Itunes Genres (how to filter/view by genres in Subsonic)

[noipod]

Hi all,

Windows user here. Yes, I know iTunes is not the best media organizer, but it's what I started with and would prefer to stay with.

All of my music (>100GB) is organized by genres in iTunes. Is it possible to filter by genres in Subsonic, while still using iTunes?

If so, what would be the easiest way to do this?

Subsonic has been AWESOME so far, but I really like to search by genres on occasion. If this cannot be done in iTunes, any other simple recommendation?

Can someone assist?

Thanks in advance!

[BKKKPewsey]

Subsonic uses the directory structure so if your directory structure is based on genre rather then the normal artist\albums\track then SS will follow that.
Your choice of media organiser is irrelevant as it is only used for tagging as far as SS is concerned so providing it writes the tags correctly it doesn't matter what you use.

[noipod]

Thanks BKKKPewsey. Unfortunately, iTunes puts everything into one big folder (genres are not separated by folder).

Any other ideas? Do I need to organize music by genre folders in order to filter? Is there software that can take the current iTunes media/genres and organize into separate folders to allow one to view music by genres in Subsonic?

Thanks in advance for any additional input and easy solutions.

[BKKKPewsey]

IF the music is correctly tagged I would suggest Mediamonkey (which I use) or Foobar2000 which both have great renaming /organising capabilities.
And both FREE

[noipod]

Thank you, a few more questions:

1) How do I know if everything is correctly tagged? All of my music is organized by artist, album, genre in iTunes.
2) I'm already posting in the MediaMonkey forum on this exact topic. I can't figure out if MM can import iTunes artist, albums into separate genre folders? Do you know if this is possible?
3) I'm assuming this is what I need to do to get Subsonic to filter artist>albums by genre?

I appreciate the input!

[BKKKPewsey]

However itunes organises its music is irrelevant as I have said, its the directory structure on the disk that matters
but you can tell if the some of tags are ok in SS as the title, album, artist, genre, and year tags are shown.
If you catalogue your music with MM you can then search for missing data - remember that part is non destructive, MM will not change anything unless you tell it to, unlike some media players I can mention

[noipod]

Thanks again,

So it appears that my tags are okay when viewed via SS. If SS can see my genre tags, is it not possible to filter in SS by genre tag>artist>album? Am I missing something?

I understand that the directory structure is the relevant feature when working with Subsonic. I don't understand how MM is going to catalogue everything into genre>artist>album directory structure?

I'm going to install MM tomorrow. Can you point me in the right direction? After I install, I will likely be asked to add my files to the MM library. I'm going to have MM work on a copy of my music database just in case it is "destructive". After I point to the music folder, will files automatically be catalogued genre>artist>album assuming my tags are correct?

I appreciate the input and patience thus far!

[BKKKPewsey]

After you install MM you will see what I am getting at.
You just point MM at your media library and it will create its own database based on the tags and file names - that is non destructive as nothing is changed on your system.
MM has a very powerful file organisation capability which can create a directory structure however you want.
Have a play first and come back and ask questions then as it is difficult to answer non-specific questions when you haven't seen the program.

[noipod]

Thanks again.

I loaded MM and went through the basic installation steps, pointed MM to my music folder, etc. Two problems:

1) My music database is 150GB or so. MM is showing 475 songs missing artist, song title, album, or genre tags. I believe Subsonic and iTunes have proper tags for these songs. Is there an easy fix?

1) The genres pulled from my music import are mostly correct. Moving the music in the incorrect genres is an easy fix. However, my directory structure is still the same (all music in one folder>artist>album). I can't figure out how to organize the directory structure so that I get genre>artist>album so that Subsonic will allow me to search by genre.

Hopefully easy fixes for both problems?

I appreciate the support and input!

[BKKKPewsey]

If MM is saying those tracks are missing certain info in the tags then it is missing but 475 tracks is certainly no big deal 5 mins work tops.

You need to have a look at auto organise files within MM. (ctrl R)
Look at MM help docs and the MM forum where there is lots of info.
If you are confident in writing the destination script tags then give it a try on 1 album as a test.
If you use copy rather then move then your old folder structure will remain should things not go to plan
You will need something like <genre>\<artist>\<album>\<track#> - <title>

[noipod]

Thanks again. It seems strange however that all the improperly tagged/unknown files are .wav or .flac? Is an easy fix available (this would not be a five minute fix).

I'll try to get to the auto organize tool today.

I appreciate the patience.

[noipod]

Thanks BKKPewsey!

Your file path helped immensely! It would have taken me a few tries to figure this out. This put all my music in the directory structure I needed for SS.

I did learn that .wav, .flac file tags are simply not read properly from iTunes to MM. Strangely, I could search by album name even though the tag was not visible in MM. I then had to fix missing tags and auto-organize. This process took a long time.

Hopefully this helps someone else. I'm sure I'm not the only one moving from iTunes to Subsonic/MM with such needs.

Thanks again.

[noipod]

Hello all,

I have another dilemma. I now have the proper directory structure in MM: <genre>\<artist>\<album>\<track#> - <title> which works well for when searching in Subsonic.

The problem is that I want compilation albums organized <genre>\<album>\<track#> - <title>. I want all the songs from the compilation album listed in the same album folder, NOT by artist folder. MM is not allowing me to auto organize by this directory path.

Am I using the wrong directory path? Or is there an easier way to change compilation albums organization to <genre>\<album>\<track#> - <title>?

Thanks in advance for any input.

[BKKKPewsey]

I would say that you have supplied your own answer
With MM, to make sure that all the tracks are listed as the same album, just ensure that the album artist node/tag is the same for the whole album,
usually that would be various or various artists.
MM will then treat all the tracks of a compilation as belonging to the same album and your rename will then work as expected.