How can I organize my songs without spending months on it?

[claudius06]

Hello,
I'm looking for someone who can help me organize my songs or simply give me ideas.
I'd like to organise my mp3 collection, which consists of around 5,000 tracks. I'd like to classify them as follows: one folder with UK artists, another with US artists and another with INTERNATIONAL artists. But I need to identify all my tracks using the Tempo criteria: up, medium, slow and a popularity criteria: Gold, Hit, Single, Album track.
For example, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police would be in the "UK Artists" folder and would be tagged with the popularity rating "Gold" and the Tempo rating "slow".
My question: how can I proceed with PFOA to make this classification fairly quickly, or do I also need to install software like MusicBee?
I'm new to PFOA and I'm on Windows 10 Pro.
Thanks for your help.
Claude.

[radio42]

I would tag them properly, using the Rating, Tempo or Mood value.
But I am afraid you need to tag your 5000 tracks accordingly. ProppFrexx has no feature to identify and set this classification automatically.
However, you can use it to set values for multiple tracks at once. Eg. flag a total bunch or sub folder…

[claudius06]

Hello Bernd,
Thank you for your answer.
In that case, what would be the best method to tag a total bunch or sub folder? Do I have to use the search or is there a way to display a whole folder, select several tracks and flag them?

[radio42]

EG. use the Tagger application, open a folder, select all related tracks in the list, and then edit the value in question. This will change the value of all selected tracks at once. Once done save.

This way you can perform mass changes.

The same can be done within ProppFrexx. Just open a playlist and go to the MetaData tab and enable ‚Direct TAG Edit‘. Once enabled you can do the same mass changes. Once done disable the Direct TAG Edit.

[claudius06]

I've followed what you said but I think I've missed something, but I don't know what.
I open Tagger, I open the folder (via the "Open a new explorer window" button) where my 5000 tracks are, I select for example 5 tracks by the band AC/DC, I right-click and in the context menu I choose "Edit Tags" and in the pop-up window I enter for example "UP" in the field "Mood" then I confirm with the "Save" button in the pop-up. Result: only the first title in my list is changed.
Also, "AC/DC" is displayed like that "AC;DC", and if I want to replace all the "AC;DC" by "AC/DC" it's the same thing, only the first track in the list I've selected is changed.
Could you please tell me what I haven't understood?

[radio42]

When you select ‚Edit TAGs‘ you edit the tracks one by one.
To perform direct TAG editing of all selected entries you do this in the Tagger application directly in the table of the Explorer. Ie. directly click into a column of that Explorer table and edit its value.
You can enable and show any field you want and is available. Just use the Column Chooser from the header context menu.
See the Tagger tutorial video for details.

For „AC/DC“ this is a special case for most MP3s. The „/“ is recognized as a separator character for multiple artist values (like the „,“ or the „;“).
As such you must write AC\DC instead of AC/DC.
The same issue will as such happen for names containing a / , ;..

[claudius06]

Tested and approved! I was so far from having understood. It's fantastic, thank you for your help and sorry, I hadn't seen that there was a tutorial on Tagger too.
And about of AC\DC, I understood your explanation there too, it's like when I work with .csv files.
Thanks again.

[claudius06]

Hello Bernd,
Isn't it possible to change the content of the Energy and Mood and Style columns this way?
And what is the purpose of the Grouping field? Can I add values (e.g. uk,up,single) and if so, will this field be included in the PFOA search on any of the values?

[radio42]

Yes, you can also mass change the content of the Grouping, Mood, Style, Energy etc. fields - of course!

All these fields are just there to give you additional fields to put in any values you like.
These fields can be used in Filters to select or pick certain tracks.
Some put values in like 'Male', 'Female' and 'Instrumental' - other use 'Warmup', 'Mid', 'Hot'...

When just type on text into the 'search' field it searches in the 'Trackname' only (Artist and Title).
But you can click on the '?' icon at the right to invoke the Advanced Expression Builder (or hold the CTRL key while clicking to open the simple but extended search)... The same expression builder can also be used in the Filter option of the script-line editor.

[claudius06]

OK Bernd, I've just understood that I don't have to press "Enter" after entering a value, but I have to press "Tab" for the values to be displayed (and then save them, of course).
Thank you