Advice Needed - All My Mp3's are in One Single Folder

[bradesp]

Guys, just purchased this program based on a few reviews… Now I’m confused how to start.

Here are the details:

MP3 Files - Approx. 10,000

Structure: 90% have NO file structure the result of an accident several years ago when my teenage son had a brilliant idea to share our music library with a friend.

So:
10% are in structure folders artist\album\song
90% are simply dumped in one large folder

The advice I’ve read suggests only processing 500 songs at a time. How do I do this? I can’t figure out how to limit the import of files.

Also, is Jaikoz smart enough to know what “batch” of 500 songs it’s importing? Or do I have to manually select the files, one by one?

Lastly, Any advice on how best to process my MP3’s based on the above details is appreciated!

bradesp

[greengeek]

It depends on the specs of your computer. For a computer with fairly modern stats that is no more than a few years old, 10,000 files should be fine. I typically run 10k files at a time myself.

If you want to only load some files, you can can go about it a few ways. You could click on the file menu and choose “Open Files”. Then select only 500 or so files. I find it easiest to click on the first file and then scroll down to the end of a group of files and while holding down the shift key, clicking on that file. That will highlight that full group. Then just click Open Files button.

Another way to do it, is to create a few sub folders in that folder and just move 500 or so files into each folder, and then just use the “Open Folder” option under the file menu in jaikoz and select 1 of those folders.

Once you have the files loaded, it is fairly easy to tag. The default settings should work fairly good for something like this. Just click on the Actions menu in jaikoz and then click on Auto Correct. Make sure to save the files after if you like the results.

[paultaylor]

Hi, I would just run on the complete 10,000.
BY default Jaikoz wont rename files/folders to match metadata because this can confuse other applications, but this is easy to do using
Action/File and Folder/Correct/Correct SubFolder from Metadata
and
Action/File and Folder/Correct/Correct Filename from Metadata

Nothing is actually saved or renamed until you do File/Save Changes.

[dkoh]

This is hard to answer without seeing what it looks like, and everyone has a different approach, but here’s my approach.

Drag them all in there. 10k is a lot, but not too much to work with. I often work on 3k-6k at a time.

Chances are they still have some info in the tags. Hit the “Album” column header to group albums together. Select what looks like a release and RMB>Action>Match to Release>Match to One MB Release. You may have some luck opening only files from one album using the sort columns in your file manager. Your main hurdle (read: goal) in this process is grouping the releases.

If it’s a match, use Action>File and Folder>Correct>Correct SubFolder from Metadata and it will put those files in its own folder.

After you do this and weed out the complete releases, you’ll have a pile of randoms left. Empty out Jaikoz (if it’s not yet) and add only the randoms back in. Clear out all the “Album”, and all the “MB ID” columns (don’t save yet) and see what Autocorrect does. This should fill in most of the gaps. Save the releases that look correct and file those folders.

In my experience, there’s always some stuff left behind that you thought was complete, but really wasn’t. This part is up to you, if you want to fix that or keep it that way and file them.

To answer your other question: No, there’s no “smart import”, only what you manually open or drag in.

[bradesp]

[quote=paultaylor]Hi, I would just run on the complete 10,000.
BY default Jaikoz wont rename files/folders to match metadata because this can confuse other applications, but this is easy to do using
Action/File and Folder/Correct/Correct SubFolder from Metadata
and
Action/File and Folder/Correct/Correct Filename from Metadata

Nothing is actually saved or renamed until you do File/Save Changes.[/quote]

Paul, sorry I’m such a noob, but I’m not entirely clear on your recommendation…

Step 1 - Load all 10K of songs

Step 2 - Action/File and Folder/Correct/Correct Subfolder < not sure what this means… do I simply select this from the menu and it automatically begins executing the folder/correction feature?

Step 3 - Action/File and Folder/Correct/Correct Filename <- not sure what this means… do I simply select this from the menu and it automatically begins executing the folder/correction feature?

Step 4 - “File/Save Changes”

[dkoh]

You can’t just use the renaming right off the bat. You must first correct your files, as the renaming uses the other artist/album/etc fields. You don’t need to correct and file in one pass either; you can correct>save>close then reopen them later and file them.

First you need to go to Prefs>General tab>Base Folder tab and set the path to where you want everything to be. You don’t need to set up a Read Folder unless you want Jaikoz to open those files every time it starts. “Include Sub Folders” should be checked.

Then you need to go to Prefs>File & Folder Correct tab>Rename Folder From Meta tab and choose how you want things formatted. Do the same for the Rename File From Meta tab.

I would recommend you temporarily turn on “Folder”, “Sub Folder”, and “Filename” under Prefs>Table>Columns. This will let you see how things are going to be before you commit them in the Edit pane.

So, to start off I would recommend:
STEP 1 - Correct you files by whatever means. Not all 10k yet, maybe a couple albums (or copies of) 'til you get it figured out.
STEP 2 - Save. This way you can experiment and “Revert to Saved” without losing your corrections.
STEP 3 - Use Action>File and Folder Correct>Correct Subfolder and Correct Filename either from the toolbar or the RMB context menu.
STEP 4 - Check the “Folder” and “Filename” columns you turned on earlier to make sure they’re saving how you want them. If they look funky, go back into Prefs and adjust. Rinse. Repeat.
STEP 5 - Save.

Once you get things ironed out you can add these to the AutoCorrector and do your editing and filing at once. Just make sure you put them towards the bottom of the AC list or you will be filing to yet-uncorrected fields.

Make sense?

[dbaps]

Perhaps this is silly but what I did when I had a large number of files in one folder was to run it through Musicbrainz Picard first to identify and create the folder structure, saved it, then ran everything through Jaikoz.