I’m finally making a real effort to add beets to my life. I’ve been hesitant because I like what I like and I (mostly) know what I’m doing, you know? I also have a lot of local independent albums that are just not likely to get tagged anyway.

But here I am. Yesterday I was able to work through:

  • Implementing my preferred directory structure and naming conventions
  • Adding album art (embedded and in the folder)
  • Embedding lyrics
  • Adding ReplyGain information

I use Navidrome as my server and have a collection of about 2000 albums.

What are some of your tips for using beets?

What cool things are you doing?

What should I be thinking about as I go about this?

  • fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vipEnglish
    8·
    20 hours ago

    i fucked with beets importing my measly 20 thousand songs over a weekend or so and it was uhh

    miserable for a person with insane ADHD

    i couldnt pay attention for shit

    nowadays, if something pops up in a navidrome smart playlist or isn’t found in the genre it should be, i will open up that whole folder in picard and go to town.

    I can blast one artist into submission, but trying to spend all day doing it, artist after artist, my brain melts.

    • BruisedMoose@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      4·
      18 hours ago

      I suppose I should take another look at Picard as well. For a lot of years, I’ve relied on MP3tag for everything. It’s just a simple interface, I know how to make it do what I want. I like managing tags.

      But I figure with beets, I can take care of the tagging and some things I’ve been doing manually or have other processes for - like downloading lyrics and applying ReplayGain information.

      My plan with beets is to just take it an artist at a time, see how it goes, and then if I can’t find a groove or don’t like what it’s doing, I can give up.

      • fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vipEnglish
        1·
        18 hours ago

        heck your post already had me check if beets can be installed on bazzite, which, yay python!

        I started trying to see how hard it would be to get started but don’t have the time today to get reacquainted with it lol

        • BruisedMoose@piefed.socialOPEnglish
          2·
          10 hours ago

          Not going to lie, I spent the weekend having Gemini step me through each bit that I wanted to accomplish. I think having a solid idea of the specifics of what I wanted to do helped a lot. Previously id gone in like “manage my collection, app!” with no clear idea of what I even needed.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      19 hours ago

      I’ve switched to Picard, too. I do think for a task like this a GUI makes a big difference. I tried with beets, but you really have to do a lot of research in advance to understand what it is doing and the settings you need, and it’s not one-size-fits-all.

      If you don’t have a lot of indie stuff, and you primarily have whole albums, AND you have the patience to go through your entire library one track at a time, then I’m sure it works fine.

      The advantage of Picard is that you can see many tracks at a glance to focus on the ones that need attention. Plus you can pause at any time and pick up where you left off.

      I now do almost all of this through Strawberry, which has Picard built in.

      • BruisedMoose@piefed.socialOPEnglish
        2·
        18 hours ago

        “I tried with beets, but you really have to do a lot of research in advance to understand what it is doing and the settings you need, and it’s not one-size-fits-all.”

        This is exactly how it’s gone for me in the past. This is maybe my 3rd or 4th attempt at it, but I finally feel like I’m getting a handle on it.