Music Management Software

[Odam]

Sorry if this gets asked all the time, but I couldn't find recent thread covering it..

I'm looking for music management app. I use iTunes to keep a small rotating catalogue of music that I sync with various devices, but I also have a pretty large digital collection that is not synced to itunes or managed by any app. And I think it's time to try and get it sorted.

So, I'm looking for a music manager that can handle large collections. I've had a look at Swinsian, Tomahawk & TunesGo, but none of them seem to have the features I'm after. First off, I need to be able to easily view my collection by Genre. Most managers seem to offer only 'Your Collection'. Also I'd like an Artist info page, so you can view discographies, bios, linked groups etc.

These features seem relatively straight forward by todays standards, is there an app out there with them?

 

[xb2003]

What OS are you on, and how much music is "large?" I know iTunes can be slow, especially if you don't have an SSD, but I personally haven't found anything I like better, and my collection is over 50,000 and I use Apple Music. On Windows I did use Foobar some and liked it(Im not even sure if their is a Mac version), and I also have used Tomahawk on a friend's computer.

Maybe it's just because I have been using iTunes since getting my original iPod way back when, but for me it's hard to get away from.

If you have lots of duplicates, there are programs out there that will go though and delete those.

 

[Odam]

I'm running Yosemite for now.

I use iTunes and keep a rotating smaller library of music in it that I sync with and iPod and iPad. I find it fine for that purpose, but too limited for my entire collection. I use VLC as a general media player, including quick listening to music files.

I haven't looked to see how big my music collection is, but it's been steadily growing for nearly two decades. It also covers many genres and sub genres and is grouped in folders by genre. ITunes would make it way to difficult to navigate through. If I just want to browse through some, let's say contemporary Japanese female folk artists, iTunes doesn't make that easy. Even if I put every album in a smart playlist it still doesn't offer the user user experience I'm after.

What I'm looking for is a more user friendly, informative way of viewing a large collection than just clicking through folders. A combination of file manager and artist database. If you look at most online streaming services, if you search an artist you'll get a bio page and a discography. Most of that information is scrape-able, I don't see why a desktop music player can't do the same.

I've been looking a the Collectorz Music catalogue program. I'm not yet convinced about it as a visual interface but it seems closer to what I'm looking for. It's original purpose is for physical media cataloging, so it has a ton of functions that I won't use, but it also covers digital music files. It's not a player itself but does allow files/albums to be opened in VLC.