Zen Touch - A Cautionary Tale ...

[shadowritten]

All you new Zen Touch owners out there may not be aware of the following, so I feel it my duty to let you in on something. Time for a lesson ...

When loading tracks to your spanky new toy, please note that the Touch uses only 1 directory on its hard drive for ALL TRACKS. In short, this means you cannot put tracks with the same file name onto the player (same as you can't have two files with the same name in any one PC folder).

Now obviously, the answer is to call one of the tracks by a slightly different name to avoid conflict. BUT IT'S NOT QUITE THAT SIMPLE ...

You also need to know that the Touch doesn't like tracks with the same number AND THE SAME ID3 TAG NUMBER. Again, this is solved simply by renaming the track.

An example will illustrate my point:

The Corrs' album 'Forgiven, Not Forgotten' has a track called 'Runaway' at position 6. So does Linkin Park's 'Hybrid Theory'. Yes, they're different tracks altogether, but the Touch doesn't know this. So I devised a file name system that solves everything:

For everything bar classical, tag files thus - (artist name)_(year of album release)_(track title). This works beautifully.

For classical, tag files thus - (composer)_(record label and CD number)_(track title).


In either case, when you have two tracks with exactly the same name on one album (it happens on classical discs), just add _(1), _(2), _(3), etc after the tracks concerned.

This way, you can ID3 tag with complete freedom, as the Zen pays more attention to filenames than to tags.

Oh, and in case you're thinking such conflicts aren't that common, I've got about 50 in 2,500 tracks. So, enough to prove problematic, no?

[extremelydodgy]

The chances are that your music isn't tagged properly or that Mediasource can't read the tags. It has odd issues with tags sometimes. Was your Mediasource up to date?


Tracks on the Zen aren't considered to be the same if they have the same filename. The tag information has to be the same too. On the other hand, same filename, no / unreadable tag... yes, the Zen will consider it a duplicate.

[shadowritten]

Originally Posted by extremelydodgy

The chances are that your music isn't tagged properly or that Mediasource can't read the tags.


Tracks on the Zen aren't considered to be the same if they have the same filename. The tag information has to be the same too. On the other hand, same filename, no / unreadable tag... yes, the Zen will consider it a duplicate.

Beg to differ there, old friend. Bitter personal experience has taught me that same filenames do indeed cause conflicts, regardless of the tag situation. Been down that route more times than I care to remember!

[RB05]

So what happens if you're using Windows Media Player to load. For example I've put a few CDs on my PC tonight via WMP, most of the CD's were recognised by the WMP and the tracks themselves in the files of the WMP are called for example "08 Live Forever" (with no Artist name e.g. Oasis because the song is already in the Oasis file).. How do you get around that?

[shadowritten]

The hard way, in my experience. By going into the folder on your PC, renaming files and using Nomad Explorer (which is faster on some PCs for transferring to the Touch, by the way) to transfer tracks.

[RB05]

So basically instead of calling my track

08 Live Forever


It should be:

(Oasis)_(2002)_(Live Forever)



This is going to be a right pain actually - I have a load of Live albums/bootlegs with the same song names..

[shadowritten]

Aha ... bet you wish I'd posted this earlier, huh?

Oh, and you can lose all the ( ) round stuff in the filenames - no need for those.

Sorry, guy - just sharing what I know ...

[RB05]

Originally Posted by shadowritten

Aha ... bet you wish I'd posted this earlier, huh?

Oh, and you can lose all the ( ) round stuff in the filenames - no need for those.

Sorry, guy - just sharing what I know ...

Well I've only done about 10 or so, so its not too bad! Cheers for the info though.


So its just about using Underscores so.

Oasis_2002_Live Forever


thanks for that, saved me a lot of hassle I reckon!

[shadowritten]

No worries!

[extremelydodgy]

Man.... you could have saved yourself a whole load of trouble by just tagging properly, or using Notmad Explorer if you wanted a more straightforward drag & drop.


http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/

[Gethin]

There is a program jtagger (just search on the web) which as well as tagging can rename files based on the tags.

For example you can rename the files to: artist_album_number_track

This would certainly be a lot easiler than doing it by hand. Of course this does suppose that things are tagged to begin with...

[shadowritten]

Originally Posted by extremelydodgy

Man.... you could have saved yourself a whole load of trouble by just tagging properly, or using Notmad Explorer if you wanted a more straightforward drag & drop.


http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/

You're probably right. I only discovered software that can turn tags into filenames AFTER I'd done about 3,000 tracks by hand (takes up to 3 months from ripping to fully tagging and renaming doing that many my way, btw). Part of my problem is that I used to rip in ranges using EAC, as I can't abide gaps in playback - especially in classical music. That means you HAVE to tag and rename by hand; there's no way around it. Unless, of course, you know of one ..?

As for the link, I didn't get on with Notmad. Purely down to personal preference, you understand?

[RB05]

Originally Posted by shadowritten

All you new Zen Touch owners out there may not be aware of the following, so I feel it my duty to let you in on something. Time for a lesson ...

When loading tracks to your spanky new toy, please note that the Touch uses only 1 directory on its hard drive for ALL TRACKS. In short, this means you cannot put tracks with the same file name onto the player (same as you can't have two files with the same name in any one PC folder).

Now obviously, the answer is to call one of the tracks by a slightly different name to avoid conflict. BUT IT'S NOT QUITE THAT SIMPLE ...

You also need to know that the Touch doesn't like tracks with the same number AND THE SAME ID3 TAG NUMBER. Again, this is solved simply by renaming the track.

An example will illustrate my point:

The Corrs' album 'Forgiven, Not Forgotten' has a track called 'Runaway' at position 6. So does Linkin Park's 'Hybrid Theory'. Yes, they're different tracks altogether, but the Touch doesn't know this. So I devised a file name system that solves everything:

For everything bar classical, tag files thus - (artist name)_(year of album release)_(track title). This works beautifully.

For classical, tag files thus - (composer)_(record label and CD number)_(track title).


In either case, when you have two tracks with exactly the same name on one album (it happens on classical discs), just add _(1), _(2), _(3), etc after the tracks concerned.

This way, you can ID3 tag with complete freedom, as the Zen pays more attention to filenames than to tags.

Oh, and in case you're thinking such conflicts aren't that common, I've got about 50 in 2,500 tracks. So, enough to prove problematic, no?

Was just looking over your tagging system there. Wouldn't you need to leave the track number at the beginning... i.e. (track no.)_(artist name)_(year of album release)_(track title)

Also could you put the track title at the beginning (well after the track no. anyway). And because I have so many different versions of songs - instead of release year - maybe I could just put the gig name/or ifs its acoustic/live etc.

What do you think of that?

[shadowritten]

Yep - all workable. Key thing is, whatever system you start needs to have legs - i.e. needs to work across your entire collection. The more tracks you rip, the harder it gets remembering if you might have duplications somewhere else.

Good luck!