Question about streaming your own music

[HiFiRebel]

I would like to thank you all for recommending Plex to me. It's everything I wanted and needed. It works flawlessly across all of my platforms - my computer, my phone + headphones, my car.

What's most important, playback is flawless. I have it set up to play maximum size uncompressed music and it plays all of my large FLAC's without a hiccup while on the go (on cellular network). Most of the time it is gapless, from time to time I get 1s gap between tracks. If signal is patchy, I can always drop down the quality to 320 or 256, but all of my workout today, not a single dropout. Navigation is super fast and playback is great. It wasn't my cellular connection after all. I'm on my main SIM card, the one that was a stuttery mess at the gym on QNAP native music app . It's also a nice simple and good looking app too. So far I haven't found a single issue with it yet.

Free Plex account has everything I need and more, but I still consider subscribing, just to help the development with my money.

Thank you all!

 

[Lindholdt]

Glad to hear it is working great for you
Did you dig deeper into the security side of it? I haven't set it up for usage outside my WiFi yet, but will most likely be doing so shortly, so any inputs are very welcome.

 

[HiFiRebel]

Glad to hear it is working great for you
Did you dig deeper into the security side of it? I haven't set it up for usage outside my WiFi yet, but will most likely be doing so shortly, so any inputs are very welcome.

I've run the security manager and followed the suggestions its made. Also installed QNAP's antivirus and firewall and set it to most restrictive mode. Security manager will list all the stuff you should do.

Thanks!

 

[HiFiRebel]

OK, there is one thing about Plex I don't like. I just found out that all the tagging I've done is not recorded in the files themselves. So I have created a new library and added all of my music files (previously I had it split into 2 separate libraries - one with FLACs, one with mp3), it is scanning them and adding nicely, however they don't have the tags I've done a couple of days ago, so it looks like I'm going to have to do it again. Is there a way to transfer all tags from Plex server and imbed them into the files themselves?

 

[msing539]

OK, there is one thing about Plex I don't like. I just found out that all the tagging I've done is not recorded in the files themselves. So I have created a new library and added all of my music files (previously I had it split into 2 separate libraries - one with FLACs, one with mp3), it is scanning them and adding nicely, however they don't have the tags I've done a couple of days ago, so it looks like I'm going to have to do it again. Is there a way to transfer all tags from Plex server and imbed them into the files themselves?

There are two apps I'd suggest looking into. One is Similarity, which can help identify duplicate music. But if you have created folders by album, for example, and songs repeat across albums so they're complete, skip this one.

The next is mp3tag, which is also free. Be warned, it's a manual process, and don't work on your actual library... COPY a chunk of files, edit them, copy them back. This can rename files by tag and vice versa, so if you're not careful, it can totally screw up your organization. But let's say your tag has track number, artist name, album name, track, year, genre... all this can be written to the tag automatically. It's a powerful little app.

On Android, there's an app called AutomaTag, which will automatically tag music... I've only used it on a small scale, I don't think it'll work for you. I remember there being a Windows equivalent, but I don't recall the name.

 

[HiFiRebel]

Is your actual computer a Windows laptop?

Windows desktop

 

[msing539]

Windows desktop

Sorry, was typing--just replied above.

 

[HiFiRebel]

There are two apps I'd suggest looking into. One is Similarity, which can help identify duplicate music. But if you have created folders by album, for example, and songs repeat across albums so they're complete, skip this one.

The next is mp3tag, which is also free. Be warned, it's a manual process, and don't work on your actual library... COPY a chunk of files, edit them, copy them back. This can rename files by tag and vice versa, so if you're not careful, it can totally screw up your organization. But let's say your tag has track number, artist name, album name, track, year, genre... all this can be written to the tag automatically. It's a powerful little app.

On Android, there's an app called AutomaTag, which will automatically tag music... I've only used it on a small scale, I don't think it'll work for you. I remember there being a Windows equivalent, but I don't recall the name.

Thank you, I'll look into. However with so many files I would prefer some kind of automated help.

I have mp3tag and have used it before, but as you say it's a manual process. One that takes a long time. It would take me weeks if not months to do all of the files I have.

I actually like what Plex has done, it has automatically identified correctly around 80% of files (and some of them are quite obscure). It has a problem with albums with multiple artists, but I guess that's not easy.

Both of my FLAC and MP3 libraries are now mostly properly tagged inside Plex. With aritst photo, info, genre, style, mood tags, etc. I wish I could just transfer all of those tags to the files themselves. It would be the best solution.

 

[msing539]

Thank you, I'll look into. However with so many files I would prefer some kind of automated help.

I have mp3tag and have used it before, but as you say it's a manual process. One that takes a long time. It would take me weeks if not months to do all of the files I have.

I actually like what Plex has done, it has automatically identified correctly around 80% of files (and some of them are quite obscure). It has a problem with albums with multiple artists, but I guess that's not easy.

Both of my FLAC and MP3 libraries are now mostly properly tagged inside Plex. With aritst photo, info, genre, style, mood tags, etc. I wish I could just transfer all of those tags to the files themselves. It would be the best solution.

I don't think there's any way for Plex metadata to be written back to the actual files. Though I just remembered the automated tag app, it's called MusicBrainz Picard and works pretty well. It identifies songs by cues in their waveform. As always, just work on some locally copied files to see how it works.

 

[HiFiRebel]

I don't think there's any way for Plex metadata to be written back to the actual files. Though I just remembered the automated tag app, it's called MusicBrainz Picard and works pretty well. It identifies songs by cues in their waveform. As always, just work on some locally copied files to see how it works.

Thank you I'll check it out.

I just found this as well. No idea if that's any good though

https://www.audioranger.com/en/

" AudioRanger is a powerful and versatile music tagger designed to automatically identify and organize your digital music collection.

Runs on Windows and Mac. Feature-rich free version available. "

Sounds a bit too good to be true

 

[msing539]

Thank you I'll check it out.

I just found this as well. No idea if that's any good though

https://www.audioranger.com/en/

Thanks! One of me to try.

 

[msing539]

If you decide to buy Plex Pass, promo code ITSPROTIME will take 20% off.

 

[HiFiRebel]

If you decide to buy Plex Pass, promo code ITSPROTIME will take 20% off.

Thank you! I plan to do that soon

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Thank you I'll check it out.

I just found this as well. No idea if that's any good though

https://www.audioranger.com/en/

" AudioRanger is a powerful and versatile music tagger designed to automatically identify and organize your digital music collection.

Runs on Windows and Mac. Feature-rich free version available. "

Sounds a bit too good to be true

Most of these apps work most of the time. What hurts is when they mis-tag a few gigabytes of files.

I look at it this way, if I have to pay money for something, I'm not going to do any work. Roon and the rest of the junk that is supposed to be so wonderful expects me to tag a few terabytes of files and I have to pay them for it? No, I don't think so. If your software can't figure out what the file is based on my folder / directory structure: artist, album, each track with the correct song title etc. then it's not worth spending money on.

 

[HiFiRebel]

Most of these apps work most of the time. What hurts is when they mis-tag a few gigabytes of files.

I look at it this way, if I have to pay money for something, I'm not going to do any work. Roon and the rest of the junk that is supposed to be so wonderful expects me to tag a few terabytes of files and I have to pay them for it? No, I don't think so. If your software can't figure out what the file is based on my folder / directory structure: artist, album, each track with the correct song title etc. then it's not worth spending money on.

Yes, I agree. I have tried the Music Brainz thingy on a small batch of files, but it's not a great help to me. The stuff that is not properly tagged (apart from names and being in correct folders) is usually so obscure that they don't have anything like that in their database. But even stuff that is modern and it is in their database is not a big help. It can change the name of the track, fill the artist field, etc. But it's not adding the tags I want for Plex to work the best, ie genre, style, mood.

I really like those Plex' "radio stations" where I pick a style or genre or mood I want and it plays random tracks from the selection. However, so little of my files have the correct info that it ends up playing a few albums over and over again. Most of my files are correctly tagged, meaning they have artist, album and song names correctly filled, but not many have those additional tags. It's sad Plex can't do it based on their database. It would be a brilliant way to listen to music and re-discover some of the stuff I've not heard in years, but I'm not going to sit here for weeks and fill those fields manually. If anyone knows the way to do it automatically, please let me know.