[thurask]

If albums are being merged when they shouldn't, change either the album artist field or the album name field with Mp3tag. I had some opera recordings being merged even though the track artists, folders, album art and years were different.

Posted via CB10

[thurask]

Hey, thanks for the wonderful post. I had been looking for a fix to my music files.

So, I did as you had mentioned and deleted unnecessary files and shortcuts. I thought I'd copy one album to my phone and see what happens. This album has 5 songs and in the albums tab, shows 4 different albums. Any suggestions to fix this are much appreciated.




Attachment 251586

Posted via CB10

They should have album artist and album be identical.

If you check those and they're both the same, try deleting the tags via Mp3tag and re-adding them.

Posted via CB10

[omega supreme]

Well I have 2 problems that are a bit of a nuisance... one is the blank album art and the other is that any song I bought on iTunes will not play on the z10 but it does show the album art and name of song.

Posted via CB10

[nerdydaddyo]

Anubhav, highlight all the tracks in Mp3tag and check the tags on the left. If any of the boxes say KEEP, it means that the info is not the same for all tracks. You would then need to individually check each track to see what is missing. If the cursor is not right up against the last letter of a description, or if a letter is not capitalized like the other songs, all of this tells the player that it is a different album.

I used my Q10 to create this CrackBerry madness!

[Anubhav Nagpal]

They should have album artist and album be identical.

If you check those and they're both the same, try deleting the tags via Mp3tag and re-adding them.

Posted via CB10

Thanks @thurask, this helped me solve the issue. I just copied the Album name to Album Artist and it solved.

Appreciate your help.

Posted via CB10

[Anubhav Nagpal]

Anubhav, highlight all the tracks in Mp3tag and check the tags on the left. If any of the boxes say KEEP, it means that the info is not the same for all tracks. You would then need to individually check each track to see what is missing. If the cursor is not right up against the last letter of a description, or if a letter is not capitalized like the other songs, all of this tells the player that it is a different album.

I used my Q10 to create this CrackBerry madness!

Hey, it solved by thurask's suggestion above. I had taken care of not keeping any extra spaces and everything else you had mentioned, but somehow missed the Album Artist thing. I just copied Album name to Album Artist in Mp3tag.

Appreciate your help.

Posted via CB10

[nerdydaddyo]

Thanks for getting in on this thread, Thurask. I think between the two of us and help from others we can make BlackBerry 10 devices a better music option than anything Silicon Valley has to offer.

I used my Q10 to create this CrackBerry madness!

[bobo616]

Thanks for the advice, very useful.

Posted via CB10

[adamlau]

FYI EasyTag is the way to go on *nix.

SQN100-1 10.2.1.2141 | STA100-3 10.2.1.2141

[adamlau]

Why would anyone use something other than MP3 or FLAC?

You mean AAC or FLAC. Once you are a part of what.cd you tend to go with those two compression types.

SQN100-1 10.2.1.2141 | STA100-3 10.2.1.2141

[nerdydaddyo]

Omega, you are most likely trying to play what is called an M4P (P represents purchased or protected) which is a song purchased on iTunes. It would take an act of Congress (literally) to convert that file. The only way to do it is to add the song (or songs) to a new playlist in iTunes (name it Burn Me or whatever you want) and burn the playlist to CD. Before you burn the CD, make 100 percent sure you have changed the import settings in iTunes (Edit, Preferences) to MP3 to avoid being back in the same boat. Select the playlist, burn to disc. You will have to be signed in to iTunes and your PC authorized to play purchases (this is also a great time to deauthorize old computers and re download old purchases) or you cannot do anything with the songs(s). You only are allowed to burn the song (or songs) 7 times, so use a good blank CD-R. Once burned to CD, rip it back into iTunes (redundant, yes, but it's the only workaround). Once imported, right click each file in your library and select Show File In Windows Explorer. If for some reason this doesn't work, highlight the song(s), go to File, Create New Version, Create MP3, and then try Show File in Windows Explorer. Now you have a song that can play on anything.

I used my Q10 to create this CrackBerry madness!

[omega supreme]

Thanks but i believe I only have 1 song I bought from iTunes, the rest are from cd's or torrents ... can I burn it to a flash drive instead?... would hate to waste 1 cd for 1 song, then again I haven't used a cd in yrs so I guess it wouldn't kill me...it would require me to plug in my portable dvd burner but oh well.

Posted via CB10

[thurask]

Thanks but i believe I only have 1 song I bought from iTunes, the rest are from cd's or torrents ... can I burn it to a flash drive instead?... would hate to waste 1 cd for 1 song, then again I haven't used a cd in yrs so I guess it wouldn't kill me...it would require me to plug in my portable dvd burner but oh well.

Posted via CB10

Try this: iTunes: How to convert a song to a different file format

[nerdydaddyo]

iTunes blocks the direct conversion of purchased songs.

I used my Q10 to create this CrackBerry madness!

[thurask]

iTunes blocks the direct conversion of purchased songs.

I used my Q10 to create this CrackBerry madness!

Odd, I bought some albums on iTunes in the summer and I can convert them to MP3 just fine. Unless it's some sort of different DRM.

Posted via CB10

[nerdydaddyo]

Yeah, I tried direct conversion of purchased songs in iTunes and got the message that iTunes does now allow the conversion of purchased songs. That was also while I was signed in to my account, which made zero difference since my PC was already authorized. I could take a screenshot if you want to see the message. Does it when I try to highlight one or more songs, select File, Create New Version, Create MP3. Even if it would allow playback on any device, I like stripping that DRM off so I can edit it how I need it, and burning it to CD is the way to do so.

I used my Q10 to create this CrackBerry madness!

[Ragbert]

Hi everyone! Just found this thread and it has some great advice in it. On my PC, I've always stored rock/pop music files in folders by artist, with album folders nested inside.

But... I store classical music by Composer. Some of my recordings are from CDs I own, some are live performance, some are single files from out-of-print vinyl, etc. I've used various ID3 tools to edit these, and the best tools let me define a field as "Composer" so that I can create playlists sorted that way. Is there a tool for BB10 which will read and sort by Composer or by user-defined field? (thurask, how do you tag and sort your classical files?)

Many thanks!

Typed on my Q10, SQN100-2, 10.2.1.2228

[Ragbert]

By the way, I refuse to use either iTunes or WMP and it drives me nuts that BB Link can only find and synch music files via these 2 players. Why can't it simply synch a folder which has music files in it, independent of what you use to play them?

I turned off music synch altogether and simply use an external HD to store my music files. If I ever lose any music files on my phone I'll simply copy them back from the drive.

Typed on my Q10, SQN100-2, 10.2.1.2228

[thurask]

Hi everyone! Just found this thread and it has some great advice in it. On my PC, I've always stored rock/pop music files in folders by artist, with album folders nested inside.

But... I store classical music by Composer. Some of my recordings are from CDs I own, some are live performance, some are single files from out-of-print vinyl, etc. I've used various ID3 tools to edit these, and the best tools let me define a field as "Composer" so that I can create playlists sorted that way. Is there a tool for BB10 which will read and sort by Composer or by user-defined field? (thurask, how do you tag and sort your classical files?)

Many thanks!

Typed on my Q10, SQN100-2, 10.2.1.2228

This post prompted me to check how future-proof my tagging system is. Now, the file system set up is okay (composer/year-title/tracks). Turns out as long as the title and the album artist tags are the same, the system merges the albums in spite of the year and track artist tags.

So I download ID3IOT (well worth it, or just use Mp3tag) and put the conductor and orchestra in not just the track artist field, but also the title. Like so:




So these two are under separate albums in the BB10 Music app, but since both of them have Richard Wagner as the album artist, they show up under his name in the Artists list. However, ID3IOT doesn't seem to have album tag support, so real heavy-duty work needs Mp3tag or similar.

Posted via CB10

[Ragbert]

Thanks, thurask. This whole issue of "composer vs. artist" in ID3 tags has bugged me for years.

It's not just classical music either. Take someone like Bob Dylan, whose songs are covered by other artists all the time. I probably have 5 or 6 artists singing "Knocking on Heaven's Door" or "All Along the Watchtower". I definitely want to show both the composer and the artist separately, and to be able to sort on either one, as well as on the song title.

So it seems we still need an imaginative workaround (read: kludge).

For instance, what about an album with various artists and various composers? e.g. an opera gala, where each of 20 tracks is a different singer and a different aria, but all at the same event. Some tracks might be by the same composer. Some tracks might use different composers but the same artist(s). I would want the option to sort this album by composer, by track artist, by name of aria, or by album title. It's just amazing to me that the ID3 protocol doesn't allow for a composer field. Maybe it's time for ID4. :-)

Typed on my Q10, SQN100-2, 10.2.1.2234

[bbsstmez]

Thank you so much for your post. I am trying to follow your directions but ran into a basic problem. When I opened Mp3tag to begin editing my music tags I can't find the music. Not sure how to navigate to the sd card to pull up the songs to edit. I went to file and change directory, but thats obviously on it as the music folder come up empty.

[BBPandy]

They should have album artist and album be identical.

If you check those and they're both the same, try deleting the tags via Mp3tag and re-adding them.

Posted via CB10

It doesn't make sense that they should be identical...HOWEVER that seems to have fixed my problem
This has been a HUGE issue for me, & I have spent hours looking around CrackBerry ect. for a solution. I somehow missed this post. Thx.

[amclanejr]

All excellent advice, thanks!

Posted via CB10

[BBPandy]

Spent all last night & half of today "fixing" the album tags on my phone. Thx Thurask

Posted via CB10

[BlackBerryRules2006]

I know I'm over a year behind but I assume it's still the same process or have you come up with an easier way?

Posted via CB10