Basic External Hard Drive Library Questions
- Thread starter j_loop
- Start date
drjohnnyfeva
Well-Known Member
I have a 14TB My Book that I bought a few years ago to organize all of my pics, movies, and music. I had the idea of building a server, but it wound up being easier to accomplish what I wanted to do by just sharing the folders across my home network.
I have to second or third the recommendation for Foobar as the player and interface for converting music files. Simple to use and it has third party upgrades for just about anything you might want to convert, changes to the GUI, and sound/equalizer enhancements. Any conversion is simply one click and you can do batches too.
What I really like about it also is that it is able to take your personal cataloging setup and utilize it as the catalogue tree of it's GUI. I have a favorites section where I have the bands I most frequently listen to and then other folders by decade. This was the way I've always organized it since I started doing it 30 years ago, so, with only a few adjustments like putting albums by year in each artist's folder, it's easy for me to find whatever I'm looking for.
I have tried to "tag" some of the music, but found it too much to do. The only part of my interface I would like to change is to have a pic of the album in the UI I created in Foobar. I just found it to be too much effort for me, so I gave that up. Which I think is @Splash56 excellent point about proficiency with the tech. Foobar is very easy to use and with a little time either watching a YouTube or reading on Reddit, you can do a TON with that program.
I have to second or third the recommendation for Foobar as the player and interface for converting music files. Simple to use and it has third party upgrades for just about anything you might want to convert, changes to the GUI, and sound/equalizer enhancements. Any conversion is simply one click and you can do batches too.
What I really like about it also is that it is able to take your personal cataloging setup and utilize it as the catalogue tree of it's GUI. I have a favorites section where I have the bands I most frequently listen to and then other folders by decade. This was the way I've always organized it since I started doing it 30 years ago, so, with only a few adjustments like putting albums by year in each artist's folder, it's easy for me to find whatever I'm looking for.
I have tried to "tag" some of the music, but found it too much to do. The only part of my interface I would like to change is to have a pic of the album in the UI I created in Foobar. I just found it to be too much effort for me, so I gave that up. Which I think is @Splash56 excellent point about proficiency with the tech. Foobar is very easy to use and with a little time either watching a YouTube or reading on Reddit, you can do a TON with that program.
Would you like to extract tags from file names? It seems yours hold track number, artist (either album or track) and track title. It's easy to do - for example:
Still using Apple Music here - since we share across our two computers iPad, and iPhones (for car use). I have modified the standard Apple tagging of CDs when ripping them and add leading number, so, for the most part, they fall in chronological order ... When I add an unofficial concert recording, I number it the same as the album from that year with an L as a suffix, or a B if there are more than recordings from that tour ... example:
David Sylvian -
6- Secrets of the Beehive (1987)
6L - Live in Theatre Nakano Sun Plaza (1988)
6L - In Praise of Shaman (May 88 Hammersmith Odeon)
9 - Dead Bees on a Cake (1999)
10 - Everything and Nothing (2000)
etc ...
David Sylvian -
6- Secrets of the Beehive (1987)
6L - Live in Theatre Nakano Sun Plaza (1988)
6L - In Praise of Shaman (May 88 Hammersmith Odeon)
9 - Dead Bees on a Cake (1999)
10 - Everything and Nothing (2000)
etc ...
Yes, Mp3tag can create tags from filenames in a similar manner -
Converters to rename files or to import tags