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Topic: Seperating duplicates in different codecs in foobar2000 library (Read 1081 times) previous topic - next topic
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Seperating duplicates in different codecs in foobar2000 library

I have a music library that is mostly flac. However every .flac album has an .mp3 duplicate in a folder named 'albumtitle [mp3]', since I copy the mp3 versions to my smartphone.

In foobar2000, however, I prefer to listen to the .flac files so I restrict to *.flac in the preferences.

The problem that I have is that there are a handful of albums that I only have in .mp3, and would like to see these in foobar2000.

So my question is is there a way to tell foobar2000 to show .flac versions, unless there is no .flac version in which case show .mp3 versions?

I suspect there is no way to do the above, in which case does anyone have a nice alternative way to deal with this problem?

I hope my question makes sense and thanks in advance for your help.

Re: Seperating duplicates in different codecs in foobar2000 library

Reply #1 –
Adjust your converter settings so it creates files named *.flac.mp3 when creating mp3 copies of your flac files.

Go to File/Preferences/Media library and add *.flac.mp3 to the excluded files.

Obviously you'll have to redo/rename all your previous converts not currently following this format.

Re: Seperating duplicates in different codecs in foobar2000 library

Reply #2 –
Quote from: usersnab123 on
The problem that I have is that there are a handful of albums that I only have in .mp3, and would like to see these in foobar2000.

So my question is is there a way to tell foobar2000 to show .flac versions, unless there is no .flac version in which case show .mp3 versions?
Well you could just move the duplicate backup MP3s out of the foobar monitored folders, while keeping the MP3-only albums in there. I do the same thing when converting to AAC/MP3 to put on my player; save them in a backup folder. There is really no need for them to be in the library seeing I have the FLACs.

Also I'm sure there is some title-formatting you could apply. What components are you using to display the library? If you use Facets for example you can switch a filter button on/off to display lossy or lossless codecs (or any other number of filters) - much better than restricting to FLAC in preferences. You could also make a separate tab in your layout displaying only FLACs, or an auto-playlist the same. No doubt there is a complicated string that can exclude files if the path has '[mp3]' in it, you only need a point of difference like that to distinguish the duplicates.

I'm sure someone will come along any minute now with the perfect code snippet to use for this situation. Unfortunately that person is not me because that shit confuses the hell out of me at the best of times. ??? (Sorry, I usually just spy on the forums and wrangle bits of code from other people)

Re: Seperating duplicates in different codecs in foobar2000 library

Reply #3 –
Honestly I think the best option would be to redesign library - physically. Create for example 3 folders (assuming M:\ is the drive letter for your disk with music):
M:\MP3-TC\    (for transcodes)
M:\MP3\       (for those only available in mp3)
M:\FLAC\       (for main part of your library)
You can then say foobar to monitor only 2nd and 3rd folder and don't care about 1st one (don't see it in library - you really don't need it).
I have organized my music in similar way.
 

Re: Seperating duplicates in different codecs in foobar2000 library

Reply #4 –
^ Yeah, one way or another the OP would have to change the library, either renaming/moving the physical files or changing title-formatting and/or tags. You want fb2k to ignore one set of MP3s but not another, there has to be a difference between them that it can register.

Another example, you could give the duplicate MP3s a %rating% tag of 1 star, and then get fb2k to ignore tracks that have 1 star, with something like $ifgreater(%rating%,1,%<artist>%)

(Do not quote me on that  :P )