HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

FixTunes is an app whose main goal to fill those missing tags in your MP3s and add album art. If you want to, it can also organize your music in folders (artists, albums, year, etc.—you define the pattern). Finally, it can be used as a means to browse your music collection (e.g. the “Show All Albums” view displays all of your albums’ covers—a nice, visual way to walk through your music collection).

FixTunes runs on Windows (95!, 98, ME, 2000, XP). There’s no version for the Mac platform yet, but I’ve been told it should be out soon.

(Click on the screenshots for larger versions.)

How it works

When you first launch FixTunes, you’re asked for the location of your music library. You’re better off doing some tests first, so I pointed to a single folder where I held some mis-tagged MP3s. The songs are added to the FixTunes library—they’re now part of the “Not Looked Up” group. Clicking on that button in the “Main Menu” brings them up. Note that you can “Add Songs” at any time, by clicking on the respective button, or search for music files in the group you’re currently browsing from the search field—both can be found on the bottom row (bottom-left area).

[Also note that the app is a tiny bit heavy when it comes to system resources, but it’s no Firefox (ha!) or Photoshop—so nothing to worry about.]

From hereon, you can either select particular songs (Ctrl+Click should prove to be helpful) or all of them (Ctrl+A) and have FixTunes look up the correct tags (and album art) in its database—you just click the “Look Up Selected” button in the bottom row.

Tip: the program uses both the current filename and the existing tags (#) to look up the correct information. As noted in the FAQ, you need at least part of the artist name and song title (“one correctly spelled word” from each—#) to increase the chances of a succesful query (#).

Q1: What database does FixTunes use?
A1: The “Help” page states that “much of the information in the FixTunes music database comes from the music catalog at Amazon.com”. The FAQ mentions that “FixTunes maintains its own database of music information. This database was built from several available sources including commercial music retailers (Amazon.com) and CD databases (FreeDB). We are always adding to, and managing the database to provide the greatest amount of information with the highest accuracy.” Finally, the forum FAQ states that “if the CD is not available on Amazon.com it will not be in the database.” Verdict? It’s just Amazon.com, or at the very least, heavily based on Amazon’s DB.

Q2: Where does the cover art come from?
A2: According to the FAQ, it’s downloaded from Amazon.com, and is written to the file’s ID3v2 tag so that it’s accessible from other programs.

Checking each song doesn’t take particularly long—I’d say it’s a ~10sec process. When the look-up for all songs has finished, these get separated into two groups; “Identified” where the songs with an “Accuracy” value (we’ll talk about it below) of more than 60% go, and “Unidentified” for the rest of them. You can access these groups by clicking the respective button on the “Main Menu” (top left).

Q3: What’s this “Accuracy” value that you speak of?
A3: It’s a way to measure how close the information that FixTunes has just looked up is, to the actual information already on the song. My tests showed that any value above 80% probably means that FixTunes did the guessing game correctly, whereas you’ll need to do some more thorough checking with those “sub-80% accurate” tunes. It would be handy if the program allowed for a user-defined accuracy level—e.g. since I think that an accuracy level of 80% should be the border between “Identified” and “Unidentified”, why can’t I set it so?

Back to the FixTunes “modus operandi”. FixTunes did the look-up and it has sorted the tunes into two groups. No actual change has taken place yet—this is a good thing. Think of it like a “preview mode”, only better, because you can close the program and when you re-open it FixTunes will remember the results (i.e. you won’t have to look up those tunes again).

Now’s the time for the careful checking. Let’s say you’re in the “Identified” group; you can get a quick view of FixTunes’ guesses by looking at the song listing (middle pane)—the guessed information is used. If all songs look right (the guessed information is indeed accurate), you can “Select All” and then “Fix Selected” from the bottom row. This will apply the guessed information to your MP3s, and move them to the “Fixed” group.

If for some songs you have your doubts, you can highlight them from the middle pane (the song listing) and view more details in the right pane (“Information”).

• The “Details” tab shows the guessed tags on top—you can edit the guessed tags (the fields are editable) and from there you can either perform a new “Look Up” (FixTunes will now perform another query based on the updated information it has about the song), “Save” the information (it will apply the new tags, but it won’t move it from the “Identified” group to the “Fixed” one), or “Fix” the song (saves the new tags and moves the song to the “Fixed” group). Finally, on the bottom of the “Details” tab are the original (old) values of the song and a handy “Use These” button.
• The “Album” tab brings up the album cover, some album metadata (Release Date, UPC, Amazon ASIN, Genre), links to get more info from Google, Wikipedia, Amazon and lyrics sites) and the tracklisting with links to samples of the songs from the iTunes Music Store. I was expecting to be able to click on a song (or tick a checkbox, whatever) to let FixTunes know that “this is the song I’m looking for!”, but this not the case, unfortunately. Something to consider for an upgraded version.
• The “Similar” tab lists album similar to the one you’re checking—it uses Amazon’s data to do the picks.

Obviously, most of the same are true for the “Unidentified” group too with only minor, logical differences. In the “Information” pane (the right one), the “Details” tab for each track now brings the original (old) tags on the top in editable fields (there’s even a field for the filename), so you can make the appropriate changes and “Look Up” again. On the bottom of the “Details” pane, there’s the values FixTunes guessed (under the header “Wrong Details:”) followed by a self-explanatory “These Are Correct” button… The “Album” and “Similar” tabs work as with the “Identified” tunes.

When a song has been fixed, it is moved from the “Identified” (or “Unidentified”) group to the “Fixed” one (obviously, duh). Highlight a song from that group and you’ll notice the “Information” pane retains its usual functionality. You can edit the current tags, perform another look up, etc.—you can even apply the old, original values again! FixTunes keeps them handy, which is good to know. Unfortunately though, there’s no way to move a song from “Fixed” back to the “Not Looked Up” group.

Before we’re done with the fixing functions of FixTunes, two important areas need to be covered.

→ Tags/renaming/moving: you have the ability to choose what information (which tags) from the look-ups will be applied to your tunes—e.g. you may not want to use the “Genre” value. You can also have the files automatically renamed once they’re fixed (the fine-naming schema is up to you—e.g. it can be “Track – Title”, “Artist – Title”, etc.) and moved to another directory. All of these options can be accessed via the “Edit Options” link in the “Home” page. I’d like to see an option for switching between Uppercase and lowercase in filenames/tags (the program only does Uppercase), as is the case with more full-fledged tag editors (which FixTunes doesn’t claim to be, I know, but still it should be easy to implement). For example, how about “artist – title” for having the filenames in lowercase, and “Artist – Title” for Uppercase?

→ iTunes mode: if you’re using FixTunes to “mess” with the songs you’ve added to iTunes, and you’ve told to FixTunes to rename and/or move the songs, there would be a problem. iTunes isn’t able to auto-update its index (where are our watch-folders?), so you would have to remove the incorrect listings from iTunes, and add the new ones. Fortunately, I write “would” because of the handy “iTunes mode” in FixTunes (accessible via the “Home” page): if you enable it, FixTunes edits the library file of iTunes so as to reflect the new changes. No manual removing and re-importing, it’s all done automatically. As the developper notes on the blog:

FixTunes now has a special “iTunes Mode”. Instead of reading and writing ID3 tags from your music files, all data is read from, and written back to, the iTunes program. Fixed songs update immediatly in the iTunes interface (its fun to watch! ) including all song tags and album art. iTunes doesn’t lose songs and all your smart lists (and other playlists) update automatically. You can even set iTunes to “keep your music folder organized” and songs will be automatically moved to their correct location. All very cool.

Browsing

Browsing works for those albums that have either been identified or fixed (and come with cover art). In the left pane, beneath the “Main Menu” section, there’s the “Browse Albums” one. You can choose to browse by genre, artist, or year—or “Show All Albums”, and the album covers of that category will appear in the middle pane.

Click on album cover and the right pane will reveal the “Album” tab, as in the fixing process: album cover, some album metadata (Release Date, UPC, Amazon ASIN, Genre), links to get more info from Google, Wikipedia, Amazon and lyrics sites) and the tracklisting with links to samples of the songs from the iTunes Music Store.

As it is, the browsing part is a way to get a quick glimpse of the albums you’ve got in your library, and also a way to get some more info about them. It’s not centeerd around the usual “browse and play” way of thinking. I’m not filing this as a bug—I believe this is the original intention of the developers.

Nevertheless, I can’t tell why it links to the iTMS samples for those tracks that already exist in the library—why not link to the actual files? Also, while we’re at it—when browsing, the “Home” button in the “Main Menu” remains highlighted, as if it’s active. This should probably be fixed.

Buying it

There is a free trial that is fully functional for up to 50 look-ups.

The program costs $24.95. You’re given a “Purchase Code” that unlocks the application. You’re only allowed to use the code up to 5 times, which can get a bit tricky—in my case, I was asked to re-enter the code a few days after I had unlocked it for the first time, wasting another turn. This isn’t a personal complaint since I was given a code for free for the purpose of this review, but had I paid for it, I wouldn’t be too glad about this. Furthermore, there’s no mention of what happens with the code a propos to upgrades. Can someone use the purchase code in a future version? Provided there’s a 5-uses limit, I’d like to think this option exists—otherwise the cap is a bummer.

Miscellaneous remarks

• FixTunes can rename and organize almost all music files, but can only update information for those filetypes that support ID3v2 tags (usually only MP3). (#)
• If you have the IE 7 beta installed, the app may not work properly—according to this forum post, they will release an update that fixes this.

• The site is rather neglected.
  • The free trial lasts for 50 look-ups according to the Download page, and 20 look-ups according to the Help page.
  • On the homepage, the database is said to have over 4 million tracks in one place, over 3 million tracks in another.
  • Links to the Customer Support page differ from page to page throughout the website…
  • The “automatically download song information” and “music database” links found on the Features page are pages identical to the homepage—what gives?
  • Forums are filled with spam.

• Potential URIs of use:
  • Feedback
  • FAQ
  • Forum

Conclusion

FixTunes is a sleek, automated tagger/cover art fetcher. It’s not perfect when it comes to getting the right data, but in my experience it did a nice enough job. In those cases it didn’t, it prevents you from messing up your library since:

• it doesn’t apply the new data unless you explicitly say so
• it always remembers the old data, even if the new one is applied

It has a well thought-out UI—forget about multiple windows and pop-up dialogues (apart from the “Edit Options” section, which is usually a one-time process). One window, three vertical panes and that’s it. Furthermore, when there’s no use for the right pane, it is sometimes loaded with instructions on what to do next which has proved handy quite a few times. Very, very nice job here.

Of course, it could use some minor improvements here and there (those were usually written in italics throughout the review). These are easy to implement and don’t add much complexity to the program—to repeat some of them:

• a user-defined accuracy level for setting the bar between the “Identified” and “Unidentified” groups
• when fixing tags, clicking on a song (or an icon next to it, something) in the “Album” view means “this is the one I have”
• allow “Fixed” tracks to be moved to the “Not Looked Up” group (via drag & drop, too)
• add the ability to change casing (Uppercase, lowercase, etc.) when it comes to tags/filenames
• when browsing, clicking on a song I already have in the “Album” view should launch that song, not a sample of it from the iTMS
• the ability to use the code for future versions, since there is a 5-uses limit (this may already be feasible—I don’t know)

You could use FixTunes in several ways. Most will probably use it for their existing libraries to check for errors, missing album covers, etc. (the iTunes mode is a real winner, since it allows for seamless use along with the popular media player) but it could also be used for those tracks that get in your “Inbox”: the ones you’re getting from P2P networks or from that friend who could use a little help with the concept of “tags” (I should know better, since most of my friends fall in that category).

Point FixTunes to the directory where the Soulseek downloads reside, and instead of having to visit Amazon or AMG with your browser and use their search forms, do the queries from within the program, easily and fast. (Remember you can edit the tags or filenames of your songs from within FixTunes before performing another look up, in case the first one was not successful.)

[Before closing, I would like to thank the crew behind FixTunes, and esp. Allison Hurt, for providing me with a purchase code to conduct this review.]

Rating: 7/10

→ Visit the FixTunes website