[REQUEST] Need help rebuilding music collection

[~Wendy~]

I fixed an iTunes issue for a client and in order to do so I had to delete everything iTunes. Got it to work but lost several pieces of music (talking 20,000 songs originally) I extracted most of the music from the erased drive(s) and tried to install the songs on his new Plex server. Unfortunately they have to be hand-picked and put in the proper folders for it to import correctly. Thus far I have used MusicBrainz, Music Bee and Helium to recover the artwork, tracks etc. The songs are all over the place only in alphabetical order-some tracks are orphaned from the album and who knows what else?

I'm panicking right now as I imported them into the Plex on his new laptop and they are all messed up. Can you recommend anything that will help this process? Thanking you in advance for any advice you can give!

 

[nerd2u]

Are you trying to figure out where the songs were originally in Itunes?

Most recovery software if not dealing with a damaged drive can give you the directory structure. If you can get that and get it exported you could write a script to recreate the file structure then import everything into plex.

 

[~Wendy~]

Thank you for responding. Do you know of a git repository that would have a script? I know python but am terrible at it. You would think there would be a program already out there that could do this.

 

[NJW]

You could have a look at Bliss, which is designed to take a pile of unstructured music files and turn it into a properly organised collection, with metadata.

It's not free, but is very flexible and works very well. It won't be a quick fix (that's time to configure Bliss, not so much the time for Bliss to actually do the work). The initial download is free and includes an introductory 100 'fixes', so it's cheap to try it out; $79 for 'unlimited', so may still be worth doing.

I have used it successfully on my own music files and I would caution to experiment on a copy of the files in question as it is possible to end up with a mess – quicker to restart than to fix.

Edit to add: The organisation of a music collection is quite a personal thing – it may be worth your while just paying for a Bliss licence for your client to do it themselves? You avoid the time investment and your client benefits from having Bliss at no cost.

 

[Haole Boy]

Do you have a backup that you could temporarily restore and then run one of the tools mentioned above against?

 

[~Wendy~]

I do. I ended up using Music Brainz, and now in the process of figuring out a way to export the cleaned up folder. I hope it is compatible with Flex!

 

[Rosco]

Had this happen it was an absolute nightmare. Client said forget it so never did find a really workable solution. Still frustrates me to o end.

 

[~Wendy~]

OMG @Rosco Many thanks for the empathy! I am beside myself. I took to going through orphaned files one by one and after 8 hours I hadn't even gotten through the number files that precede the "A"'s.

 

[Rosco]

OMG @Rosco Many thanks for the empathy! I am beside myself. I took to going through orphaned files one by one and after 8 hours I hadn't even gotten through the number files that precede the "A"'s.

Hope you are getting paid for this time you are spending. Good luck!! Itunes can be a unforgiving mistress.

 

[~Wendy~]

Update:

Good News: Likely all of the music is back

Bad News: Album contents are still a mess, even after filtering dupes they are still there...lots of them, and I've lost a good deal of money at this point. My reputation is on the line so I'm willing to buy Bliss as @NJW recommended.

Wish me luck. I'm so stressed about this I can't even sleep. Wish I had as much fortitude as you do.

 

[NJW]

Bad News: Album contents are still a mess, even after filtering dupes they are still there...lots of them, and I've lost a good deal of money at this point. My reputation is on the line so I'm willing to buy Bliss ...
Wish me luck. I'm so stressed about this I can't even sleep. Wish I had as much fortitude as you do.

Don't stress – we've all been there and nobody is going to die. (Yeah, easy to say!)

Take time to read up on configuring Bliss; work on a copy of the files on a scratch disk; expect to have to start again at least once; don't try to fix everything in a single pass of Bliss – start with, say, organising into folders by album, then reconfigure to find dups, then do album art (for example). Back up everything after each part.

Read through the Bliss tutorials thoroughly, even though some of it may be obvious. Try to resist the urge to rush and 'just get it done': it won't work. It may be better to start off working on a small subset of the files to get a feel of how Bliss works and see results more quickly.

I'd also recommend keeping the client in the loop and explain why it's taking time and that you're working on a solution.

Finally, we're all rooting for you!

 

[~Wendy~]

At this point I'm willing to subcontract someone to do this.

 

[Big Jim]

I don't know why you are worrying about getting the itunes back in order, as others have said this is not your problem. (unless the customer is paying you of course)

There is no way I would be spending even 2hours putting music back in the right order let alone the time you have.