Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

[garym]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Which will add a lead zero just to all the single-digit-lead track names, yes?

Thanks again.

Yes, 1 will become 01, but 12 will stay 12. But note mville's good advice on filtering. And it is always a good idea to test anything you're doing in batch on a few albums before running it on an entire library of course.

[Redd]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Gary-
The testing was good, but the odd quirky stuff (like track 2/11) tends to pop up in one album, so the tests miss it. There's always another quirk to be found. Some of them, elude everyone I know. I asked a number of DeadHeads, why are some albums "The Grateful Dead" while others are "Grateful Dead" ? Did someone in the band change, so they changed the name a little? Or did some record company get sloppy? Or, just try to show a label or producer had been changed?
Some of this stuff....I could just delete all the tags and listen to the music instead. Pretend it was FM radio at its best.(G)

[Redd]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

mville-
I'm beginning to think there's an "eater" on my computer, eating first my archive drive and now sometimes my message posts. (I know how to post messages!)
But one to you just disappeared so here it is again:

The "GREATER 2" answers my unasked question of whether "2" meant two digits. I'm relieved to see it apparently does.
But what does the auto-numbering wizard do?

[garym]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Gary-
The testing was good, but the odd quirky stuff (like track 2/11) tends to pop up in one album, so the tests miss it. There's always another quirk to be found. Some of them, elude everyone I know. I asked a number of DeadHeads, why are some albums "The Grateful Dead" while others are "Grateful Dead" ? Did someone in the band change, so they changed the name a little? Or did some record company get sloppy? Or, just try to show a label or producer had been changed?
Some of this stuff....I could just delete all the tags and listen to the music instead. Pretend it was FM radio at its best.(G)

keep in mind that metadata databases are filled in with the data entered by thousands of users ripping their CDs. Most of the databases are NOT something completed by record companies. That said, some of the metadata that comes on digital tracks purchased directly from record companies is WORSE than the crowd sourced data.

[garym]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

But what does the auto-numbering wizard do?

whatever tracks are in the active window (in whatever order they are in), autonumbering wizard will number them from 1 to N.

[Redd]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

"whatever tracks are in the active window"
Oh, dangerous wizard then, unless I'm just trying to fix one album. Would have been handy when I was pushing my tapes through Audacity, but not needed so much any more, that ordeal was done. Good to remember though. (Where did you sign up for the course in learning all this stuff anyway?!)

On the metadata, I guess some of it has been retrieved from crowdsourced online databases. But when I ripped my CD's (the USB stick saves so much room in the glove box!) all the data in them came from the CD's themselves. So, I'm blaming Hollywood. I'll be glad to sign a petition demanding the artists get paid, but the producers need to be sent to an organ bank, preferably in China!

[garym]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

"whatever tracks are in the active window"
Oh, dangerous wizard then, unless I'm just trying to fix one album. Would have been handy when I was pushing my tapes through Audacity, but not needed so much any more, that ordeal was done. Good to remember though. (Where did you sign up for the course in learning all this stuff anyway?!)

On the metadata, I guess some of it has been retrieved from crowdsourced online databases. But when I ripped my CD's (the USB stick saves so much room in the glove box!) all the data in them came from the CD's themselves. So, I'm blaming Hollywood. I'll be glad to sign a petition demanding the artists get paid, but the producers need to be sent to an organ bank, preferably in China!

maybe not all files in active window. If you "select" a subset, I think it will do just those. Regarding metadata: you may *think* that all the metadata came from the CDs themselves, but that's not correct. There is virtually NEVER any metadata on a CD (certain odd sorts of CDs have some built in metdata, but this would be one in 10,000). When you ripped, the ripping program was on a computer attached to the internet, and your metadata came from the internet, NOT the CD itself.

Regarding how I learned about this stuff. (1) read forums, (2) read wiki articles, and MOSTLY (3) opened software programs and simply experimented. Try something, look at outcome. Try something else, look at outcome. Trial and error, but it didn't take long. and for really troubling questions, forums such as these were helpful. My move to digital music helped me learn about stuff I knew nothing about. Networking, wiring, routers, metadata, types of digital media, etc. ABXing to detect transparency of codecs, etc.

p.s. my day job has nothing to do with computers, audio, networks, etc.

[Redd]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Sounds like the same learning curve I'm still (the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, and what did he see? He saw another mountain...) coming up, after finally getting the conversions and audio options under my belt.

So the Chuck Berry cut on a Time-Life annual, that had his name in Chinese instead of English, wasn't just a bad joke from the folks at Time-Life?

I've seen from frightening metadata in the online free databases. I suppose it is amazing that it is out there, but frightening how much of it is, well, maybe you've seen Idiocracy? (sigh)

Well, what's another year or two to clean up the metadata....(G)

[garym]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Idocracy is one of my favorite movies. My team at work and I quote from it almost every day....
one can never see the opening too many times. It explains a lot:

https://vimeo.com/100094379

[mville]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

But what does the auto-numbering wizard do?

The Auto-numbering wizard is a specific tool used to add track numbers to your files. I use it all the time on my files that have inconsistent track numbers.

[mville]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

The "GREATER 2" answers my unasked question of whether "2" meant two digits. I'm relieved to see it apparently does.

Look at MP3Tag >> Help menu >> Contents >> Filter for more help and examples.

[mville]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

One obvious point, make sure you have a backup of these files (or the metadata), before attempting bulk edits.

[Redd]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Just a quick comment:
It turns out my WD drive had a catastrophic failure of some kind, hardware nothing related to the programs or the task. I'm just recovering from that, restoring the backups, and then will tackle completing this job. Thanks for all the additional comments, I look forward to using the tips!

[mville]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Just a quick comment:
It turns out my WD drive had a catastrophic failure of some kind, hardware nothing related to the programs or the task.

Ouch!

[Redd]

Re: Can I batch-rename every song to begin with its track number?

Yeah, the last two on my list were Seagate and WD. The last Seagate (Momentus 500GB) was DOA. As was the replacement and the second replacement and the fourth time around, after I had paid for "expedited" service because this was dragging on for a month, they said there was just no way to get a new one to me any faster. I said, come on, I paid for 48 hour service and this is taking a MONTH, can't anyone do anything? Uh, no, there's no one who can authorize that. So, goodby Seagate. Five years later now, I'm reluctantly trying them again because the SamSung/Spinpoint/Seagate drive is the only (oinker) that will fit.

The WD surprised me, all the SMART diagnostics ran good. And then, refused to recognize the drive or run again.

So now I'm doubling checking, for anything that wasn't on the last backups. And trying to make sense of how to best fix the tagging. "Hand crafting" seems to be a tedious but best way to do it.(G)