14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the age of digital revolution, a phenomenon that spans across a multitude of everyday common technologies, transforming forever the way we work, live and even entertain. So, I'll ask you to kindly throw all your vinyl records and tapes in the nearest garbage can as the era of digital music has started, be it recorded on CDs or stored in computers, cell phones and portable music players.
As the digital era grows stronger, so does its influence and this can be clearly seen in the entertainment industry that, divided as it is in genres, fans and production houses, shares a common transfer medium: the MP3 file format, a digital sound representation playable on a huge number of electronic devices.
While most of us keep around a few hundreds of MP3 file representing our most favorite songs, there are persons that have large collections of such files, thousands. For casual music listeners, as well as for die hard fans of digital music, organizing and keeping all those files in good order is not such a trivial task, as music can be sorted and kept in all types of collections, making it difficult to find a specific music file sometimes. But trouble yourselves no more with these problems as MP3db 2008 is here and we will shortly see if it is up to this challenge.
A freeware Microsoft Windows XP and Vista compatible utility, MP3db 2008, comes with a small setup kit of only 2.2MB and its installation procedure is very simple, the user having only to click a series of buttons, as the predefined settings work like a charm. From the very beginning, as the program is up and running, the user has to set up a few options like the location where the newly created music database will reside, the default music player to be used and the drivers and folders that are to be scanned in order to build the collection desired. As MP3db 2008 starts scanning your computer and any attached media device for music files, a nice popup window will appear and it will keep the user informed about the currently scanned drive and folder and also display the number of music files found. After the whole scanning business is completed, all your music files that are encoded using the MP3 format will be displayed and MP3db 2008 will offer a host of information, most of it extracted from the ID3 tags for the files.
Now, a user can truly inspect and organize his or her music collection as MP3db 2008 sorts all files according to predefined settings that can be easily changed to suit just about everybody's needs and whims. So, here we are, looking at a music collection that can be sorted by artist, file, track and album name and so on. Lastly, MP3db 2008 supports a pretty advanced rating system and it also can edit by the fly the ID3 tags of a certain file or group of files; thus, making sure that all the files have the right tags is just a few clicks away.
As MP3db 2008 detects the default music player installed on the computer system, it also lets the user listen to any of the music files that are displayed. Moreover, files can also be arranged in neat queues, allowing users to enjoy their music at a slower pace.
Another nice feature that comes with this utility is that any number of music files can be grouped according to similar properties like music genre, artist, storage medium and file type. At the same time, MP3db 2008 can create more advanced groups taking into consideration an extended number of parameters like medium, artist and album, all at once.
For those users that spend more time looking for a specific track than enjoying good music, MP3db 2008 comes with two search modes, a basic one that can look for your files according to a number of user defined options like storage medium, track title, an all fields match entry, artist and genre. The advanced searching tool implemented in MP3db 2008 lets users create almost SQL like interrogations to be fired upon the database. These advanced queries are created using a specialized window popup where users are able to build an interrogatory by putting together simple statements like "ID number is equal to 123" and "artist name is equal to Sepultura". These simple statements are then combined in order to create a single SQL like interrogation that can be fired at once or saved for later use. For those that are comfortable with SQL, MP3db 2008 can provide a dedicated editor, so the possibilities of querying a database are almost endless.
MP3db 2008 is able to reread the storage devices and look for new music files from time to time in order to maintain an up to date database that can be exported in a CVS compatible format, allowing it to be read by many data processing applications. As this program is also a music player launcher, a number of extra options are available, like randomizing the whole playlist, as well as selecting between ten and forty random files for playing.
A fuzzy logic duplicate finder engine is also present. It can detect duplicate files even if they come with different attributes like file name and tags. This is truly an advanced feature, as most music related programs have no such capabilities, beyond the basic file name matching.
The Good
MP3db 2008 does many things very well. From the speedy storage medium scanning to the advanced SQL interrogations, this application is extremely useful as it will certainly make life easier for music fans.
The Bad
Well, there is not much to say here, except for the fact that the SQL editing window is just that, a simple window, no help is provided for users whatsoever by MP3db 2008's developers. It almost looks like an afterthought. Also, an integrated music player would have been a nice addition to its capabilities.
The Truth
All in all, MP3db 2008 is as good as it gets when it comes to building music collections and thanks to its powerful interrogation features, it does the job in no time. Taking into consideration that it is also really easy to handle and access even by novice computer users for free, it is a prime candidate for any music fan that looks forward to building and arranging his collection.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
