Let’s say you have a 200 Gigabyte hard drive and and it is 90% full thats 180 Gig and about 45,000 songs (ripped at 128 to 192 kbs avg). Hopefully You already have used a good MP3-RIPPER like Audio Grabber but if you didn’t you might have to do some of the following.
You need to do a few things to make sure your music collection is pristine. The FIRST MOST Important thing is to BACK UP your entire music collection at LEAST ONCE if not more. You should also rip your music at 320kbs or better. This backup should happen monthly or each time you change or update your music collection.
Second is you should get an MP3 id3v TAG analyzer/editor. Run this program on your entire library to correct spelling and/or missing information. it should also update your tags automatically in a mass grouping.Try DR. Tag (I use it. FREE to try) - AVS Audio editor is similar to Audacity but it has more functions.
Third is NORMALIZATION. Grab an MP3 normalizing program that will set all of your mp3s volume levels at the same default level. MP3 Gain is great software and it is FREE! Keep in mind that normalizing your audio levels can have an affect on the way they sound.
After all this is done you can go deeper with the ID3v tag editor and really categorize all of your music (Manually of course) You can also use editing programs like audacity or Cool Edit to change or edit your music ( taking out bad words for ex.)
You can als get an mp3 BPM (Beats Per Minute) analyzer/editor to extract the BPM information form your entire library. Mixmeister offers a Very Cool Free BPM Analyzer. Note that the new DJ software on the market automatically BPMs each song when played live at a gig. and other programs can extract BPM and normalize as well as individually being able to edit mp3s id3v tag.
REMEMBER…..
BACK UP YOUR MUSIC AFTER EACH OF THESE STAGES.
Greg Curran
