[Q] WP8 and Xbox Music - Nokia Lumia 920

Does anyone have any useful tips for getting the music to link properly to artists so the artist pictures are displayed while playing the music. My library is organized flawlessly, and some artists still don't get linked.

uwbadgers16 said:
Does anyone have any useful tips for getting the music to link properly to artists so the artist pictures are displayed while playing the music. My library is organized flawlessly, and some artists still don't get linked.
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if your device is a lumia switch to nokia music, if not then hopefully m$ will fix it. my files aren't being displayed properly either with xbm, but nm nails it

are they obscure or indie artists? the linking goes by a catalog (mostly what is available in the marketplace) so if they aren't there, it probably won't get linked. you can get in on the mpatool beta (search it on xda) and use that to manually add backgrounds.

adiliyo said:
are they obscure or indie artists? the linking goes by a catalog (mostly what is available in the marketplace) so if they aren't there, it probably won't get linked. you can get in on the mpatool beta (search it on xda) and use that to manually add backgrounds.
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Click to collapse
A lot of my more indie ones do link. The curious ones that don't are James Taylor, amongst others. I'm also very particular and have singles (which obviously aren't on the marketplace), along with albums of an artist (eg. 3 Doors Down). The album should link, but because the single doesn't, the whole artist doesn't link.

Related

[APP] Music Streaming App

Hi all,
This is my first post and Id just like to say I love the site. So much amazing and useful stuff is posted here and I thought i'd make a contribution.
GhostTown is a Music app that allows you to stream unlimited music - any song by any artist. Results from searches for artists are grouped by albums with other songs and collaborations with other artists also listed.
You can also add songs to your favorites lists and even create playlists too.
Best of all it's free and available in the market.
I found it by chance the other day and is quite possibly best random app ive found!
Taddy

[Q] Music browsing?

Not sure if anyone can help me.
I have just invested in a 32gb sd card for my S2 and transferred my music files over from my Cowon J3.
I sort my music by having firstly an artist folder (compilations go into a various artists folder) and within the folder I store the albums by that artist, so ArtistA:Album1,2&3 Artist B:Album1, etc.
My Cowon lets me browse these folders, so I can go down the list of artists and then pick an album by that band/singer etc (by searching folders:J3:[music]:artist folders).
Unfortunately on my S2, it sorts by artists (which is inconvient as it lists all the artists from compilations), albums (but it lists them alphabetically, rather than grouping and listing them by artist) or folders (but unfortunately it seems it ignores my first level of folder (i.e the artists name) and lists the folders alphabetically by the album names, which again means the albums aren't grouped together by artist).
I have downloaded winamp and although I can search for an artist, it still isn't what I really want, as I like to scroll down through my artists and then pick an album.
Does anyone know of a music player that would allow me to browse my files by folder, in the same manner as my Cowon?
Many thanks for your help.
Try looking in the settings options in the default sgs2 music app. You can select "folders".
I've tried that, but unfortunately it lists the album folders, rather than the level above (artist folders).
If there was a way of setting the Artist function as album artist rather than song/track artists, that would fix it.
Poweramp supports folder browsing, so does uberplayer. Personally I use poweramp, it's amazing.
Many thanks Robafet, PowerAmp is exactly what I was looking for and I love having the option to have the player on the lock screen!
Looks like this is going to become my first ever 'paid for' app, just need to make sure I don't lose it now, as I'm unsure how to back up my purchases, lol.
once you purchase something from marketplace, you can download it as many times as you like I think.

Android splitting Same Artist Albums ICS

I have looked around for a while now for the solution to this problem, however everyone can only seem to come up with a way to alter the files. I was hoping that the Android system would just be able to pick up media files like any other device.
The problem is that the Media scanner will split up an album (from the same artist) into different folders, so Album A with songs 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 will be split up into Album A 1,3,4,5,6 & Album A 2,7,8,9. Not only this but I am experiencing albums with Same and or Different artists being split up with 1 song per folder, so 40 song album gives me 40 folders. This apparently is due to the id3 tags and the way that the media scanner reads each album. For some reason the older firmware updates for android could only read Album and Artists then got changed to Album Artits.
I am running Ice-Cream Sandwich and was hoping by this firmware Google would have fixed this problem as it's quite an annoying issue, I dont want to change the ID3 tag for every album before I put it in my phone as it becomes tedious, dragging and dropping is what i feel should be the only step to get Music on your Android device.
Thanks for anyone that can provide assistance
mstrkvg said:
I am running Ice-Cream Sandwich and was hoping by this firmware Google would have fixed this problem as it's quite an annoying issue
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Click to collapse
It's a feature, not a bug.
http://support.google.com/googleplay/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1262090
If you're going to the trouble of downloading an album (presumably from a questionable source since the tags are messed up) is it really that much extra effort to drag a folder into your favourite tag editor to auto-populate/clear the Album Artist tag?
Edit: From a quick glance, there's plenty of ID3 tag editors on the Google Play Store too.
oinkylicious said:
If you're going to the trouble of downloading an album (presumably from a questionable source since the tags are messed up) is it really that much extra effort to drag a folder into your favourite tag editor to auto-populate/clear the Album Artist tag?
Edit: From a quick glance, there's plenty of ID3 tag editors on the Google Play Store too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah fair point, I just feel life if there is a folder with the same Album name the songs within should automatically be created within them, removing that extra step to change the files yourself. Ill have a look at the ID3 tag editors on Google Play, thanks alot for your help.
Even if there can be a change made to the scanner through the SDK even, that would be great for a custom rom.
anyone managed how to make this work like it should with ICS?
I have the following:
different %title% and %artist/ for every file
same %album% for all files
what I've already tried :
1) %album artist% with the name of the album
2) %albumartist% with the name of the album
3) blank %album artist% and %albumartist%
4) %compilation% tag set to 1
none of the make it work like it should. any suggestions?

[GUIDE] To The Perfect Music Library

Evening everyone, I have spent the last 20 hours of my life confused and beyond angry at Google Music. Missing Tags repeat albums and don't even get me started on the album art work missing. I am OCD about my music library, always have been that's why (when I used that god awful software) during my iTunes years I meticulously spent hours fixing genres adding art work and capitalizing the correct letters in titles artists and albums, spent hours downloading HQ album covers and all was well. Unfortunately for me none of that corrected info actually gets tagged in the actual file the metadata remains unedited and no artwork actually becomes embedded Tunes just simply says OK that's what you want to see for that song but only of course on Apple's devices. So I was left with all these files from which were jumbled up in Mp4 and Mp3 and WAV some with artwork some without.
So Yesterday I began the process of figuring out how to finally organize all of my music once and for all so that Google Music would show album art correct names yada yada yada. I then thought to myself I am sure of it that many others would like to see how I did it so that they too could enjoy a perfect Library on Google's wonderful streaming service, or off the SD card. I will say this is extraordinarily time consuming but since I am making this guide it should at least allow you to cut an hour or two digging for software and generally wanting to tear your hair out in frustration over figuring out why the hell the metadata editor wont edit the files or show up in the directory. So gentlemen and ladies alike here are my efforts in order to finally have a perfect music library forever.
Software you will need
ID3 - This is the program that allows you to edit the metadata and provide proper naming and artwork
http://www.nch.com.au/tageditor/index.html
Mp4 - Mp3 Converter - As Itunes and Apple are stupid and use a stupid file codec the Mp4 metadata cannot be directly edited The Tag editor can only edit when the files are Mp3( if you never used itunes you may be able to skip this) .
http://download.cnet.com/Free-M4a-t...7723.html?tag=dropDownForm;productListing;pop
1.) First will want to convert all non Mp3 formatted files into Mp3. You can either edit and convert together ( I would not recommend this) or you can queue everything that needs to be converted first. That is what I would do.
Sub Step a.) While it is converting go to Google and Image search all the album covers you will need and put the cover art .jpg into the folder for the album to which it belongs 500 x 500 pixels is perfect size for album covers and is the most widely used size for these images.
2.) While it is converting go to Google Music and delete your Library( NOTE that you better only delete things that you have the file for) I take no responsibility for you deleting music and then never getting it back that's on you. I have all my music in a specific folder and knew I could delete it. Also take note that DRM music from ITunes cannot be edited or uploaded. ( I paid well over a hundred bucks to Apple to get what I could DRM free) Once you have a clean slate you can allow the converting process to finish.
3.) Once you have your converted files you can go into your music folder location and see that you will now have duplicates of the files that were converted(One being Mp4 and the new Mp3 file). Create a new folder for your new files. What I mean by this is take all the Mp4 files( don't delete them just in case you still need it) and separate the Mp4 Files and Mp3 Files into new folders for example:
Folder 1 ( band Name: Mp4)
Folder 2 ( Band Name: Mp3)
THIS IS HUGELY IMPORTANT
if you do not separate the files you will upload duplicates to Google Music and it will default to the previous file leading you back to where you started (I did this and almost threw my computer out the window from frustration) Also leave the Cover art you downloaded in the Mp3 folder not the mp4 which will make adding the cover art much quicker
4.) Now that you have your library converted and separated the new and old files you will have an Mp3 Library and an Mp4 library( I know it blows to have identical folders but its just how it is and will make sure your library is as organized as possible and keep you from loosing your tunes.)
5.) Open the Stamp editor and you should now be able to edit all the Metadata you want using the program.
I am about to start Homework check back here later tonight or tomorrow for screenshots and tips to make this easier.
Quick Tip - this is how my Music Directory is organized
folder Named after artist
Sub folder contains Albums
Each Album is a sub folder containing the Google Image we downloaded earlier and the Mp3 Files to which will be edited ( I HIGH SUGGEST FOLLOWING THIS)
Very nice guide! im ocd about my music library too. I wish i could've just hired somebody to fix my whole library instead of wasting 20+ hours trying to. :crying:
I thought about it yesterday when I was doing all of this, A company that would organize music would probably be very profitable. Im not sure how you would structure paying but it would be a smart idea.
Thanks for the guide! Here's some things I found useful when dealing with my own library: (unfortunately I can't post links because I'm a new user, but all of these can be found as the top link when you google them)
mp3tag is a very powerful tag editor, and very easy to use for batch operations.
id3remover can completely remove all metadata from a file. I found this useful because sometimes files have tags that editing programs can't read but will mess up library sorting in Google Music or your music player.
Album Art Exchange is a great website for very high quality and high resolution album art.
Thanks for the guide - I've been meaning to do this for a while (I also fell victim to iTunes not editing the actual metadata but remembering the tags in its own devious way), and I may actually do it now.
However, I was wondering - is the conversion from mp4 or from m4a to mp3 entirely lossless? If not, is there an easy way to edit the metadata on m4a files?
Also, my music is about two thirds flac (my classical music) and the rest mostly m4a and some mp3. Will the tag editor work for flac files? (I of course cannot convert them to mp3).
Also, another slightly related question: I have been looking since I first got a phone for a music player in which I can set up the library the way I want.
That would be like this: first, I select a genre (Classical, Joshua Bell, Русские песни (Russian songs), Chansons françaises (French songs), or Other.
If I select Classical, I can choose to go to composers and then to albums, to artists and then to albums, or directly to albums.
If I select Joshua Bell, I can choose to go to composers and then to albums or directly to albums.
If I select Русские песни or Chansons françaises, it will go to artists and then to albums.
If I select Other, it will go directly to a list of albums.
So far, I have always just used folder players, but I will thank immensely anyone who finds a player that I can set up like this, that can also play flac files and is generally usable.
(Really - I will thank all of the posts you've made, or at least all that I can thank in 15 minutes of uninterrupted thanking).
Max725 said:
Thanks for the guide - I've been meaning to do this for a while (I also fell victim to iTunes not editing the actual metadata but remembering the tags in its own devious way), and I may actually do it now.
However, I was wondering - is the conversion from mp4 or from m4a to mp3 entirely lossless? If not, is there an easy way to edit the metadata on m4a files?
Also, my music is about two thirds flac (my classical music) and the rest mostly m4a and some mp3. Will the tag editor work for flac files? (I of course cannot convert them to mp3).
Also, another slightly related question: I have been looking since I first got a phone for a music player in which I can set up the library the way I want.
That would be like this: first, I select a genre (Classical, Joshua Bell, Русские песни (Russian songs), Chansons françaises (French songs), or Other.
If I select Classical, I can choose to go to composers and then to albums, to artists and then to albums, or directly to albums.
If I select Joshua Bell, I can choose to go to composers and then to albums or directly to albums.
If I select Русские песни or Chansons françaises, it will go to artists and then to albums.
If I select Other, it will go directly to a list of albums.
So far, I have always just used folder players, but I will thank immensely anyone who finds a player that I can set up like this, that can also play flac files and is generally usable.
(Really - I will thank all of the posts you've made, or at least all that I can thank in 15 minutes of uninterrupted thanking).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not find anything that allowed for editing mp4 metadata(the DRM was to blame I believe). If I did it wasn't free which is why I ended up doing this in such a backwards way(spent an hour or so trying to find the software I used). There are flac to mp3 converters which I believe I saw on CNET. So you could in theory do this still but you would need to convert two different file types so it will just take longer.
As for You're second question I think "I think" poweramp allows for the kind of hierarchy control you are looking for. It also has the most options, auto album art work updater, and the best eq.
Sent from my Rezound using xda app-developers app
zkrp5108 said:
I did not find anything that allowed for editing mp4 metadata(the DRM was to blame I believe). If I did it wasn't free which is why I ended up doing this in such a backwards way(spent an hour or so trying to find the software I used). There are flac to mp3 converters which I believe I saw on CNET. So you could in theory do this still but you would need to convert two different file types so it will just take longer.
As for You're second question I think "I think" poweramp allows for the kind of hierarchy control you are looking for. It also has the most options, auto album art work updater, and the best eq.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about m4a? And the reason I don't want to convert flac files is that flac is lossless. It has all the same information as a native wav file, but it somehow takes up a little less space, although much more than mp3. The flac codec is open source and all, so I don't see why there should be problems editing metadata in flac files, I just haven't looked which specific programs can do it.
And I tried Poweramp, but didn't see any settings for genre-specific hierarchy - you can choose to have it show genres-artists-albums or genre-albums or anything like that, but you can't make it different for each genre. By the way, I really don't care about options or eq - I believe that classical music should be heard exactly as in the natural performance, and I trust the professional sound editors whose job it is to optimize all the different instruments and ranges in the other songs I have. In fact, I have currently settled on EZ Folder Player, which just opens to a specified folder, from which I can navigate through the folders I set up to any album or song and play it. I believe it has no eq or sound settings at all.
I'm pretty sure that the mp4 and m4a files are both convertable using the program but I'm not sure lol. This was specifically to aid those that used iTunes in the past but switched to android and Google music' and how to add tags to mp3 files that people download from the internet. As for the hierarchy your looking for power amp allows folder browsing add well. But not in a custom way like your looking for. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful on that subject if I come across something I'll be sure to put an answer here for you.
As for your distaste to EQ all headphones are different because they produce different ohms and the studio quality sound the engineers get in the studio are on headphones that are studio quality I used to work in a f film department and trust me consumer grade headphones don't even compare. The eq just allows me to tailor my music b based on the pair of headphones I'm using on a given day.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
redwaldo said:
Thanks for the guide! Here's some things I found useful when dealing with my own library: (unfortunately I can't post links because I'm a new user, but all of these can be found as the top link when you google them)
mp3tag is a very powerful tag editor, and very easy to use for batch operations.
id3remover can completely remove all metadata from a file. I found this useful because sometimes files have tags that editing programs can't read but will mess up library sorting in Google Music or your music player.
Album Art Exchange is a great website for very high quality and high resolution album art.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on mp3tag, I use it all the time on my collection. You can drag a folder over it and it just loads all the tags for you for updating/reviewing/modification. You can mass update tags like album, artist, etc. You can also use the tags to rename the files.
dBpoweramp - Swiss army knife of file conversion, it integrates into the windows right click menu, highlight your tracks, right click, convert to, pick your format and settings and go. It's multithreaded and will use all your cores to convert also. http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm It's a little pricey but it makes things so easy. It is fully functional for trial use if you want to test it beforehand.
Did this awhile ago, ended up up just using media monkey to organize and found a lot of the meta data myself.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 2

Music app with proper sorting

My music library is very well-organized; I use a tool called beets to synchronize all my tags with the MusicBrainz database. As a result, on desktop, all my albums are sorted by album artist sort. However, I have been unable to find a single Android music app that pays any attention to the "sort" tags at all.
Apps I've tried:
Lineage/AOSP Music
Poweramp
Blackplayer
Foobar2000
Musicolet
AIMP
DoubleTwist
Oto Music
Half of these apps just sort the albums alphabetically by title (gross!). The rest sort by album artist (non-sort), so that half my library ends up sorted under T, for "The".
This is important to me because all my albums end up in a totally different order with album artist vs album artist sort. For example, "Miles Davis" goes under M, but "Davis, Miles" goes under D. So now when I open my phone, I can't find anything. Is there even a single app that gets this right?
Music folder>Artist folder>album folder with track number/name.
Poweramp works perfectly after it's configured.
Poweramp is managing a music library of 231gb; 778 folders and over 6500 songs for me on 2 twin N10+'s.
Tags are a waste of time because they generally aren't transferable. Playlists however are easily backed up and recreated with Poweramp as long as the whole music database is also backed up.
Thanks for your reply.
blackhawk said:
Music folder>Artist folder>album folder with track number/name.
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Click to collapse
My library is already in this exact format already, in fact. Just switching from "Album" to "Folder" view in Poweramp doesn't change anything, but I can see how I could rename all my artist folders to the sort album artist instead. While I'm at it, I guess I should prepend the release date to each album folder—this would get me the exact sorting I'm looking for. With a library manager, this kind of overhaul is still a pain, but at least it's doable. Thanks for the tip.
blackhawk said:
Tags are a waste of time because they generally aren't transferable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would have to disagree…I have a dual-boot system where Quod Libet, Cantata, and Lollypop on Linux, plus MusicBee on Windows, happily read the same files and all their tags. Android is the odd man out—probably because the Android MediaStore doesn't include the album artist
In any case, I think I answered my own question: GoneMAD. It can handle the sort artist tags just like a normal media player, and there's an artist>year sort option for the albums tab. All I could ever ask…somehow it managed to duck every single listicle I've read and it gets no attention on the Play Store. Go figure. I've been looking for this exact app for years.
murmurous said:
Thanks for your reply.
My library is already in this exact format already, in fact. Just switching from "Album" to "Folder" view in Poweramp doesn't change anything, but I can see how I could rename all my artist folders to the sort album artist instead. While I'm at it, I guess I should prepend the release date to each album folder—this would get me the exact sorting I'm looking for. With a library manager, this kind of overhaul is still a pain, but at least it's doable. Thanks for the tip.
I would have to disagree…I have a dual-boot system where Quod Libet, Cantata, and Lollypop on Linux, plus MusicBee on Windows, happily read the same files and all their tags. Android is the odd man out—probably because the Android MediaStore doesn't include the album artist
In any case, I think I answered my own question: GoneMAD. It can handle the sort artist tags just like a normal media player, and there's an artist>year sort option for the albums tab. All I could ever ask…somehow it managed to duck every single listicle I've read and it gets no attention on the Play Store. Go figure. I've been looking for this exact app for years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to see you're organized. That's important with a music database.
I use Poweramp because it's rock solid and it's settings, all of them, can be 100% backed up and recreated at will. Advanced troubleshooting and throughput options. It's graphic equalizer is the best I've used and supports multiple presets that can be tagged to song or folder. The equalizer is a big deal and mandatory for me. I spent a big chunk of time dialing in the Buds+ with it.
It's only downside is it doesn't support video for MP4's and such.

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