[Windows] How to Create Super Smart Music Playlists
#1
Upon request i have changed this thread to a Windows How To (should be easily applicable to Mac if you can run the following 2 programs - Music Brainz Picard & MP3Tag

What will this guide teach me?
This guide is designed for people who want to create (super) smart music playlist with additional flexibility for song type filtering.
And by song type filtering i mean attaching keywords that help describe your individual songs own unique identity. You see each song has a genre, release year, artist, album, album artist...But you knew that, what you might not know is that most songs also have Moods, Feeling, Occasions, sub-genres, Additional info and comments, release decades, ect.

This guide will teach you how to take all that info (ie: genre, moods, feelings) and store them in a way that you can use XBMC's smart playlists to create fully flexible playlists depending on what mood your in. They say background music in an office environment increases efficiency by up to 60%, well maybe you have a home office. Maybe your home is a constant party zone and your sick of having slow rock sneaking in to your hard rock playlists, whatever the case smart playlists are great for set and forget music lovers.

My music playlists now look something like this:

[Chillout, Ska, Drum N Bass] Reggae
[Chillout, Instrumental] Ambient
[Chillout, Top 40] Soft Rock, Classic Rock
[Energetic, Dreamy, Rave, Love] Dance, Trance
[Australian] *All*
[Garage Rock, Indie, Punk] Alternative
[Mellow, Latin, Sexy] Jazz, R&B
[Angry, Westcoast, 2000s, ] Gangsta, Rap
[Old School, B Boy, 1990s, Eastcoast] Hip-Hop
[Funky, Summer, Upbeat, Acoustic] Rock
[Mellow, Sad, Retro, 1980s, Smooth] Pop, Soft Rock

*Note - Something worth mentioning, the more specific your playlist becomes, the less songs it will display. If your music collection isn't significant your effort here might be in vein.

How long will this take me?
This will probably take you at least 2 hrs (of your time) depending on your familiarity with windows and the 2 programs needed.

And another unknown amount of (computer) hours (depending on your system speed, music library size and settings you choose. And also whether you choose to follow this entire guide or just parts.

Using the 2 programs mentioned this process is 95% automated, with the use of bulk editing and online databases your songs metadata is 'scraped' and embedded whilst your off flying kites and racing ostriches... or whatever is you do.

Lets get started

Download Music Brainz Picard with the link below
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Picard

Read this thread below and become familiar with how to install plugins.
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Picard/Plugins

Now try installing the third plugin listed, called 'Move Feat. Artists to Titles' as i recommend it in order for you to keep your 'Artist' field clean inside XBMC, so you dont have a thousand artists feat random artists as I used to when i browse my music via artist, as seen below.
Image

Its easy to install if your having trouble go here http://users.musicbrainz.org/~luks/picar...ntitles.py right click anywhere on the page and 'save as' to your plugin directory. Remember to activate by goign to Options - Plugin and checking the new plugin.
*Note if its not working try reloading the song or restarting Picard.

Now see if you have installed it correctly whilst in Picard go to File>add file or folder or just select your music folder on the tree to the left of the screen. You want to find an song that contains (feat. random artist) such as 2Pac Feat. Big Skye" in the artist field.

Once you have found the song drag it across into the middle window (unmatched cluster) and wait for it to process. Picard will attempt to find the album it belongs to via its online database. It will then appear in its album name in the window on the right.
*Note - It may offer you multiple albums and place it in the wrong one (such as a compilation album when you want it in its original album) you can just drag and drop it into any available albums until your happy.
*Note - In the off chance it finds no album, your song is truly unique as its not on music brainz database, you should recite the song, learn a dance to go with itand make a youtube video of that!, you should also learn how to build an nfo for it or use another online database if you want to include it in you music library. That is beyond the scope of the guide.

See here i added phil collins and one other artists by dragging them in to he middle window and once processed they arrive on the other side under their respective album names.
Image

Now highlight a track (that has (feat artists) in the artist field) and look at the bottom info section.
*Note you may have to drag the divider up the page so you can see the info section.
Image

You see how the value has changed to reflect the Feat Artists being moved into the track field from the artists field. I have installed my plugin correctly.

Now read this thread.
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_P...Lastfmplus

and then install the plugin from the linking in the above thread or from the direct link below
http://www.mediafire.com/?qlso9gc8c75aq5a
*Note - this plugin in is more complex and requires its own sub directory inside the plugin directory.

Next, dont forget this step. Go to Options, and check the ID3v2 2.4 checkbox otherwise Mood info will not work for you.
Image

Check your plugin works correctly by selecting any song, dragging it into Picard, letting it process into its respective album, selecting the song and looking at the info fields at the bottom.

Scroll the tag info section down and notice the new fields highlighted in different colors. Such as Moods, Custom comments and Occasions.

*Note - If you cannot find them try a different song, On average about 60-70% of my music has additional ID3 data available on music brainz. The other 30% will not show any extra fields (ie Mood info)
Image

My plugins are working correctly.

See 3rd post for rest of guide.
Reply
#2
That's a pretty good idea, using the song mood "tags" in the comments field. I'll have to try that out.
Reply
#3
Thanks Ned,

Now test your Picard settings by selecting the song and hitting the save button at the top, as seen below.
Image

After you hit save Picard will rename the song and move it into a folder by the name of the album it found for it. Hence fullfilling XBMC's naming and file structure requirements for music preparation prior to adding it to XBMC.
*Note - If you changed the directory in which Picard saves your processsed music it will now exist there.
Image
Mine is now in Z drive
*Note - Notice how the picture above shows me opting to "move additional files" this will be covered in a later section

Next download Mp3Tag from here http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html
Install the program, now go to your song that you just saved with Picard, (You can right click and 'open folder location' inside Picard or just navigate to its location in windows explorer) right click on it and select Mp3Tag from the drop down menu.

Your new song should now be loaded inside Mp3Tag.

You need to setup a few things, as described in the last half of this guide here, just scroll down to the 'Viewing Custom tags section http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_P...Lastfmplus

You should now be setup for your next step.

Hit the Tag to Tag button, or go to Convert - Tag to Tag. This will bring up a window with 2 input fields and a preview section.
The first field should say comment, as seen in my picture below, the second is your format string and is very simple. This is where you choose what additional comments you would like to embed in your music, and therefor what keywords you can use to build your smart playlists inside XBMC.
Image
I have chosen Genre (which appear to include an number of relevant sub-genres or other genres) comment songs-db_occasion (which includes Feelings or occasions) comment songs-db_custom1 (which inlcudes release decade) comment songs-db_custom3 (which contains release country in some cases) and of course Mood.
Just use the drop down list and make sure to include a space between the %'s.
Use the preview area to view your desired results and insure the correct format string is being applied with all spaces where they need to be.
Hit OK
Notice how the Mood, comment songs-db_occasion ect are all still full but your Comments field is now populated with your desired keywords.

Next Step.
Clean up your Genre feild
Do this to avoid having 8 million genres inside XBMC when your trying to browse via genre.
Select the Tag to Tag option once more and follow the picture below. Were goin gto replace the ten grenres in the genre field with the songs lead genre which is located in the Content Group.
Image
Hit OK

Congratulations

You have successfully completed one song!, 28,000 more to go right..

Start from the top and try 1 album now... then 10 albums...

When your ready drag your whole collection through Picard.
My tip here (if you have a slower system) is to use cntrl+a (select all keyboard command) when attempting to push all your whole music collection through. I say this because Picard is quite capable of handling (on my system) about 12,000 tracks at once, however if your whipping your mouse all over the place it tends to hang the program and you need to exit out and restart the progress. Once you figure this out, it should only take a few seconds to add your directory and then drag it across to the clusters field. At this point you will see it start to 'load album info' and you should minimize the program and walk away for 30-60 min (depending on your music collection size) when you return and all the albums have loaded you will probably be left with a few track in your unmatched clusters. These are the songs music Brainz didn't find and you will need make that youtube video we talked about or prepare this media for xbmc some other way (I just put mine to rest as I'm not going to bother manually preparing each track/album)

At this stage select one track with your cursor in the album info feild and hit cntrl+a to select all albums then hit the save button at the top, minimize program and walk away again. Give it roughly the same amount of time and once it all done your extended feilds will be embedded onto your mp3s.

Mp3Tag is much more stable in my experience and blitz your entire collection relatively fast.

How to keep all your old CDArt Covers and get rid off everything else.
Because you may have unique art that is unavailable online that you want to keep.
*Note - If you have more than 1 type of art you wish to keep this will not work for you

Open windows explorer and seclect your root music directory, use the search window at the top right and insert the term '.jpg' this will search for and display every jpeg in all subfolders of your root directory. Now change the view type to Large Icons. as below
Image

This is grueling and can take an hour if you have a large collection. Go through and select all art you no longer need. In my case it was every piece of art that was not a FRONT Cover. So it was easy to differentiate the back covers from the front in that large thumbnail view.
Holding down cntrl on the keyboard and mouse click you can select all files that you wish.
*Note - be careful not to let go off cntrl and click, or your work will come undone. Delete everything you have selected.
You should now be left with only one type of image, I'll assume its the cd covers. XBMC likes to search for the term folder.jpg. So assuming gall your cd covers exist inside there respective album folders, we're now going to to go through and rename every image in one hit.

Go and download Bulk Rename Utility from here http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Download.php
install the program and launch it.
This program can recursively scan (scan sub folders) of a root directory.
Follow the screenshot below and make sure you check Subfolder box in Selection 12 Use this option with extreme care!
Insure you have filtered for only .jpg and possibly .png if you need to.
type jpg in the Extension (11) section set as fixed
Type 'folder' into the RegEx (1) section.
Preview your desired result in the green text under the new name column
Hit the rename button in the bottom right to execute.
Be mindful to try this out on a 1 or 2 jpegs first to insure they are going to the right directories and so forth.
Image
AND be mindful to scroll the working field to insure you have only jpegs in the work list, as the last thing you want to do is rename every file.

Once complete you will have successfully renamed all your Cd covers in one hit to their xbmc naming convention to be recognized as cd covers, or Folder.jpg, without moving them out of their respective album folders.
Reply
#4
Shocked 
Delete double entries
This step can be taken if desired. I found now that Picard had moved my music around it had found many doubles i had. For example two of the same song. Picard would move both songs into their albums folder and name the double entry with (1) at the end.

Now using the same method i used to delete unwanted artwork i opened up an explorer window and put that search term in the top right search field (1). This brings up any song with those symbols () or the number 1 in it. As seen in the screenshot below; it highlights all of them. So i went through and deleted all double songs and free'd up about 8GBs.
Image

Add music to XBMC
Now after you have finished and bulk edited your entire collection you may add your music directory to xbmc, you may want to clean the music library in settings menu if you previously had your music added to xbmc. Or perhaps its in the same location and you just need to rescan to library?

Go to Music, add source and navigate to your root music directory.

xbmc will scrape your collection against the music brainz database, using... i think Universal scraper. Perhaps it doesn't use the Music Brainz database, I'm not exactly sure. However the remainder of this guide will explain the second benefit to processing your music collection through Picard.

Skip down to the next section if you prefer a different skin
How to get Super awesome music fanart with Aeon MQ4 skin
As seen in this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...59NB-jOf2U

Download Aeon MQ4 Skin
Download CDArt manager addon
Configure CDArt manager addon - set your music folder path (for artwork)
Image

Execute CDArt manager addon and navigate to (below) Advanced - Modify Addon database - Update Database
Image
This step can take an extremely long time for your computer if certain setting are changed from default in the Cdart manager configuration, so heed the warnings the config screen gives you.
Once finished correctly your addon database will reflect the online database and allow you to bulk download all artwork for all artists.
*Note - this does not mean you wil get every type of artwork for every artist, or album. Only the artwork that has been uploaded by registered user on music brainz.

Once your database has complete its update go through and download each type of art, ie Clear art, CDart, Diskart, Fanart ect for all artists.

Load Mq4 skin and watch the above youtube video again and take note of where the user is navigating to. The video is tricky to use as an instruction but he is showing you what view types and setting to use for your music library.

Save and backup all artwork and nfo's
Your extended tags will be embedded into your mp3 so they are already saved however if you ever have a system crash or you store your media on a seperate server its good to back up your work so in the event your system gets reset all you will ever have to do to re-produce your results is - add music directory,.

This step is simple, go to (in XBMC) settings > Audio > Library - Backup Library [save as separate files = YES, Backup all artwork = YES] This will copy all nfo's and Folder.jpg, Diskart.jpg, fanart.jpg to their root folders. Not sure about the banner.jpg/logo.png/extra fanart/thumbs ect that might remain in your Pictures path you configured in CDart manager add-on. So it might be a good idea to back that folder up manually.

Create Super Smart Playlists
Navigate to Music > Playlists > Create smart playlist

Here you will create your smart playlists to your liking.
As seen in my first post I have started creating mine beginning with the Mood/Occasions in brackets [] followed by the genre. This allows easy reading/browsing when their is many to choose from.

The smartlists are pretty straightforward and there's most likely a wiki section on them which will go into more detail for you if necessary... Here it is http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Smart_playlists

But seeing as you have stored all your keywords in the comments field and your genre field only contain one genre per song, you will be using a combination of those two feilds in your rules.

Now if you want to begin combining genres into one playlist (but only want genres tagged with the Mood - Happy, for example. You will need to make two playlists and then a third that uses the rule Playlist - matches.

So for example you want to make the playlist: [Happy] Pop, Alternative

You would first make the playlist [Happy] Pop. As seen below
Image

And second make the playlist [Happy] Alternative, repeat above with your second genre, in this case Alternative

And third make the playlist [Happy] Pop, Alternative, combining the two, as seen below and insuring you set the 'item must match' = one or more of the rules
Image

There is probably several ways of achieving this, this is just the way i have started to use.

With this knowledge you should now be able to mix and match to create flexible smart playlists.

Congratulations, you have now created a new problem... which playlist do i listen to...enjoy
Reply
#5
Awesome tutorial, thanks for taking the time to share.

I'm about half way through scanning my library with picard and mp3tag as my music library has been in a mess for ages. This is partly due to wanting to get movie library sorted out first, which I've done.

Thanks again!
Reply
#6
I'm trying to follow (part) of these instructions, specifically adding moods tags and using that for smart playlists. Adding the tag works using Picard. And mutagen confirms that the tag is set. However, kodi doesn't pick it up. I'm using a smart playlist where I filter on songs having a mood that "contains" the one I'm filtering for. But I get nothing. Is there any other way to see whether kodi can see the tag at all? In note when I'm just in the Music view, I don't get the moods tag when I check the Song Information.

My kodi (version 2:16.1~git20160424.1410-final-0trusty) is on linux. Not sure if that matters.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
[Windows] How to Create Super Smart Music Playlists0