind and plenty of popular songs put together in the ‘various artist’ folder. is there a way i can tell it to label the id3 tag the same as the file name then it can add some other stuff like artwork and album title based off what the file name is?

i dont mind learning a new system on how to organize my music but my issue is that it all needs to be consistent. the syntax in the ‘file naming’ tab in the options looks like gibberish to me so i’m not sure how to edit that without completely messing it up.

i don’t wanna sound like im a short-cutter but is there a copy and paste command i can put there that someone else uses lol or can someone explain why there are so many dollar signs and percent symbols everywhere?

[IvanDobsky]

I hope you made backups before you started? In case it all goes a bit weird…

Good to see you are working in small batches so you can check them as you go along.

@cmdywrtr27

some files i see are already labeled kinda funky giving credit to a random dj instead of the artist and a lot of files are left behind and plenty of popular songs put together in the ‘various artist’ folder. is there a way i can tell it to label the id3 tag the same as the file name then it can add some other stuff like artwork and album title based off what the file name is?

Picard WILL make mistakes and it is you the human who needs to correct the errors. Using that “lookup in Browser” and the < tagger > button to select the relevant releases. Then drag the track onto the correct matches.

The mistakes will happen more if you don’t have anything in the tags. AcoustID “Scan” does well, but often matches to the wrong compilation album

If you have a batch of tracks where your file names are good, but the tags are bad, then MP3TAG can often help there. It is pretty good at converting patterns of filenames into tags. This can then be used to better initialise your files with basic tags, and the pass to Picard for full tagging.

Have a look at this thread where I helped someone do exactly that with MP3 Tag.

How to re-scan entire library?

Conside loading everything up in MP3TAG in large batches. (www.mp3tag.de) Use this to delete the rogue MBID fields. Do a MULTIPLE select of ALL files in the list. Hit the ENHANCED TAGS button and now you can DELETE ALL MBID tags in one go. [image] MP3TAG is great to use alongside Picard. Picard for identification, MP3TAG for bulk operations on lots of files.

And yes, this is hard work untangling a mass of odd tagging on 5000 files, but with patience it will be worth it in the end.