Google Music Findings, Useful information

[despich]

Been using Google Music for a little bit and thought I would share some findings and some tips.

1. Once uploaded Google Music only pays attention to the "ID" tags in the Music files to determine how to organize them. So if a lot of your music does not have these tags then all the music without tags gets dumped into a "Unknown album" "Unknown Artist" album. Your nicely ordered directory structure with artist names and album names are worthless to Google. So you better fix your ID tags on your music before you upload them or otherwise they may be very hard to find in the music app.

2. The best program I have found for automatically "fixing" your ID tags on music is MusicBrainZ which is actually free. Add your Directory of Music, Select all and pick "scan" once complete (takes about 2 seconds a song to identify) then Select everything on the Right that has been Identified and Pick Save. This will Fix the ID tags on your files for almost all of your music. (please donate to MusicBrainz as it's a open source user supported project)

3. If you fix the ID tags on existing music files after you have already uploaded them Google Music Manager does notice the changes and treats these modified song files as new songs. So then you have the old song (without the tags) and the new song (with the tags) in the cloud. Google Music manager is just for uploading it is not a "syncronizing" tool and I consider that an advantage, in my opinion that has always been a crutch of Apple devices in that they are Locked to syncing with one device. There is nothing that prevents you from loading Google Music manager on multiple computers and uploading from all of them to your cloud account.

4. Once you have fixed your tags on all your songs and got them all uploaded you can delete the "Unknown Artist" "Unknown album" from the cloud. By going into the Web interface music.google.com picking that album and then selecting the little drop down arrow next to the album and pick Delete Album.

If anyone else has any tips, I would be happy to add them and could start a Google Music FAQ out of this.

 

[xtkxhom3r]

wow thanks for posting that app i am going to try it out tonight bro i just synced all my music last night and its a mess with the whole unknown album and and artist thing.... its weird that itunes works fine though....

 

[kkwus74]

Where do you get musicbrainz from? It doesn't show up in the market?

Sent from my HTC Evo

 

[Slimgym20]

Where do you get musicbrainz from? It doesn't show up in the market?

Sent from my HTC Evo

Its a program for you computer. Google it.

 

[HuckFinn]

I have a question for you. I did not point the music manager to my main music folder as it is way to big and honestly I do not want it all in the cloud. So instead I created a Google folder that I copy music into to sync. The issue is that now I have copies of my music. So long story short , if I delete files from my Google folder is it going to remove those from the cloud when I sync?

 

[despich]

I have a question for you. I did not point the music manager to my main music folder as it is way to big and honestly I do not want it all in the cloud. So instead I created a Google folder that I copy music into to sync. The issue is that now I have copies of my music. So long story short , if I delete files from my Google folder is it going to remove those from the cloud when I sync?

I am sure it does not remove them from the cloud. Everything I have read says music manager is just for adding songs to the cloud. It. doesn't say anything about Syncing or removing. The other issue it would have if it deleted songs would be if you wanted to use Music manager on multiple computers but with the same Google account. I can tell it still leaves them in the cloud becuase after I had fixed the Tags on my songs all the songs without the tags were still in the cloud under the "Unknown Artist unknown Album" even though the ones with the correct tags were there also.

 

[bparvin]

Been using Google Music for a little bit and thought I would share some findings and some tips.

1. Once uploaded Google Music only pays attention to the "ID" tags in the Music files to determine how to organize them. So if a lot of your music does not have these tags then all the music without tags gets dumped into a "Unknown album" "Unknown Artist" album. Your nicely ordered directory structure with artist names and album names are worthless to Google. So you better fix your ID tags on your music before you upload them or otherwise they may be very hard to find in the music app.

2. The best program I have found for automatically "fixing" your ID tags on music is MusicBrainZ which is actually free. Add your Directory of Music, Select all and pick "scan" once complete (takes about 2 seconds a song to identify) then Select everything on the Right that has been Identified and Pick Save. This will Fix the ID tags on your files for almost all of your music. (please donate to MusicBrainz as it's a open source user supported project)

3. If you fix the ID tags on existing music files after you have already uploaded them Google Music Manager does notice the changes and treats these modified song files as new songs. So then you have the old song (without the tags) and the new song (with the tags) in the cloud. Google Music manager is just for uploading it is not a "syncronizing" tool and I consider that an advantage, in my opinion that has always been a crutch of Apple devices in that they are Locked to syncing with one device. There is nothing that prevents you from loading Google Music manager on multiple computers and uploading from all of them to your cloud account.

4. Once you have fixed your tags on all your songs and got them all uploaded you can delete the "Unknown Artist" "Unknown album" from the cloud. By going into the Web interface music.google.com picking that album and then selecting the little drop down arrow next to the album and pick Delete Album.

If anyone else has any tips, I would be happy to add them and could start a Google Music FAQ out of this.

I experienced the same thing. I am using MediaMonkey to fix my tags and get album art but it is a pain. I have 1800 items that still need to be fixed. I will give MusicBrainZ a shot see if it is any better. I doubt it will work any better, a lot of my music is from the early napster days where ID3 Tags weren't used as and filenames sucked.

Good tip on the delete, I didn't notice a way to delete. I see that you can use that delete method per song as well. Awesome!

 

[csseale]

Ok. So when I accept my invite using my xoom I declined the install for the music manager. Now I am trying to find it for my PC. Any idea where I can get it from as Google points me to nowhere.

Nevermind.....

http://music.google.com/music/listen? #manager_pl

 

[pinaar]

To despich,
Thank you!
I just googled "Google Music Unknown Artist" and saw your response which is quite appropriate to what I was looking for. I haven't tried anything yet, but I plan to tweak my Id Tags and resync to see what happens.
I hate modifying my MP3 files, but if that's what it takes to get Google Music to act right, so be it. I hope this properly classifies my files so I can better use them in the future.

- Art

 

[saintnick]

Sorry to say we won't do that.
It's just not commercially viable for Google to allow you to retain your own personal folder structure. To be able to be commercially viable, offering the huge space and great services we give, we need to override your own personal structuring, you need to be flattened to one of our standard profiles. Otherwise our rather simple and greedy ad- and mining software just doesn't understand.

I apologise. Hope you understand. Computer says "No", for the moment.
We're working on it though!

Regards, Nick

P.s. I'm replying on behalf of the entire internet business community, I'm not affiliated with Google Inc. in any way. Well, that's a lie, I am a bit actually. I'm a paying slave -oops- customer.

Been using Google Music for a little bit and thought I would share some findings and some tips.

1. Once uploaded Google Music only pays attention to the "ID" tags in the Music files to determine how to organize them. So if a lot of your music does not have these tags then all the music without tags gets dumped into a "Unknown album" "Unknown Artist" album. Your nicely ordered directory structure with artist names and album names are worthless to Google. So you better fix your ID tags on your music before you upload them or otherwise they may be very hard to find in the music app.

2. The best program I have found for automatically "fixing" your ID tags on music is MusicBrainZ which is actually free. Add your Directory of Music, Select all and pick "scan" once complete (takes about 2 seconds a song to identify) then Select everything on the Right that has been Identified and Pick Save. This will Fix the ID tags on your files for almost all of your music. (please donate to MusicBrainz as it's a open source user supported project)

3. If you fix the ID tags on existing music files after you have already uploaded them Google Music Manager does notice the changes and treats these modified song files as new songs. So then you have the old song (without the tags) and the new song (with the tags) in the cloud. Google Music manager is just for uploading it is not a "syncronizing" tool and I consider that an advantage, in my opinion that has always been a crutch of Apple devices in that they are Locked to syncing with one device. There is nothing that prevents you from loading Google Music manager on multiple computers and uploading from all of them to your cloud account.

4. Once you have fixed your tags on all your songs and got them all uploaded you can delete the "Unknown Artist" "Unknown album" from the cloud. By going into the Web interface music.google.com picking that album and then selecting the little drop down arrow next to the album and pick Delete Album.

If anyone else has any tips, I would be happy to add them and could start a Google Music FAQ out of this.