A big music collection is not easy to manage without special music organizer software. For physical media like Audio CDs, DVDs, vinyl records (LPs, 45RPMs etc.), audio cassettes, it is often difficult to tell where exactly the music album can be found. Maybe it was loaned to your friend or is just lying under your bed? Music files may seem to be easier to organize, as in most cases they are stored locally and are always at hand. However, collections of audio files are typically even more chaotic, with songs from multiple albums stored in a single folder, with several copies of the same songs downloaded from different sites etc.
Musicnizer helps music collectors to sort their files, Audio CDs and other types of media by creating an easy to navigate music catalog with lots of cross links and references. For music albums it will download such details as the complete track list, album cover, artist, label, year, review. For artists, photos, biography, discography can be downloaded. Depending on the media type, the user is able to select the most convenient method of adding music albums to the database. The built-in file scanner of Musicnizer will search selected folders for audio files in all popular formats, including MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, APE, and many others. Information about albums can be read directly from ID3 tags (FLAC tags, APE tags etc.). If there are no usable tags in the music files, Musicnizer will try to extract necessary information from filenames and folder names.
Albums on physical media (Audio CD, LP, DVD etc.) can be added to the music database by scanning their barcodes, reading Audio CD, or simply by entering album titles. Musicnizer supports common USB barcode scanners and additionally offers a unique feature of reading and recognizing barcodes with the help of a webcam. After receiving a barcode or a title (or a group of them), the program will look up and download necessary information from the internet. Then it is possible to enter some information manually, like the disc number, location, comment, price, rating, and other details. Later, if some album is borrowed by a friend, it can be marked as loaned in the built-in loan manager.
After adding music albums to the database the user can enjoy rich sorting and filtering capabilities of the music organizer. A click on the artist’s name will open a page with additional information about the artist: photos, biography, discography, important facts. Another click on the title of some music album from the discography will open a page with details of the album. A click on the label will show all albums from the collection published by the label. The user can create his or her own “views” and easily switch between different sorting methods. The “Search” tab will be helpful if you need to find albums from your music collection that match certain criteria.
Information from the database can be formed into nice looking reports and printed or exported to some popular format, like HTML or PDF. There are a couple of preinstalled report patterns, but the program contains a report builder where the user can create a custom report pattern and adjust layout in a few clicks.
Musicnizer is capable of playing audio files associated with music albums from its database in several ways. There is a built-in player, but the user can also specify a custom player and even startup parameters for it. Less experienced users can simply switch to the default Windows player or use other available choices.
Musicnizer is really helpful when it comes to managing your music collection, but it can also enrich your knowledge about the albums you have by providing album reviews, biographies of artists, discographies, and other details in a form that is fun to work with.