Recognising Sound Files
Posted by: Consciousmess on 08 May 2012
Hi all,
As some of you may be aware, there are apps which listen to music and identify what the song is (e.g. soundhound), so I here is the predicament. Of files on my harddrive, many have come up as "unknown" and so if I wanted to, I could use my iPad and identify all the tracks one-by-one............ But that would take ages as I have 100s of files like this....
So is there a feature on ANY of the media players, where I can select the "Unknown" files as a whole and leave the computer to it - in order to identify what all the files are along with the appropriate album cover??
Surely that is possible if simple apps can identify by listening to them?
Many thanks,
Jon
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by winkyincanada
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by winkyincanada
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by Guido Fawkes
Tune-up on the Mac does that as Winky suggests ... but you need some very obscure recordings if XLD or iTunes could identify the titles ... I've only found about 3 in more than 4000 CDs. I'm sure dBPA would do a similar job on one of those old PCs. [Sorry can't remember if you've upgraded to a Mac yet]
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by BigH47
Guido If they can find your tracks ,I'm sure everyone else will be fine. 
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by Consciousmess
Ok brilliant, thanks for that link and I have now installed it....
Can I now ask, how do I use it? Do I open iTunes and select the folder with my music and leave it to it??
Cheers
Jon
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by Guido Fawkes
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by Guido Fawkes
Originally Posted by BigH47:
Guido If they can find your tracks ,I'm sure everyone else will be fine.
No problem BigH, though I'm mainly a mainstream man - for instance XLD searched the freeDB and brought back album art and all the metadata for Sume's rather good Sumut album without a hitch, OK so yes I know Sume are just about everybody's favourite Greenlandic prog-rock group, so I guess that was to be expected, but iTunes had no problem with Dark Side of the Moon (the definitive version) either, which has just been re-released
Which is an excellent record even if not quite as good as the magnificent Heavy On The Drum.
I guess I'm just a middle of the road kind of Guy.
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by winkyincanada
Originally Posted by Consciousmess:
Ok brilliant, thanks for that link and I have now installed it.... Can I now ask, how do I use it? Do I open iTunes and select the folder with my music and leave it to it?? Cheers Jon
I've not used it so I can't comment definitively. Did it come with a readme.txt or other instructions? Perhaps look for a new drop-down menu in iTunes called Tune-up. That's often how plug-ins make themselves known in the GUI.
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by Guido Fawkes
The video I posted shows what it does and the web site has further instructions on it.
Posted on: 08 May 2012 by winkyincanada
Posted on: 10 May 2012 by Consciousmess
Thanks for this information, Winky, and I have installed it....
But I have now realised that Tuneup does
not repair *.wav files and all my files are *.wav and flac
Is there any advice you could help me with as I would be extremely grateful!!
Cheers
Jon
Posted on: 11 May 2012 by Consciousmess
Hi all,
Well, I think I have found a solution. If I convert all my *.wav files to mp3 I could then use this Tuneup application.
But, all my music files are *.wav so would I lose fidelity if they are converted to mp3?
You see I understand mp3 to be compressed and I don't want that as I have plenty of hard drive space!
Many thanks,
Jon
Posted on: 11 May 2012 by McGhie
You can convert from one lossless format to another fine but if you convert to a lossy format (like mp3) then you'll lose info and it's a one way street (you can't convert back from a mp3 and recover the lost info).
Cheers
Ian
Posted on: 11 May 2012 by Consciousmess
Hi Ian,
That is a shame! If I converted to Apple Lossless (whatever code that is), is there an application I can get which will tune up my music files - so they all get organised into the correct albums, artist, genres... and album covers???
Cheers
Jon
Posted on: 11 May 2012 by garyi
Jon, in short you need to learn the basics, the reason your music files have no names is because they are wavs or you ripped them with no internet connection.
Seriously the time it will take fannying around trying to fix the situation would be better spent simply re ripping the files..
Posted on: 11 May 2012 by winkyincanada
Originally Posted by Consciousmess:
Hi Ian, That is a shame! If I converted to Apple Lossless (whatever code that is), is there an application I can get which will tune up my music files - so they all get organised into the correct albums, artist, genres... and album covers??? Cheers Jon
Don't convert them to MP3. Convert them all to Apple Lossless (ALAC) using whatever you like. Import them into your iTunes Library and use Tuneup to add all the metadata.
But as garyi says, you might be better to just re-rip them into a metadata compatible format (whilst connected to the internet, so your ripping program can find the artwork and data).
Posted on: 11 May 2012 by Consciousmess
Thanks for that, Gary and Winky - you have just clarified why my system information is the way it is!
Cheers
Jon
Posted on: 13 May 2012 by Consciousmess
Brilliant stuff by the way, as I have used the Apple Lossless and have all my album art as well!
Many thanks for your regular help!
How do I now use my iTunes with the nStream app and of course let the NDX use it? They might sound silly, but I have been using Windows Media Player and so the nStream is just seeing what WMP saw and that was the problem I had in the very beginning that prompted me to write this thread!!
Many thanks
Jon
Posted on: 13 May 2012 by McGhie
Hi Jon
I don't think that you can use iTunes as a UPnP server. Apple is one of the few major manufacturers that doesn't support UPnP/DLNA. You could use WMP (wouldn't recommend it though), if it works with the format of files you want to stream. Or you could use another UPnP server, such as Asset, which is brilliant.
Cheers
Ian
Posted on: 13 May 2012 by Consciousmess
Ok cheers Ian, I will get Asset!
Jon
