Best software to organise your downloaded / ripped music?

[Daedalus]

Technophobe seeks assistance and advice from computer expert. Only has minor understanding of computer jargon.

Has previously used Windows Media Player (WMP) but has got tired of its increasingly erratic ways (it seems to have changed my track numbers without my prior consent and therefore some of my music is in the wrong order  ) and the difficulty in working out what the hell is going on generally while using this software.

Has also used Real Player (similar issues to WMP) and Media Monkey, which is the best of a bad bunch.

I have a huge amount of ripped / downloaded music and I want to really go to work on it and organise it a bit better, but I don't want to use WMP anymore as I find it to be irritating, overly difficult to use and I get fed up with it disobeying my commands   

So come on computer experts - what is the best software to use?

What do you use to organise your music?

D.

P.S. I don't really want to have to pay as I am extremely tight!  Freeware downloads are best 

[Daverz]

Have you tried Foobar2000?

Right now I play back my music files on a Macbook using Play (the Macbook has a built in optical digital output).  I don't really like Play for organization, though.  Like most of these programs it depends on id3 tags, which are pretty worthless for classical music.  So I'm writing my own program for organizing classical files.

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, for a player, I use WinAMP. It really is quite good. Media Monkey is also a good player. For tagging and organizing though, I have finally ended a year long hunt, and the easiest and most powerful tagger is without doubt the eponymously named MP3Tag. Everything you can want in a tagger is there, control of every field, total ease of operation, renaming files singly or in batches, in short: everything I was looking for. And the topper of all toppers, it is absolutely free.



----------------
Listening to:
Dvorak Op 033 - Richter Bavarian RSO/ C. Kleiber - Dvorak Concerto in g for Piano Op 33 1st mvmt

[Daedalus]

Like most of these programs it depends on id3 tags, which are pretty worthless for classical music.  So I'm writing my own program for organizing classical files.

Impressive stuff! 
I would write my own program too, you know, if I had any idea how to even begin such a process! 

[Daedalus]

Well, for a player, I use WinAMP. It really is quite good.

I have downloaded WinAMP and I thought it was ok but didn't really get a feel for it.

Media Monkey is also a good player.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more I think I am going back to Media Monkey.
I like the auto-organise function and I feel like I have far more control over what goes where etc.

For tagging and organizing though, I have finally ended a year long hunt, and the easiest and most powerful tagger is without doubt the eponymously named MP3Tag. Everything you can want in a tagger is there, control of every field, total ease of operation, renaming files singly or in batches, in short: everything I was looking for. And the topper of all toppers, it is absolutely free.

I thought Media Monkey was fairly good for 'control of every field, total ease of operation, renaming files singly or in batches' . However, this MP3Tag sounds very promising too. I am going to do a search and download this - sounds worth investigating. 

Does anyone use WMP? Personally, I have had some dreadful experiences with it recently and I just think it is clumsy, erratic, hard to use and doesn't seem to do half of the things I want it to do!

A perfect example of the flaws in WMP is the ID3 tag naming mechanism - if you rename the ID3 tags, then you generally want the filenames to change to match. However, WMP doesn't offer that function, it just seems to magically update the filenames when you least expect it - and that is if you are lucky.

Don't even get me started on WMP's updating from the Internet business - unless you tell WMP otherwise, it can often just start changing your ID3 tags and filenames with what it thinks is the right details. A complete nightmare!
I spent half an hour trying to identify, and then subsequently renaming, The Creatures of Prometheus the other day.  WMP decided that, in fact, the album wasn't  The Creatures of Prometheus but instead a collection of Beethoven piano sonatas played by Alfred Brandel. 
One can only presume this is due to the similar naming of the ID3 tags, as the latter album's ID3 tags feature the words Pastoral and Tempest, of which there are obviously piano sonatas. 

Quite frankly, I feel that it is useless and I am ready for a change.

Cheers for the suggestions guys.

D.