beaTunes News

It’s been a while since the last beaTunes update. While this release is not yet the major update I would like to deliver, it is still an important one. On the content side, the internal Discogs database and similarity information have been updated, ensuring that beaTunes stays current with newly published music. On the technology side, the runtime has been upgraded to the latest long-term supported Java 11 version, helping to ensure the continued security and stability of beaTunes.

Beyond functionality, this release also marks an important milestone: it is the first release under the new banner of jalulo UG, complete with all the necessary signatures and formalities.

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.2.36

• Updated built-in Discogs database.
• Updated to Java 11.0.29+12.
• Improved robustness of registration logic.

Labels: Discogs, Java11, Release

This maintenance update improves the search experience in larger collections, fixes a couple of minor issues and updates some included components.

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.2.31

• Fixed a lyrics issue (missing jlink dependency).
• Fixed encoding of relative paths in WPL playlist exporter.
• Fixed ConcurrentModificationException during initial synchronization.
• Increased search trigger delay for single characters.
• Updated to Java 11.0.17+7.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.

And, because an indfividual post was skipped, changes in 5.2.30

• Fixed synchronization abortion due to infinite volume normalization change.
• Updated to Java 11.0.16.1+1.
• Updated japlscript.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.

Labels: Discogs, Java11, jlink, Release

It's been a while! This maintenance release fixes a couple of minor issues, updates the used Java environment, and slightly improves the user experience. Enjoy!

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.2.27

• Ensured new playlist name is selected, so that it can be changed right away.
• Updated access method to live DBpedia.
• Updated access method to LastFM search.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.
• Updated to Java 11.0.15+10 (among other things this fixes JDK-8251377).

Labels: DBpedia, Discogs, Java11, Last.fm, Release

This maintenance release mainly contains an updated Discogs database and adjustments to changes that happened over at Wikidata (differentiation between recording and song).

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.2.24

• Allow playback of up to 90s during scan.
• Modified AVPlayer to restart tracks more conservatively.
• Fixed synchronization of "checked" ("enabled") field with Music.app.
• Improved tolerance towards malformed embedded fingerprints.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.
• Updated Wikidata logic to reflect changes from the website.

Labels: Discogs, Music, Release, Wikidata

As pointed out recently, Beatport has updated their application programming interface (API), which meant that the part of beaTunes that "talks" with Beatport had to be updated as well. This update is the most important "new" feature in beaTunes v5.2.14. The integration code had to be more or less rewritten from scratch. As a result, I was able to add some goodies. Most importantly, you don't have to manually connect to Beatport anymore. It just works out of the box (provided you have a suitable Internet connection). Secondly, you cannot just look at the Beatport charts, but play the previews like a playlist, which makes for pretty nice experience. Overall, this API update has led to some neat improvements.

Other changes in this update have to do with fixing little things here and there, typically with the goal of making the app more stable and responsive.

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.2.14

• Improved error reporting when initializing itlibrary.
• Improved stability for Music.app-based libraries.
• Improved database stability/integrity.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.
• Updated to Java 11.0.9.1+1.
• Skip certain folders during synchronization of folder-based libraries.
• Re-implemented Beatport integration.
• Added Artwork not embedded inspection for Music.app-based libraries.
• Fixed potential OutOfMemoryError caused by too many threads.

Labels: Beatport, Discogs, Java11, Music

This is yet another update that fixes issues with FFSampledSP, the primary library beaTunes uses to decode files on Windows (on macOS, CoreAudio-based CASampledSP is preferred). The previous FFSampledSP version tended to crash on encrypted (a.k.a. DRM-crippled) files. This is hopefully completely fixed now. Additionally, this update fixes a couple of issues with drag and drop from iTunes/Music.app to beaTunes, file deletion issues on drives without trash/recycle bin, and overall functionality of the Add To Library action (File menu), when used with iTunes or the Apple Music app.

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.2.5

• Fixed issue when deleting files that cannot be moved to the trash/recycle bin.
• Fixed cache invalidation issue in Add To Library action.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.
• Improved drag and drop on main table.
• Added skipping of .itlp files during content-based analysis.
• Moved to FFSampledSP 0.9.32.

Labels: Discogs, FFmpeg, Release

With the pending release of macOS 10.15 (Catalina), Apple will get rid of iTunes as we know it and replace it with the new Music.app. Because some essential things have changed, beaTunes 5.1 or earlier will not work with the Music.app. The good news is, owners of a beaTunes v5.x license can update to v5.2 for free and v5.2 does support Music.app.

Undoubtedly, Music.app support is v5.2's most important feature. But there are some other changes, mostly small enhancements and bug fixes (see below). And this:

Important: Please note that due to Apple's notarization requirements I was forced to drop support for older versions of macOS. If you are using a Mac, you need at least OS X 10.12 to run beaTunes 5.2 (OS X 10.11 will be supported again in 5.2.1).

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.2.0

• Removed some annoying tooltips.
• Reduced database size.
• Added ability to delete fingerprints from database (to reduce size).
• Added support for macOS 10.15 (Catalina) Music.app.
• Added support for Beatport during metadata import.
• Added ability to force synchronization.
• Changed keyboard shortcut for zero rating (Windows only).
• Updated built-in Discogs database.
• Dropped support for old macOS versions, because of notarization.
• Fixed love/dislike propagation to iTunes (macOS only).

Update

Due to a mistake, v5.2.0 requires macOS 10.12 or later. macOS 10.11 will be supported again in v5.2.1.

Labels: Catalina, Discogs, Java11, Release

It's been a while since I have been able to post an update. Today's release is another maintenance release, fixing and improving a couple of things. Details are listed below. The most interesting may be the ability to force the dark theme on by setting the environment variable BEATUNES_THEME to "dark".

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.1.12

• Added environment variable switch for dark theme.
• Better handling of null playlist names.
• Better error handling for malformed embedded tags.
• Ensured added songs are all sent to analysis in large collections.
• Fixed issues in French error messages.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.
• Improved automatic trigger of internal database repair.
• Improved efficiency of similar genre rule.
• Defragment database after repair.
• Disabled media key support due to bug in 3rd party library.

Labels: Discogs, Release

beaTunes 5.1.9 is just a maintenance release, fixing and improving a couple of things. Details are listed below.

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Changes in 5.1.9

• Fixed set media type to Music via AppleScript (macOS only).
• Fixed delay when displaying context menu in large libraries.
• Fixed case-sensitivity of ID3 TXT frame descriptions.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.

Labels: AppleScript, Discogs, id3, Release

For certain kinds of music, Discogs provides excellent genre tags. A new beaTunes plugin now lets you import those genre tags directly via an analysis task. Analysis task—that means that the installed plugin shows up as the last option in the Analysis Options dialog that appears once you choose to analyze some track (similar to the Bandcamp plugin). The code for the plugin is rather trivial and open source. If you are interested in programming I highly encourage you to check it out at GitHub.

Labels: Discogs, genre, Plugin

beaTunes 5 has been released a couple of months ago and of course I recommend you buy an upgrade license for your copy of beaTunes 4 (if you haven't done so already). There are certainly a bunch of good reasons for upgrading. But if you're still on beaTunes 4 and don't want to jump to version 5 just yet, you might want to update to version 4.6.18.

Most of the changes in 4.6.18 are back-ports of changes originally made for beaTunes 5. There's just one exception: The Chordify integration hasn't been fixed in beaTunes 5 yet (this will happen in the next update).

Please note that you can only get this update from the old downloads section of the website.

Changes in 4.6.18

• Improved artwork lookup via Discogs.
• Improved handling of MIK key data.
• Fixed Open in Chordify.
• Fixed ignore Amazon album version solution.
• Fixed inline BPM editor for tempi without relative salience.
• Updated Amazon integration for Spain and Italy.
• Updated built-in Discogs database.

Labels: Amazon, Chordify, Discogs, Release

beaTunes 5 is not planned to be released for another couple of months, but I'm excited to report that beaTunes 4 users can already benefit from some of the changes and improvements in the pipeline for the next major update. One of these is the data quality of the central database.

As you may or may not know, the central beaTunes database is based on user-submitted data. Basically, every time the beaTunes app looks something up online, it needs to send a query containing track metadata. The database application groups submitted data for each song and forms a consensus version, which in turn is made available to other users when they look up a song. You give some, you take some. In many ways, beaTunes is just the broker.

Unfortunately, sometimes the submitted metadata is less than stellar. This is especially annoying, when only few users have submitted data for a particular song. Luckily, there are some other reference databases, that allow us to look up high-quality metadata and fix mistakes (e.g. Discogs and MusicBrainz—if you're not yet an editor, please contribute!).

So you may not have noticed, but the for the past couple of months, a ton of entries in the central beaTunes database have been updated to reflect the spelling used in MusicBrainz and Discogs. For example, blink-182 is now always spelled "blink-182" and not "Blink 182" or "Blink-182".

Enjoy.

Labels: Discogs, MusicBrainz

Did you ever notice that the British pop band "Oasis" is named "Oasis (2)" on Discogs? Because there are a number of different bands with the same name, Discogs simply appends "(N)" for disambiguation. I'm not sure this is documented somewhere, but it makes matching songs from your library to Discogs tracks slightly more difficult—especially, when you're not aware of this quirk. Today's update works around the issue and thus improves lookup results for artists with not so unique names. Most of the other changes in this release are fixes to small problems I discovered while working on beaTunes 5.

As always, you can download the new version from the download section of the website.

Most important changes in 4.6.10

• Added signature to Windows executable.
• Moved to FFSampledSP 0.9.17.
• Consolidated multiple mood keywords into one ID3 tag (requires ID3v2.4).
• Fixed possible UI freeze when creating matchlists.
• Fixed lyrics translate function.
• Fixed sorting by compilation.
• Fixed does-not-contain matchlist filter.
• Fixed crash when searching for regex ().
• Fixed handling of Discogs artist disambiguation.

Labels: Discogs, FFmpeg, Mood, Windows

Today's maintenance update is mainly triggered by some changes over at Discogs, having to do with switching to HTTPS.

As always, you can download the update from the download section of the website.

Most important changes in 4.5.9

• Fixed off-screen window position on startup.
• Switched to secure Discogs API endpoint.
• Improved offline Discogs lookup.

Labels: Discogs, Release

More or less as a consequence of some unannounced Discogs API changes from 2/20/2015, beaTunes 4.0.20 was released today. Primary purpose of this update is to re-enable cover art import from Discogs via the Import metadata analysis task and the Get Info dialog pane. Another minor change in this release is an improved Similar Key rule, which now takes the "diagonal" mix as well as several energy boost mixes into account. This should help finding a good transition order, when using a match ruleset with emphasis on key, as additional transitions become feasible. For a good overview of harmonic mixing techniques, take a look at this article by Radley Marx. Diagonal key transitions are now also considered, i.e. there is no warning for them in the transition column anymore.

You can download the software from the download section of the website.

Most important changes in 4.0.20

• Fixed Discogs cover fetching caused by Discogs API change.
• Added diagonal mix (Xd <-> X+1m) to valid key transitions.
• Improved similar key rule to support diagonal mix and energy boost.
• Improved 'Open in MusicBrainz'.
• Moved to CASampledSP 0.9.9.
• Moved to japlscript 3.1.1.

Update

There was a minor mess-up with the OS X version of this release, related to dylib dependencies, which is now fixed. If you see a related error message, please simply download again.

Labels: BPM, Discogs, Harmonic Mixing, Key, MusicBrainz, Release