My mp3 collection is growing and growing. It even reached a size where I archived some files because I am not listening to it anymore or at least rarely. Scrolling through my iPod Artist list must be fast when I look for something specific.

However, over the years, it turned out that I have three MP3 tools I constantly use and I can not imagine to live with out them anymore. Here they are:

Actually I am using Winamp already for 10 years. Sometimes (ok, maybe every 3 years) I am checking if there might be a better alternative. But so far I did not find one. I am using the Pro version. It rips CDs fast, I can browse and search the library quickly. If you want you can use it for watching video and browsing the web. Well, I guess for this there are better alternatives (VLC player, Firefox etc.). Winamp can be extended with plug-ins what is very useful. The only one I am really using is ml_ipod. It replaces the build in iPod support and it is much more comfortable in my eyes. And … this is very important … it scrobbles my data from Winamp and my iPod to last.fm.

When you have a big MP3 collection, you usually start to change tags. When I have an album which is mixed by a certain artist, the artist of the song is the one who mixed it and not the artist who originally created the song. Once I downloaded an album from Beatport, it was a mix album with 26 songs. When Winamp imported it into the libary I suddenly hat 26 more artists (and the mixer was not one of those).
Well, Mp3tag is for me by far the best MP3 tagging tool. You can easily edit the tags manually or, and this is much better, you can check Amazon or discogs if the album is known there and use it as a tagsource for your files. And yes, it is freeware. It also can rename the filenames, there is a Auto Numbering Wizard which helps you to get the songs in an album in the right order and so on. Cool tool!

The last tool I want to write about is the MP3 Folder structure Maker. This tool is freeware as well and it helped me dramatically to get a structure into my MP3 collection. This tool reads out the ID tags of your files and then you can save your MP3 files inside a specific folder structure. For me the his “Artist”\”Album”. However, you can do anything you want. Default is “firstletter of the artist”\”Artist”\ for example. I always wonder why you should do it with the first letter of an artist. Now where my collection is big enough I know why.

Mp3tag and Mp3 Folder Structure Maker are freeware. But I am sure that the developers are very happy about your donation.

In case you have better tools, please let me know.

Once in a while it happens that you download a file from somewhere and it does not play or at least it makes trouble during playback.

Sometimes, not always, this little tool helps.

 Mp3 Validator can analyze an MP3 file and even repair it. Well, at least it tries it because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. At least it can give you hope and it is worth a try.

I tried it with some files. Sometimes it works , sometimes it does not.