xbmc music library - how to add folders as albums
#1
Question 
Hi!

I have a huge music library (3TB, lossless) and for the first time I decided to add my music to xbmc.

Everything works just fine when i'm in file mode. But when I add my collection i'm getting albums with more then one folder spread out as various albums.

Example:

best of nirvana consists of one folder, and 2 more inside:

best of nirvana
-disc 1
-disc 2

In file mode I only see best of nirvana, and I have to press enter to dig further in the folder to see the remaining 2 (the way it should be)

But in library mode, i now have 2 albums!?!?

best of nirvana (library mode)
disc 1 < (1 folder)
disc 2 < (2nd folder)

album count: 2 instead of 1

How do I turn off that very annoying function?

Please don't tell me I have to use some sort of nfo file in the folder or something, because that's pure hell for me i have a huge collection with albums that contains 8-12 folders in each. Right now xbmc lists all of the folders that contains parents as separate albums.

Hopefully i make enough sense, i've been working all night, i'm not sure if my english is good enough to present my problem :o:confused2:Big Grin

EDIT: I have an album (rave) that consists of 15 discs within a folder, xbmc library is now listing all 15 as 15 separate albums Shocked
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#2
get yourself an id3tag editor (i use Tag&Rename) and edit your files tag to your liking. XBMC doesn't care about your folders, just reads the tags and builds your library.

an example, if you edit your rave album as 'My rave album' into the album field (instead of 'my rave album cd1', cd2 etc), you will have 1 album instead of 15....
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#3
sergiocos Wrote:get yourself an id3tag editor (i use Tag&Rename) and edit your files tag to your liking. XBMC doesn't care about your folders, just reads the tags and builds your library.

an example, if you edit your rave album as 'My rave album' into the album field (instead of 'my rave album cd1', cd2 etc), you will have 1 album instead of 15....

Thanks for your reply. But I don't have the time noir patience to go through my entire collection.

I've disabled tag reading from within xbmc, but it didn't help me. It's such a shame we can't just add folders like in file view, tags or not.

Have a good day!

cheers
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#4
How many > 1 disk albums do you have? Consider it would take you about a minute or so each one. A few hours and you'll be done, and it will work not only in XBMC but also in virtually every other music library app available.

Alternatively, don't use library mode at all.
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#5
Cleaning up your tags is a necessary evil. You took the time to collect 2TB of music, how much additional time is it really to clean up your tags?

I would suggest using a program like mediamonkey, and allowing it to move sorted files to a new directory. I did this and over several weeks worked on it a little at a time until all the "clean" tags were moved into the new "sorted" directory. I only allow XBMC to add items in the sorted directory and everything works just fine.

It also helps immensley to clean up other tags (such as genre in particular) at the same time to make browsing your library a much better experiance.

There are lots of reasons to use library mode, including rich scraped info on artists, albums, etc.

Just my .02
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#6
jmarshall Wrote:How many > 1 disk albums do you have? Consider it would take you about a minute or so each one. A few hours and you'll be done, and it will work not only in XBMC but also in virtually every other music library app available.

Alternatively, don't use library mode at all.

I have over 1500 folders (1500 albums), let's say only 800 needs proper tagging, that's still gonna take a very long time. Even if I use auto tagging I still have to fill in track titles for the albums etc.

Of course you're right, proper tagging will make everything a lot easier in other applications.

@blacklist

Quote:Cleaning up your tags is a necessary evil. You took the time to collect 2TB of music, how much additional time is it really to clean up your tags?

I would suggest using a program like mediamonkey, and allowing it to move sorted files to a new directory. I did this and over several weeks worked on it a little at a time until all the "clean" tags were moved into the new "sorted" directory. I only allow XBMC to add items in the sorted directory and everything works just fine.

It also helps immensley to clean up other tags (such as genre in particular) at the same time to make browsing your library a much better experiance.

There are lots of reasons to use library mode, including rich scraped info on artists, albums, etc.

Just my .02

Yeah you're right, but I don't find the idea of tagging a huge collection as something i'm looking forward to.

I don't like scrapers, I only want a nice cover art and a properly sorted collection Smile

Thanks for your suggestions and applications guys, much appreciated.

In the future I might start to tag all my albums.

Cheers
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#7
http://www.helium-music-manager.com/

Using it for years and cannot live with it anymore.
Tip: In future tag your music files immediately when you rip / copy them.
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#8
Ouch!! 3TB of music... and this whole time you have not kept up with managing it properly?! Shocked

Well, of course it will take a good amount of time to play catch up now, but having a properly tagged and organized library has many benefits in the long run. As others have suggested, there are media managers available that can help with this process by using batch jobs and bulk processing. In the future, I highly recommend cleaning up the ID3 tags as you rip or obtain files.
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