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Topic: Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre (Read 6159 times) previous topic - next topic
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Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

I'm having a struggle trying to figure out how to use foobar2000. I'm using the beta version because that's what I was told to use instead of the stable version.
I think I've figured out how to load files, but I am having trouble converting wav files to FLAC.
I select the wav file I want to convert and then right click to the menu and choose "convert". A screen pops up that is not to easy to understand, but I get the gist. Then i tell it to convert and it does, but it's based on faith because there is nothing that tells me it successfully converted the file to FLAC. So I have manually go in and check each one. I just tried my first file and it converted, but now I have a problem with the tagging. I have the title and artist as the file name, but when i go to tag it it just gives choices of Chinese characters and completely irrelevant names of artists and titles.
I don't get it. All i want to do is convert some wav files into FLAC and have them tag automatically as possible with the right info and move on. It appears foobar200 is not capable of doing this. It seems to be more of a player than anything else and I don't need a player.
Thank you. I don't know if I posted in the right section or not.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #1 –
Quote from: reboot on
I select the wav file I want to convert and then right click to the menu and choose "convert". A screen pops up that is not to easy to understand, but I get the gist. Then i tell it to convert and it does, but it's based on faith because there is nothing that tells me it successfully converted the file to FLAC. So I have manually go in and check each one. I just tried my first file and it converted, but now I have a problem with the tagging. I have the title and artist as the file name, but when i go to tag it it just gives choices of Chinese characters and completely irrelevant names of artists and titles.


You have a few steps here. I will assume that you have each song in a single file?

First, WAV to FLAC.
- You right-click, select convert, select the ... at the bottom to get a window with title Converter Setup. To the right, there are four different settings.
- Choose first Output Format. Pick FLAC, and at the bottom: Output bit depth “auto” and Dither “never”. Click the Back button.
- Choose Destination. Since the WAVs are untagged and you have title and artist as file name, then I suggest that you copy the structure. On top, choose a directory (say: D:\converted) and in Output style select individual file, and enter the following: %directoryname%\%filename% (assuming you have only single depth). Click Back.
- Processing: Should read “None” in most cases (even when you have learned what you are doing).
- Other: See the When Done – it gives you the opportunity to show status report, which you obviously have not checked.
(I have to say I don't know how the ReplayGain will behave in this tagless situation.) Click Back.
- You can save this preset. Maybe a good idea.
- Then Convert.

You would then get a copy with the folder structure. If everything is OK, you should be able to select everything and bit-compare to verify that they are the same, but that requires a component.

Tagging, then. For that purpose, I would do one out of two:
- Either manually, album by album, tag by Discogs. Gives quite a lot of information. Takes time if you have many.
- Or find the Mp3Tag freeware application, set it to generate tags from filenames (pattern-based).

There is a masstagger for foobar2000, but ... I guess you don't want that level of technicality.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: reboot on
I select the wav file I want to convert and then right click to the menu and choose "convert". A screen pops up that is not to easy to understand, but I get the gist. Then i tell it to convert and it does, but it's based on faith because there is nothing that tells me it successfully converted the file to FLAC. So I have manually go in and check each one. I just tried my first file and it converted, but now I have a problem with the tagging. I have the title and artist as the file name, but when i go to tag it it just gives choices of Chinese characters and completely irrelevant names of artists and titles.


You have a few steps here. I will assume that you have each song in a single file?

First, WAV to FLAC.
- You right-click, select convert, select the ... at the bottom to get a window with title Converter Setup. To the right, there are four different settings.
- Choose first Output Format. Pick FLAC, and at the bottom: Output bit depth “auto” and Dither “never”. Click the Back button.
- Choose Destination. Since the WAVs are untagged and you have title and artist as file name, then I suggest that you copy the structure. On top, choose a directory (say: D:\converted) and in Output style select individual file, and enter the following: %directoryname%\%filename% (assuming you have only single depth). Click Back.
- Processing: Should read “None” in most cases (even when you have learned what you are doing).
- Other: See the When Done – it gives you the opportunity to show status report, which you obviously have not checked.
(I have to say I don't know how the ReplayGain will behave in this tagless situation.) Click Back.
- You can save this preset. Maybe a good idea.
- Then Convert.

You would then get a copy with the folder structure. If everything is OK, you should be able to select everything and bit-compare to verify that they are the same, but that requires a component.

Tagging, then. For that purpose, I would do one out of two:
- Either manually, album by album, tag by Discogs. Gives quite a lot of information. Takes time if you have many.
- Or find the Mp3Tag freeware application, set it to generate tags from filenames (pattern-based).

There is a masstagger for foobar2000, but ... I guess you don't want that level of technicality.


Thank you kindly for these instructions. Your assumption is correct. I already see things I missed. When I installed I let it do it's thing, perhaps I should have done a custom install. Anyway, I also see that in order to tag a FLAC file I'll have to go outside of foobar2000, judging from what you wrote I see that foobar2000 does not have the ability to tag.
One question: How do I tag by Discogs? Is there a program for that I can install? I'm not going to enter all the tag info manually as I already did that in my database and it took forever. I'd like something automated for the FLAC files.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #3 –
Quote from: reboot on
I also see that in order to tag a FLAC file I'll have to go outside of foobar2000
That's not correct; perhaps foobar2000 seems complex at first because, unlike most other programs, it does not try to babysit you doing things under the hood you're not aware of, but I can assure you there's (almost?) nothing you can't do with it (and its plugins).

Problem is, you'll have to put a bit of effort initially to research and understand how it works: look here for example, but there's a lot more of course. And for Discogs: http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_discogs

HTH.

Alessandro

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #4 –
Quote from: mobyduck on
Quote from: reboot on
I also see that in order to tag a FLAC file I'll have to go outside of foobar2000
That's not correct; perhaps foobar2000 seems complex at first because, unlike most other programs, it does not try to babysit you doing things under the hood you're not aware of, but I can assure you there's (almost?) nothing you can't do with it (and its plugins).

Problem is, you'll have to put a bit of effort initially to research and understand how it works: look here for example, but there's a lot more of course. And for Discogs: http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_discogs

HTH.

Alessandro


Thanks for the links. I don't even know where you got the first link? How do I get to that section? I have been all over the foobar2000 website and nothing I have clicked gets me there. That's what I need is a user's manual! I also have to make sure that I downloaded the right program because in looking at the screenshots, my screens look nothing like them. My screen is super confusing.
I don't mind learning a program, but I don't want to have to take 2 months to do it for something simple like I am doing. As for tagging, I am learning that foobar200 does not tag FLAC files, only MP3 and this will not work for me. I don't want mp3 files.
What I am doing (for a bit of background if you will), is digitizing my vinyl records. I am first encoding them as wav to burn to a CD. After that I want to convert those files to FLAC for archiving. I'm not interested in playing them or even using foobar2000 as a player (which it is primarily). All I want to do is convert to FLAC and tag the FLAC files and shove them away on a HDD for storage. If foobar2000 can not do this in a efficient manner I will probably go back to Audacity and have it convert and then of course use a separate tagging program.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #5 –
wiki is available from the top title bar of every page.
Foobar2000 can tag Flac files.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #6 –
Of course foobar2000 can tag FLAC files.  Just drag them over to the foobar2000 main window (or use main menu: [File] > "Add files..." or "Add folder..."), select them all (CTRL+A), right-click, and select "Properties".  Tag to your heart's content on the "Metadata" tab and click "OK".

If you want, you can do this before conversion.  Just tag your WAV files once they are dropped into foobar2000 as described above and the converted FLAC files will have the same tags.

First thing I'd do, however, is download foobar2000 again and reinstall it using the "Full" install if that's not what you did the first time.  I'd also install the Free Encoder Pack.

http://www.foobar2000.org/getfile/63c6ae04...v1.2_beta_2.exe
http://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack

BTW, if you prefer to automate tagging, just select all the files, right-click, and select "Tagging", then "Get tags from freedb".

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Apesbrain on
Of course foobar2000 can tag FLAC files.  Just drag them over to the foobar2000 main window (or use main menu: [File] > "Add files..." or "Add folder..."), select them all (CTRL+A), right-click, and select "Properties".  Tag to your heart's content on the "Metadata" tab and click "OK".

If you want, you can do this before conversion.  Just tag your WAV files once they are dropped into foobar2000 as described above and the converted FLAC files will have the same tags.

First thing I'd do, however, is download foobar2000 again and reinstall it using the "Full" install if that's not what you did the first time.  I'd also install the Free Encoder Pack.

http://www.foobar2000.org/getfile/63c6ae04...v1.2_beta_2.exe
http://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack

BTW, if you prefer to automate tagging, just select all the files, right-click, and select "Tagging", then "Get tags from freedb".


Those are the files I downloaded and installed but my screens are messy and confusing. I have double list fields and stuff that makes no sense. Maybe re-installing will help. The auto-tagging is the thing that doesn't work. It keeps pulling in Chinese writing and artists and songs that are not even remotely related to what I am wanting to tag. For instance it can't seem to find U2.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #8 –
reboot:

Not to be harsh, but when I was writing my first reply in this thread, I bit my tongue not to go “did you read the menu items you selected?”, and then you write you have “been all over the foobar2000 website” – well if you had gotten so far as to the Components link, you would see “tagging”, and clicing that, you are at http://www.foobar2000.org/components/tag/tagging . fb2k is labeled an “advanced” player, it can be set up to do a helluvalotofthings – and therefore you have to look and read, because it is not feasible to have every possible feature in plain sight.


To your issue:
- You are digitizing LPs.
- Most auto-tagging applications try to identify albums by track-lengths, not by sonic fingerprint (which would mean, “listening to” the album) – there will surely be more of the latter available in the future, but as of now, you cannot (AFAIK) do this within fb2k (or mp3tag, for that matter).
- As LP tracks do not have uniquely given track lengths, most applications will guess wrong. Your track lengths will likely not match the ones of the CD, and it is a fair chance that there will be some totally unrelated album which is closer. (You would maybe have gotten more help if you had described what you were looking for, rather than whining about the software.)


So, what to do?
- You write that you have .wavs with filenames telling of artist and track. You do not tell how you got them or ho they are formatted. Maybe you had to type them yourself. Maybe you entered them into the LP-ripping application. Maybe it is feasible to extract tags from filenames automatically, maybe it isn't (for example, if it uses hyphen dashes between artist and album, then you will sooner or later get into trouble with artists or albums which have the dash in their name).
- Let me just assume that you cannot autotag this way, but you as a human can read it. You have track in filenames like e.g. Black Sabbath Paranoid 01 War Pigs.flac. You drag+drop these into fb2k, and then – with the Discogs component – you mark all, right-click and select Tagging -> Discogs -> write tags. It will not recognize your album from track lengths, but you should easily find the album. If you had already managed to get an artist and an album tag, then it will try to search like that.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Porcus on
reboot:

Not to be harsh, but when I was writing my first reply in this thread, I bit my tongue not to go “did you read the menu items you selected?”, and then you write you have “been all over the foobar2000 website” – well if you had gotten so far as to the Components link, you would see “tagging”, and clicing that, you are at http://www.foobar2000.org/components/tag/tagging . fb2k is labeled an “advanced” player, it can be set up to do a helluvalotofthings – and therefore you have to look and read, because it is not feasible to have every possible feature in plain sight.


To your issue:
- You are digitizing LPs.
- Most auto-tagging applications try to identify albums by track-lengths, not by sonic fingerprint (which would mean, “listening to” the album) – there will surely be more of the latter available in the future, but as of now, you cannot (AFAIK) do this within fb2k (or mp3tag, for that matter).
- As LP tracks do not have uniquely given track lengths, most applications will guess wrong. Your track lengths will likely not match the ones of the CD, and it is a fair chance that there will be some totally unrelated album which is closer. (You would maybe have gotten more help if you had described what you were looking for, rather than whining about the software.)


So, what to do?
- You write that you have .wavs with filenames telling of artist and track. You do not tell how you got them or ho they are formatted. Maybe you had to type them yourself. Maybe you entered them into the LP-ripping application. Maybe it is feasible to extract tags from filenames automatically, maybe it isn't (for example, if it uses hyphen dashes between artist and album, then you will sooner or later get into trouble with artists or albums which have the dash in their name).
- Let me just assume that you cannot autotag this way, but you as a human can read it. You have track in filenames like e.g. Black Sabbath Paranoid 01 War Pigs.flac. You drag+drop these into fb2k, and then – with the Discogs component – you mark all, right-click and select Tagging -> Discogs -> write tags. It will not recognize your album from track lengths, but you should easily find the album. If you had already managed to get an artist and an album tag, then it will try to search like that.


Alright, let's see here:
1) Yes. I did see the "tagging" section and did click on it and read it - check. Made no sense because it was assuming advanced knowledge of the subject (like taking a masters course without having taken the pre-requesites. It also kept claiming it could auto tag and do what I want, but did not explain how to do it.
2) I am digitizing LPs - check
3) I didn't think track length would be an important factor in tagging as far as ID goes, but what you say makes sense.
4) Yes, track lengths on LPs will never match CDs or digital anything, already knew that. - check
5) I did describe what I was looking for - check
6) File names of my wav files are done on my CD recorder (Tascam CDRW900SL) recorded in redbook and ripped to wav via windows media player. - check
7) I then run those through Audacity and do end up renaming them with "track title-artist", but only on singles. For albums, no renaming required, it's already done by the recorder in the following format: Song title, Artist
8) Your example of format and instruction about drag and drop and the rest is not even mentioned in the required reading.

To have to go through all this just to do two simple things is absurd at best.
Since then I have discovered that I am asking what is primarily a player to do non-player things. Same with other programs such as Media Monkey and the like. Just as quirky because I am expecting instruction on how to do things that the player program is able to do, but not in it's main wheelhouse, so it doesn't really go into it.
fb2k is primarily a file player and a very advanced one at that. It is not primarily a file manipulator or convertor or what have you even though it does those things, they are not what fb2k was designed to do primarily.
So I conclude that fb2k, media monkey and other similar players are not the programs I am looking for. I have a line on another program that is not designed primarily as a player (I don't need a player becuase I will not be playing the FLAC files), but is more focused on what I need to do, so I should get further with it.
Thanks for trying to help, but fb2k is more for developers than lay people. Not a bad thing or a good thing, it just is which is how other things get developed.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #10 –
Quote from: reboot on
To have to go through all this just to do two simple things is absurd at best. fb2k is [...] not primarily a file manipulator or convertor or what have you even though it does those things.  fb2k is more for developers than lay people.

It is rare and somewhat frowned upon to declare something said on these forums as "complete nonsense", but I think most foobar2000 users would agree that this is one of those times when saying exactly that is entirely appropriate.  While I prefer to use Mp3tag for my tagging needs, I can confidently say that foobar2000 is the most useful application I have when it comes to managing and converting music files.  There is no other free program that I know which handles more music formats including DVD-A, SACD, HDCD, DSD and just about any lossless or lossy format out there.  It is invaluable for converting WAV/lossless sample rates and bit-depth, and for applying ReplayGain values to almost any type of music file.  It can rip CDs and fetch tags for the resulting files.  It can even burn CD-Rs.  I've used it to bit-compare the output of two supposedly identical files and also to run ABX tests to help me decide a bitrate for my portable files.  Hell, it can even tell me if my needledrops have SBEs (although I need Traders Little Helper to fix them).  There are dozens of other things foobar2000 can do and it's all because of the support of this community and a loyal cadre of awesome developers.

It may not be your cup of tea, but please don't come in here spouting unsubstantiated criticism of the program just because you couldn't figure out how to use it.  BTW, something more is wrong there as I know that when I first discovered foobar2000 well over five years ago it took me no more than 30 minutes (and I'm not a developer) to master the basics of the application.  Even so, I'm still learning new things about what it can do almost every day.

I don't mean to pile on, but I don't want others who could benefit by what this incredibly useful application can do to be put off by your experience.  You are in the minority on this one.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #11 –
Quote from: reboot on
6) File names of my wav files are done on my CD recorder (Tascam CDRW900SL) recorded in redbook and ripped to wav via windows media player.


So you digitized a vinyl to whatever format, burnt it to CD, ripped the CD to WAV and ...
... why?

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #12 –
Quote:

"What I am doing (for a bit of background if you will), is digitizing my vinyl records. I am first encoding them as wav to burn to a CD. After that I want to convert those files to FLAC for archiving. I'm not interested in playing them or even using foobar2000 as a player (which it is primarily). All I want to do is convert to FLAC and tag the FLAC files and shove them away on a HDD for storage. If foobar2000 can not do this in a efficient manner I will probably go back to Audacity and have it convert and then of course use a separate tagging program."

Somewhat off topic - but - you are heading for a disaster in the future. Average shelf life of a burned CD is 10 years if you are lucky. I have had some top quality blank CDR burnt on top quality PCs that have lasted less than 3 years! As for shoving the FLAC files on an HDD for storage - you will be lucky if the HDD lasts 10 years - expect any hard disk to die within 5 years - if it lasts longer, consider that a bonus ;-)

You would be well advised to throw the CDR away and just play the FLAC files through a decent sound card/USB module to your favourite amp - using foobar2000 - after you have tagged them correctly. Also, keep at least 3 copies of all the FLAC files on 3 different hard drives/PCs - and keep a copy offsite in case you get burgled or your house burns down ;-( Having lost 2 hard drives within 2 hours of each other, consider this as advice from a realist ...

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Apesbrain on
Quote from: reboot on
To have to go through all this just to do two simple things is absurd at best. fb2k is [...] not primarily a file manipulator or convertor or what have you even though it does those things.  fb2k is more for developers than lay people.

It is rare and somewhat frowned upon to declare something said on these forums as "complete nonsense", but I think most foobar2000 users would agree that this is one of those times when saying exactly that is entirely appropriate.  While I prefer to use Mp3tag for my tagging needs, I can confidently say that foobar2000 is the most useful application I have when it comes to managing and converting music files.  There is no other free program that I know which handles more music formats including DVD-A, SACD, HDCD, DSD and just about any lossless or lossy format out there.  It is invaluable for converting WAV/lossless sample rates and bit-depth, and for applying ReplayGain values to almost any type of music file.  It can rip CDs and fetch tags for the resulting files.  It can even burn CD-Rs.  I've used it to bit-compare the output of two supposedly identical files and also to run ABX tests to help me decide a bitrate for my portable files.  Hell, it can even tell me if my needledrops have SBEs (although I need Traders Little Helper to fix them).  There are dozens of other things foobar2000 can do and it's all because of the support of this community and a loyal cadre of awesome developers.

It may not be your cup of tea, but please don't come in here spouting unsubstantiated criticism of the program just because you couldn't figure out how to use it.  BTW, something more is wrong there as I know that when I first discovered foobar2000 well over five years ago it took me no more than 30 minutes (and I'm not a developer) to master the basics of the application.  Even so, I'm still learning new things about what it can do almost every day.

I don't mean to pile on, but I don't want others who could benefit by what this incredibly useful application can do to be put off by your experience.  You are in the minority on this one.


What OS are you using? I'm using Win 7 Pro 64-bit, perhaps it doesn't work as well in that OS, although I must admit that doesn't make much sense. On the other hand, WIN 7 64-bit will not run Exact Audio Copy, so.....?
I have no doubt that fb2k is capable of all that stuff, but it is not easy to do through cryptic programming. When I first saw screen shots of fbk2 I had high hopes because what could be easier than drag and drop and right click? My screens look nothing like the screen shots and all I did was let it install how it wants. So I am at a great disadvantage from the word go with that. I'm frustrated because I can not get the same screens I see posted so I can figure it out. Also, the tagging does not work, but it could be partially a problem with my file name formats.
Anyway, I have to give up on it because it is making a very simple task very difficult. I'm also not deep into digital files and MP3s and music servers and all that (save some sound engineering and re-equing and such in Audacity, so I just wanted to convert to a different lossless but smaller file for archiving while maintaining a name I can recognize so I can find it later should the need come up.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: reboot on
6) File names of my wav files are done on my CD recorder (Tascam CDRW900SL) recorded in redbook and ripped to wav via windows media player.


So you digitized a vinyl to whatever format, burnt it to CD, ripped the CD to WAV and ...
... why?


I rip the cda (redbook) files created by the Tascam to wav because I have to run them through Audacity to check levels and such and make any needed adjustments and also clean them up from any notable clicks or pops. Most of my vinyl is in VG condition, but once in a while a little extra scrubbing is needed for that occasional one. After that I burn to CD-r (high quality CD-r) for listening on the go. Then I want to convert to FLAC for archiving. Some albums sound better on vinyl than on the purchased CD version. Some albums never made it and won't ever be released on CD. There are lots of reasons for doing what I am doing. Whether they are valid or not depends on the individual.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Midiman on
Quote:

"What I am doing (for a bit of background if you will), is digitizing my vinyl records. I am first encoding them as wav to burn to a CD. After that I want to convert those files to FLAC for archiving. I'm not interested in playing them or even using foobar2000 as a player (which it is primarily). All I want to do is convert to FLAC and tag the FLAC files and shove them away on a HDD for storage. If foobar2000 can not do this in a efficient manner I will probably go back to Audacity and have it convert and then of course use a separate tagging program."

Somewhat off topic - but - you are heading for a disaster in the future. Average shelf life of a burned CD is 10 years if you are lucky. I have had some top quality blank CDR burnt on top quality PCs that have lasted less than 3 years! As for shoving the FLAC files on an HDD for storage - you will be lucky if the HDD lasts 10 years - expect any hard disk to die within 5 years - if it lasts longer, consider that a bonus ;-)

You would be well advised to throw the CDR away and just play the FLAC files through a decent sound card/USB module to your favourite amp - using foobar2000 - after you have tagged them correctly. Also, keep at least 3 copies of all the FLAC files on 3 different hard drives/PCs - and keep a copy offsite in case you get burgled or your house burns down ;-( Having lost 2 hard drives within 2 hours of each other, consider this as advice from a realist ...


Well, I agree with "backup, backup, backup", wise to do so. I also agree that HDDs last for about 5-6 years at best. You have a good idea keeping several copies with one off-site and such, but I have to ask: if one does make the 3 copies or what have you on three different HDDs at the same time and they have a lifespan of 6 years at best, then they would expire at about the some time leaving one with no files, would they not? The only way around that I can think of is to get 3 more HDDs in 4 years and transfer everything over to them.

As for CDs lasting 10 years at best...sorry, not true. I have CDs far older than 10 years and they are fine. I use top-end TY CD-rs. I used to use cheapo riteks or what have you and you would be lucky if they lasted 3 years.
I'm also not interested in ripping 900 CDs to a PC, connecting the PC to the receiver, booting up the PC and listening to my music through a noisy sound card every time I want to listen to music. I guess I'm just old fashion, but proud of it.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #16 –
Anyway, I have to give up on fb2k. It's probably one of the best applications out there for those who like to drill real deep and tinker a lot and it's kind of like Linux in that it's always being developed by dedicated folks which is a good thing. However, I still feel that it is not for those wanting to do simple tasks and not tinker all the time. To each their own though.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #17 –
Quote from: reboot on
What OS are you using? I'm using Win 7 Pro 64-bit, perhaps it doesn't work as well in that OS, although I must admit that doesn't make much sense. On the other hand, WIN 7 64-bit will not run Exact Audio Copy, so.....?

I have foobar2000 and Exact Audio Copy running on Win XP Pro SP-3, Win 7 x64 Home Premium SP-1, and Win 7 x64 Ultimate SP-1; all without issue.  Good that you've found something that works for you, but please stop spreading FUD.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #18 –
This thread reminds me of a thread at another place with a user who stated as a matter of fact that. . .
"foobar2000 does not save output files when I use the converter. . .I tried my best but, sorry to say, foobar is broken"
some back and forth arguing ensued with me trying to tell him that this was a PEBKAC problem and not a foobar2000 problem,
which pricked his ego, causing a caustic reply from him. . .and this was my final reply back to him:

Quote
I guarantee you that foobar2000 does not have a saving problem .

Do you remember looking at the console messages? In the “Converter Setup” window, inside the ‘Destination’ section, did you make sure the input fields looked correct, and did the ‘Preview’ field show the expected result? Did you check ‘Show full status report’ inside the ‘Other’ section?

When conversion is running you should see a ‘Converting…’ window giving you visual feedback that processing is happening. When finished, a file listing window ‘Converter Output’ pops up AND a console message window ‘Status Report’ pops up .

If you “Right click -> Go To Containing Folder” on the tracks in the “Converter Output” pop-up window, then the “Save As” directory will pop up in Explorer.

You do not remember anything about your troubleshooting steps except some vague recollection about “stopped saving files” .

TRY HARDER.. . .and go read this discussion: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=815945

Actually . . .there is another possible reason for this happening . . .the file/folder policies, permissions and attributes of your filesystem are not set how you want them to be. This can be caused by third-party programs and/or the operating system itself .

Some programs —iTunes and Windows Media Player come to mind— are known to do whatever they like to your filesystem to suit themselves. This can be a problem if you also use other programs, such as foobar2000 .

foobar2000 is designed to NOT INTEFERE with your system settings or other programs in the slightest, therefore if it is operating on folders and files which are also accessed by other ‘rogue’ programs such as the two I mentioned (amongst many others), then there is a good chance of having problems with file/folder policies and permissions .

If I was doing a conversion using foobar2000 and noticed a “not saving” problem, then the first thing I would do is try again following the steps I outlined at the beginning of this post. If the problem still exists, then I would open Task Manager and have a look at what other processes and services are running at this time. Maybe there is another program or service which is monitoring and hooking in to my real-time activities .

After dealing with that, I would then create a test folder on my Desktop and make sure I have full read/write permissions set on that folder, and then do another foobar2000 conversion into that test folder .

He never left another reply. . .

So, addressing comments left by the OP here at his initial post:
" then i tell it to convert and it does, but it's based on faith because there is nothing that tells me it successfully converted the file to FLAC . . . but now I have a problem with the tagging. I have the title and artist as the file name, but when i go to tag it it just gives choices of Chinese characters and completely irrelevant names of artists and titles "

So you finished converting WAV to FLAC, and you got two popup windows .......yes?

The 'Status Report' console message window said "All tracks converted successfully" ......yes? ......if no, then what did you see there?

The 'Converter Output' window was displaying your converted tracks ......yes? ........this window is just like your Playlist Viewer; it has columns, and each column is showing the value inside a Tag. For example: the 'Artist' column is showing you the value inside the $meta(artist) Tag. The 'Album' column is showing you the value inside the $meta(album) Tag ....and so on and so on.

For each item in the 'Converter Output' window, the display strings are the strings found in your Tags !!! ....if the item display strings look wrong to you, then that means you need to learn how to use foobar2000 titleformatting syntax when setting up the Converter.

While running foobar2000, go and read the titleformatting syntax reference here: Help -> Title formatting help

Drag some audio files into your Playlist Viewer and have a play around ......right click on the column header and make a new column and give it some titleformatting for the display ......try this:

Give the column this header title:
Quote
FileExt | Codec

Give the column this display script:
Quote
$if($strstr($lower(%path%),'cdda:'),'.cda',['.'$ext(%path%)]) '|' $if($strstr(%path%,'cdda:'),'PCM',$if($stricmp($ext(%path%),'mka'),%codec%,$if($stricmp($ext(%path%),'mkv'),%codec%,$if($strstr(%codec%,'Musepack'),'MPC',$if($strstr(%codec%,'Monkey'$char(39)'s Audio'),'APE',$if($strstr(%codec%,'MLP'),'MLP',$if($stricmp(%codec%,'mp3'),'MP3',$if($stricmp($ext(%path%),'mp4'),%codec%,$if($strstr(%codec%,'PCM (floating-point)'),'PCM (float)',$if($strstr(%codec%,'PCM'),'PCM',$if($strstr(%codec%,'WavPack'),'WV',$if($and($stricmp($ext(%path%),'wav'),$strstr(%codec%,'MPEG Layer-3')) ,'MPEG L-3',$if($ext($if3(%__referenced_file%,%filename_ext%)),$UPPER($ext($if3(%__referenced_file%,%filename_ext%))),[%codec%])))))))))))))


Keep playing with foobar like that for a while ....don't worry about the "difficulty" ...just keep going and DON'T GIVE UP SO EASILY!

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #19 –
Quote from: derty2 on
This thread reminds me of a thread at another place with a user who stated as a matter of fact that. . .
"foobar2000 does not save output files when I use the converter. . .I tried my best but, sorry to say, foobar is broken"
some back and forth arguing ensued with me trying to tell him that this was a PEBKAC problem and not a foobar2000 problem,
which pricked his ego, causing a caustic reply from him. . .and this was my final reply back to him:

Quote
I guarantee you that foobar2000 does not have a saving problem .

Do you remember looking at the console messages? In the “Converter Setup” window, inside the ‘Destination’ section, did you make sure the input fields looked correct, and did the ‘Preview’ field show the expected result? Did you check ‘Show full status report’ inside the ‘Other’ section?

When conversion is running you should see a ‘Converting…’ window giving you visual feedback that processing is happening. When finished, a file listing window ‘Converter Output’ pops up AND a console message window ‘Status Report’ pops up .

If you “Right click -> Go To Containing Folder” on the tracks in the “Converter Output” pop-up window, then the “Save As” directory will pop up in Explorer.

You do not remember anything about your troubleshooting steps except some vague recollection about “stopped saving files” .

TRY HARDER.. . .and go read this discussion: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=815945

Actually . . .there is another possible reason for this happening . . .the file/folder policies, permissions and attributes of your filesystem are not set how you want them to be. This can be caused by third-party programs and/or the operating system itself .

Some programs —iTunes and Windows Media Player come to mind— are known to do whatever they like to your filesystem to suit themselves. This can be a problem if you also use other programs, such as foobar2000 .

foobar2000 is designed to NOT INTEFERE with your system settings or other programs in the slightest, therefore if it is operating on folders and files which are also accessed by other ‘rogue’ programs such as the two I mentioned (amongst many others), then there is a good chance of having problems with file/folder policies and permissions .

If I was doing a conversion using foobar2000 and noticed a “not saving” problem, then the first thing I would do is try again following the steps I outlined at the beginning of this post. If the problem still exists, then I would open Task Manager and have a look at what other processes and services are running at this time. Maybe there is another program or service which is monitoring and hooking in to my real-time activities .

After dealing with that, I would then create a test folder on my Desktop and make sure I have full read/write permissions set on that folder, and then do another foobar2000 conversion into that test folder .

He never left another reply. . .


Just for clarity, at least this was not a problem for me. Sure, I did not get a progress meter or anything like that, but it did convert the file lickity split. It's a bit confusing with the pop up window when I did it, but I just left thigns alone and clicked "ok". Granted, I had to go see if it sucessfully converted and it did.
Also, I don't believe foobar2000 does anything to one's system, at least nothing has happened to mine. foobar2k is not malware or anything like that. That is rediculious.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #20 –
Quote from: Apesbrain on
Quote from: reboot on
What OS are you using? I'm using Win 7 Pro 64-bit, perhaps it doesn't work as well in that OS, although I must admit that doesn't make much sense. On the other hand, WIN 7 64-bit will not run Exact Audio Copy, so.....?

I have foobar2000 and Exact Audio Copy running on Win XP Pro SP-3, Win 7 x64 Home Premium SP-1, and Win 7 x64 Ultimate SP-1; all without issue.  Good that you've found something that works for you, but please stop spreading FUD.


Well, I have done a few updates since the last time I tried to run EAC, so I should try it again. I'd love to get it working. My question about foobar2k running in a 64-bit environment was merely clutching at straws like I CLEARLY stated: "but that doesn't make much sense" in my post. I was just trying to figure out why I was not getting any of the screens in the examples I see and such, my screens look so different and cryptic. It stands to reason that I should be getting the same screens as the examples at least to begin with so I can learn the program.
As for spreading FUD. I think not. I can only report what I see on my screen and I am lost because I am not seeing what I should be seeing according to descriptions given.
I would not even be in here if I was getting the correct screens and clear basic instruction, which by the way I only got from these forums, thank you. Sadly, I am not seeing what I should be seeing through no fault of my own unless I errored in the install somehow, but I installed twice and just let it choose what it wanted, so I don't know what went wrong.
Anyway, I am moving on to a different program. If I ever get into playing FLAC files, I might revisit foobar2k if nothing better is available and currently I don't know of anything better for that.

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #21 –
Comment by Reboot at Post #20    —    "Just for clarity, at least this was not a problem for me. Sure, I did not get a progress meter or anything like that, but it did convert the file lickity split. It's a bit confusing with the pop up window when I did it, but I just left thigns alone and clicked "ok". Granted, I had to go see if it sucessfully converted and it did. Also, I don't believe foobar2000 does anything to one's system, at least nothing has happened to mine. foobar2k is not malware or anything like that. That is rediculious."

Right, now I see what this is all about. . .

My concluding comment to the other user was: this is a PEBKAC problem and not a foobar2000 problem

however, for you, my concluding comment is this: this is a COMMUNICATION AND PEBKAC problem and not a foobar2000 problem
 

Difficult program to figure out how to use - Also is not tagging corre

Reply #22 –
Quote from: reboot on
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: reboot on
6) File names of my wav files are done on my CD recorder (Tascam CDRW900SL) recorded in redbook and ripped to wav via windows media player.


So you digitized a vinyl to whatever format, burnt it to CD, ripped the CD to WAV and ...
... why?


I rip the cda (redbook) files created by the Tascam to wav because


Why do you burn the vinyl rips to CD just to rip them?