Entering Track Data

When you insert an audio CD, Sound Juicer will automatically retrieve the track data from MusicBrainz. MusicBrainz is a free service that provides a database of data for most published CDs. Sound Juicer uses the CD's serial number and the positions and lengths of the tracks to match against CD in the MusicBrainz database.

Occasionally, more than one CD will have the same layout. If more than one CD is found, Sound Juicer will present a dialog allowing you to choose which CD data to use. If the wrong CD is detected, or if MusicBrainz does not contain any matching CDs, you will have to enter the track information manually. Also, if you choose, you can add the information for the CD to MusicBrainz database with a banner that will appear.

The top of the window contains text boxes for the title, artist, year, and genre of the CD. Below that is a list of the audio tracks on the CD. You can set the track title and artist for each track. Sound Juicer uses this information to name the files and folders where your music is stored. The track and album information is also encoded directly into the audio files. Many music players, including portable devices, use this information to organize and display the audio files.

To edit the title of a track, first select the track, then click on the title. When you have finished entering the title, press the Enter key on your keyboard, or click outside the title.

When you edit the artist for the CD, the artist for each track is automatically updated, but only if they also matched before the change (so that changling the album artist of a compilation doesn't change all of the track artists too). Most CDs are by a single artist, and this feature saves you the time of entering the artist for each track.

Some CDs, however, are compilations of songs by different artists. For these CDs, you will have to enter the artist for each track. To set the artist for a track, first select the track, then click on the artist. You can set the artist for the CD to a value like "Various" or simply leave it blank, depending on how you prefer to organize your music.

Entering Track Data With the Keyboard Only

You can enter track data without using the mouse. Use the up and down arrow keys to select a track, and the left and right arrow keys to focus the title or artist. Press the space bar to begin editing the title or artist, and press Enter when finished.

MusicBrainz unfortunately does not provide genre data, but Sound Juicer includes several stock genres:

  • Ambient
  • Blues
  • Classical
  • Country
  • Dance
  • Electronica
  • Folk
  • Funk
  • Jazz
  • Latin
  • Pop
  • Rap
  • Reggae
  • Rock
  • Soul
  • Spoken Word

If you choose to make a custom genre, it will be remembered in the future.