complicated music library cleanup...desperate!

[elheuste]

I have read online that MM is the best way for me to clean up the Superfund site that is my music library. I have invested tons of hours in this already and don't have the will to live left in me, I'm hoping someone can outline the process needed to achieve a library in a single folder, with no duplicates, with no "file cannot be found" errors, and correctly labeled art and other metadata. This is my situation:
Windows XP, sp3 on a Dell laptop that is dying. It has a fresh, new, 1TB external drive, (totally empty) attached and ready.
I have multiple copies of my iTunes library on my C drive. Each copy of iTunes library is riddled with music files that it cannot locate, ie has the (!) next to it in iTunes and it will not play. Each copy of these libraries is also riddled with duplicates of music that will & will not play. I have mega-problems with iTunes' sharing, and whether a music file is 'authorized'. The issues I have to figure out how to overcome:
1) the music files on my machine now are from when i was single, when I was married, and from now - post divorce. This means I have music authorized to : my account, to her account, to an account we created as 'our' account, to the computer I had when single (no longer exists), to the computer we lost to a virus, to the aged machine I'm on now. A great number of files will not play when clicked on, either because they cannot be found, because they are not authorized to my iTunes account I'm using now, or because they are not authorized to this computer and I have exhausted the number of computers that can be allowed on one iTunes account.
2)Duplicates, duplicates, duplicates
3)many files have incorrect metadata. I click on a tune but the album art is not correct, the song/album title or artist is incorrect, or is simply blank or 'unknown'.

I have a new (to me) computer that I refuse to load with the steaming pile of *** I have for a music library. The problem seems so big I don't know where to start and I am brand spanking new to MM. If I were to guess, I'd say the future state 'cleaned up' library would be about 25G of playable music but I have to sort this out of about 200G worth of messed up junk. As I mentioned at the top, I'm out of gas on this disaster. Spending hours writing scripts, customizing views, sorting this way and that will push me over the edge. I plead to those who would read this and have the savvy to manage a solution, for a roadmap to creating a playable library that has no (!) or erroneous metadata. I'd load it all on a ext drive and mail it away if it helped! Any/all help is very much appreciated!!
Eric

[Lowlander]

MediaMonkey can't automagically fix your library for you. MediaMonkey allows you to take charge of your Library and organize it as you see fit, but it is of your doing.

1) You'll need to deal with Apple to see how to resolve the License Rights of your iTunes purchases. You may be able to convert the different accounts and their purchases into one account or you may be able to get DRM free versions (at a premium though I believe) of your iTunes purchases.

2) MediaMonkey can't purge duplicates for you. As there is no guarantee that the wrong files won't be purged this is left to the user to do. However there are tools to make this an easier decision: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ate-tracks

3) Tagging again is a manual job as there is no guarantee that auto-tagging would be 100% accurate. You can use Auto-Tag from Web per Album to help with the process though and other sources can be added: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... ip#p316877

4) MediaMonkey won't manage your iTunes Library, so it won't fix any issues you have with your Library in iTunes. MediaMonkey will fix files, but it's up to any third party software (and you the user) to manage their own Library.

[yarguy]

Your iTunes library is just a database (as is the MM library) of your music files. If you deleted it, you would still have all the music files. To use Media Monkey just forget about the iTunes library. Here's what I would do.

1) Copy all the folders with music files to a master folder on your new external drive.
2) With a blank MM library, do a File > Add/Rescan... on this master folder. All your music files (even those with DRM issues) will be referenced in the MM library.
3) Start editing the MM library - you are going to have to do this manually as lowlander says. Your edits in MM will be written to the music files as standard MP3 tags. I would first get the album titles and album artists (not artists, that can come later) squared away and use Tools > Auto-organise (I would use the default <Album Artists> <Album> mask using the drive identifier for the external drive to start with) to impose some order on your music files. As you do more tagging (Artist, Genre, etc.) you might want to Auto-organise with a more complex mask, though the default Album Artist - Album works well for me - the only thing I add is a disk number for albums with multiple disks (but even that is unnecessary if you number the tracks consecutively across the disks). Be sure to have Auto-organise delete all folders it empties when reorganising your files (check in lower left corner of Auto-organise) to keep your system as clean as possible. Once you have a basic order you can start ferreting out duplicates and locate the tracks with DRM issues
4) Once you have the music files in decent order you could even delete the old iTunes library and have iTunes create a new one from the external drive.
5) At some point you will want to delete the old music files on your current drive, though I would urge you to keep backups of all your music files on a separate drive.

Good luck.

[rovingcowboy]

i'm not going to deal with the itunes items the others have spoke of for you that will mess you up.
but do what they said that you can understand and ask back for what you don't understand.

but since there is a way to get rid of duplicates by mediamonkey they didn't tell you is in the tree under music left click the arrow on the left of music to open it up.
then go down to files to edit and open it up by its arrow, then left click on duplicate content to have mm check your library for duplicates,
then you must listen to each one to make sure it is a duppie and not just two songs with the same name.

that is how it is set up to do in mm.

trick is way simpler but requires you to have perfect tagging on all the song data.
1. get the tags all correct.
2. get all the songs into their own folders in the one main folder yarguy told you too.
3. set up the mask / directory path to that one folder as C:\my music\<artist>\<album>\<genere>\<date>\<title>
that is what i'd use to be the one folder you set your songs in. all the ones between the \ mark will be folders named by the item in the <> marks except title that will be the file's name. this is done this first time you set up that folder so you don't remove any wanted songs when you put them in there.
4. once all the tags are correct and the folder is set up like i said. then left click on the music section in the tree, so it loads the full list in the view area and you select all the list. you then use the auto organizer on the tools menu and check the move to new location you set up the same pathway, only drop the date folder go to title after genere, this will then move all the songs into the genere folders and out of the date folders so any song that is a duppy will show up in the auto organizer as highlighted in red, these are duppys but check them out by scrolling down the list just to make sure.
when you confirm they are duppys just left click the okay button, the songs will be moved and the duppys will be gone because mm moved the first one in the folder then the duppy in the folder overwriting the first one. no more duppys now.

BUT AS I SAID IT NEEDS PERFECT TAG DATA ON ALL THE SONGS.

[elheuste]

RovingCowboy, Yarguy, and Lowlander... thank you very much for taking the time to review my post and to offer your advice. I appreciate it! It sounds as though my fears are confirmed: no easy/painless way to clean my library up. I do not have any hope that Apple will tell me I can resurrect the files which are licensed under my wife's acccount. From what I've read this subject shows up in divorce decrees and Apple doesn't offer any alternatives. So... it looks like I just have to start whacking away at it. I'll be an old man by the time it is straight! Likely I will have hurdles and require some further advice, I hope you would be willing to consult if/when that comes around. Thanks again.
Regards,
Eric

[rovingcowboy]

there are some scripts you can use to add in to mediamonkey here on his download site or in this forum in the all scripts thread, that will find the tag information for you on the songs. but they might be a little tricky to set up. I think trixmoto did one of the scripts? or there is the mp3 tag. that might find it all.