What is Reddit's opinion of
MediaMonkey?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
➔ MediaMonkey website
By popularity on Reddit, this Service is:
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
I was going to throw iTunes on windows out as a counterexample, but then I realized there really were not any design standards on windows when iTunes was released.
Edit: Examples of the variety of 'design' styles when iTunes was first released:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/Assets/images/product_collage.jpg http://images.six.betanews.com/screenshots/954180977-4.png http://www.faculty.umb.edu/kevin_orourke/ppt/RealOne%20Player4.jpg
There are a few that are good enough for music management, but they don't seem to sync up with iOS devices as well as iTunes itself does (I'm assuming that's a requirement here).
I'd say give MediaMonkey a look. It seems to be the one with most features (including iOS device syncing) and it's free too. I've used it myself in the past and found it pretty easy to get to grips with.
MediaMonkey is 10x better than iTunes for managing your music library if anyone is interested in an alternative. It's a fine player too. The interface is not quite the eye-candy that apple's products are, but it's pretty great.
I used MediaMonkey for about 5,000 files. It took me around 3-4 hours to rename all the songs, update ID3 tags, get album art, and move to proper folder. It's time-consuming still, but you only have to do it once. If I trusted the automatic tools a little better, it would have taken even less time.
MediaMonkey all the way. I use it to rip all my CDs and convert them to FLAC. I organize them with proper tags and file names. I then sync the collection with my iPod, which means that all the songs are automatically converted to mp3s.
I've been using media monkey gold for years. Amazing program, plays flac and other loss less codecs, can still sync your apple device. There's a free version that's just as functional! check it out. http://www.mediamonkey.com/
I want to like it, but there are things missing or wrong:
- Still no FLAC support
- No tag splitting (think multiple artists on a single song)
- Plain CD ripping (AccurateRip has spoiled me)
- iTunes Match is fairly broken (it handles explicit versions of songs particularly poorly)
- Adding custom radio streams is just strange (why do they live in my music library when the rest of the streams live in the Internet Radio library?)
- too many UI overhauls. I don't mind any of the iTunes UIs, but I really wish Apple would pick a UI and stick with it for more than a femtosecond.
I'm using a combination of dBpoweramp and MediaMonkey now. It's more complex and requires a Windows box, but it actually works for me.
media monkey. i just throw music in a folder and i tell the program to sort it by artist, then make a subfolder by album and done. you just have to make sure the mp3 tags are accurate. there are scipts that do all kinds of stuff to the tags too.
You would be surprised just how frighteningly powerful MediaMonkey is. Alongside Photoshop and a small handful of games, it's the only reason I still have a Windows partition on my computer.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/ ,works great with syncing ipod and iphone,send me a message if you want the full registered version,you should give t a go,i've been using it for two years,i have 150k songs
My favorite player in terms of features (and free) is Mediamonkey. You can use Winamp plugins with it afaik. The downside is that it's ugly, so if like me, you care about that, Musicbee seems like the middleground between a full featured musicplayer, and something like foobar which can be very pretty. So Musicbee is what I'm using currently, and I really like it.
sorry for poor formatting, I don't have RES and forgot how to links.
MediaMonkey is hands down the best music library manager on windows. It flawlessly handles my 150k song library with quick startup times and searching. It stores metadata in an sqlite database so you can correct info without altering the files (thus you can still seed). It also supports any plugin that works with winamp.
MediaMonkey is the best thing that ever happened to me.... download now. Also, download CopyTrans for seamless transfers to your iphone/ipad/ipod/etc
I've found MediaMonkey to be very straightforward when it comes to organizing and tagging entire music collections. TuneUp is also very handy if you don't want to put in any effort into fixing up your music collection.
I've tried this before with an iPod Classic, and honestly installing iTunes is by far the easiest way and induces less headaches. You can do what I do and use iTunes solely for syncing music with your phone but use your player of choice (MediaMonkey for me) for actual playback. You can sync the music using MediaMonkey but you have to install iTunes anyways to get the drivers.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/WebHelp:iPod_Synchronization/4.0
you can use media monkey the wiki for how is here Media Monkey is free software that works better than itunes in my opinion and you can use it to sync almost any mp3 player with apple products included.
There's a problem with your argument: Apple doesn't want third-party programs to interact with iOS devices for things like sync. Notice that MediaMonkey has to update its software to support new iOS versions. (Rather, the thing I'm pointing out about that page is that iOS 7 required a MM update.) Also note that the MM instructions need you to keep iTunes installed to work with iOS devices. This is because iTunes installs extra pieces so that the iOS device will accept the connection and sync, rather than just show the computer its photos.
I used foo_dop for a while, back when it was actually being updated. But like the jailbreak I had on my phone, there was a waiting period after every iOS and iTunes update to make sure everything else would work with it. New iTunes updates would break foo_dop, especially if it coincided with a major iOS update. Because Apple was iterating the cat-and-mouse game of blocking off the sync functionality.
There's another, more basic reason, though. foobar2000 isn't designed to be used as a sync hub. If it were, there would be MTP support somewhere, either built-in or as an optional plugin. It's designed to act just as a music player, with or without a library backing it. Sync never entered the picture, and probably won't unless they get the mobile fb2k thing off the ground. I love fb2k to death, and hate iTunes, but I still keep iTunes around for iTunes Match and the music store.
If the files are already tagged and you just want the files to be renamed I recommend MediaMonkey
and of course people will always recommend Tag&Rename
Media Monkey. Does everything Itunes does, and doesn't fuck up your system with Apple crapware. Apple's greed makes Microsoft in the old days look like the Buddha. I was So happy the day I threw away my last Apple device and uninstalled the last scrap of their code. Good riddance. Now I can do stuff like copy text files onto my 16GB portable storage device (something Apple doesn't allow).
MediaMonkey Gold - I love MediaMonkey for not only playing, but organizing my mp3 files. It also will sync music to my iPhone without installing iTunes, so I was glad to give them my money for a Gold license.
PlayOn - I mostly use it to watch Hulu on my Xbox360, but I also use it for watching NHL GameCenterLive games on my Xbox or iPhone.
Trillian Pro - There's not a whole lot in the Pro version that I really need over Basic, but I've been using Trillian for so long on a daily basis that I don't mind throwing them some money for this great app. Also bought the iPhone app, and I love the way it handles multiple logins and syncs your conversations between devices.
This is going to sound like a bit of an advertisement, but I prefer MediaMonkey; CopyTrans and Sharepod are too cumbersome if you don't want to do absolutely everything manually, and Foobar's iPod component is very slow for me.
I used MediaMonkey as a library & tag manager. It'll auto-rename as well, auto-tag from the internet, etc. No idea how it compares to some of the other software listed in here.
Ah, for music. I was thinking about video.
If the metadata is wonky, you're probably going to have trouble getting any media server to handle that well.
If the filename/folder structure is perfect, you might try using MediaMonkey or a similar tool to populate the ID3 tags based on the filename.
Tools > Options > Auto-Tag from Filename
In general: really good at managing playlists != lightweight and stable
If you want a real solution, check out MediaMonkey.
Don't listen to the numbskulls who will recommend foobar. It sucks so much at organizing music. People constantly recommend it in threads like these -- I swear they are being paid.
Source: Guy who has been organizing 1TB of music for the past 4 years by hand.
Edit: MM supports ipods
Edit 2: Another one is http://www.helium-music-manager.com/ , which I dont see mentioned very often. It has a lot of unique features and a damn cool interface. It just kinda sucks for larger libraries like mine (slow)
I have a couple Macs and they run iTunes just fine - but then again, I hate iTunes.
If I still had a PC, I would only use MediaMonkey. It's fucking awesome, and it supports ipods / iphones / ipads / iballs / etc.
I would say having bad hardware is always going to be the main factor, you can mess around with equalizers and sound settings all you like, it just makes it sound better but not good.
The only work around I have ever found is getting the right pair of head phones. As for a direct answer to your question...
Musicolet - really lightweight but feature full. Also ad free. Definitely the best player I have used in recent months.
Blackplayer - Possibly plays the most sound file types on the market. If you have this and VLC I doubt there is a file type you couldn't play tbh. Its also light weight and (the version I used) ad free.
MediaMonkey - not just a music player, but extremely useful functions for music and movies. Its got a couple of in app purchases that you might want, but straight out of the box its really good.
Poweramp - If you have a day free give this a whirl and mess around with the biggest library of sound tweak tools you are likely to find. I think you can also create and save you own templates to apply to music lists and individual sound files. Its heavy on the phones specs, but a really good android sound tool and decent player.
You probably won't find anything that satisfies 2. If you look at how mediamonkey saves ratings in flac files you find they save them in a non-standard way. Those ratings are mediaMonkey only. If it were mp3 files you probably had more luck. So best you can hope for is finding the metadata that saves the ratings with metaflac --list and then writing a convert script yourself.
Yeah, it's pretty easy but It's been a while since I've used it so there now be better options. There are a few ways to auto-tag files and it can pull meta data from file names, folders, or amazon.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/sw/webhelp/frame/index.html?gettingtrackinformationfromtheinternet.htm
Sorry, peep. That's about it. There is one client I've heard of called MediaMonkey
that you can look at but other than Pocket Casts web client
that syncs with the Android and IOS Pocket Casts apps I don't know if there is anything else, that is not web based.
Maybe look at the Stitcher web app and see if it does anything there of use.
I don't know if they have a desktop client now or not.
Just to rub it in, on the Mac there is the Downcast and Instacasts clients that do everything you are asking for and more. Sorry about that.
!
This kind of sucks compared to some free Visualization Plug-Ins that exist for music players like Whitecap and Milkdrop
Also, the video game Audiosurf has a built in visualizer mode that's very in tune with every beat in whatever track you choose.
I'd say try MediaMonkey based on those issues. It's been a while (and not a setting I utilised), but I'm fairly sure it gave you the option of either moving or duplicating music files when organising the library, instead of MusicBee's move-only option.
I think MM can also do the playlist update as well, but after deleting songs, I think you have to run a scan for missing tracks, and it would presumably find them. I've never really used playlists, so I'm kinda guessing/googling it myself at this point.
And with the easy backup, I know there's a wiki page for backing up the music database, but beyond that, I think you'll have to manually reset settings; I know everytime I formatted I would have to turn off the desktop popup and a couple of other qwerks I didn't like in the UI.
So yeah, I'd give MM a whirl and see if it works for you, if not, best of luck searching man (or lady).
Torrenting ain't our thang in this subreddit, so no use asking for illegal music downloads here... For free music, I usually check out stuff on Bandcamp.com. It's not always the best stuff, but there's some gems here and there. I'm sure you've got your own means of acquiring music.
iTunes is the preferred way of transfering music to an iPod, just because third-party apps are either a.) costly or b.) finicky. Regardless, alternatives include TunesOver for Mac, or MediaMonkey for Windows.
If you've got an extensive CD collection, iTunes can make it pretty simple to copy them to your iPod. If you go to iTunes' preferences, there's an option on the General tab that allows you to adjust what happens when you insert an audio CD. If you set it to "Import CD and Eject," you can just keep feeding your computer a CD and it'll add it to your library and spit it back out when it's ready for another.
That's why I use Media Monkey for my music player on my computer. It has a party mode you can turn on and it then prevents modifyng the playlist, changing to any song that is not not on the playlist, and alt-tabbing so you dont get youtube hijacked.
Sounds like your best option would be to get a 3rd HDD that is big enough for ALL your songs (They sell 3TB ones nowadays), copy all of your music to there and re-index it with iTunes. That way you'll have your music library accessible AND backed up which with 100,000 songs is pretty much a necessity.
You could also use a program like MediaMonkey to sort through and delete any duplicates per this article.
I don't know why most everyone is ignoring your +70gb requirement... I found the Archos 5 via PontifexPrimus' link, but it is a bit of overkill for an mp3 player. The Cowon X7 from Zaccus link liiks like the best bet when my 5th Gen ipod dies.
You can use Media Monkey to manage a music library that size and to synch your music from your computer to your mp3 player.
I second this, its auto-organizing feature is great. Select all the tracks you want to organize, right-click auto-organize, then specify how you want the folder hierarchy to be. Get it here Since I download most of my music and don't rip CDs, I don't really have any need to use the gold version, though if you want to rip CDs you might want to consider it, since it's one of the few features in the free version that expires after a while. (I actually buy CDs, but then just torrent the album :p)
MediaMonkey is not only a better all around music player, but also has a script that will literally check all cases of any tracks you select. Are they wrong? Like one click to fix an entire CD. Bam.
I swear by MediaMonkey for music organization because I haven't found anything that comes close in terms of tagging/renaming and (more importantly) moving files to directories based on album/artist.
I'm still searching for the ultimate movie/TV organization tool and I wish MM handled those types of media as well...
- Learn to MediaMonkey
- Don't steal random music. Only buy or steal that which you will actually listen to.
- Take the time to properly tag when you import.
Then you will end up with a nice, beautifully organized library like this.
Couple of plugins/scripts to look into:
Tagging Inconsistencies - Automatically lists tracks with similar but inconsistent naming
- Artist names (e.g. "Miles Davis" & "Davis, Miles"
- Albums with multiple years/genres/artists/etc.
- Many more types of inconsistencies
Advanced Duplicate Find & Fix
- Much better than the default duplicate finder
- Finds duplicate tracks/albums/etc.
MediaMonkey is my go-to for this. It will both:
a) Organize your songs based on id3 tag in whatever hierarchy you choose
and b) Tag your songs based on the folder hierarchy. Can also tag and get album artwork from Amazon.
You can also have it find/delete duplicates, badly-tagged content, etc. As a player, MM is average at best but definitely has the best organization/management I've ever used.
MediaMonkey is the best there is on PC's i think right now. Tons of features. You can rename files based on tags, retag based on filenames, search for albums with missing tracks, check the case and leading zeros of all tags, go to party mode when you don't want people changing tags on your music, run a library of 20,000 songs with minimal resource use, not to mention the hundreds of plugins that exist for MediaMonkey, and the thousands that exist for WinAmp, which work with MediaMonkey. But if you use Linux or Mac i would try Clementine. It's pretty new(only version 0.7) but it looks promising and it's what i use on my linux and mac machine.
Do you mean >120GB? I have a 160GB ipod classic. I'm not really an Apple fan but I can't fault my ipod. I looked around when I was getting it and couldn't find anything that matched it. Also you don't have to use itunes with it. Haven't tried it but I hear http://www.mediamonkey.com/ is good.
None that'll you notice in the short term so you don't have any idea if what wattage to get for avr? Media monkey: http://www.mediamonkey.com/. Have you tried replacing the battery as soon as im home.
Mediamonkey has the ability to sync with Zunes, I believe. I know it has had it in the past, but it could be outdated.
If your only issue with the software is tagging, then I'll suggest MP3tag. This is probably the most simple, yet powerful tagging software I've used, and it's how I got my music fully organized when I hit about 3,500 songs.
Outside of that, I don't think there are any options. Though if you have any questions, I'll help.
I'm a big fan of MediaMonkey for library management. It lacks the synchronization of playlists with rekordbox/serato, but I love the UI and it runs super smooth on my Windows machine (even with a decently large library). Super easy to edit id3's, auto-folder import, etc - can't recommend it enough.
Mediamonkey - unter Linux dank Wine. Vorteile:
- Mengen von Tracks (Inhalte von Ordner mit Unterordnern, Suchergebnisse, Playlists, ...) lassen sich bequem sortieren (z.B. nach Ratings, dann nach "wie oft gehört", dann weiter verfeinert nach Genre, ...)
- Ratingsystem umfasst mehr als 5 Sterne (nämlich noch halbe Sterne -> doppelte Genauigkeit)
- bequemes Taggen
Synchronisation mit Schlaufon hab ich unter Linux noch nicht ausprobiert - ich befürchte, das könnte nicht so reibungslos klappen.
I use mediamonkey/foobar2000 for organisation. If your tracks are properly tagged you can use them to auto sort into folders.
Foobar2000
MediaMonkey
Media monkey? http://www.mediamonkey.com/ I seem to remember using that on my kids ipods because I didn't want iTunes, and it worked well. And would copy to my phone fine. Been a good few years though...
I never used music bee, but I have used simular programs. They tend to have a database that they store the tags in not updating the file. Probably because it doesn't have write access to the files, but could be because you don't set it to write to files in Music Bee's permissions, or its not built to do that at all. You should check your music file permissions and even reset them all. I have found issues with music file permissions in large collections with there Read Only on.
I would suggest going to WinAmp, but they need to upgrade. Most people are using http://www.mediamonkey.com/ or a free option that uses the import tag features of mediamonkey. I use another app for looking up meta tags as well called "MusicBrainz Picard", that I really like... Then I use WinAmp when I want to change a bunch of files to custom metadata that differs from those. Also I believe I tried MP3 Tagger and Foobar. Foobar is kinda nice, I just love winamp still. lol
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/free-software-downloads/mp3-metadata/
>How do I fix my files from having an unknown artist? For many songs of mine the artist is listed on the file and the display, and yet in the file it's listed as unknown artist.
MediaMonkey maintains both and artist and album artist. One of those fields is probably blank.
There are many ways to make updates so the best method depends on how many changes you need to make. If it's just a handful, I would suggest simply selecting the songs by groups of artists and selecting properties. Then you can just fill in the missing fields.
If you have a ton of changes to make, I would suggest looking into RegExp Find & Replace add-on. There's a slight learning curve to it but I think it's well worth the time if you have a bunch of changes to make.
Or you could just use a script that someone else has created.
The method you use depends on the amount of work and your comfort level with the different approaches.
>How do I reorder the track listings in an album? A few albums of mine are in the wrong order (despite me having the correct track numbers).
That seems odd. But I would try renumbering the using the auto-increment track #s under Tools - Scripts.
>How do I change the file path of a track without mediamonkey losing track of it? I moved the file path of an album from unknown artist to the proper artist, and subsequently mediamonkey has no idea where it is. Alternatively, is there a way to manually change the files and then re-import the entire folder in a way that will not result in duplicates?
You can manually move your files and then go rescan the library. That should find the track and prompt you to remove missing tracks from the library. Personally I find it easier to use the auto-organize files feature (CRTL-R) and let MediaMonkey control the whole process.
Dang, thats a lot. Mine is only ~6,000, you might need to ask someone else with a similar sized library. According to this thread MediaMonkey officially supports 50K songs in a library, but there are people in the thread reporting libraries over 250K without issue.
I personally use Mediamonkey for this, with a library of ~12k tracks.
Mediamonkey is actually an audio player and library management application in the vein of itunes, but I happen to like its leveling.
Download page (ignore the 'offer' to get Gold for free, the freeware version is fine)
I like MusicBee, but I think Mediamonkey is better overall. And that has wireless sync (although it's not a feature I've personally used yet).
That's cool. I really like iTunes, but I also totally get why some people don't. I sometimes use Music Monkey on my PC, and I found this page: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/WebHelp:iPod_Synchronization/4.0
I definitely recommend Music Monkey (simple, lightweight, intuitive but powerful), though I haven't ever synced it with my iPhone, so I can't personally recommend that. But it's worth a shot! Good luck.
If you guys are doing a full blown large media collection, I've loved Mediamonkey for about a decade. Only catch is the MP3 conversion is only in the Gold.
There is also a downloader for Youtube site that downloads straight to MP3. Haven't tried it myself but I used to user Magic Video Converter in the old days.
EDIT 2. Table http://www.mediamonkey.com/download/
Pretty much the only reason I did was the mp3 conversion. My best friends Aunt was getting rid of all her CD's and wanted to rip them to digital format so I had to convert them all to mp3. Got paid with like $100, and a few goodies like a Shadows Fall hoodie that I still have.
Edit: to answer the other part of your question, it obviously is a bit limited but it's not "paywalled" from the reaction that I get out of the word. Since you downloaded from itunes and those are in mp3 anyway there isn't much of a reason for you to get gold other than to support development. I got it when it was on sale for the $25 lifetime license at some point (like a decade ago) ORIGINALLY found it because I had been trying to find something to replace itunes with and when my ext hdd failed I had to get my music off my Ipod classic somehow, the auto organize saved my life because I had A LOT of music. Fell in love and bought the gold just in time for that CD project.
Little late but here's the help page you were looking for: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/WebHelp:Configuring_Directory_and_File_Formats/4.0.
And I'm really not sure what you're trying to get for names, but you would surround the part you are trying to shorten with $Left(string,n). So something like...
E:\Music\MediaMonkey\<Year>\<Album Artist>\<Album>\$Left(<Disc#> - <Track#> - <Title>, 30)
If you are using Windows, give MediaMonkey a try to check the ID3 tags of your files and mass-edit them properly: http://www.mediamonkey.com/
I am quite sure that for music libraries, Plex interprets ID3 tags before filenames.
There is one client I've heard of called MediaMonkey
that you can look at but other than Pocket Casts web client
that syncs with the Android and IOS Pocket Casts apps I don't know if there is anything else, that is not web based. Maybe look at the Stitcher web app and see if it does anything there of use.
I don't know if they have a desktop client now or not.
!
Try MediaMonkey, it is a fully featured media player and media organizer and is a competitor to Windows Media Player, iTunes, etc.(http://www.mediamonkey.com/information/free/). It includes an organizer which is capable of renaming the MP3 files and re-organizing them into a folder hierarchy of album, artist, track etc.
I believe that this is also a default feature of iTunes, adding files to the iTunes application and then using the "Organize Library" feature will let you tell iTunes to make copies of all the music files into iTunes Library folder, renaming and organizing into a folders hierarchy based on album, artist, track etc.
vw195's method is great. If you want something similar to iTunes, but with more freedom and flexibility and far less bloat, try MediaMonkey. If you have an enormous library (mine is several thousand albums on my hard drive) an organizer like MM can be invaluable for quick access and file maintenance.
I use MediaMonkey, but it also requires iTunes, or at least parts of it. You can get more info here: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Guide_to_ipod_sync
I haven't messed with only installing parts of iTunes. I have all of it as I use it for sync, updates, etc.
Personally, I prefer foobar for music, but that's just personal preference really. I think foobar sounds better than VLC for music, but to each his own.
MediaMonkey and XMPlay could also be worth a try.
Over the years with a large library I use MediaMonkey, which does just about everything, but is easy for listening in general, playlists and all that; http://www.mediamonkey.com/download/ That said, VLC is also a music player. As mentioned Winamp is still there...
MediaMonkey is my all time favorite music player and organizer. Too many features to list them all...the UI it flows very well, it plays pretty much any file type, and gives the user plenty of control over the audio.
The main features that I use edit a file's name, location, and tags into a standard format, as well as renaming and moving the cover photo to the proper folder.
All of the formatting is done automatically anytime I edit any of the song information currently in the library, as well as anytime new files are added to the library.
Now, every song I own is identically labeled and organized with minimal effort into:
music > genre > sub-genre > artist > album
and within each album folder is a cover photo with a properly formatted name, and all the songs in that album formatted as:
Title - Artist [Album]
That may not be a standard format, but it's what I like to use, and that is just very tip of the iceberg as far as features and tools go, and there are skins to fit most styles, I use one called vision, here's a screenshot. There is a bit of a crossover/learning curve, but it's not bad and I absolutely love the program.
There's something else... Are you trying to copy the files over via the 920 mounted as a drive (with a drive letter) or as a media device (no drive letter)? That would make a difference.
Also, you can use any media management software to copy music to your 920, such as MediaMonkey, the now defunct Songbird (maybe Nightingdale its replacement), Windows Media Player, or Zune.
If you want your collection to be pretty and well organized like the rest of us type-A folks, download MediaMonkey, drag the tracks over you want to sync, and manually edit the ID3 tags within that before syncing.
According to the MediaMonkey site, the database files are probably located here:
C:\Users\ <USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\MediaMonkey\MM.DB
C:\Users\ <USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\MediaMonkey\MediaMonkey.ini
Back up those files too. After you reinstall Windows and MM, you should be able to just stick them back in the same locations (although, again, I've never used MM! Double-check that link to make sure) (Also, sidebar: It seems like you would need to put your music in the exact same place it was before the reinstall... I don't know how the database would find the associated MP3 files otherwise)
Since you already backed up all your stuff, you can't really go too wrong, as long as you've kept track of any and all product keys and serial numbers of programs you've installed. Some programs can be deactivated, others you may want to uninstall before you reinstall Windows. (Just in case that's greek to you: you would know if you had a program that required a product key, because you normally have to enter it when you install the program.)
Anyway: Reinstall Windows. You can do this from the install disc, or apparently from the Control Panel as well. If your laptop came with W7 pre-installed and you don't have an installation disc, don't go doing anything crazy like formatting your hard drive :P Here's a site that can help.
MediaMonkey is the greatest music player/large library organizer I have ever used. I love it, I could go on and on about how great it is and all the features it has, but I don't have the time.
It's especially great if you have a large library, there are tons of tools/features, and everything is completely customizable. Plays FLAC and every other file type I have tried. Syncs all sorts of media players including iPods.
Super easy to navigate, clean and attractive interface, easy to set up exactly how you want it, great Android (Idk about iPod) remote app.
MediaMonkey kicks ass.
I tried Foobar2000 and Songbird before I settled on MediaMonkey. At the time, Foobar had terrible search/plalist functionality. (I'd search for a song in the search box and hit enter. The contents of my currently playing playlist would be replaced with the search results. I was beyond pissed when this happened to me.)
Program? I vote MediaMonkey. It's light, and has been able to play and organize anything I've thrown at it with a minimum of fuss.
Mp3 Player? Step this way.
I'm not sure I follow what you're trying to do. Do you want to have all sound output from your computer go through your phone? Or do you merely want to have remote access to your music? If it's the latter, PlugPlayer does the job quite well -- the UPnP software requirement means you need to have a UPnP server set up on your computer, like I do with the music sharing feature on MediaMonkey.
I know you already fixed your issue but for anyone else with a similar problem, I agree with TomRowly - I found MediaMonkey the best for organising music when I had difficulties with my tablet
MediaMonkey. Ever since version 4 came out it's just been a bunch of awesome sauce. If you're an obsessive tagger like me and have to keep everything organized, there's no better solution.
The application interface or content? It does both, but limited support. For the app itself they support localization in these languages:
For music tagging and file-renaming, it pulls data from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.co.jp, and freedb.
I have yet to have it not identify an artist correctly.
I think you're going to need a dedicated music manager to achieve that. Something like Musicbee, Helium or MediaMonkey.
MediaMonkey can sync to all iDevices, supports any format I can think of, is super-customizable, and has every feature under the sun. (including rule-based transcoding while syincing. ie: convert all .flac files to 192bit VBR .mp3 and embed the album art in the id3 tag. Leaves original file untouched.)
Unfortunately, the free version does not do auto-converting, but anything in your iTunes library should already be in .aac or .mp3 anyway.
iTunes has given you the wrong album art. Annoying but fixable: right click on the album in iTunes and click 'get album art.' Hopefully it gives you the right picture. If it doesn't, download tag&rename or mediamonkey and use them to get the correct metadata for your music.
The 4th version of MediaMonkey can organize your movie collection just like it does to your music. You can download the beta at: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=54426&sd=d&start=60
Even if the filename and tags are completely different, it will still detect duplicates. Of course, this sort of scanning takes quite long when you are scanning many thousands of files, but it is worth it.
For one, it's lightweight, unlike iTunes. It also makes it so easy to tag your songs.You can choose to enter the info yourself, fill in the info form the file name, or it will search amazon and tag it from the information it finds there.
You have lots of skinning options and it supports the winamp API so there are plenty of awesome scripts for it. You can even use your iPod Touch/ iPhone with it.
There's a free version that works just fine in most cases, but for only $20 you can get the Gold Version, or for $40 a lifetime license where you get all future versions Gold as well. If you decide to get Gold and don't get the lifetime license, I'd wait because MediaMonkey4 will probably be fully released in a few weeks.
Check it out here.
I found this program called MediaMonkey which looks like it's one of the few programs not called iTunes that will work with the iPod. So you might want to try that (I have not used this program though; I am a happy iTunes user).
After my work issued me an iphone i tried to stomach itunes as a media player on win 7 64 and just couldnt do it. It has some nice innovations but too many quirks.
I went back to Media Monkey
sorry but that too has managed to screw my iphone:
http://everythingsinteresting.com/2010/08/iphone-mediamonkey-and-a-case-of-syncus-interruptus/
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52091
they say they can sync and backup, though i cannot vouch for them personally. Winamp is supposed to support sync/backup as well.
EDIT: i can't seem to find your original post, it seemed you were on a macBook, so if you only have osx i don't know..
those are just the first few i found in a search..
I assume you've fixed the metadata of the mp3s? (Album Artist is set to Various Artists and Contributing Artists is set to the singular band/artist of that track). What do you use to sync your iPod?
I've done some digging and iPods are really picky when it comes to artists, albums and compilation albums. I have a few examples:
>The only minor problem I've had is that the "Album Artist" tags don't seem to be syncing with the device, and therefore the iPod is referring to the "Artist" tags instead. This means that I have quite a lot of albums showing up as by "Various Artists" simply because one or more of the songs on the album feature another artist.
I think you'll have to some experimenting regarding what to put in the metadata fields and the settings of the program you're using to sync your iPod (I'm guessing iTunes?). Someone in the third example mentions how iTunes sets tracks that have been imported and how they're titled. That could be your issue, but I'm not entirely sure there is a concrete answer. :(
OK, solved the problem. For future reference MM can't play .APE files with Korean (or other international) characters in the path. Per http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/24/0/tracks-with-international-characters-unicode-dont-play-or-get-analyzed-properly
​
I pulled out one of the files to my desktop and it plays fine. Just the path screwing it up.
Mediamonkey by far the best music manager I've ever used which is mostly free.
It organises your music automatically (E.g. Music\(genre)\(decade)\(album artist))\(album)\(track)), downloads metadata and keeps track of metadata and just works flawlessly.
I initially used it because I was tired of iTunes and needed a way to sync to my iPod with more control over what gets synced. It even allowed me to sync other people's iPods without wiping their media.
My favourite feature is probably how it uses uPnP and DLNA to stream music over network devices (Xbox, PS etc.)
Sounds like you need MediaMonkey. Link
The free version would suit your needs of getting your library organized. They really push their Gold version but if you can ignore that, it uses Discogs and other services for tagging. A lot of the auto features are locked behind the Gold version but IMO, it's probably one of the best music players and managers out there if you can afford it.
I don't mind doing some work when it comes to tags and whatnot with MP3Tag and Rekordbox as well. I use VLC if I need just a casual player for my laptop and use Foobar2000 on my Desktop at home.
MediaMonkey is designed with large libraries in mind. It really excels at tagging and scrubbing your music, especially if you're the kind to grab individual songs off the internet, not full albums which are usually easier to organize.
It has a ton of features: ripping, format conversion, syncing, metadata lookup (lyrics/arts), DJ-mode, playlists, smart-lists, advanced searching capabilities, DLNA sharing, podcasts, internet radio, winamp plugins support, play history/stats, skins, and the list goes on...
Plus it also has a healthy extension community with many excellent addons: http://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/
Their forum is active with plenty of helpful folks: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/
Of interest to you, in addition to ripping CDs, it has a Virtual CD feature (never used it myself): http://www.mediamonkey.com/sw/webhelp/frame/index.html?addingaudiotracks.htm
TL;DR highly recommended :)
You process your library of files to tag them, then whatever player you use needs to support it. Looks like mediamonkey supports it out of the box, you may just need to toggle a setting or two: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/WebHelp:Volume_Leveling/4.0
Also, Rockbox and do the iFlash SD card mod on that iPod classic if you haven't already. I would never willingly pay for any Apple gear, but I am absolutely in love with my 5th gen iPod. 256GB SD card with a 1900maH battery (needed the thick back plate) nets me about 40 hours of playtime. That thing is awesome.
I've used this since like 2006. Ever since I had my one ipod Video and my external HDD failed, had to get all the music off the ipod and this did that with ease, auto-organizing by
\Music\<Artist>\<Album>\<Track#:2> - <Track Name>
(Track#:2 is padding 2 - so 01, 02, etc.)
Are you on Mac or PC?
If PC, take a look at MediaMonkey. Great for organizing music and video, especially larger libraries. PDFs and ebooks might still need iTunes, though.
The free version of MediaMonkey can do exactly what you're asking for. It even has the option to automatically search amazon for video cover images and apply them as well. It only works with mp4-like files - mkv's and other matroska-formatted videos won't work.
I used to use MediaMonkey on my Windows PC to listen to podcasts. There's a "customize subscription rules for this podcast" checkbox when you add a new podcast that will let you download all episodes and keep them indefinitely.
Didn't see MediaMonkey in this list yet. Tried all kinds of music organisers before, but none that matched this one in usefulness and looks.
And with a little trickery and enough OneDrive space, you can even set up the same library on different computers outside your home network.
I don't know when they add updates to the search for updates feature, but I did not find one by searching.
I found this on the forum and it works.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=54426&p=427605#p427605
MediaMonkey can organize and tag all of your media files, and sync to your mobile devices, but can't play video. VLC can play any audio or video format.