My Guide to Music Management for Windows

[htwho]

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I created this guide just for people who do not want to waste time tinkering and customizing the aesthetics of a media player and just want a polished, hassle free experience.

I researched and used almost every program out there that manages music. I never could find something that fit perfectly for me. GUI (Graphic User Interface) is very important to me since I want my data shown in a clear and consistent manner without feeling aggravated. I tried out Foobar2000, Winamp, iTunes, Windows Media Player 11 and none of them could manage my whole music library.

Finally, I found a solution after trying all these programs. I needed to use several programs that were excellent in one area of music management. For example, I need a program that could easily tag and rename all my files while providing a nice, clean interface.

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Tagging and Renaming:

Mp3tag - http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

It provides a clean interface and allows you to save tags in different formats. I'm not an expert and did not go into the details of which format is better than the other. This lightweight, nifty program allowed me to edit every minute detail of my mp3 files.

One disadvantage of Mp3tag is that it cannot find high resolution album art for you.

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Cover Art/Album Artwork:

iTunes

Even though you DO need to create an iTunes store account and enter your credit card details, it outweighs that disadvantage by providing high quality album art. It managed to get 90% of my albums. The rest of the missing cover art was found in either:

http://www.allcdcovers.com

or

http://www.albumart.org

Note: iTunes does not automatically embed artwork. If you want to force it to embed, then you have to:

Right click the selected song file > Get Info > Artwork > Copy and paste or drag and drop the album art then click "Ok."

If you want to one album artwork to several song files, then follow the same steps and instead of seeing a similar screen, you see a screen named "Multiple Item Information." In that, just drag and drop the artwork into the "Artwork" section and click "OK".

If you do not use iTunes, then use Mp3tag's artwork function. Open Mp3tag and to the left you will see a square with a faded gray CD icon in it. Drag and drop the image into it and MAKE SURE that you click the Save icon in the toolbar. Again, this action can be done to several songs too. Just select the songs you want to apply the artwork too and follow the same steps.

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Organizing:

iTunes - http://filehippo.com/download_itunes/

Even though many call this bloatware since it also installs support for portable Apple products and has a service called "iTuneshelper.exe" continuously running in the background, I found peace with this software. I do not have an iPod and do not plan on getting one. You may ask why I use this program out of the other free media player software. The reason is that I love how it can organize my media library and sort it without a hitch.

Specified folder > Artist > Album > Songs

I don't need a customized, manual task of ordering it by genre and don't care about it so it is perfect.

Note:

== Make sure you copy and EMBED the artwork into the song by either using Mp3tag and copying and pasting or manually selecting the song(s) and right clicking and copying it into the artwork tab because iTunes does not do that as default when it downloads artwork for a specific song.

== To stop iTuneshelper.exe from running, you can just go into your task manager and close the program then go into C:\Program Files\iTunes and delete "iTuneshelper.exe" and its folder.

== Make sure you point your shorcut to iTunes.exe if iTunes restores IPodservice and iTuneshelper.

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|| Optional (If you do use iTunes as your primary audio player) ||

I never could find software that could back up my play counts or "date added" or the ratings globally and allow me to use that data in ANY media library software of my choice so I decided to stick with iTunes.

Managing media library data:

iTsfv - iTunes Store file validator

Offers various features and helps you customize iTunes' management of your media library. Most importantly, it backs up three features I mentioned above. It can also help you delete tracks that do not exist anymore and even back up and restore your whole media library so it saves you the hassle of adding your tracks back into iTunes again.

My description does not do it justice so you can find out more about it on this thread:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=524573

(Download links can be found in the thread)

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Miscellaneous:

MusicBridge: http://www.download.com/3000-2141_4-10742870.html

iTunes <--> WMP x.x

I wanted to sync my ratings and playlist with WMP11 and vice versa and found this cool app. It basically allows you to move your ratings back and forth. Personally, I transfer my ratings to WMP11 since it saves them globally/permanently (the ratings are visible in Vista's Windows Explorer).

Multi-Plugin: http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?t=41188

(Warning: Only supports iTunes version 7.0.x)

I use this to customize the GUI of iTunes since the bland brushed steel look does not fit Vista. There are other nifty features included which I do not use/see as trivial so visit the link to find out more about this addon.

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Edit: I did not explain Audio Ripping and Audio Normalizing since most users don't seem to care about it. However, I do so here are the links to my favorite audio ripper and normalizer:

Exact Audio Copy: http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/

MP3Gain: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/faq.php

Any corrections or specific issues you would like me to edit in? PM me.

Edited December 17, 2007 by htwho

[Preoccupation]

Very useful. I don't use iTunes as I don't like it on Windows. Overall very good tutorial. :)

[htwho]

:) Thanks, I appreciate your feedback.

[night_stalker_z]

Good guide but iTunes on Windows isnt as good as iTunes on the Mac.

[Echilon]

I'd never, ever let iTunes near my music again. Checking the box saying 'let iTunes manage you music' wiped out 8Gb of MP3s. :no:

[htwho]

^ That's quite unfortunate.

Good guide but iTunes on Windows isnt as good as iTunes on the Mac.

That's what I heard too. Oh well. It seems like Mac has more polished entertainment software.

[Lingwo]

Yeah, i prefer to manage my music myself with a simple tagging program. From past experience programs that manage your music library mess up the tags or deletes/moves certain files.

The album art sites are handy though :)

[night_stalker_z]

I'd never, ever let iTunes near my music again. Checking the box saying 'let iTunes manage you music' wiped out 8Gb of MP3s. :no:

I dont think it has wiped out your music. It just moved them to its own folder so iTunes can manage it which was what happened with me. Otherwise thats quite unfortunate.

[kyller]

U could have done better if wisely used the masstagger function in foobar2000.

[ryukava]

Useful guide, thanks!

Another alternative to Mp3tag is Tag&Rename which I highly recommend! (Y) (though I've never tried the former)

I love the easiness and simplicity of how it can get tag information (including embedding album art) from Amazon with just a few clicks. I only use winamp as my music player and nothing else :D

[htwho]

Whoever rated my guide a 1 star, thanks. :|

[Brodel]

Nice guide. I agree with iTunes being the best with regards to organizing. I've tried winamp, wmp, foobar and about 5 others i can't remember the name of. That being said, iTunes sounds terrible IMO. The best way if you don't want the added features, is to install 7.0 and not 7.1 and run multi plugin. That way you can use the itunes front and features with the sound of foobar and it's millions of plugins.

[htwho]

I agree. That's what I do but I didn't include it in the guide because people hate installing all these plug ins to just get one feature. Too much of a hassle for the regular computer user.

[Quad Master]

Really Nice Tutorial , Thanks :)

[HawkMan]

U could have done better if wisely used the masstagger function in foobar2000.

Personally I would just have used Foobar for pretty much everything here, faster and easier, and more powerfull.

The best way to organize your music isusing folders anyway, tags are too limited to be used exclusively. If I wasn't such a lazy ****** I would write a guide for foobar, but I am :)

[htwho]

Really Nice Tutorial , Thanks :)

Glad you find it useful. :)

U could have done better if wisely used the masstagger function in foobar2000.

I went back to iTunes after customizing Foobar2000 because I preferred my music to be organized automatically when I add them into the library.

Artist\Album

[zzap]

Yeah, iTunes for Windows isn't very good, especially when it comes to managing music unless you mess around with some of the settings. I personally think Foobar is better, and you get customize it to look a lot more awesome than iTunes ever will.

[htwho]

Yeah, iTunes for Windows isn't very good, especially when it comes to managing music unless you mess around with some of the settings. I personally think Foobar is better, and you get customize it to look a lot more awesome than iTunes ever will.

I completely agree. However, I have to stick with iTunes since it offers these key features:

- Automatic File Organization

- Access to High Resolution Album Art

- Clean Interface

- Media Library

Foobar and Winamp cannot automatically organize my files and it's quite a hassle to change all those customization features.

Multiplugin + iTunes will be my pick until something better comes along.

[HawkMan]

the only way to properly organize music is with folders anyway.

How else can I used sub categories as I wish, such as putting my anime music in the anime folders and then having the artists under there again instead of just mingling them with all the other artists.Japanese song and artist names just mess up the sorting of umusic when you use tags anyway, not to mention songs with guest rtits and crap. tags are a pain. But if you must use them the latest foobar version is defintely the easiest tool to fix tags and such with their new itnerafec and tag editing. Just select everything inthe folder for that artist and write the correct artist name in the artist field, no windows or scripts or anything. need to fix the album name, same thing.

and best of all, not need to have buggy, resource hogging badly coded Apple windows apps installed.

[htwho]

^ Very true.

Fortunately, I do not really care about the organization of folders.

iTunes' default Artist\Album works perfectly for me. I just type in the "Genre" and create auto playlists that will separate my Anime, Japanese, French and the rest (Alternative, Electronic).

[HawkMan]

Foobar and Winamp cannot automatically organize my files and it's quite a hassle to change all those customization features.

And how can't they organize your musi automatically ? foobar does it automatically for me in any possible way I want, wether I use the built in album list for treview, or facets for a different way to do it. you really need to try the ltest foobar, o need to customize the UI and if you want to it's easier than ever. and finally ccolors unified all over and easy to change so you can get the colors you want without editing all over the place.

^ Very true.

Fortunately, I do not really care about the organization of folders.

iTunes' default Artist\Album works perfectly for me. I just type in the "Genre" and create auto playlists that will separate my Anime, Japanese, French and the rest (Alternative, Electronic).

Ah, but what if I want it sorte so I can see all the albums that are under first the ANime folder and then again under the Macros 7 folder. With tags you don't really get this tiered sorting ability.

[htwho]

Ah, but what if I want it sorte so I can see all the albums that are under first the ANime folder and then again under the Macros 7 folder. With tags you don't really get this tiered sorting ability.

Thankfully, I do not play around THAT much with the organization of my music.

[acies]

I'd never, ever let iTunes near my music again. Checking the box saying 'let iTunes manage you music' wiped out 8Gb of MP3s. :no:

It wouldn't have deleted all your music, it just moves it to My Music > iTunes > iTunes Music.

[BajiRav]

I don't personally like to use iTunes but I just keep it for the sake of high-res album art.

To get rid of unwanted services, here is what I do: just find respective executables and remove all permissions. e.g. iTuneshelper.exe

You might see some errors in system log (I haven't checked) but this is very effective.

[htwho]

Thanks for the input, Dhan. :) I'll edit that in.