Advices on organizing local music files

Advices on organizing local music files

1. Why should we organize local music files?

「Matrix Audio」 music streamers can organize music from local storage devices or network drives (NAS) into a music library that can be searched by different dimensions such as albums, artists, tracks, genres etc. 

This is achieved by reading the metadata embedded in the music files. Therefore, the integrity and accuracy of the music file metadata directly affect the result of building the music library on 「Matrix Audio」music streamers.

Generally speaking, music files directly released by record companies already contain complete metadata; whereas music files come from CD ripping or from non-official distribution channels may lack metadata. In such cases, it is recommended to manually edit the metadata of these music files.

2. Metadata

Metadata is "data that provides information about other data".

Metadata of music files, also known as "tags" by audiophiles, it records information such as the title, artist, album, track number, genre, and the cover image of the album. How a track is displayed under which album, artist, and genre in MA Remote App is determined by the track's metadata.

Additionally, certain music file formats like DFF do not contain metadata. In MA Remote App, such files will be categorized under "Unknown Album".

2.1 Organize metadata

Recommended software for metadata management is Mp3tag. You can download it for free at www.mp3tag.de. 

Information such as music title, artist, album, year, track number, genre, album artist, composer etc., can be directly entered in the text boxes. Right-click on the album cover area to add or remove cover images. On the right side of the cover image, you can see the current embedded cover image's file format, resolution, and file size. 

It is recommended to save image in JPEG format as cover art, with a resolution within 1400*1400 pixels and a file size below 1MB. While ensuring image clarity, keep the image file size between 100-200KB for faster loading of cover images by the music streamers and MA Remote App.

Click save bottom to save the changes to the metadata.

2.2 Organize metadata of compilation albums

For the compilation albums which are composed of tracks by different artists, the "Album Artist" field in the metadata of all tracks in this album should be filled with the same content, for example "Various Artists". If the "Album Artist" is empty or filled with different contents in such an album, MA Remote App will display this album as multiple separated albums.

2.3Local album images

「Matrix Audio」 music streamers not only display the album images embedded in the metadata of music files, but also can read local album images stored in the music folder. Simply place the image in the folder of the album.

Local album images should adhere to the following requirements:

• The image should be placed in the same folder as the tracks of the album.

• It is recommended to use JPEG images with a resolution within 1400x1400 pixels and a file size under 1MB. While ensuring image clarity, keep the image file size between 100-200KB for faster loading of cover images by the music streamers and MA Remote App.

• If there are multiple images in the album folder, MA Remote App will give priority to display images that named “cover” or “folder” as default album art, if there are no such image files, the app will use the image that comes first alphabetically as by default. You can choose a different image as the album cover through the MA Remote App.