MP3db Online Help

Configuration

Configuration

When starting MP3db the first time, the options dialog is shown. This dialog is accessible later under menu Extras->Options.

Database Location

Default: "MP3db.mdb" at My Files. You can leave this unchanged.

MP3db will create a new database file if the file does not exist.

MP3 Search Paths

Enter the root directories of your hard drive(s), or better: Click on the plus sign and select some directories where you save your audio files. Different entries are delimited by a colon.

You can select directories from fixed hard drives and external or removable media as well, or directories from your network.

Example: C:\;D:\;E:\mp3\;\\Orion\mp3

Player

Choose between the integrated player, WinAmp or another player.

You can get a free version of WinAmp at www.winamp.com

Another very popular player is VLC.

Device

When using the integrated player, please select the preferred device for playback.

With professional sound cards, you can achieve the best sound quality by selecting the ASIO driver.

Scanning for audio files

After you have configured the MP3 Search Paths, select menu "File->Read Files from Harddisk.."

The program scans the search paths for audio files and collects the title information from these files into the database.

This step must be repeated, when you have collected new files on your hard-disks.

Alternatively you can also drag and drop folders to the main window.

Manage files from your removable drives (CD-ROMs, USB-Sticks, external hard drives..)

With the today hardware costs it should be no problem, to keep all audio files on harddisks for immediate access.

However, when you have collected your music on CD-ROM's and DVD's, you can manage the with MP3db too.

Insert a removable medium and select menu "File->Read Files from removable Device..".

Ensure that all external media devices are named with a distinct volume-label, because that is, how the program detects them. Even if you attach this medium later to a different USB port, the program will find this medium by it's name.

When trying to play such a file, MP3db will ask you to insert this medium with the given volume-label.

You can also add files from external media by drag and drop.

Sorting

 

Click on a column header to sort by that column.

Click again on the column header to sort in reverse order.

Click on a column header with pressed Ctrl-key to remove the sort.

Click on a column header, hold down Shift-key to sort by another column.

Click on the icon "Field List" to display additional columns. Expand the "ID" column to sort by the original order (by clicking on the column header ID).

Grouping

Click on the icon "Group". Below the column headers you can see an area titled "drag columns here for grouping."

Drag with the mouse one or more columns and drop them into this area. The view will be shown grouped by this column.

Click on a small +/- icon in each row to expand or collapse the group.

Click on the + or - icon in the toolbar to expand or collapse all groups.

Click again on the icon "Group" to return to the default view.

Some useful groupings are already prepered. Click on the small arrow next to the icon "Group" and select one of these Preferences.

Searching

Quick Search [F6]

Most of the time you will use the following search functions for fast retrieving the tracks:

1.)

1. Click on the button "Search [F6]" or press F6
2. Under "All Fields" enter a search phrase and click OK
3. Or refine your search using the other fields
4. The program shows all tracks that contain the search phrases
5. Select > All Records [F8] or press F8 to show all records again.

2.) Right click on a title and select one of the following:

• All titles from this artist
• All titles from this album
• ...

Extended Search [F7]

Click on "Extended Search [F7]" or press F7.

Create an advanced query with some boolean combined terms. Theses queries can be saved for later access.
Select > All Records [F8] or press F8 to show all records again.

Search using the binocular symbol

Clicking on the binocular symbol invokes the text search (within the results). This search does not use the database index and is quite slow.

Play / Enqueue

Double-click on a track in the main window. The track is enqueued to the end of the playlist and will be played later. If there are random tracks in the list, it will be inserted just before the next random track.

To play a track immediately, select "right click->Instant Play".

You can also drag and drop tracks from the main window to the play-list.

Under menu Extras->Options you can configure, which player you want to use. Many 3rd-party players can be used and started via the command line.

Copy Files

Sure you want to someday copy a selection of songs to burn these files to a CD-ROM or to copy to your portable MP3 player.

Highlight a song or select multiple tracks by simultaneously pressing the Ctrl or Shift key.

From the Main Menu select Title->Copy files

Or click with the right mouse button on a highlighted track and select this function from the context menu.

Delete Files

Select one or more tracks (by holding Ctrl or Shift) and select menu Title->Delete Files.

Thus, the files are physically deleted (moved to the Windows Recycle Bin) and removed from the database.

Edit Tags

What are ID3 tags?

The meta information such as title, artist, album, etc. are stored with MP3 files in so called ID3 tags. There are versions ID3 Version 1 + 2

For more information, see www.id3.org

MP3db supports both ID3 versions 1 and 2.x

Edit ID3 Tags

Highlight a song and choose from the main menu "Title->Edit Tag"

This opens the ID3 Tag Editor and you can edit the entries in your MP3 file ud store them permanently. Because the entries are written directly into your MP3 file, they are later visible to other programs. ^*

*) ID3 V2 tags are visible only in programs that support ID3 V2.

ID3 Multi-Tag Editor

MP3db has a highly practical multi-tag editor which allows you to write identical ID3 information to multiple files.

To highlight multiple files hold down Ctrl or Shift key.

Then select from the main menu "Title->Edit tags"

This opens the ID3 tag editor with the option to enable individual fields. The data for all the selected files will then be written or overwritten only in these active fields.

This is very useful when you want to write the same "album", "artist", "year" etc. to multiple MP3 files.

Edit other formats

MP3db also supports editing of tags in OGG/Vorbis files and Windows Media Audio (WMA) files.

Export Database

Main menu "File->Export Database" allows you to export your database to a CSV file (delimited text file). Such text files can be read by most other database programs. You can open CSV files with your spread-sheet application. If the data istn't displayed in clean columns there, try another delimiter with the export options. Try Comma or Semi-Colon.

On the other hand, MP3db uses Microsoft Access as it's database format. Of course you can also open these *.mdb files directly with MS-Access or other programs, that supports MS-Access databases.

Duplicate Search

Duplicate search for similar tracks

MP3db uses FuzzyDupes to perform a fuzzy duplicate search. It searches in the columns artist, album and title for similar records.

Select menu Extras->Fuzzy duplicate search to start the search. Later choose "F8 - All records" to return to the default view.

FuzzyDupes is also available as a separate application that allows you to search all databases, eg. your customer database. For more information on FuzzyDupes see /products/fuzzydupes/