I currently use (on Windows) 2 tagging programmes:

MP3 Tag & Rename
This is great for scanning a few folders and file/tag modifying, but it's not a DB so anything that you want to do on large numbers of files is pretty tough (I have 25,000 odd files)

MP3 Manager
Development on this stopped in 2002, it does everything I want that Tag & Rename doesn't, it's only flaw is that it doesn't really work (very well) with ID3 v2 tags. There's an open source product based on this around (written in Python) but it's for Linux.

Any ideas on a programme that'll do what I'm after? I've played with Helium in the past and have tried Media Catalog Studio & MP3 Boss today.

MP3 Manager doesn't seem to do anything not already covered in iTunes at first glance.

I find iTunes adequate for sorting through my collection in a DB-like fashion, so I'm on the other end of this search. Hoping that some day there will be a decent file-based tagger available for Mac OS (like MP3Tag, etc..)

I've also got around 25000 files.

I've never played with iTunes, I don't have an iPod, never really thought of using it as my music DB. Might try it.

Will download MP3 Book Helper too.

Thanks guys

OK I've got some of my collection into iTunes, am I being dense or is there no way to filter by a date range? I want all tracks from the 60s...

I've been coming here since about 2002 and no one ever seems to give winamp any props.

It is by no means a mass file tagger, but for "on pc" music management and playback, I'd say it is the best out there.
The "Media Library" does a great job of pointing out inconsistencies your favorite mass tagger may have left behind and you can make changes to the tags from within winamp.
Also,
it makes it's own little db of all your metadata
It streams
it rips
it burns
it converts
it crossfades
it's gapless
it has playlist making logic
it does amazing vizualizations (desktop mode makes the viz your deskop walpaper)
very skinable (size and shape, not just color)
you get 20 or so XM satellite stations or free
most played
recently added
recently played
never played
top rated
streaming radio
streaming tv
blah blah blah, the list goes on forever...

The only thing I haven't fiugured out yet is how to get winamp on my laptop to control winamp on the computer hooked up to my home stereo... still using my empeg for this feature.

Check out the overview

I've always used Winamp as my media player, didn't know it had DB capabilities. What I'm really after is something that can filter by any range of attributes and has some tagging capabilities.

I've been using Tag & Rename for years now and never found it wanting in terms of features, like the interface too.

Found it in iTunes, "smart playlist".

Does what I need, d/loaded WinAmp too, I was still using version 2.something

I have been using Winamp 2.75, together with a plug-in called EZ-Playlist - great for mass tagging!

Well, iTunes is nowhere near as quick as MP3Manager, doesn't look like you can modify file names or delete files from within it either. Seems to offer a lot more than I want or need while missing some basic stuff that I do.

Some cool stuff in there though, lot better than when I first tried it when it was originally released, not convinced it's the solution for me.

I use foobar for playing music:

http://www.foobar2000.org/

and the godfather for tagging: (Looks like the official site is down now)

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Tag-Editors/The-GodFather.shtml

I don't use iTunes for managing the files. I do that manually. Though on the Mac you can greatly extend iTunes capabilities using AppleScript, including the ability to rename files.

In iTunes prefs I turn off the options for it to manage file locations (there are two related items for this on one pref pane). but as far as browsing your music collection, it's pretty much the best and cleanest. I only started using it full time after version 7 came out. revious versions didn't have the ability to properly group things by artist-albums and sub-sort by various methods - the one I use it date.

I use the second view which shows artwork on the left, then I click the ALBUM header a couple of times till it says "Album by Year" - that gets you everything sorted alphabetically by Artist and then each album within each artist sorted by year. There will be one thumbnail per album with all its tracks listed next to it on the right.

For doing filtering you can optionally use smart playlists, header sorting or the browse feature which is accessed with the "eye" button on the bottom right. Browse is in fact a quick-filter. Click on the filter items and everything else vanishes from the displayed list. I've never used it in Windows, but it runs pretty well on my 1.5GHz PowerBook and even faster on my 1.6GHz Dual Core Mac mini. I even use it over a Remote Desktop (Apple's VNC) to manage the stuff on the mini from my notebook.

See the thing is I manage my collection on my work PC, and play it either through my Karma on the move or Squeezeboxes at home. I almost never listen to my music directly at the PC so in a lot of respects iTunes is wasted on me.

When I say manage what I mean is making sure I've got complete tags, checking for typos etc. Still finding typos/duplications years after ripping most of my CDs...

I don't listed to music through iTunes at all. Only on my SqueezeBox and empeg. I use iTunes for everything you've mentioned.

With a good stand-alone tagger for Mac OS, I'd probably still continue to use iTunes for some of these purposes because it's a good managed interface.

Slimserver keeps a database of all my music but I have to wipe that on a regular basis for it to represent everything properly in its web interface and on my players. SlimServer reads the iTunes XML and finds out where the music is stored. It can also read iTunes playlists (including smart ones) and with a plugin, write back Played Count, Played Time and Skipped data. This data can be brought back into SlimServer after wiping its DB also by using a plugin. And another plugin lets you construct playlists based on all this data as well.

So how do I do the following in iTunes.

I have several tracks by Art Blakey, all on compilations, the tags (CDDB/FreeDB) contain as artist the following:

Art Blakely & The Jazz Messengers
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
Art Blakey & His Messengers
Art Blakey & The Messengers

I want to batch edit the artist and then auto rename the files to reflect the correct artist name.

I would start by typing "art messengers" without the quotes into iTune's search box in the top right corner of the window. That should list all tracks with the tags you mentioned.

You can select all those tracks and when editing tags you will automatically be working on them in batch.

Renaming the files is where it gets tricky if you're using Windows. On the Mac you can get a number of AppleScripts as well as iTunify which provides a nice GUI for a lot of the same features as many scripts plus a of of RegEx support. You would need something similar to plug into iTunes to handle the renaming. Or use a more conventional tagging program such as MP3Tag, Tag&Rename or Dr.Tag.

That's my issue, I object to having 2 different programmes do the job. If MP3 Manager did v2 tags it'd be my weapon of choice. I haven't found anything else that does this effectively (or at least in a way that makes immediate sense to me).

Thanks for all the links guys.