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Managing Tracks

February 18 2024 - 11:35 am

UPDATED: Quick Convert v5.7

Convert all or just the selected tracks of the selected Playlist using your choice of available encoders, restoring your Preferences-set encoder afterwards.

Additionally, you can:

  • Choose to delete and/or Trash the original tracks and/or files
  • Copy all converted tracks to a playlist

Latest version:

  • Fixes issue with setting to float
  • Maintenance and minor performance fixes
  • Accommodations for macOS Sonoma

More information for Quick Convert v5.7 and download link is here.

November 4 2023 - 8:00 pm

NEW: Year to Album of Selected Track v1.0

l still buy and rip CDs. And frequently these days the CDs are remastered or recompiled or back-filled with back catalog, and so on. I find it slightly irritating that sometimes the Year tag for these tracks is from the release date of the reconstituted CD rather than the year of original release. I get why some people prefer this. But I do not. Sometimes I can fix the Year if I notice it post rip. But more than likely it will be, ahem, years before I notice.

This can screw up a Smart or Genius playlist, too. And that's generally how I'll notice it; I'm expecting tracks from a particular era but they don't show up because they were released in the future. Arggh.

In order to swat this predicament whenever I come across it on-the-fly, I wrote a script, Year to Album of Selected Track, that will use the selected or playing track's album and artist tags to identify its album track mates in the library and batch-change their Year tag to the one I enter.

Thus, whenever I notice that a lonely album track in a playlist has the wrong Year, I can update the whole album without the "Show Album in Library" ado. And indeed there can be a lot of ado.

Exceptions/Deal Breaker? Yes: perhaps obviously, an album of tracks with more than a single artist name will produce errant results. Both album name and artist are used to unambiguously identify a particular whole album where, ostensibly, each track has the same artist tag. But in the cases of some compilation albums, or albums with augmented artist tags (such as including a "feat" artist or soloist), only the tracks that match the artist and album name from the selected or playing track will be updated—and that could mean only the selected or playing track gets updated! Just sayin'.

More information for Year to Album of Selected Track v1.0 and download link is here.

October 5 2023 - 11:45 am

UPDATED: Super Remove Dead Tracks v6.3

Scans the Music or TV app for tracks whose files are inaccessible or no longer available (so-called "dead" tracks). Outputs a tab-delimited text log listing the tracks by Artist, Name, Album and last known file location. The registered version will delete the tracks.

Also see List MIAs and Media Folder Files Not Added.

Latest version:

  • Maintenance and minor performance fixes
  • Accommodations for macOS Sonoma 14

More information for Super Remove Dead Tracks v6.3 and download link is here.

July 23 2023 - 3:51 pm

UPDATED: List MIAs v6.4

This applet checks your Music or TV library for missing and presumed dead tracks--those tracks that have become disassociated from their file and which are listed with a "!"--and can delete them from the app or create a text file listing these tracks by last known File Path, Title, Artist and Album, which you can view using TextEdit.

Latest version:

  • Maintenance and minor performance fixes
  • Tested successfully with macOS Sonoma 14

More information for List MIAs v6.4 and download link is here.

June 30 2023 - 12:17 pm

UPDATED: Needle Drop v7.7

This applet plays each track in the selected Music playlist for a set time interval optionally starting at a set number of seconds into each track, beginning with the selected track. Handy for 'scoping playlists.

Needle Drop will work best on tracks that have local files. Un-cached tracks streamed from the cloud may upset timing while audio is being downloaded.

Also see Audition End.

Latest version:

  • Updates UI Scripting to correct an issue that may have prevented operation
  • Tested with macOS Sonoma 14

More information for Needle Drop v7.7 and download link is here.

June 30 2023 - 12:16 pm

UPDATED: Audition End v3.7

Play through each track in a playlist by a set number of seconds (:05 - :60) from the end. Additionally, wait a set number of seconds between each track; when engaged, begins playing from the first track or the first selected track in the playlist.

Also see Needle Drop.

Latest version:

  • Updates UI Scripting to correct an issue that may have prevented operation
  • Tested with macOS Sonoma 14

More information for Audition End v3.7 and download link is here.

February 13 2023 - 5:51 pm

UPDATED: Playlist Manager v4.4

The Music app only allows one playlist to be selected at a time. This applet can perform common useful tasks on a multiple selection of playlists: playlist title renaming (add text, remove text, search and replace text) and duplicate, delete, export, move to Playlist Folder and merge playlists.

Latest version:

  • Maintenance and minor performance fixes
  • Accommodations for macOS 13 Ventura

More information for Playlist Manager v4.4 and download link is here.

January 26 2023 - 7:07 pm

UPDATED: Search Results to Playlist v3.5

Search the entire Music app library, or a selected playlist, for user-entered text by All, Song Title, Artist, Album, or Composer tag and copy the track results to a Search Results playlist, which will be created automatically if necessary. Can optionally re-create or append to the Search Results playlist on each run.

Latest version:

  • Maintenance and minor performance fixes
  • Accommodations for macOS 13 Ventura

More information for Search Results to Playlist v3.5 and download link is here.

January 26 2023 - 6:52 pm

UPDATED: Scan For Double Entries v4.2

This applet will scan your Music library for pairs of track entries that--very strangely--point to the same file and then copy those tracks to a discrete playlist for further examination; presumably you'll want to remove one of the faux pair tracks without Trashing the single associated file.

More about this issue is here.

Latest version:

  • Maintenance and minor performance fixes
  • Accommodations for macOS 13 Ventura

More information for Scan For Double Entries v4.2 and download link is here.

January 21 2023 - 2:49 pm

UPDATED: Albums Amiss v1.2

This script uses track information to calculate whether a particular batch of tracks with the same Album title represent an incomplete or over-complete album, with either too few or too many requisite album tracks. Such batches will be copied to a discrete results playlist where they can be examined. The entire Music library or a selected Smart playlist can be scanned. (To be clear: the script does not check some kind of online database; it uses the extant local track entry information. Thus, tag accuracy is essential.)

Latest version:

  • Adds Setting to change default name of results playlist
  • Maintenance and minor performance fixes
  • Accommodations for macOS 13 Ventura

More information for Albums Amiss v1.2 and download link is here.

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