I’m finally making a real effort to add beets to my life. I’ve been hesitant because I like what I like and I (mostly) know what I’m doing, you know? I also have a lot of local independent albums that are just not likely to get tagged anyway.

But here I am. Yesterday I was able to work through:

  • Implementing my preferred directory structure and naming conventions
  • Adding album art (embedded and in the folder)
  • Embedding lyrics
  • Adding ReplyGain information

I use Navidrome as my server and have a collection of about 2000 albums.

What are some of your tips for using beets?

What cool things are you doing?

What should I be thinking about as I go about this?

  • Wolf314159@startrek.websiteEnglish
    01·
    6 days ago

    So much safer to go one album at a time using Picard. Picard makes it easy to go down the list of a disorganized directory, identify most things automatically, allow in depth review and modifications to what Picard came up with, and standardize file naming. I’ve tried to let programs like Lidarr and beets automate it, but they always ends up causing more and more complex problems to discover and solve after awhile. Music releases are complex and sources are diverse, using distinct standards of form and format. It’s not a problem that can realistically be solved for my entire music library without the guiding hand of a librarian. I could listen to my library for over six months without repeating, even 1 album out of a 100 mis-tagged or misidentifyied could take me years to discover.

    I do like to automate the less critical and more machine oriented library tasks like adding genres tags, replaygain, and lyrics as you do. Just not things like the metadata tags, file naming, or album art (embedded or otherwise).

  • fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vipEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    i fucked with beets importing my measly 20 thousand songs over a weekend or so and it was uhh

    miserable for a person with insane ADHD

    i couldnt pay attention for shit

    nowadays, if something pops up in a navidrome smart playlist or isn’t found in the genre it should be, i will open up that whole folder in picard and go to town.

    I can blast one artist into submission, but trying to spend all day doing it, artist after artist, my brain melts.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      I’ve switched to Picard, too. I do think for a task like this a GUI makes a big difference. I tried with beets, but you really have to do a lot of research in advance to understand what it is doing and the settings you need, and it’s not one-size-fits-all.

      If you don’t have a lot of indie stuff, and you primarily have whole albums, AND you have the patience to go through your entire library one track at a time, then I’m sure it works fine.

      The advantage of Picard is that you can see many tracks at a glance to focus on the ones that need attention. Plus you can pause at any time and pick up where you left off.

      I now do almost all of this through Strawberry, which has Picard built in.