Google Music and Media Monkey

[rooftop59]

Ok all, a little background on my question:

So about a year ago I got a squeezebox and starting re-ripping all my cds in lossless formats. In my haste, I was using wav since all I had was itunes and WMP. I soon realized (after ripping literally HUNDREDS of albums) that NONE of the first tracks were tagged properly. So I bought media monkey and migrated everything over. Again in my haste, I told media monkey to auto organize everything. OMG that was a bad idea. It took me many hours over several weeks to get most of music manually tagged properly. PITA! So of course I now rip everything in flac and make sure its tagged properly up front. Lesson learned!

Now for the question: I finally finished, and realized that google music would be the best way for me to listen to my library at work and on the go on my phone. But of course, GM won't upload wav files, so I am slowly trying to convert everything that's in wav to flac. But as I do I am realizing that some of my music still isn't tagged properly because it shows up in GM all weird. So here's the problem: when I re-tag it in MM, it doesn't change the way its organized in GM. And since the problem generally is that single tracks are listed in GM instead of albums, manually deleting is a pain. In the logitech media server, I can just click scan for changes and it takes care of it. But I don't see anything like that in GM. Any suggestions? Or am I stuck manually deleting the tracks?

Thanks!

[steveinaz]

Some info that is displayed is taken from the tagging, some is taken from the naming convention you used in your music directory. Find a song/album that's not appearing right, and try renaming the file, rather than messing with it's tagging.

[steveinaz]

Another "down the road" option could be to put your music on a NAS. This way it would be available (internet addressable), wherever you are.

[rooftop59]

Yes in MM I have it set up so that when I change the properties and then click "auto-organize files" it changes the actual file name. I can then tell logitech MM to rescan and it picks up the changes, but the problem is that google music does not (as far as I can tell) have that rescanning feature. Which means I have two media librarys to manually alter, which is a pain. I hope I am just missing the rescan option in GM.

[steveinaz]

I see. That's odd, how does GM pick up newly added music?

[rooftop59]

I have it set to autoscan my music folder and upload new files when I add them. but so far changing a file's properties does not prompt google music to re-upload it, and I cannot find away to tell to look for changed files like I can in logitech media server.

[steveinaz]

Maybe delete the "offending" folder or file from GM, and then re-scan?

[rooftop59]

yea I admit I am being a bit lazy here, but there are at least 15-20 files and I have to select each one individually and manually delete, then Gm reorganizes the files before I can move on to the next one. I figure surely there is a more intuitive and simpler solution. but I may have to just manually get er dun

[BlueFox]

Google music let's you save lossless files? I thought they only supported lossy files.

[rooftop59]

They downconvert FLAC to 320 mbps MP3. Not perfect but I am at work anyway so its background music. And my car isn't exactly "reference" either, so it works for me. I just want to have all my music there.

[AsSiMiLaTeD]

Why not just completely clearn your GM library and start over? I'm in the Apple ecosystem so I use iTunes Match instead of GM, but would assume the functionality is the same. At one point a few months back I made a massive update to my tags (changed my genre groupings), and the easiest and most lazy approach for me was to just clear everything out and add everything back in once all the tagging was done.

[rooftop59]

Yea I was thinking I will probably have to do that. The only thing is that it is an ongoing project (I am not sure what all is still in WAV that needs to be converted to FLAC because it doesn't matter on the SB), but I supposed I can just do it several times if I don't want to wait.

[cnh]

Just reading your original post gave me a headache. I don't understand why this all has to be so problematic. Different formats, tagging. Etc. When you put things on your PC you can organize your own files, playlists, etc. And there is no problem accessing them from the PC.

I use my PS3 google media server directly off the laptop and have none of the above problems or worries. If I did, I wouldn't bother with them anyway. There is only so much time that can be devoted to unnecessary computer knowledge!

cnh

[AsSiMiLaTeD]

Just reading your original post gave me a headache. I don't understand why this all has to be so problematic. Different formats, tagging. Etc. When you put things on your PC you can organize your own files, playlists, etc. And there is no problem accessing them from the PC.

I use my PS3 google media server directly off the laptop and have none of the above problems or worries. If I did, I wouldn't bother with them anyway. There is only so much time that can be devoted to unnecessary computer knowledge!

cnh

Funny, your post completely confuses me. He wants to have the ability to stream those songs instead of having the files directly on his phone, likely due to space concerns, while at worki and is using Google Music to do that and just had questions about that service. Your PS3 solution, while I'm sure works for you, has nothing to do with the topic as far as I can tell

[newrival]

my google music account automatically syncs my watch folder. Unfortunately, it will not delete songs that your remove from that folder. But anything that gets added should upload in the background. It does for me, at any rate.

[AsSiMiLaTeD]

Correct, hence my suggestion to wipe the library and start over.

[rooftop59]

Yes it does that for me too, but not if I change the properties/tags of the file. That's the problem. Once its uploaded with the wrong tag, its there for good unless I manually delete it. I will probably end up emptying the whole thing like Danny suggested, and then re-uploading everything. But I think that this is something GM should address. If I can rescan my library for changes in the logitech media server it seems that I should be able to do the same in GM.

[rooftop59]

I guess the difference is that in the logitech media server its not actually uploading files, but just caching them I guess? But it seems like GM could still use the same basic method, rescan the entire library, delete tracks that are no longer in the library and add new tracks, which would solve my problem.