My Guide to Music Management for Windows

[sundayx Veteran]

MusicBridge sounds awsome.

[Slimy]

iTunes? Yeah, uh, no. I would recommend foobar for the minimalist and customizing enthusiast, and WMP11 for the organizational freak.

[PermaSt0ne]

this may be a stupid question but....

if i bother tagging my mp3's, will the tags just get wiped out if i burn a cd (thus getting converted to .cda) ??

or will the tags stay even if i rip the cd back to my hdd?

cause i spent a couple hours tagging all my songs and i'm hoping all that didn't go to waste :cry:

[htwho]

iTunes? Yeah, uh, no. I would recommend foobar for the minimalist and customizing enthusiast, and WMP11 for the organizational freak.

WMP11 does not automatically organize the songs and it has a clunky interface.

or will the tags stay even if i rip the CD back to my hdd?

You WILL lose your tags if you change it into .cda format. A great example is when you buy a CD and rip onto the computer you will discover that the 11-15 songs are not tagged and just given the generic "Track x" name.

To avoid losing the tags, you need to burn a MP3 CD while allows you to burn up to 500 songs I believe (depends on quality, its ~125 for me.) The only problem is that you need to make sure your CD player or the CD player in the car is MP3 capable or it will not be able to read the MP3 CD. MP3 CD's are better than the conventional CD that burns according to the number of minutes of have instead of the amount of space.

MusicBridge sounds awsome.

It is awesome.

[ßéár]

Gonna tut :)

[htwho]

thank you !

Don't mention it. I knew people shared the same desires to manage their music without having to learn too much.

[DaveLegg Developer]

WMP11 does not automatically organize the songs

Yeah it does. Tools -> Options -> Library -> Rearrange music in your rip folder, using rip music settings

Whenever I get any new music, I drop it into my 'Music' folder, add it to the library in WMP, and within about 5 mins, it's moved it to the right place, found the album art if it can, added missing tags etc.

[htwho]

Yeah it does. Tools -> Options -> Library -> Rearrange music in your rip folder, using rip music settings

Whenever I get any new music, I drop it into my 'Music' folder, add it to the library in WMP, and within about 5 mins, it's moved it to the right place, found the album art if it can, added missing tags etc.

You're right! I forgot all about that!

I still can't stand WMP11 for some reason. The interface felt clunky to me compared to iTunes.

[shakey_snake]

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.

Just curious but does this include trying the Foobar2000 9.5 Betas?

The new interface is very easy and very customizable.

I still can't stand WMP11 for some reason. The interface felt clunky to me compared to iTunes.

:hmmm: That's like saying a school bus handles better than a cement truck.

:pinch:

[htwho]

Just curious but does this include trying the Foobar2000 9.5 Betas?

The new interface is very easy and very customizable.

:hmmm: That's like saying a school bus handles better than a cement truck.

iTunes fits best for me and I don't want to keep changing media players just for the fun of it.

[shakey_snake]

Then I'm confused at the purpose of this guide.

[htwho]

Then I'm confused at the purpose of this guide.

First sentence of my guide:

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

Thanks for just criticizing me because you saw the words iTunes and music management and felt that it was a horrible combination.

[Harlem39s Finest]

i prefer using one program(foobar) instead of 3 tbh...

[Darko3d]

i wonder why nobody mentioned RealPlayer. I like to organise my library manually, already have all my mp3s(~11gb) arranged in tons of folders, so i just have realplayer import them to the library and fetch and correct all the details(composer, producer, album art).

But maybe that's just me, anyone here tried organising with realplayer before?

Darko

[htwho]

I really want to question whoever suggested that Neowin should a thread rating system.

What have I done wrong to get only 3 stars?

/rant

[NotChetHanks]

I really want to question whoever suggested that Neowin should a thread rating system.

What have I done wrong to get only 3 stars?

/rant

Some people are just asses. I rated it a 5 for you. Great guide btw.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

That's an excellent guide, htwho! (Y)

[htwho]

(Y) Thanks.

Never got used to boo's and low ratings on the internet. >_<

[gaurav]

This is nice...since I use iPod, iTunes is a better option, although it is quite slow. :(

Wish Apple did something about it.

But a nice guide nonetheless! I never knew about iTsfv, MusicBridge or multi plugin! (Y)

[htwho]

:D

[htwho]

This will be my last post in this forum. Bye.

[denary]

This will be my last post in this forum. Bye.

I for one, appreciate you putting this together. It's just what I've been looking for.

[Gamerhomie]

i wonder why nobody mentioned RealPlayer. I like to organise my library manually, already have all my mp3s(~11gb) arranged in tons of folders, so i just have realplayer import them to the library and fetch and correct all the details(composer, producer, album art).

But maybe that's just me, anyone here tried organising with realplayer before?

Darko

No, never tried Realplayer. But it really can't be much easier than using other prograns like Mediamonkey. I'm currently in progress going through 20GB of music getting rid of info, changing artists, getting album art, etc...

[EnzoFX]

I use mediamonkey, it is great, and i do believe it can do everything u listed. (not to knock ur thread down)=)

Something i didn't notice your article had, was the ability to actually restructure where your files are located. Mediamonkey can move every single song (after tagged), in any kind of order/format. So any category you could possibly put it in, you can arrange it in appropriate folders in windows. Also it can add the album art (from amazon) directly ONTO the song. I preffer this immensely over the way windows/itunes handles it because they simply add it to a folder, as a hidden files, while mediamonkey embeds the image into the song. By doing this, ANY media player can show the album art, where as there really isn't any interchange-ability among media players.

Though mediamonkey is also a media player, i use windows media player, cuz i find it easier and sexier. searching is a snap, and if i remove a file, i dont worry about it being added, or telling me that the file is not there anymore. If i rename a song in windows, windows media player knows, and it adjusts everything appropriately. it monitors my music folder. I will grant you that media monkey's interface has so many options everywhere, not a sexy UI at all, but for the easy tasks discussed, its easy to figure out.

I think one of the reasons wmp11 is considered clunky is because of the navigation, having to go from "now playing" to library, and then sub-sections. they could possibly tidy that up. i do find itunes to be simpler, and last time i tried it on windows, a little slow to startup/close. I do use itunes on my mac though, and its speedy on there.

Edited December 24, 2007 by EnzoFX

[denary]

I use mediamonkey, it is great, and i do believe it can do everything u listed. (not to knock ur thread down)=)

Something i didn't notice your article had, was the ability to actually restructure where your files are located. Mediamonkey can move every single song (after tagged), in any kind of order/format. So any category you could possibly put it in, you can arrange it in appropriate folders in windows. Also it can add the album art (from amazon) directly ONTO the song. I preffer this immensely over the way windows/itunes handles it because they simply add it to a folder, as a hidden files, while mediamonkey embeds the image into the song. By doing this, ANY media player can show the album art, where as there really isn't any interchange-ability among media players.

Though mediamonkey is also a media player, i use windows media player, cuz i find it easier and sexier. searching is a snap, and if i remove a file, i dont worry about it being added, or telling me that the file is not there anymore. If i rename a song in windows, windows media player knows, and it adjusts everything appropriately. it monitors my music folder. I will grant you that media monkey's interface has so many options everywhere, not a sexy UI at all, but for the easy tasks discussed, its easy to figure out.

I think one of the reasons wmp11 is considered clunky is because of the navigation, having to go from "now playing" to library, and then sub-sections. they could possibly tidy that up. i do find itunes to be simpler, and last time i tried it on windows, a little slow to startup/close. I do use itunes on my mac though, and its speedy on there.

Thanks for the tip on MediaMonkey - I checked it out. It seems really good...interface is not that great, but seems like it'll assist me in getting myself organized with my music files.