What computer to tag on?

[Patricia P]

I have been trying various software to tag my music files since getting a HEOS amplifier - it sees only certain songs as the tagging needs to be more precise than LMS.

I tried puddletag which could be excellent for me as it accesses my 2014 NAS music drive, but that NAS takes forever to write to the drive. A CLI tag program (Songkong) is very fast to access but I am not confident enough to actually write to the drive as my CLI skills are cut and paste.

I thought of putting my music files onto an sd card and correcting them on the 2020 laptop, then uploading it to the NAS.

Anything on puddletag and LMS I should keep in mind if I go in that direction?

[CJS]

FYI I tell the way how I maintain my modest music collection. I am sure there are other ways of working, but this works for me.

I maintain my Music collection on a Windows PC. All music files are stored in the My Music folder on a HDD (Windows itself resides on an SSD) on my Windows PC.
In the My Music folder I have a separate folder for each artist, and under the artist folder I use a separate folder for each Album. For tagging I use mp3tag that is only available for Windows. Other than the name of this program suggests, it can not only tag mp3 files but also various other formats like flac, aac, ogg, etc.

After maintenance I synchronize the "My Music" folder on my PC with the "Music" folder on my server that runs LMS. This Music folder resides on an SSD on my server, and this is the Music folder that is used by LMS. The Music folder is located in a Data folder on the SSD on my server, and that Data folder is a shared folder (samba share) that can be accessed by Windows over the local network. For synchronization of the My Music folder on my PC with the Music folder on the server I use the program FreeFileSync. EDIT: The synchronization of the Music folders on PC and Server is also my way to backup my music collection.

[Redrum]

FYI I tell the way how I maintain my modest music collection.

+1, this is exactly how I do it as well. Only difference is I use media monkey for tagging (there are better, but I started with mm in 2005)

Jim

[Patricia P]

Nice - I can keep a drive connected to my laptop for tagging music; and it will be synced automatically to the headless music server.

[RobbH]

.... For tagging I use mp3tag that is only available for Windows. Other than the name of this program suggests, it can not only tag mp3 files but also various other formats like flac, aac, ogg, etc.
.....

A very minor point: it is quite true that mp3tag is only available for Windows, but it also runs very well in Linux, using the Wine compatibility layer.

Edit: It used to be true that mp3tag was intended only for Windows, but no more. See post #7, if you haven't already.

[d6jg]

My music is on a NAS. mp3tag on PC can read and write to the NAS with no issue whatsoever. Both are wired.

I also use Foobar2000 on PC to write replaygain tags the same way.

dbPoweramp on PC can rip CDs directly to the NAS also.

[MrC]

FYI:



I'm a JRiver Media Center user myself. mp3tag is fine if you want to make a few changes, but it must read from the physical files every time you load it, or new files. That is dreadfully slow. For speed, use a program that maintains its own metadata library, and writes tags to the files based on that data (and can, of course, read from the files to update its library). Whatever program you use should be able to read/write to the NAS-based files. You definitely don't want to be creating duplicate files, transfer them, or have to sync them back to your NAS. Let the programs work for you, rather than you working for the programs.

[CJS]

FYI:

Good tip. I overlooked the fact that mp3tag is also available for the Mac.

Whatever program you use should be able to read/write to the NAS-based files.

As already noted by d6jg, with mp3tag you can (of course) also directly edit music files on a NAS or other network share.

You definitely don't want to be creating duplicate files, transfer them, or have to sync them back to your NAS.

Well, that depends. I like to have a backup of my music collection. By tagging my music files on my PC and then sync them with my server I automatically create a backup of my music collection. I am sure that there are other backup methods, but this simple method works for me.

[MrC]

Well, that depends. I like to have a backup of my music collection. By tagging my music files on my PC and then sync them with my server I automatically create a backup of my music collection. I am sure that there are other backup methods, but this simple method works for me.

You gotta do what's best for you. To me, one Master is always the correct way to go. Mirroring or backup software takes care of the rest. Spending more than an hour of one's life trying to clean up your own or someone else's duplication mess, is an hour of wasted life. ;-)

[w3wilkes]

I also use Foobar2000 on PC to write replaygain tags the same way.

dbPoweramp on PC can rip CDs directly to the NAS also.

I just have DBPoweramp do the track and album ReplayGain tags DSP when I rip CD's then the only thing I do separately is run tuneXplorer to add BPM and Key tags and maybe some manual tag verification with MP3Tag.

[MrTeroo]

I also use MP3Tag, excellent software.
My music lives on a Bufallo Terastation mirror raid NAS and that syncs to a second identical unit.

I keep the secondary Terastation turned off.

When I add anything new to the primary one I turn it on, sync and turn off.

[audiomuze]

I have been trying various software to tag my music files since getting a HEOS amplifier - it sees only certain songs as the tagging needs to be more precise than LMS.

I tried puddletag which could be excellent for me as it accesses my 2014 NAS music drive, but that NAS takes forever to write to the drive. A CLI tag program (Songkong) is very fast to access but I am not confident enough to actually write to the drive as my CLI skills are cut and paste.

I thought of putting my music files onto an sd card and correcting them on the 2020 laptop, then uploading it to the NAS.

Anything on puddletag and LMS I should keep in mind if I go in that direction?

if you have ssh access to your nas you can install and run puddletag directly on the nas and use x-forwarding to render the UI on your local machine. That’ll avoid having to save changes over the lan.