Setting Up Your Music Database

Before AudioAlien will work correctly, you will have to add your music database to the list of Music Directories within the "Database Files" tab.  Simply press the new button   to the left of the Music Directories list box.  You will now see a Music Directory window.  Within this window, click the "Browse" button and browse to the root directory of your music collection.  For example, if your music is stored within the directory "C:\My Music" simply browse to this directory and hit OK.

Next, you will have to specify how you have your files and playlists named.  Although playlist naming schemes are not required, you must have at least one song naming scheme.  In order for AudioAlien to work correctly, you must also have a consistent naming convention for your music collection.  To add a Song Naming Scheme simply press the new button .  You will now see the Naming Scheme dialog box, which allows you to enter how your songs are named.  A naming scheme is simply a template or pattern of how you name your files.  It uses 7 keywords/flags: <TRASH>, <TRACK>, <ARTIST>, <ALBUM>, <SONG>, <CATEGORY> and <EXT>.  If you omit any information from your filename schemes such as the album name, it will simply be shown as "Unknown" when searching for files.

If you need help figuring out your name schemes, simply select a file in your collection in the Real-time Scheme tester, and it will show you if your name scheme is correct as you type it in.  Check to be sure that all of the information is as expected.

 Here are a few examples of how the Name Schemes work:

If your files are named like this:

C:\My Music\Rock\Nickelback - How You Remind Me.mp3
...
C:\My Music\Rock\White Zombie - More Human than Human.mp3
...
C:\My Music\Rap\2 Pac - Until the End of Time.mp3
etc.

Your root directory should be "C:\My Music", and your filename scheme should be:

C:\My Music\<CATEGORY>\<ARTIST> - <SONG>.mp3

If you also have subfolders within "C:\My Music" that for example contain full albums, you can add an additional filename scheme like this:

C:\My Music\Metallica - Ride the Lightning\[Metallica] Fade to Black.mp3
...
C:\My Music\Metallica - Ride the Lightning\[Metallica] For Whom the Bell tolls.mp3
etc.

Your filename scheme for these files would be:

C:\My Music\<TRASH> - <ALBUM>\[<ARTIST>] <SONG>.mp3

Note: I own an original copy of the Metallica Ride the Lightning album, so please don't sue me. ;-)

As you can see from the previous filename scheme we used the <TRASH> keyword.  This keyword simply means that the data located here, in this case "Metallica" is not needed because it is either data that doesn't pertain to any of the artist/album/song/track information, or it is duplicated elsewhere in the filename.  We could have also done this:

C:\My Music\<ARTIST> - <ALBUM>\[<TRASH>] <SONG>.mp3

If you have several different file types that follow the same naming scheme you can use <EXT> instead of a specific file extension.  For example, this could be used if you have a database of movies of various types such as AVI, MPEG, or RM:

C:\My Music\<ARTIST> - <ALBUM>\[<TRASH>] <SONG>.<EXT>

After you have added all of your filename schemes, you must make sure that they appear in the correct order.  When compiling your music database, AudioAlien will compare each file with the first name scheme in the list.  If that scheme doesn't work, it will try the next, etc.  For this reason you must make sure that the most complex file name schemes at the top.

For example, if you had the following two filename schemes:

1)  C:\My Music\<ALBUM>\<TRACK> - <ARTIST> - <SONG>.mp3
2)  C:\My Music\<ARTIST> - <SONG>.mp3

they must appear in this order, because every song that matches the first filename scheme will also match the second but not the other way around.  Therefore you want AudioAlien to try the more complex one first, then try the next one.  Move your filename schemes to the correct location by selecting the scheme, and pressing the up and down arrows.  You can also press the edit button to change a filename scheme, or the delete button to remove one.

After setting up your filename schemes, you can set up playlist name schemes in the same way if you have playlists in your collection.  When you are finished with all of your name schemes hit OK to return to the "Database Options" screen.  If necessary, you can add additional music collections to AudioAlien at this time.