this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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So with the most recent Spotify nonsense I've finally had enough and I'm going back to mp3. Unfortunately, I haven't had to do this since Bush left office and I do not have the free time to manually sort and document every single file I have. I've been using MusicBrainz Picard but I don't know if the learning curve is steeper than I have traction for or if it's just really picky.

Anyone got suggestions on how to better manage all my jams? I'm trying to make it user friendly as I can for the family and so far I'm not winning lol

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[–] gccalvin@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

MP3Tag + MusicBrainz Picard. I use MP3Tag to set the ID3 tags and picard to move them into the folder structure I want.

It takes a couple hours to set everything up, but I can't rely on Musicbrainz alone because my music has no metadata on Musicbrainz, so I set the tags myself.

[–] infeeeee@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

You can easily import music metadata to musicbrainz with userscripts: https://github.com/murdos/musicbrainz-userscripts

I use the discogs and bandcamp one frequently.

Install the userscript in your browser, and if you find your album on discogs or other sites, it adds a button there, and with few clicks it transfers the data to musicbrainz. Then in picard search again, or copy the link from musicbrainz to the searchbar in picard

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 6 points 1 day ago

Yes, 100% this. I use both of them regularly. A lot of new releases are on band camp and not even on discogs anymore. But combined with music brains Picard, they are awesome.

[–] Asparagus0098@sh.itjust.works 2 points 19 hours ago

Here's another tool to import music metadata to musicbrainz.

https://harmony.pulsewidth.org.uk/

[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 1 points 21 hours ago

Thanks. Didn't know these existed.

[–] BruisedMoose@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

You can move files to new folders with Mp3Tag, too. It's normally all I use for managing my files and metadata.

[–] tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 10 points 1 day ago

I'm using beets but it's mostly a manual process.

Check this comment/it's comments as well: https://lemmy.nocturnal.garden/comment/189300

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Lidarr + Picard when needed is about all I do, need for Picard is pretty rare at this point, except when pulling in tracks from burned CDs of esoteric mixes I made quite a long time ago.

[–] AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sonarr + Picard

Do you mean Lidarr? Sonarr is the TV one (confusingly).

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 1 points 1 day ago

Whoops! Brain no worky.

Fixed, thanks!

[–] Chaser@lemmy.zip 9 points 18 hours ago

I'm using MusicBrainz Picard. However there are some tricks to spare you some nerves:

  • you can set weights to release types in the settings. Singles and compilations should have a lesser weight than albums.
  • Don't add too much music at once. Or you'll get crazy selecting the correct releases. I usually go with one artist a time. Especially for older artists I just add one album a time. You can enable the file Browser in the view settings, than you can just drop them in one after the other.
  • in the right pane you can just drag and drop whole releases to merge them together.
  • Also noticable is the rename feature in the settings. It's just awesome!
[–] Damarus@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago

Highly customized Picard, I find that I get the most accurate metadata with it.

[–] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you’re an Apple household, Apple Music (iTunes) is still great. I don’t pay for streaming services; I buy music on iTunes/Bandcamp and rip CDs.

Apple Music has a fantastic interface for managing metadata, creating playlists, and performing complex batch jobs with AppleScript. I sync my iPhone and iPod Nano every time I add a new album, and I host my media folder on NextCloud for listening on other devices.

[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Every time I’ve checked in to see if I can use Apple Music, it won’t do anything without a subscription. Are you using it without one?

[–] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 16 hours ago

The Music app (also called Apple Music, formerly iTunes) is a library manager at its core. You don’t need an Apple Music subscription to use it. It runs on macOS and Windows.

[–] HotChickenFeet@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

Nicotine (soulseek) -> beets -> navidrome

[–] Tangent5280@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hey, OOTL here, what spotify nonsense ar eyou referring to here?

[–] SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)
  • Continually increasing subscription prices
  • Ripping off artists
  • Introducing AI bullshit
  • Blocking explicit songs unless users verify their age with a third party
[–] Tangent5280@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

Thanks, I noticed that clicking on an artists name now took you to their About page. Can't find the artist's top songs anywhere or atleast I can't find them. Rage.

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

EasyTAG is a simple application for viewing and editing tags in audio files.

It supports MP3, MP2, MP4/AAC, FLAC, Ogg Opus, Ogg Speex, Ogg Vorbis, MusePack, Monkey's Audio, and WavPack files.
And works under Linux or Windows.

[–] nasteva@jlai.lu 1 points 1 day ago

Used to use this, but sometimes, opus encoded audio in ogg files gets somewhat corrupt when adding a cover image

[–] morphballganon@mtgzone.com 3 points 1 day ago

Just do a few albums at a time. Your playlist will expand over time.

[–] HerrHelmus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I get most of my music from Bandcamp and I use Jellyfin as my streaming service. I wrote a script where I fill in the artist, album title and the download link. It then creates the relevant directories, downloads and unpacks the files and then fixes the metadata using beets with the last.fm plugin to get the genre tags. Jellyfin then does the rest.

I've been wanting change the script up, so that it creates the directories after the metadata is correct, but I'll need an evening of hyper focus for that.

[–] thagoat@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 day ago

Command line warrior here. I use wrtag. It rocks and is super fast and easy.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Lidarr works again? Last time I tried I wasn't working

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

The metadata server is currently being nursed back to a working state

[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

So I can't just put it in docker and forget no?

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 18 hours ago

Never were, seemingly never was.

[–] Hominine@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

There's a docker build that has a patch for the metadata; It's spotty, but I've been using it just fine. I will link it here in a few when I get to my compose file. Edit: blampe/lidarr:latest

[–] ewigkaiwelo@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

File names and directories🗿

I host with Plex. It doesn’t pay attention to my carefully crafted tags, it uses its own. I still do the work with Mp3Tag. But I do m4a. Better quality than mp3 and better licensing. My files are a little bigger than 320k mp3 and sound almost lossless.

I selfhost navidrome for the music streaming (+symfonium app for mobile). Multi user and multi library support.

For music tagging itself ive used beets, picard, and kid3 (kde). Currently I am liking picard the most. It took a little bit of learning but less than beets

[–] Sepix@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 day ago

Be careful with Mediamonkey. I've got it on my phone and PC, and my music is getting quieter and quieter on the phone. I think it's something to do with the volume leveling on the Android version, but haven't had a chance to figure it out yet.

I can put a song on full volume, and it's quiet enough that it's difficult to hear. I've tried the same tracks through youtube, and the volume is fine, so it's not the phone speakers.