Guides

• If not already installed:
  • Install dBpoweramp Music Converter
  • Install Replay Gain Codec
  • Install Python
• Install Beets using pip install beets.
• Setup plugins:
  • FetchArt
  • Chromaprint
• Copy the following file to %APPDATA%\beets\ and change the directory option

config.yaml

directory: 'CHANGE_THIS\Processing\3 Convert'
library: library.db
plugins: [fetchart, embedart, ftintitle, chroma]
embedart:
  remove_art_file: yes
import:
  timid: yes
paths:
    default: $format/$track $title
    singleton: Fix/$track $title
    comp: $format/$track $title
match:
  preferred:
    countries: ['GB|UK', 'AU', 'US']
    original_year: yes
  ignored_media: ['Data CD', 'DVD', 'DVD-Video', 'Blu-ray', 'HD-DVD', 'VCD', 'SVCD', 'UMD', 'VHS']

• Download the following files:

beets.bat

beet import "2 Beets Import"

beets-fix.bat

beet import "3 Convert\Fix"

beets-rm.bat

beet rm

folderize.bat

@echo off
cd "2 Beets Import"
for %%f in ("*.*") do (
    if not exist "%%~nf" MD "%%~nf"
    move "%%f" "%%~nf"
)
pause

• Create a folder structure for managing the files, here is my suggestion:

Processing\
    1 Remove Tags
    2 Beets Import
    3 Convert
    4 Add to iTunes
    beets.bat
    beets-fix.bat
    beets-rm.bat
    folderize.bat

There is an issue of colours in the windows console not working when using Python 3 https://github.com/beetbox/beets/issues/2607, you can either disable them by adding the following lines to the config.yaml file:

ui:
  color: no

Or by performing the following changes to the code, this can cause encoding issues in some cases though.

• Move wanted music into 1 Remove Tags
• Copy into 2 Beets Import
• Copy any groups of songs that form albums into folders (folder name doesn't matter)
• Remove tags from all songs in 2 Beets Import
• Run folderize.bat
• Run beets.bat
  • Tag each of the songs or albums with the desired tags
  • If none of the suggested albums are correct, use the Enter search option to search musicBrainz
  • If a song still isn't getting the correct suggested tags use the as Tracks option to tag the song without an album, which will be fixed in a later step
• Run beets-rm to remove all the songs from the library
• If there are any songs in the 3 Convert\Fix folder
  • Run beets-fix.bat and process the songs again
  • Run beets-rm again
• Use dBpoweramp Music Converter to convert resulting folders in 3 Convert
  • Should only have to configure this once
  • For the songs in lossless formats that aren't Apple Lossless:
    • Select the Apple Lossless encoding setting
    • Select Verify Written Audio
    • Output to Single Folder > Processing\4 Add to iTunes
    • Add ReplayGain DSP Effect
      • Write > Track, Album Gain & iTunes Album Normalization
      • Advanced Options > Gain Calculation > EBU R128, -18
    • Add ID Tag Processing DSP Effect
      • Additions > Add New > Comment, ReplayGain'd
  • For other formats:
    • Select the ReplayGain encoding
    • Use same ReplayGain settings as above
    • Using dBpoweramp edit ID-Tag to add a comment tag containing ReplayGain'd to the files
    • Copy the files into 4 Add to iTunes
• Deal with any songs that are quality upgrades of songs already in iTunes
• Copy songs in 4 Add to iTunes to the iTunes\iTunes Media\Automatically Add to iTunes\