Sorting out a massive audio library

September 24, 2007 3:35 PM

I'm trying to sort and clean up a media library that contains a total of 16431 items, 51.2 days, 108 GB. So hand sorting is out of the question. Itunes seems to have found Some Duplicates, That need to be deleted. This has proven to be a grueling task if its to be done manually.

I have cleaned up using a program called Double Killer. It removed a good couple thousand tracks, but there are obviously some left. This media library is spanned over Two Folders one that is High quality, tagged, relatively sorted and album art is appended to the id3 tag highlighted in red in the pictures. The other is basically a shambles mostly with the original tags from their sources and sorted using iTunes Media library consolidation as is.

I have been trying to use a program called TheGodFather but its terribly outdated and awkwardly compiled tutorial doesent help much with the specifics of this job.

I need to consolidate these two folders into one. When the files have been consolidated I still wish to distinguish between the High Quality tracks and the non regulated tracks (I assume a simple tag could be added to the high quality tracks and/or the lower quality ones). I also wish to remove the duplicates as best as I can without removing single tracks that are actually not duplicates, though I don't mind if I'm missing a handful or two. Syncing the tags together so all the filenames and id3 tags correspond properly. I want the library to be relatively Cross Platform so uniformity is an asset. Any Help Is massively appreciated.

Duplicates Itunes Show Duplicates Option Found


The DoubleKiller Program


The folders that store this library


My Version of TheGodFather and a link to its Terribly outdated tutorial.

posted by Chamunks to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Ok wow MeFi totally owned my embeds I guess its not alloud so heres my second attempt but instead I'm going to direct link and not embed. The Preview question screen tricked me into thinking i could just embed them.


Duplicates Itunes Show Duplicates Option Found
Pic1

The DoubleKiller Program
Pic2

The folders that store this library
Pic3

My Version of TheGodFather and a link to its Terribly outdated tutorial.
Pic4
posted by Chamunks at 3:41 PM on September 24, 2007

you might check out the threads here and here for advice on sorting a music library.
posted by mookieproof at 4:04 PM on September 24, 2007

I've got 38K files at MP3Tunes. And there's about 1.3 of my collection that I haven't uploaded yet.

I organize with a huge folder heirarchy, Genres, artist, Album, etc...

Tag&Rename helps a lot, and there are lots of others like it.
posted by SlyBevel at 4:15 PM on September 24, 2007

I've done this before. Although, I haven't found a "silver bullet" to automatically find everything, there are methods that can help.

Before running these duplication programs, run your library through the software provided at http://musicbrainz.org/. This will retag all your files based on an "audio footprint." I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I'm sure it involves magic because it is pretty darn accurate. From here, you should have a solid foundation to easily find duplicates.

Afterwards, slice and dice them with your dupe programs.
posted by colecovizion at 4:25 PM on September 24, 2007

Clone Spy?
posted by wafaa at 4:58 PM on September 24, 2007

Ok well musicbrainz appears to be a good way to retag things as long as your music is fairly well known. Is there a software that compares id3 tags and filenames that would automatically select the better track or something?
posted by Chamunks at 9:05 PM on September 24, 2007

Along with a couple of friends, we set about tagging, renaming and album art-ing about 100 GB of music, which was entirely albums with no stray tracks. We split it up, worked on it in chunks and it tooks maybe a week or two.

We used Tag & Rename.

Yes, it sucked. But now it's done and maintaining any new stuff is a lot easier. Plus, you throw that music folder into thumbnails view and it sure does look pretty :)

For your sake, I hope there's an easier solution. For us though, this was the best method after trying a few more automatic methods that left us with less than perfect results.
posted by utsutsu at 6:39 AM on September 25, 2007