Global Changes to MP3 Libraries

[€uroMeinke]

So now I've got gigs and gigs of MP3s, iTunes, Widows Media Player, and Music Match - but what I really want to do is organize some of this stuff - get them in the right genre, make sure the album name is spelled correctly in each instance etc. So far it looks like I have to update this meta-data one file at a time. Am I missing an option where I can select a group of files and update the same field for all of them? Is there some outside utility that will help me do this? Mousepod?

[BarTopDancer]

I really like MusicBrainz. It's fairly simple and community edited (so you should be fairly familiar with what you are dealing with even though it's mostly music techies who use it. I use it to manage my 40+ gigs of music.

Personally I recommend taking them out of your various musical program libraries and keep them in a basic "My Music" type library on an external drive (or just on the drive dedicated to the music). You can run the music through the player when you want to hear it, make your playlists and keep them on the player, but the base music is stored on your hard drive and your library won't be seperated.

[€uroMeinke]

Hmmm - that looks like it might be a good tool for some of what I want to do - when I get my bandwidth back.

But here's a better illustration of my problem, a lot of stuff I collect gets classified into the "World" genre that I would want to make a bit more granular - I mean French Ye Ye girls of the 60's is a rather different sound than Moroccan Rai, Bollywood, Bhangra, Samba, or Salsa. So I'd like to select all my France Gall and place it in the Ye Ye genre, all my Cheb Khaled in Rai, etc. - or at least be able to tag them all in some way that I can latter make some cool smart play lists.

[BarTopDancer]

I think it allows you to tag your own lists how you see fit. I haven't played with it in awhile. I have found that even my obscure music is classified correctly, so you may not have a large of a problem as you think you may.

[mousepod]

In iTunes, you can select multiple tracks, "get info", and edit them at once. If you want to do more tricky tagging, I know there are a ton of scripts for macs here, but I'm not sure about scripting iTunes in a windows environment.

MusicBrainz definitely has its uses, as well. I had a dozen or so "mix" CDs that I made several years ago. I ripped them to mp3 and threw them at MusicBrainz, which identified a good portion of the tracks. I was very impressed.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

iTunes, like mousepod said. What you're describing is easily handled with iTunes and doesn't require fancy tricks. If you're annoyed at the World genre, just sort by genre so World groups together, then select large chunks of music (ctrl-click) and hit ctrl-I to see the Multiple Item Information (Get Info) screen. You can make up any genre you want. I've done this to my "Electronica/Dance" genre because that's not specific enough for me.

[€uroMeinke]

Thanks, I knew there must be a simple way to do this!