UPDATING ALBUM ART + TAGS FOR THE TRACKS ALREADY IN DATABASE ?

[afrodread]

Greetings to every!!!

I have a question to anyone who can help or suggest an easier way to go around about updating my album art or tags for the songs that have been already uploaded in the database.

Am using the AlbumArt Downloader and have over 40gb of tracks in my Radiodj database. 60% of the DB entries does not have the proper album art or incomplete tags and l have tried updating the tags and adding album art in the physical folders on my harddisk and via Radiodj relocating the tracks but then notice that the tracks are not being updated. Tried deleting some albums and reuploading them again with the updated album but still miss the tags and album art. Am using Media Monkey to add album art and tags to the tracks. Does anyone have any suggestions how l can achieve this outside Radiodj and still have Radiodj update the changes in realtime?

Thanx in advance for any help or suggestions.

[Capt_Fuzzy]

I, personally had to go through my entire database and update everything myself, so I know what you are going through...

Unfortunately, there's no "quick fix" for this, you are doing about the only thing that can be done. I use two programs to update album art and especially the tags, I use MP3Tag and Musicbrainz Picard, both are not "foolproof" but are pretty good at helping you get your tags right and therefore get the correct album art.

[afrodread]

Capt_Fuzzy thanx for your reply.  MP3Tag works more or less like MediaMonkey and l don't mind ofcourse to go through the whole database, but my main question is: How did you get Radiodj to recognise the changes you did in the database? More simply , am updating tags and album art manually on the Hard Disk that contains my music collection, so like adding correct album art, names , date, composer etc etc.... Do l need to reupload the folders again for Radiodj to update the changes l have made to the folder on my Hard Disk?

Would still appreciate more suggestions or help. Wonderful program and love it to the max. 

[Brodephat]

Well one thing that experience has taught me is this:

Once music has been added into the database of your radio automation software, the physical address of each audio file is stored in the database. That means if the audio file is moved or renamed or if the folder that the audio file is in is moved or renamed or if the drive letter of the hard drive that the audio file is stored on changes....you will have major problems.

This is because your radio automation software does not keep up with those type of changes (it shouldn't have to) and it will try to pull those audio files based on the physical location currently stored in the database.

Outside programs like Media Monkey will not only rename the audio filename but it will generate new folders as a part of the organizing of your music collection. Therefore your radio automation software will not be able to play those audio files because it now has no physical location of the audio files in it's database. You would need to add all of those files back into the database but also make sure you use the radio automation software to clean up your database to remove all of the invalid files.

What I do is get the files correct BEFORE adding them to the station database.

[Capt_Fuzzy]

Brodephat pretty-much summed it up right there, get everything right BEFORE you add them, once they are added, like he said, it can get pretty messy if you have to change anything...

[afrodread]

Brodephat thanx for your reply. I have been very alert when updating or adding album art, and tags to files already in the DB. I double cheched and saw that Media Monkey did not change the folder name containing the audio files, neither was the physical location changed. All l have added isalbum art and some tags that were missing. After that l did via the Utilities button of RadioDj a Relocate files with the idea that Radiodj would implement the changes made to the audio files. I can still play the files which proves that the radio automation can still find them but l dont see the changes to the album art. Or am missing something here? Is there a way to sync the tags in the DB with the new tags added?

Totally agree with you Brodphat on getting the files correct BEFORE adding them to the DB, thus what am doing with the new albums. But still have a lot of vinyl rips already in the DB that l need to edit and doing one by one within the Radiodj would cost me forever thus why am looking for ways to do it ouside the radio program. Via Media Monkey l can edit the whole album in one go. Nway thanx people for the suggestions. Gonna try and see if l can work it out. 

[AndyDeGroo]

I'll try to explain how RadioDJ manages the album art and audio file paths in hope to make it a bit more clear;
First, Brodephat is correct in that RadioDJ database contains only file paths. For instance, a `path` column in `songs` table is "D:\Radio\Music\AC-DC\ACDC - Big Gun.mp3" and that's where RadioDJ will try to look for the file. If that file is not there for some reason (moved, renamed or external HDD diconnected) when RadioDJ needs to play it, the track entry will be marked as disabled or `enabled`=0 in `songs` database table.
I've been told by Marius that in next RadioDJ version this behaviour will change to mark an entry as enabled=-1. It will make it possible to re-enable auto-disabled entries using "Verify Tracks" option from utilities plugin.

Unlike sound file paths, album art filed in songs table stores only file name and full path is determined by appending that file name to "Artwork Storage Path" option in "Other Settings" tab of Settings window. By default, when importing a track, RadioDJ names artwork files as "artist-album.jpg" by removing all spaces and converting resulting text string to lowercase.

Considering this, album art file names can be updated for all songs in same album using an SQL query. Let's say I'd like to update album artwork for "One Love, The Very Best Of" by "Bob Marley & The Wailers" in RadioDJ database:

1. Get the artwork by searching online or extracting using Mp3tag.
2. Save the image to the directory path set in "Artwork Storage Path" and note the file name. For this example I'll use "marley_and_thewailers-one_love_the_very_best_of.jpg"
3. Open HeidiSQL or any other tool to run SQL queries on RadioDJ database.
4. The query for this example would be:

Code Select Expand


UPDATE `songs` SET `album_art`='marley_and_thewailers-one_love_the_very_best_of.jpg'
WHERE `album` = 'One Love, The Very Best Of'
AND `artist`='Bob Marley & The Wailers'
AND (`album_art`='' OR `album_art` IS NULL)

Last line takes care of not updating album art for tracks that already have album art. The line should be removed if you want to change existing album art.

However, if you just want to refresh an existing album image and all tracks in that album already have image assigned, you can simply replace the file in album art directory. File name is visible and can be copied in "Album Art" tab of track editor window. Double-clicking the image allows to select a new image file, which is then copied to artwork directory. If you pick a different file with same name, all tracks referencing that file name will have the new album art, because RadioDJ will overwrite the file in album art directory.

[afrodread]

Much thanx AndyDeGroo for the detailed explanation, now l compleetly understand how its all set with Radiodj. Am gonna give it a try using the SQL query as explained by AndyDeGroo. However before that for clarity sake, AndyDeGroo

Last line takes care of not updating album art for tracks that already have album art. The line should be removed if you want to change existing album art.

I presume you mean this line in the query: 'marley_and_thewailers-one_love_the_very_best_of.jpg' By removing the line means l have to replace it with the new ''artist-album.jpg ?

Thanx again for the explanation. Will let you all know if l have managed to update it using SQL query.

[Major Armstrong]

I'll try to explain how RadioDJ manages the album art and audio file paths in hope to make it a bit more clear;

Thanks for your description.  It helped me solve a related problem.  I couldn't get album art to show up at all within Radio DJ.  All my songs are prepared with MP3TAG and have cover art, but it just would not display in Radio DJ unless I went in Track Editor and manually told the program where the cover image was.   With 5,000 songs, that would have taken too long.

SOLUTION:  Since I play mostly unique singles, I always blanked the "ALBUM" tag in MP3TAG, because the songs don't necessarily belong to an album.  Well, Radio DJ doesn't like blank/missing ALBUM fields, because it uses that tag to identify and place the artwork.  That's why mine weren't showing up.

On every track now that I've added an ALBUM field to, and then re-imported into Radio DJ... the artwork is displaying without a problem! 

Just posting this here in case someone else may have the same problem.  Thanks.

[manishboyradio]

i will also add if you are using mediamonkey like i do, when you have updated your tag info in mediamonkey, use the tag sync function to update the radio dj database, use the selection "from tags to database" then run a sql backup file in the database setup utility