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My 2,300-CD music collection is on a network-attached storage (NAS) drive labeled E:\Music Library.  It is a 1-Terabyte external Hard Drive (HD) dedicated solely to music files.  I designated that Path in the Sonos Music Library Settings. By and large, I can play what I want to hear and create Playlists.  But: 

Q1: on the NAS HD, Windows Explorer shows “Van Morrison” for the file folder with that artist’s CDs.  But, when I see that artist’s listings in Sonos, it shows “van morrison” rather than Van Morrison.  What the?  Where can I edit the Sonos file directory to fix this silly discrepancy?  

Q2:  using Windows Explorer, I moved the CD “Easy Pieces” FROM the “Lloyd Cole” directory TO the “Lloyd Cole & The Commotions” directory.  However, Sonos insists on still showing that CD as a Lloyd Cole release.  What the?  I DID do “Update Music Library Now” in Sonos with no resulting impact.  

Do I need to change a Sharing Setting for my File Management fixes to be seen by Sonos?  Is there a “special” Sonos directory I can make edits, corrections, re-arrangements?  WHERE, exactly, is that special Sonos directory?  

These are simple things even a tech-dummy like me should be able to fix, right?.  Thanks for your input.  

Marc in Colorado at cpamarc@yahoo.com

You can’t edit the Sonos directory directly. The Sonos data is assembled from the tags on the files on your computer. I’d take a look at the tags on that Van Morrison file, and would expect to find one of the other tag fields on it to be not capitalized. 

Similarly, the file location on your drive is not as important as the tags associated with your files as to how they get sorted. Again, I’d be looking at the various tags associated with that file or files associated with that album.

I tend to use mp3tag as an application to modify/fix the various tags associated with various pieces of music, but there are many other apps that can give you visibility into their contents. 

Bruce:  You Da Man!  A short, simple answer that sounds helpful for me.  However, what are “Tags?”  Where do I find and edit them?  Is it where I can move CDs between folders?  Remember, I am not very Tech-literate.  Marc

 

Assuming you’re using a windows machine, look for the application that I referenced called mp3tag. Spend some time looking at the metadata associated with each file, figure out what you feel is important to change, make the change, then force Sonos to update the library, and see if it changes what you expect. 

Ahhh… I was so excited that I got help so fast, I missed the application.  I’ll go there and learn what I need to know - THANKS!  Marc  (PS: the beach pic is 1 mile from our Hawaii home.)

 

Bruce:  You Da Man!  A short, simple answer that sounds helpful for me.  However, what are “Tags?”  Where do I find and edit them?  Is it where I can move CDs between folders?  Remember, I am not very Tech-literate.  Marc

 

 

Tags are labels assigned to each music file.  They are embedded in the file and contain things like Song Title, Artist, Album, etc.  A quick and dirty way of editing them in Windows is to right click on a song file and choose Properties, then Details.  But mp3tag allows you to edit them properly, and in batches.

You can also use the folders view to resolve problems - this shows how you’ve organised the files on your NAS.

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