Beet

DO NOT UPDATE to PYTHON 3.13 UNTIL CHROMA IS WORKING

To run, do docker compose run beet <command>. I've set up a bash alias.

Importing Music Files

• Place files in /mnt/storage/Music - Import
• Run beet import /import (aliased to the above docker command)
• If you want to tag them to a playlist, add an appropriate tag to the comments field (via beet modify <query> comments=<value>) after importing
• If a field is unknown, when editing, remove it instead of giving the empty string ''. This prevents Navidrome from listing it
• Use the GUI tag editor kid3 to mark tracks as toprated (in the comments field)

Note: Navidrome will not detect .mp4 containers

Modifying metadata for specific paths in the library

beet mod /path/to/album field='value'

Move files to correct locations

beet update and beet move don't seem to move files in the library. I manually move them out, do beet update (which deletes them from the database), then reimport them again.

Beet has the following catch-all folders:

• compilations: check that songs/albums don't get sent here accidentally
• _: unknown albums
• Non-Album: singleton tracks
• Various Artists

Check files in library which are not in database

Import Rules

• No/unknown artist/album: set as '' (not just blank, that will create a folder with the name None)
• Always import songs as albums, if available, even if incomplete (i.e. never as singletons/T)
• Sometimes songs seemingly not part of any album might be singles (e.g. MaxKoMusic)

Importing an existing library with playlists

The best way (after trying multiple methods) is:

• Make a copy of the whole library
• Move files in playlists to their named folders (unfortunately, this won't work with files which are in multiple playlists)
• Do beet import -A --set=comments=<playlistname> <playlistdir> for each playlist directory. This tags the files (in the comment field) with the playlist they are in, so they can be queried later.
• Import the rest of the library with beet import -A <musiclibrary>.

Adding titles/subtitles to discs

For albums with many discs, you can add the name of the disc by adding a TSST field to all tracks in the same disc.