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Topic: Suggestions for my foobar setup, also MIDI control EQ? (Read 1706 times) previous topic - next topic
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Suggestions for my foobar setup, also MIDI control EQ?

Hey, guys. If this has already been covered, please link me to the page. I wanna tidy up my foobar2000 setup and maybe mention my usage for any suggestions.
My goal is to have this be a bit more organized, streamlined, interacting nicely with any other software. I'm open to anything, but am currently thinking Custom Grouping might be one thing to improve.
I've got my layout that seems alright. I've acquired a huge bunch of lossless and lossy music, used Similarity software to remove as many duplicates as I could, am using beaTunes to hopefully help me navigate to find relevant music in my library and make playlists. I'm currently using Subsonic to stream and plan on exporting beaTunes playlists to foobar2000 and Subsonic.

As for foobar2000, I'm up for any input as well, but more specifically, unless I change my directory structure, I want to browse by directory better or somehow otherwise improve usage. I haven't seen any information that satisfied me.
Currently, I have my music spread across 3 drives until I combine them. The structure in the subfolders have been kept the same since originally downloading them; I haven't mentioned from where. Maybe I could restructure, but it's comforting to know which files are from what ripper and all. I'm all picky and sometimes feel like keeping multiple rips that I'll "someday compare metadata and quality" so that I know whom I prefer, but never get around to it; same with movies.

I've linked a screenshot of my setup. It's a dark color scheme with some visualizers; I don't use the other tabs which contain huge visualizer or info elements. I type in the Library search, click to highlight All Music, then proceed to peruse the results in Viewer Selection, but might just instead add more columns to the Search tab and enlarge it someday. You can understand if this just feels a bit "off"? I looked into Custom Grouping and am wondering if you guys have any suggestions if that could be the key.
http://oi60.tinypic.com/2prz8jl.jpg



If all that is too vague to give advice, just skip to the second question below. Maybe you guys could post your setups unless there's already too many similar threads.
I'm hoping for some inexpensive and efficient way to control an EQ with something such as a Korg nanoKontrol2 while the song progresses. It's fun interacting with it and switching to hear other sounds during playback. There's some old posts on VSTs, but I wasn't understanding what MIDI controllers I should buy and if there's anything newer than 2008 for foobar2000. Any ideas? I've also sometimes considered the idea of getting/making a huge LED spectrum analyzer. I'd prefer to keep a tighter budget since I've got other things to handle lately, but I'll probably cave and splurge if there's an appealing idea. You guys think the MIDI and LED thing sounds like something to pursue? The MIDI one is what I'd need more info on.


Thanks for reading, guys. I hope this made sense and that someone can relate.

Suggestions for my foobar setup, also MIDI control EQ?

Reply #1 –
> Maybe I could restructure

Are the files tagged well enough for your purpose? You might be able to use foobar's file component to create and reorganize all files in one foul sweep.

Suggestions for my foobar setup, also MIDI control EQ?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: dhromed on
> Maybe I could restructure

Are the files tagged well enough for your purpose? You might be able to use foobar's file component to create and reorganize all files in one foul sweep.


Well, like I said, I probably want to keep them in their original folders for the purpose of knowing where I got them and also keeping the structure that the uploader intended. I've got some sick software, like I said, so I've got no difficulty managing the files and tags. What I am hoping to achieve is some way to browse my music better than how it's shown in the screenshot, such as incorporating some folder structure view options that I could toggle on/off.
Or just any misc suggestions or show off your setup. I suppose I'm satisfied enough with my browsing, but I'm just looking to really get an exciting setup, digging into grouping and themes or everything else.

As for the MIDI EQ control, anyone ever done it? Anyone ever do an LED visual?

Suggestions for my foobar setup, also MIDI control EQ?

Reply #3 –
Based on your original posts I'm not convinced your tags are actually maintained all that well.

If they aren't, your #1 priority is to come up with a tagging scheme that works for you (contains the vital information that you'll actually use, like names/titles and genres) while requiring minimal effort on your part to maintain. Fix any files that aren't following that yet. If you have countless 'random' files that you don't particularly care about, it's often easier to just ditch them and start new with the artists you want to keep.

Once you have tagging done, you can extract and present that information for yourself in whatever way you prefer.

Foobar can batch reorganize your files to your preferred library structure with zero effort. But honestly what really matters is your library viewer. I rarely if ever touch my library with explorer anymore. You should check out Facets and set it to use your tags. It's way more powerful and flexible than the default Album list. Install quicktag and the playback statistics component as well. Check out this auto-rating script. Install Skip track if you want to ban certain tracks. Try waveform seekbar. Autosave and autobackup could come in handy. Use replaygain.

With facets and the combination of some of these components you can create filters like 'favorite: yes/no/not rated' or '(automatic) rating is over X'. You can give the GENRE tag multiple values for each artist and create multiple views in facets to quickly find certain artists. Custom grouping (in playlists) is subjective. I personally use only ALBUM ARTIST and a special tag that holds together certain franchises/series. Some put the album name in there as well. Perhaps check the Default UI/Columns UI galleries to see what others came up with.

Suggestions for my foobar setup, also MIDI control EQ?

Reply #4 –
Thanks. I haven't used those plugins except for waveform seekbar. My library has pretty good tags, but I'm just trying to have a better browsing method, which it seems you have a suggestion for, so I'll look into that. Thanks.

No ideas on the EQ control with hardware such as nanoKontrol2? I'll take another look at the old posts from 2008 maybe.