Some Hints On Adding Albums From Audio Files

In the "Add album" window of Musicnizer, there are 4 options: by title, by barcode, from Audio CD, from files and folders. Each option was described in the corresponding help topic (just click the links to learn more).

This article will provide some further hints for the 4th option (adding music albums from files and folders).

Selecting Folders

When you switch to the "From files and folders" option, a directory tree appears on the right:

You can expand and collapse folders, just like you do in Windows Explorer. Additionally, each folder has a checkbox on the left. If you click the checkbox, a green checkmark appears there. This means that the folder is now selected for scanning.

A second click will clear the checkmark (the folder will no longer selected for scanning).

When you select or unselect a folder, all its subfolders (nested folders) are selected / unselected. If you need to select individual subfolders, just expand the tree and click the corresponding boxes.

It is also possible to select a group of same-level folders without clicking them one by one. Use click, then Shift + click to highlight a group of folders. After this, use the middle button in the right upper corner (highlighted on the screenshot above) to select all highlighted folders.

Do not forget to click the "Find audio" button to scan the selected folders for audio files.

Scanning Audio Files

Musicnizer supports quite a number of popular audio formats. Click the "File scanner settings" link below the "Find audio" button to see a list of the supported filename extensions:

You can remove checkmarks to disable certain filename extensions / formats. On the other hand, you can add new filename extensions using the green plus button in the right upper corner of the window.

The "Add only new files" option allows skipping audio files, which were added to your active database previously. So, if you add all albums from some folder and scan the folder again, nothing will be found. If you disable this option and re-scan the folder, all albums will be found once again (regardless of the fact that they have been already added to your database).

Musicnizer reads tags (ID3, APE tags, FLAC tags, etc.) to extract information about music. This is where it also takes album names from.

If tags of your music files contain incorrect or inconsistent information, you may get incorrect album names or multiple album entries (if there were different variants of an album name) in Musicnizer. To fix this problem, run a tag editor (like mp3Tag Pro) on your audio files.

For hints on adding albums with multiple CDs, read this article.

Adding Information Into Database

Musicnizer saves information from tags into your database (this includes album, artist, track titles, year, cover). In addition to the basic details, the music organizer can save some further data.

Select "Tools" - "Options", or press F10. In the "Options" window, select the "General" tab:

There are 3 options that affect adding albums from files and folders, they are highlighted on the screenshot above.

• Treat songs with different artists as collections. This is enabled by default. If Musicnizer finds songs with the same album name, but by different artists, in the same folder, it combines all of them into a "Various artists" album. If you disable this option, such songs will be treated as different albums (an album will be created for each artist) with the same name.
• Add composers to the database when adding from files. By default, Musicnizer adds only artists. Additionally, composers (as specified in the music tags) can be added.
• Add comments when adding from files. Reads information from the comment field of tags and saves it as the album comment.

Downloading Information

When you add music albums from files, the "Download information about the album from the internet" option at the bottom of the "Add album" window is disabled by default. This allows adding many albums at once without any risk of a possible mismatch (picking up a wrong album with the same name on the internet, for example).

However, even with this option disabled, some information may still be downloaded. Go to the "Options" window (F10, or "Tools" - "Options") and select the "Download options" tab:

Take a closer look at the highlighed options. When you add albums from files, Musicnizer tries to find and download album covers and photos of artists automatically (enabled by default). If for some reason you are not satisfied with the results or want to add your albums faster, just disable the corresponding options.