What's the recommended way to catalog audio CDs?
Insert audio CD in the computer CD-ROM drive and click menu Album - Scan
CD-ROM drive. In an instant, Scan CD dialog box will appear and show the status
of the inserted CD album. If this is a new album, it will display a message
saying "You can add this album to collection". Press [Add CD] button to download
album data and artwork, and add album to the database. Then you can
remove the CD from the drive, insert next CD, add it to the database, and so
on.
What's the recommended way to catalog vinyl records?
The best approach that allows you to catalog analog vinyl records and tapes
is the following method. Click menu Album - Add from Amazon. Type artist's name
and album title in the Keywords box. You don't have to type entire title, few
meaningful words is usually enough. For example, type 'pink floyd dark side
moon' (without quotes) to add Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon vinyl. Then press [Search] button.
In few seconds, a
list of possible album matches will be displayed. Select an album that best corresponds to your
vinyl record and press [Preview and add] button. Review the details of the album
before saving it to the database - make sure track titles and artwork are
available and correct. Then press [Save] button to add album to database.
Otherwise, if you find that some details are missing or not correct or you don't
want the album, press [Cancel] to return to the list.
Note: if the albums you are adding are recordings of classical
music, you must also check "Classical music search" option for accurate
results.
What's the recommended way to catalog media files on
hard drive (MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC,
etc.)?
To build a catalog of your media files, including MP3, Windows Media (WMA),
OGG, FLAC and other file formats, click menu Album - Scan media files. Select
the
folder that contains all your media files. If you are not sure which folder it
is, you
can reference with help files of the application that you used to purchase music
online or rip audio CDs. Windows Media Player and iTunes are examples of
this kind of application.
Click [Scan] button to begin scan of your media
library. The initial scan typically takes few
minutes, but subsequent incremental updates are usually faster because they
don't result in many additions to the database.
When scan is complete, you will be presented with a list of all new
entries added to the database during the process. You can review the
albums, change the details if necessary, or add details not provided in
ID3 tags by right-clicking the album in the list and selecting Properties.
Can I use barcode reader to catalog my CDs?
You can use a barcode reader to catalog your CDs. When your barcode reader is
connected to the computer, click menu Album - Scan UPC barcode, then scan a
barcode from CD jewel case. The UPC number will be automatically entered in the UPC
box. Click [Search] button to commence a search that will retrieve CD information
from Amazon database. The search usually results in exactly one album match.
Click [Preview and add] button to review the data, then click [Save] button to
add the album to your database.
Note: if the albums you are about to scan are classical CDs, you
must also check "Classical music search" option for accurate results.
If you need to add many albums in a row, you can check "Add automatically"
option to skip album preview step. With this option on, the Amazon search will start
immediately once you scanned a barcode, and the album will be automatically added to
the database if there is only one match (i.e. nothing for you to choose from).
There are advantages and disadvantages of this method. Using it, you don't
have to open each CD case and insert CD in the computer, which means entire process is faster. However, when using
barcode scanner to add audio CDs, you may not always get correct track
information due to nature of the Amazon music database. Therefore, you will not
be able to use certain features that require track times. For example, when you
play the album using OrangeCD Player, it will not display the album artwork or
track titles because it will not be able to recognize albums without correct track times. FreeDB-related features will also be disabled for these albums.
How to know if OrangeCD Suite supports my barcode reader?
Any barcode reader that generates keystrokes like normal PC keyboard will work
with OrangeCD Suite. We have tested the software with very popular CueCat family
of handheld barcode readers, but many other models will work as well. You can
test if your specific model is compatible using Windows Notepad application.
Create a new empty text document in Notepad and scan a barcode from CD case. If
you see digits of the UPC code inserted in a Notepad window, and the resulting
characters correspond to what you see on CD case, your scanner is compatible
with OrangeCD Suite.
Automatically downloaded album cover artwork is not correct or missing.
How can I change it to correct artwork?
If some of the database entries are missing artwork, or the artwork does not
correspond to your actual album cover, you may need to repeat the search and
manually select artwork. To search for an artwork, select one
or more albums anywhere in the OrangeCD Catalog interface. If the current view
does not offer selection facilities, like album or tracks display, it's fine too
- OrangeCD will search an artwork for the album that is currently displayed.
Right-click and select Download CD covers menu command, then press [Search]
button. OrangeCD will connect to Amazon database and attempt to find an artwork
for the selected albums. Once the first artwork is downloaded, you can browse
the available choices by clicking green triangular arrow buttons, and select
the image that closely matches your actual CD cover.
If you still cannot find an accurate artwork for the album, you can use the
following advanced technique. Click [Custom query] button and customize the
keywords that OrangeCD uses to identify an album. In addition, you can specify
which international server to use for artwork search, or force classical music
mode by checking corresponding option.
How to add or customize categories, genres, or formats?
You can easily add new categories, genres, or formats to the drop-down lists, or
remove those that you don't need.
- Click menu View - Preferences. Switch to the Database tab.
- Select the field that you want to modify (e.g. Genres), then click
[Customize] button. This will display customization dialog box.
- Click in the edit field in
the bottom of the dialog box, type a new genre or category name, then click [Add]
button. Repeat as
needed for more genres or categories.
- Press OK in the dialog box.
- Press OK again in the Preferences box.
How to ensure that umlauts and other extended ASCII characters are
displayed correctly?
To allow umlauts, non-English accent characters, or any other extended ASCII
characters display correctly in OrangeCD Suite, click menu View - Preferences.
Switch to the Database tab and select a character set that corresponds to your
country in the Default character set drop-down box. For example, select Western
European for umlauts and accent characters, Cyrillic for Russian language, Greek
for Greek etc.
How to catalog double CDs or box sets so that they display as single
entry?
If you added the multiple-disc album using Scan CD-ROM drive feature, you may
notice that each disc is added as individual database entry. You can make one
multiple-disc album out of these individual disc entries.
- In the list of albums, select all individual disc entries that belong to
the album.
- Click menu Tools - Make box set. This will open the album properties
dialog which combines all the disc entries. The fields that have different
values in different disc entries will contain text "(various)". To make a box
set, you must replace "(various)" in Artist, Title, and Format boxes
with real values. In classical layout, you must also do the same with
Composer box.
- Then, optionally, switch to the Box set tab and define a correct order of the
disc entries.
- Press [OK] button to save your modifications. The change will take
effect immediately, and individual disc entries will form a single album. Note
that you can still view or edit individual disc entries as sub-items of the album
entry.
How to keep track of artists that played individual tracks on
compilation albums?
When you add compilation albums to the database, you can define artist and
composer of each individual track or song.
- Right-click the album and select Properties. This will open album
properties tabbed dialog box.
- Switch to the Tracks page.
- Click [More] button and select "Show track artists" menu command to add
an Artist column to the list of tracks.
- Select a track in the list and enter artist name in the Artist box.
Repeat for all tracks that are performed by artist other than entire album's
artist.
- Press [OK] button to save your changes.
Similarly, you can define composers of each track in a compilation. Note
that to access composer fields, you may need to switch to Classical Layout by
clicking a blue link at bottom of the tabbed dialog.
How to sort albums by artist's last name instead of first name?
There are two equally convenient ways to achieve it. You can right-click the
artist folder in the content tree (assuming you have artist browse mode selected
in the drop-down at the top of the content tree). Select Properties command. Artist profile dialog will appear. Enter the artist's name in
Last, First
form in the Sort name box. Press [OK] to save your changes.
Instead of retyping artist name in Last, First form, you can click
[Swap] button.
Alternatively, you can define Last, First name for the artist when you add albums to the
database. In the album properties tabbed dialog, switch to the General tab and
click the right arrow button next to the artist box. Select a correct
Last, First spelling of the artist name. Press [OK] to save your changes.
How can I rip or tag my audio CDs?
At this time, OrangeCD Suite does not offer facilities to rip audio CDs or
tag media files. We think that there are a lot of great and free tools to do the
job already available on the web. We recommend excellent Exact Audio Copy
software which is considered by many the best ripping tool. It can be found at
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de.
How to change track order in scanned MP3 (WMA, FLAC) albums?
In theory, you shouldn't. OrangeCD Suite extracts track numbers from two
sources - file names and ID3 tags, and then it arranges tracks according to
these numbers. If the track order is incorrect, it is typically an indication of
incorrect or missing numbering in the media files, and the best solution would
be to fix ID3 tags or file names and rescan the album.
Still, you can fix the order of tracks in albums that are already added to
OrangeCD database by re-arranging them manually. Right-click the album and
select Properties. Switch to the Tracks page. There are up/down arrow
buttons on top of the list that allow to move one selected track up and down in
the list. When
all the tracks are in correct order, press [OK] to save the changes.
How to assign a unique number to each entry in database?
There is a facility in OrangeCD Suite that allows automatic assignment of
unique IDs to each new album. The ID is placed in Reference# field that can also be
modified manually on Library tab of album properties dialog. To configure auto-numbering, click menu View - Preferences and switch to
the Numbers tab.
You can select one of several numbering styles that best serves your goal. When
auto-numbering is enabled, a unique ID will be generated for each new
album that you add to the database.
If you already added many albums without auto-numbering, or if you want to
change the numbering style, you can renumber all albums in the database:
- Click menu Navigate - Entire collection.
- Click menu Tools - Renumber.
- Check "Entire list" option to process all albums in the database.
Uncheck "Preserve existing numbers" option to generate all numbers from
scratch.
- Press [OK] to commence renumbering of all albums.
How to use custom fields?
OrangeCD Suite 6 offers extensive set of custom fields. Before you can enter
data in custom fields, you need to define which fields you are going to use,
and provide their types and names. Custom fields can be arranged in up to four additional
pages in album and track properties dialogs. OrangeCD Suite allows up to 10
custom edit boxes, 10 checkboxes, 5 multiline edit boxes (memos)
and 5 date boxes.
To configure custom fields, click menu View - Preferences and switch to the
Database tab. Click [Customize] button in Custom fields section to enter
field customization dialog. Once custom fields are defined, they will be exposed
as additional pages in album or track properties dialogs, and can be used like regular database fields. You can add them as columns in the album list,
make search queries, or do anything you can do to regular fields.
