jRiver Media Center

[djstarr]

Based on various feedback from this group I'm trying out jRiver Media Center. I'm uploading the CDs into .WAV files and then encoding to .ape format, which does run very fast.

I tried DJ'ing with Media Center on Monday, and I had a lot of trouble editing the playlist in realtime - I deleted a song in the playlist, but it got played anyway, and then the playlist kept going back to the top and restarting the first song in the set. Is it possible to edit the playlist as you are playing off of it? I assume so; I found the software not intuitive and I guess I need to start reading the help files or something

If I use another player the best choice is winamp right? Doesn't look like Windows Media Player supports .ape format.

My other question is when uploading CDs, should I check the normalize button? The tracks I played with this setting sound a little flat so I'm going to try some with this option off; my goal is to normalize the volume, but I think I need to run the replay gain option as listed in another thread.

Any help is appreciated - thanks!

[djstarr]

I tried DJ'ing with Media Center on Monday, and I had a lot of trouble editing the playlist in realtime - I deleted a song in the playlist, but it got played anyway, and then the playlist kept going back to the top and restarting the first song in the set. Is it possible to edit the playlist as you are playing off of it? I assume so; I found the software not intuitive and I guess I need to start reading the help files or something

Looks like playlists are fixed. Good tips in this thread: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39459.0

[Lawrence]

Based on various feedback from this group I'm trying out jRiver Media Center. I'm uploading the CDs into .WAV files and then encoding to .ape format, which does run very fast.

I tried DJ'ing with Media Center on Monday, and I had a lot of trouble editing the playlist in realtime - I deleted a song in the playlist, but it got played anyway, and then the playlist kept going back to the top and restarting the first song in the set. Is it possible to edit the playlist as you are playing off of it? I assume so; I found the software not intuitive and I guess I need to start reading the help files or something

If I use another player the best choice is winamp right? Doesn't look like Windows Media Player supports .ape format.

My other question is when uploading CDs, should I check the normalize button? The tracks I played with this setting sound a little flat so I'm going to try some with this option off; my goal is to normalize the volume, but I think I need to run the replay gain option as listed in another thread.

Any help is appreciated - thanks!

I had the same problem, although I figured it out before I actually went "live" in a DJ set. I consider it a defect in the program, but it is one that is easy to get around if you know how.

You need to manage your set from the "Playing Now" window, not the "playlist" window that displays the new playlist you are trying to create. Here's why. The program always plays only what is in the "Playing Now" list, not what is in the playlist. When you double-click on the playlist (or any song in a window), it copies everything in that window to the "Playing Now" list, and then plays it. That why if you add to or edit the playlist AFTER you start playing it, the edits don't transfer over to "Playing now" until you stop playing, then double-click again on the revised playlist, whereupon it automatically copies the revised playlist into "Playing Now."

It does the same thing if you double click a song while browsing through "audio:" it copies all the audio songs (or the songs in the album, genre, or artist you are browsing in that window at that time) and copies ALL of them into "Playing now." Somewhat frustrating, but easy to work around.

To save the playlist when you are done, just copy the songs from "Playing Now" into the playlist.

I use JR Media Center and generally like it because it does have two sound zones to cue and preview and the interface for browsing is o.k. But the worst part of JR Media center is that you can't cue to a part of a song on the fly. Thus, if there is 15 seconds of mindless chatter at the beginning of a track (or a useless intro that you want to skip), there is no way I know of--besides editing the intro out of the underlying MP3 file--to edit that intro out. You need to play it and then manually skip it, instead of automatically telling it to "start this track at 0:15," like you can with a dual CD player.

[djstarr]

Thanks Lawrence!

[PitchTheWoo]

I'm a Media Center junkie... been a user since version 9. You can leave your MP3 file alone and just create an XML file... essentially a playlist of the one song you are after... and edit it's IN point in that file. Then you re-import it and voila. The details of how to do this are on one of the threads in the Interact Forum. I had to do this for a couple songs in my collection.

The IN and OUT points of each track are attributes in the library, but as of Version 11 (I haven't upgraded to 12 yet) we were not able to edit them directly, which would be VERY desirable and straight forward.

Cheers,
Jeff

[djstarr]

I found a setting last night in the options of jRiver [I'm using version 12, the latest]. You can set the double click option to add to the end of the playing now list. This is the behavior I was expecting when I first started using jRiver so I'm happy there are options to change the behavior.

Now I can navigate through my playlists and library and double click happily without immediately playing the song! yippee.

[J-h:n]

I thought I'd revive this old thread since I've just started using JRiver Media Center on my new laptop. Did my first laptop gig the other day, actually, and it mostly went well.

I'm pretty happy with JRMC, especially the tagging and search functions - much better than iTunes. And I like the zone system for previewing. At first I found it a bit disorienting - it was hard to keep track of which zone I was in while searching the library. Then I figured out that there's really very seldom any need to open the preview zone at all - while keeping the main zone open, you can just right click the song you want to listen to and send it to the preview zone to play. Then you can listen through the earphones as long as you like, drop the earphones when you're done and let the song keep playing until you want to preview another one. Of course, if you want to fast forward to the end of the song, or adjust the volume, or something, you need to open the preview zone, but then I make sure to jump right back to the main zone as soon as I'm done. Makes it much easier to be sure of where I am and avoid stupid mistakes.

Another thing that was frustrating at first was how double clicking on a song made the whole content of that window (sometimes the entire library) go right into the Playing Now list. I found the setting that Brenda mentioned above and changed it in the same way - much better. But I still happen to double click on a playlist now and then, which does the same thing - copies the whole thing to Playing Now. A bit of a nuisance, but I guess I just have to make sure to avoid doing that.

I set the buffering time at the maximum, 5 seconds, to avoid hiccups and skips, which probably wasn't a good idea - the program was real slow to pick up on last moment changes made towards the end of the song playing. (I often change my mind at the very last moment; as a CD DJ I've made an art form out of throwing in a new CD just as a song ends without noticeable delay - most of the time!) I have to fiddle a bit with that. What setting do other JRMC users prefer?

However, my big issue with JRMC was something that happened before I went live. I found a feature called "Analyze audio", which was, among other things, supposed to normalize the volume of songs. Worth a try, thought I. Suddenly, to my horror I realized that the program had begun to replace my BPM countings with its own! Some of these were accurate, some seemed to be halved, some were completely off. I found no other way to undo this than to clear the library and re-import it (which made me lose all my playlists). The worst thing was that although I'd made DAMN SURE to uncheck the "Analyze audio" box, the program immediately started to DO THE SAME THING AGAIN! This time I exited the program and rebooted the machine before attempting to import the library again, and it hasn't happened again, but I swear, if it does, I'll never use this software again. As a DJ, I can imagine few things worse than coming to a gig and finding all the BPMs randomly changed.

I would love to have a feature that made songs from different CDs play at the same volume, since the volume CDs are mastered at can vary a lot, but no way am I touching "Analyze audio"!

(Edit: no, of course you don't have to open the preview zone to see tag info. Silly me. Deleted now.)

[Surreal]

Ugh, I hate their auto analyze. You have to turn it off in two places under the options menu:
1) library & folders --> auto-import folders --> options --> uncheck the analyze box
2) CD & DVD --> cd ripping --> uncheck analyze box

I really wish there was a way to choose what info is added into the tags during analysis, and I've requested as such on their forums, but haven't seen that implemented yet.

One suggestion that was offered on the forums was to copy all the bpm info into another field, run the analysis, then copy all the info back.

For example, let's store all the bpm data in the "description" field.
1) Add the "description" field to your view
2) highlight your library
3) from the tagging action window select the description row and enter "=[bpm]" (without the quotes obviously). This will copy all your bpm data over.
4) Now run analyze on your library,
5) when it's done highlight everything again and from the action window select the bpm row and type in "=[description]", which should copy everything back over
6) if you want, now select the description row and clear it

[Lawrence]

Same thing happened to me, but only with half a playlist before I caught it. Most of the BPMs happened to be only a few beats off my measure, so it wasn't a huge deal, but I didn't want to risk it going awry and not being able to control or even monitor it. And, yes, it is the only reason I don't use the "auto analyze" feature to normalize the sound.

I also downloaded an "Oak" wood skin (the look of the display interface) from their website (select "skin manager" from the tools menu, I think), which made the interface look much simpler, classier, brighter, and easier to manage. The volume control and the cue controls, for example, seemed more precise than the default skin, perhaps because the slider bar wasn't so wide.

You also MUST change the default for what double-clicking the mouse does from "Add the entire menu to Playing Now" to "Add the highlighted song to "Playing Now." I have accidentally lost entire setlists halfway through a DJ set because it mistakenly added every song in my frickin library into "Playing Now." I lost the list of songs I had already played and lost the songs I had cued up as ideas for where to go from there. Really frustrating, but eliminated by changing that default.

[J-h:n]

Thanks for the tips! I realize that I need to take a look at the JRiver forums - probably lots of useful hints there. I'll also check out the skins for downloading. The skin I use now is the yellow one, which is OK if a little dark here and there, especially in the tag window.

Surreal: Do you use the volume normalizing feature, and if so, do you find it good enough to make it worth bothering?

Lawrence: Luckily I found the setting that changed the function of double clicking on a song while test-driving the setup at home. However, if I double click on the name of a playlist in the left-hand column, the entire list still goes into Playing Now. That actually happened during my first gig, which made the whole Playing Now list disappear just like you describe. I haven't figured out if you can change this behaviour, but I'd like to.

[Surreal]

I use the "Thunderstorm" skin. Works well enough for me.

The jriver forums are quite extensive. Nearly any question or problem I've come up with has already been answered (assuming I can find it with their search function), or I get a response within a day.

Surreal: Do you use the volume normalizing feature, and if so, do you find it good enough to make it worth bothering?

I have very limited experience using the normalizing feature, but I typically only get to work with small speakers that can barely fill the room, so I tend not to use anything that turns down my volume.

In general, I prefer keeping control over the volume myself and leave less of it up to the machine.

One feature in favour of the volume normalizing/analysis is that you can burn cds that are normalized. I think mp3 players might use that data too, but I don't have an mp3 player so I can't comment there.

However, if I double click on the name of a playlist in the left-hand column, the entire list still goes into Playing Now. That actually happened during my first gig, which made the whole Playing Now list disappear just like you describe. I haven't figured out if you can change this behaviour, but I'd like to.

Hmm, it doesn't do that for me. Just to double check:
options --> general --> behaviour --> double click: add to playing now

[J-h:n]

However, if I double click on the name of a playlist in the left-hand column, the entire list still goes into Playing Now. That actually happened during my first gig, which made the whole Playing Now list disappear just like you describe. I haven't figured out if you can change this behaviour, but I'd like to.

Hmm, it doesn't do that for me. Just to double check:
options --> general --> behaviour --> double click: add to playing now

Check. Still does that thing. Sounds like a question to take to the JRiver forum. Thanks for your input!

[erinregina]

I tried DJing from the two zones before, but it was just too confusing. So I just preview and search for all my stuff in jRiver, and then drag-and-drop what I want to play out on the floor to Winamp. Last-second changes are no problem that way.

I know people think "why buy the software if you're just going to use Winamp?" but it makes the most sense to me. *shrug*

I also had that stupid auto-analyze thing happen to me recently. Now I have to go back and figure out which songs it messed up the BPMs for. Luckily I stopped it before it did ALL of them.

[Surreal]

If you want to see which songs have been analyzed (and thus messed up your bpms), add the "peak level" in your column view. This column is usually blank, so if you sort by peak level anything that's been analyzed will have some % value in that column. You could also create a smartlist that shows nonzero values for peak level, but that gets finicky sometimes.

My autoanalyze went through about 500 songs before I caught it. I've gone through and fixed about 200 so far; been too lazy to get to the rest of them.

[J-h:n]

What I did after the analyzer started doing its thing was deleting the whole library and re-importing it. Seems the actual MP3:s weren't touched, so the only thing I lost was a few playlists (and I had barely started using the program, so that wasn't much of a problem).