Fun with mp3tag--turning your ID3 tags into folders

[Joe Bloggs]

An annoying feature of the X1/3/5 is their library management, as a FiiO rep I make no excuses about it, the 5800 track limit at the start was bad, and these days there's still a soft limit of about 10000 tracks, above that any category-based navigation starts to slow to a halt... The category functions, when they work, also aren't very advanced, with things like multiple conditions only partially supported (mainly via Artist->Album) and ignoring the DISCNUMBER tag a notable omission :rolleyes:

Many users have turned to folder browsing as an alternative. But doing so may involve hours of tedious manual sorting, naming and moving files...

Now, here's something I've been researching, automatic sorting of tracks into folders according to tags. If you get mp3tag http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ it can read the do processes according to the tags of almost all the file formats supported by the X players.

(Here's the download page: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html --don't get distracted by one of those fake download link ads on the main page!)

Now, the following assumes that all the music on your X player's micro SD card(s) are backed up on your computer. The best thing to do would be to copy the whole card of files from the root to a folder called e.g. "X player card backup" on your computer, so you wouldn't have to go looking all over the place for the songs you want to put in the X player again should the following mess up your files.

1. With the card for your player connected (e.g. via the X player itself in storage mode), open mp3tag and click on the folder choice icon and choose the card itself (i.e. its root directory) as the folder to work on.

2. All the music loaded on your card (even those in subfolders) should show up in the main window. You can sort the list by various tag properties, including the presense or lack of a tag at all. At this point I recommend doing extensive housekeeping of your tags, including editing in tags for any files not having them (e.g. via the Convert->Filename - Tag function to automatically tag a file named like Pink Floyd - DSOTM - 01. Speak to me as Artist: Pink Floyd Album: DSOTM Track No.: 01 Track title: Speak to me etc.)

That's because the next step depends heavily on the quality of your tags.

3. Open the help file and study the section on Convert->Tag - Filename and also the Scripting Functions subsection for a list of all the things you can do with renaming / refiling your music files based on their tags--the possibilities are endless

Here's one I've come up with as an example:
$if($eql(%albumartist%,[]),%artist%,%albumartist%)\%album%\%discnumber%\$num(%track%,2). %title%

If you put this into the Format String for Convert->Tag - Filename, what happens is all the tracks on your card are sorted into folders in the hierarchy Album Artist\Album\DISCNUMBER\ while the track itself is renamed [track no.]. [track title]. The $if script at the beginning substitutes Artist for Album Artist if the latter is not present. The Album and DISCNUMBER subfolders would not be created if those tags are empty.

I've tested this script on small test libraries and it seems to work fine, who would like to give it a shot with their whole library? :tongue_smile:

 

[russell finch]

So there's no plans to fix the library limit with fw upgrade? What I would really like is the ability to scan OTG storage into the library as well if I want to. Then I could search by artist without having to remember if the album I want is on TF1 TF2 or OTG. I could also shuffle play from everything (about 20,000 tracks in my case).
 
Can you explain why this isn't possible?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Hey Russell,

I don't know whether what you speak of will be possible, this is just a neat trick I'd like to share with X player users that should be really handy in the *present* situation.


Joe

 

[Zarabeth]

Hello,
 
I just updated the FW to 1.5 and the X1 is now listing all my 12804 files (they're placed on a 128 Gigabyte Sandisk) and it looks like I can play randomly across the whole lot - both through the media library and the "browse files" section. So, no 10000 limit seems to exist over here (for good luck...)

I do not have folders or playlists; I just copied plain files in the root directory. Is this perhaps the reason why I can see (and hopefully play) all of them without restrictions? Wondering if someone else has managed to. Is this some kind of software anomaly?

 

[Dobrescu George]

Very very nice workaround for the large libraries problem!
 
It can even become a solution for escapeing the hassle of having to re-tag the entire collection. 

 

[samandhi]

An annoying feature of the X1/3/5 is their library management, as a FiiO rep I make no excuses about it, the 5800 track limit at the start was bad, and these days there's still a soft limit of about 10000 tracks, above that any category-based navigation starts to slow to a halt... The category functions, when they work, also aren't very advanced, with things like multiple conditions only partially supported (mainly via Artist->Album) and ignoring the DISCNUMBER tag a notable omission

Many users have turned to folder browsing as an alternative. But doing so may involve hours of tedious manual sorting, naming and moving files...

Now, here's something I've been researching, automatic sorting of tracks into folders according to tags. If you get mp3tag http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ it can read the do processes according to the tags of almost all the file formats supported by the X players.

(Here's the download page: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html --don't get distracted by one of those fake download link ads on the main page!)

Now, the following assumes that all the music on your X player's micro SD card(s) are backed up on your computer. The best thing to do would be to copy the whole card of files from the root to a folder called e.g. "X player card backup" on your computer, so you wouldn't have to go looking all over the place for the songs you want to put in the X player again should the following mess up your files.

1. With the card for your player connected (e.g. via the X player itself in storage mode), open mp3tag and click on the folder choice icon and choose the card itself (i.e. its root directory) as the folder to work on.

2. All the music loaded on your card (even those in subfolders) should show up in the main window. You can sort the list by various tag properties, including the presense or lack of a tag at all. At this point I recommend doing extensive housekeeping of your tags, including editing in tags for any files not having them (e.g. via the Convert->Filename - Tag function to automatically tag a file named like Pink Floyd - DSOTM - 01. Speak to me as Artist: Pink Floyd Album: DSOTM Track No.: 01 Track title: Speak to me etc.)

That's because the next step depends heavily on the quality of your tags.

3. Open the help file and study the section on Convert->Tag - Filename and also the Scripting Functions subsection for a list of all the things you can do with renaming / refiling your music files based on their tags--the possibilities are endless

Here's one I've come up with as an example:
$if($eql(%albumartist%,[]),%artist%,%albumartist%)\%album%\%discnumber%\$num(%track%,2). %title%

If you put this into the Format String for Convert->Tag - Filename, what happens is all the tracks on your card are sorted into folders in the hierarchy Album Artist\Album\DISCNUMBER\ while the track itself is renamed [track no.]. [track title]. The $if script at the beginning substitutes Artist for Album Artist if the latter is not present. The Album and DISCNUMBER subfolders would not be created if those tags are empty.

I've tested this script on small test libraries and it seems to work fine, who would like to give it a shot with their whole library?

 
  This is some good information. Thank you! I have not used this software, but since getting my Fiio DAPS, I have had to reorganize my library also. It is big enough that it would take forever to reorganize them (for best use with the X devices) manually. I have found that Mediamonkey does the same thing you are discussing here, and since I already use it for syncing, listening, and etc... I used it. Really, though, all I wanted to do was get rid of the track number that is very often a part of the filename (which is how Fiio decided to list "All Songs" in Category view, instead of from tag name). So, I would see:
 
  01 - Trackname1
  01 - Trackname2
  etc....
 
  After sorting them via tag the filename changed, and therefore how the X device shows them:
 
  Trackname1
  Trackname2
  etc....  ​

 

[CH23]

I've had this figured out many a time ago:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/661411/the-fiio-x5-thread/11175#post_10729992
And
http://www.head-fi.org/t/651769/the-fiio-x3-thread/16065#post_11622054

I'm happy at least one person of FiiO acknowledges the issue.

 

[bzippy]

All folders, all the time, for me. But I have been very strict about perfect file/folder management since the beginning (the 128K days).

 

[GEEFORCE]

So there is a track limit of 10,000?

If this is the case I shall return the product.

The whole reason I got the Fiio X5 II was for storage.

My ancient Ipod Classic can hold close to the 19,000 mp3s I own.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

So there is a track limit of 10,000?


If this is the case I shall return the product.


The whole reason I got the Fiio X5 II was for storage.


My ancient Ipod Classic can hold close to the 19,000 mp3s I own.

Hey GEEFORCE,

The X5 can hold any number of tracks you put into it.

Its library system is a bit quirky and you may have trouble navigating through those 19,000 mp3s using category browsing.

The tutorial on this page shows how you can export the library info on your mp3s and reorganize the folder structure of music files on the X5 using the library info. Afterwards you can navigate through any number of songs on the X5 using the folder browsing function which works smoothly on an unlimited number of songs.

Best regards,
Joe

 

[sst1]

Doesn't that essentially read as 'Our browser doesn't work so you have to use folders'?
 
Given these limitations does Fiio have any plans to release/help Rockbox on the these (now) legacy, unsupported and unfinished players?

 

[GEEFORCE]

Hey GEEFORCE,

The X5 can hold any number of tracks you put into it.

Its library system is a bit quirky and you may have trouble navigating through those 19,000 mp3s using category browsing.

The tutorial on this page shows how you can export the library info on your mp3s and reorganize the folder structure of music files on the X5 using the library info. Afterwards you can navigate through any number of songs on the X5 using the folder browsing function which works smoothly on an unlimited number of songs.

Best regards,
Joe

Thanks for your reply.

Sorry if I've misunderstood,

So the 10,000 track 'limit' is more of a recommendation as to what the category browser can handle with reasonable function?

You can however, store and browse as many files as you can put on 256GB worth of storage, by using the file browser?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

That is correct GEEFORCE.

sst1If and when any actual rockbox developers approach us, we'll see what we can do?

 

[sst1]

That is correct GEEFORCE.

sst1If and when any actual rockbox developers approach us, we'll see what we can do?

There are two working on it now although it's initially the X1 and X3, the hardware is similar. I will dig out details and PM you.

 

[Citizen Zombie]

  All folders, all the time, for me. But I have been very strict about perfect file/folder management since the beginning (the 128K days).

Me too. Especially Classical is a pain without. I organized all physical media strictly by name of band, musician or composer & not the performer, so Vampire Weekend is in direct neighbourhood of Vaughan Williams. They seem to get along just fine. This gets difficult with different composers, p.e. Frank Skinner & Hans J. Salter - Monster Music, a soundtrack compilation of classic horror movies like The Wolf Man.
 
I stick to this in the digital world, sadly there is no way to tell the system what a family name and a given name is. And I don't like Ligeti, György or Coathangers, The. So I have to compromise. I bought a X1 a few days ago and I don't have the perfect solution right now. I would like to browse by file/folder, but there doesn't seem to be an option to sort via M3U(8) or the tag Tracknumber this way. And because I add features always in the artist field like "Ana Popovic featuring Tommy Sims - Mo' Better Love", nor album or musician really seem to work in my case.
 
MP3Tag is an incredible powerful tool and the people at their forum are very capable and helpful. So if you have any questions regarding scripting, this is the place to go.
 
Edit: Reading Joe Bloggs posting "How to create M3U playlists..." my gears started to click slowly and I had the urgent feeling I may have missed something important. And I had. I never actually opened the M3U, I thought it would organise the files automatically by it. It does not, and this is absolutely fine for me. Now I'm a pretty happy camper, I still have to find a way to perfectly apply the screen shield on the display.