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DC Tune Library
An Alternative Way to Focus the View of Your Audio Restoration Work
You have seen that the most typical way to view your work is via the Classic-Edit Source and Destination Workspace(s) as well as the Fast-Edit time domain display. Alternatively, the DC Tune Library can be made the primary focus of your Diamond Cut system by ticking off the “DC Tune Library” feature in the View Menu. Then, the DC Tune Library provides you with an alternative way to view all of your audio restoration projects and the subsequent archive that you will be creating. The DC Tune Library includes a full-featured audio file archive within the context of your DCArt10 or your DC Forensics10 software. It supports files in the .wav, BWF (Broadcast Wave), .mp3, .wma, .ogg and .flac formats. It can search your hard drive and find all of your audio files and store their path, name, genre and other pertinent data within its file structure. After your DC Tune database has been constructed, it will provide you with lightning fast access to any of your audio files, provided that they are in any of the supported formats mentioned above. You can search your database, sort it by various parameters and create and recall playlists. The DC Tune Library completely replaces the old Playlist feature in DC6 and prior versions.
You can play any file directly through the normal play features of DCArt10 or DC Forensics10, or you can listen to a file or series of files by using the Preview feature found in the Diamond Cut filters and/or effects. You can even listen to the database by way of a complex series of filters and effects by previewing a file or playlist via the DCArt10 Multifilter. You can have the DC Tune Library start automatically by checking the “Start DC Tune Library” in the Preferences dialog (found under the Edit\Preferences Menu). You can also open this feature by going to the File menu, and then clicking on “Open DC Tune Library” and the spreadsheet view will appear. The system supports files having the .wav, broadcast wave, mp3, .ogg, .flac and .wma extensions. The system does not support files having the .wma format that incorporate Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes. A progress bar is included to show you the relative position of a file that is being played and you can use your mouse on the control point to advance or retard the play position on the fly.
To create a library from the files that exist on a particular hard drive or sub-directory, simply click on “File” and then on “Add Folder to Library”. The preferences menu provides you with a number of options for obtaining information on a file, but .mp3 and .wma tag information will take precedence for those types of files. For files without tag information, such as Wave files, the Title, Artist, Album, and Genre information can be obtained from the directory structure of your hard drive. You can customize the way this information is used within the DC Tune Library’s by using the preferences dialog. By default it looks something like:
<Genre>\<Artist>\<Album>\<Title>
Use this system in conjunction with the highlighting and the “Move Up” feature to align the file sorting to most closely resemble your database organization scheme. When adding a new folder containing multiple .wav files to the DC Tune Library, individual track numbers for files contained therein will be set to the order in which they were originally created based on their time-stamps. If individual audio files are added to the library (one at a time), they will appear in the DC Tune database in the order in which they were added.
You have the option to customize the names applied to the various DC Tune Library columns by using the “Customize Column Header Titles” feature found under the Tune Library Preferences menu (or by clicking on a column title with the right mouse button and scrolling to the bottom item). Just click on the Edit button in the preferences and the following dialog box will appear:
Customize DC Tune Library Columns Dialog Box
After you edit the User Names, just click on Save, and the columns will become customized. Please note that this column customization feature can also be accessed via the right mouse clicking on any of the column headers.
The system will take some time (anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes, depending on your system and the number of files to be found) to build your library, but once it is constructed, the system will no longer need to search your hard drive each time you want to access a particular file. If you have files on multiple hard drives, you will need to perform the creation step independently on each drive. Ultimately, all of the file(s) information will be integrated into one DC Tune Library. Note that the DC Tune Library does not copy or change any of your original files; it simply saves their location and other information into the DC Tunes database.
This database is stored in the following path(s):
- - - \My Documents\My Music\DCArt10\DcTuneDb
And a backup copy is saved as:
- - - \My Documents\My Music\DCArt10\DcTuneDb.bak
The extension used for these files within the DC Tunes Library Database is .xml.
The first path is the primary database, while the second one (.bak) is its backup. A Backup copy of the database is created each time you exit the program. The paths to the various files are stored in the DcTuneDb directory, but not the files themselves, which are all left in their original directories. Editing a file (like removing it from the DC Tune Library) will not delete the actual sound file from your hard drive.
After a period of time, you may want to update the database by re-doing the search process. Files that already exist will not be duplicated (if the appropriate “Tune Library” preference is selected); only the new ones will be added to the library.
If you have deleted files on your hard drive but not in the DC Tune Library, you can update it by using the “Check Tracks” function under the “Tracks” menu. It will search for database entries that no longer have real audio files associated with them and highlight them for you.
If you ever decide to re-create a database from scratch, you can delete the DcTuneDb and the DcTuneDb.bak folders and the system will re-create these when you attempt to rebuild your DC Tune Library. When you build a DC Tune Database, you have the option to use file tags to place items into certain categories based on file tag information. You can enable the tags feature in the DC Tune preference tab under the Edit Menu and are given several choices as follows:
The desired tag extraction mode should be established before building your DC Tune database. If neither box is checked, no tag information will be used from any of your audio files.
The Library includes the following fields as viewed from left to right that can contain data concerning your audio files:
Song, Artist, Album, Genre, Filename, Path, Track #, Length, Type, Modification Date
The DC Tune Library Spreadsheet Display
A number of actions can be performed after your DC Tune Library has been built, including the following that are all available on the menu that appears when you click your right mouse button on a file/track:
1. Display the Properties of a File
2. Play the Track(s)
3. Delete the Track(s)
4. Open the Folder for the track in question
5. Edit a Track using the Standard Diamond Cut features
6. Burn a CD from Selected Tracks
7. Create a Playlist from Selected Tracks
Additionally, you can search the database across all fields by using the “Search” field found in the upper left corner of the DC Tune Library. You can also perform a secondary sort by “Album” and then “Track” number when sorting on “Artist”. If a track number is not found in the sort, the system will resort to the use of the file modification dates to establish the order of the items in the display.
After your DC Tune Library has been built, individual file access will become virtually instantaneous simply by double clicking on the desired item. The highlighted file will play and the system will continue to play the entire database thereafter until you click on the “Stop” button on the toolbar. The DC Tune Library also includes a search engine. It will find any string of characters that you type into the search box by looking at the entire directory pathway for all matches. If a certain column is hidden, items contained therein will not be used in your search. You can see the relative play location of a particular file via the play progress bar (the horizontal green display). You can advance or retard the location of play by pointing and clicking to a different location on the play progress bar and the system will jump and then play from the new file location. As play progresses through the library, the playing item will become highlighted.
If you only want to add a single file to your DC Tune Library, click on “Add File to Library” and browse to the desired item. Further functionality can be found by right clicking on a file and then on properties which brings up the following screen:
DC Tune Library Right Mouse Track Properties Dialog Box
Playlists and Tunes from the library can be played via the Diamond Cut “Play” button, or via any of the Diamond Cut Filters and/or Effects via the Multifilter “Preview” mode button. The Multifilter “Preview” function is an especially interesting way to listen to these files, since it allows you to string together a series of filters and effects that you can apply to the playback in real time. To commence a preview after bringing up a particular playlist, make sure that the first line in the playlist is highlighted and then click on the “Preview” button associated with the filter or effect of interest.
The standard Windows mouse selection commands can be used on the DC Tune Database. If you want to delete a particular item from the database, right click on it and then right mouse to “remove”. If you want to remove a sequence of items, left click on the first item in the sequence, hold down the “Shift” key on your keyboard and then click on the last item in the sequence. Those items and all of the ones in-between will become highlighted. Then, right click on “remove” and they will be removed from your DC Tune Library. If you have a highlighted listing of files, and you want to un-highlight one item somewhere in the listing, depress the Ctrl key on the keyboard, and left click your mouse on the item of interest. To select all songs in the list, use the menu item, Edit/Select All.
Playlists are initially displayed in the order in which they are created. You can change the order by clicking on the desired column header of the DC Tune Library spreadsheet. Clicking on it once will put it in alphabetical order and clicking on it a second time will reverse that order, so you can have it ordered in either direction. Playlists can be re-ordered by dragging and dropping the songs from one position in the playlist to another. Note that only a Playlist can be re-ordered; if you have selected “All Songs” the order is determined by the sorted column.
You have seen that the most typical way to view your work is via the Classic-Edit Source and Destination Workspace(s) as well as the Fast-Edit time domain display. Alternatively, the DC Tune Library can be made the primary focus of your Diamond Cut system by ticking off the “DC Tune Library” feature in the View Menu. Then, the DC Tune Library provides you with an alternative way to view all of your audio restoration projects and the subsequent archive that you will be creating. The DC Tune Library includes a full-featured audio file archive within the context of your DCArt10 or your DC Forensics10 software. It supports files in the .wav, BWF (Broadcast Wave), .mp3, .wma, .ogg and .flac formats. It can search your hard drive and find all of your audio files and store their path, name, genre and other pertinent data within its file structure. After your DC Tune database has been constructed, it will provide you with lightning fast access to any of your audio files, provided that they are in any of the supported formats mentioned above. You can search your database, sort it by various parameters and create and recall playlists. The DC Tune Library completely replaces the old Playlist feature in DC6 and prior versions.
You can play any file directly through the normal play features of DCArt10 or DC Forensics10, or you can listen to a file or series of files by using the Preview feature found in the Diamond Cut filters and/or effects. You can even listen to the database by way of a complex series of filters and effects by previewing a file or playlist via the DCArt10 Multifilter. You can have the DC Tune Library start automatically by checking the “Start DC Tune Library” in the Preferences dialog (found under the Edit\Preferences Menu). You can also open this feature by going to the File menu, and then clicking on “Open DC Tune Library” and the spreadsheet view will appear. The system supports files having the .wav, broadcast wave, mp3, .ogg, .flac and .wma extensions. The system does not support files having the .wma format that incorporate Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes. A progress bar is included to show you the relative position of a file that is being played and you can use your mouse on the control point to advance or retard the play position on the fly.
To create a library from the files that exist on a particular hard drive or sub-directory, simply click on “File” and then on “Add Folder to Library”. The preferences menu provides you with a number of options for obtaining information on a file, but .mp3 and .wma tag information will take precedence for those types of files. For files without tag information, such as Wave files, the Title, Artist, Album, and Genre information can be obtained from the directory structure of your hard drive. You can customize the way this information is used within the DC Tune Library’s by using the preferences dialog. By default it looks something like:
<Genre>\<Artist>\<Album>\<Title>
Use this system in conjunction with the highlighting and the “Move Up” feature to align the file sorting to most closely resemble your database organization scheme. When adding a new folder containing multiple .wav files to the DC Tune Library, individual track numbers for files contained therein will be set to the order in which they were originally created based on their time-stamps. If individual audio files are added to the library (one at a time), they will appear in the DC Tune database in the order in which they were added.
You have the option to customize the names applied to the various DC Tune Library columns by using the “Customize Column Header Titles” feature found under the Tune Library Preferences menu (or by clicking on a column title with the right mouse button and scrolling to the bottom item). Just click on the Edit button in the preferences and the following dialog box will appear:
Customize DC Tune Library Columns Dialog Box
After you edit the User Names, just click on Save, and the columns will become customized. Please note that this column customization feature can also be accessed via the right mouse clicking on any of the column headers.
The system will take some time (anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes, depending on your system and the number of files to be found) to build your library, but once it is constructed, the system will no longer need to search your hard drive each time you want to access a particular file. If you have files on multiple hard drives, you will need to perform the creation step independently on each drive. Ultimately, all of the file(s) information will be integrated into one DC Tune Library. Note that the DC Tune Library does not copy or change any of your original files; it simply saves their location and other information into the DC Tunes database.
This database is stored in the following path(s):
- - - \My Documents\My Music\DCArt10\DcTuneDb
And a backup copy is saved as:
- - - \My Documents\My Music\DCArt10\DcTuneDb.bak
The extension used for these files within the DC Tunes Library Database is .xml.
The first path is the primary database, while the second one (.bak) is its backup. A Backup copy of the database is created each time you exit the program. The paths to the various files are stored in the DcTuneDb directory, but not the files themselves, which are all left in their original directories. Editing a file (like removing it from the DC Tune Library) will not delete the actual sound file from your hard drive.
After a period of time, you may want to update the database by re-doing the search process. Files that already exist will not be duplicated (if the appropriate “Tune Library” preference is selected); only the new ones will be added to the library.
If you have deleted files on your hard drive but not in the DC Tune Library, you can update it by using the “Check Tracks” function under the “Tracks” menu. It will search for database entries that no longer have real audio files associated with them and highlight them for you.
If you ever decide to re-create a database from scratch, you can delete the DcTuneDb and the DcTuneDb.bak folders and the system will re-create these when you attempt to rebuild your DC Tune Library. When you build a DC Tune Database, you have the option to use file tags to place items into certain categories based on file tag information. You can enable the tags feature in the DC Tune preference tab under the Edit Menu and are given several choices as follows:
- Use tags for track properties (MP3, WMA, flac, ogg
- Use BWF Info (Broadcast Wave File)
The desired tag extraction mode should be established before building your DC Tune database. If neither box is checked, no tag information will be used from any of your audio files.
The Library includes the following fields as viewed from left to right that can contain data concerning your audio files:
Song, Artist, Album, Genre, Filename, Path, Track #, Length, Type, Modification Date
The DC Tune Library Spreadsheet Display
A number of actions can be performed after your DC Tune Library has been built, including the following that are all available on the menu that appears when you click your right mouse button on a file/track:
1. Display the Properties of a File
2. Play the Track(s)
3. Delete the Track(s)
4. Open the Folder for the track in question
5. Edit a Track using the Standard Diamond Cut features
6. Burn a CD from Selected Tracks
7. Create a Playlist from Selected Tracks
Additionally, you can search the database across all fields by using the “Search” field found in the upper left corner of the DC Tune Library. You can also perform a secondary sort by “Album” and then “Track” number when sorting on “Artist”. If a track number is not found in the sort, the system will resort to the use of the file modification dates to establish the order of the items in the display.
After your DC Tune Library has been built, individual file access will become virtually instantaneous simply by double clicking on the desired item. The highlighted file will play and the system will continue to play the entire database thereafter until you click on the “Stop” button on the toolbar. The DC Tune Library also includes a search engine. It will find any string of characters that you type into the search box by looking at the entire directory pathway for all matches. If a certain column is hidden, items contained therein will not be used in your search. You can see the relative play location of a particular file via the play progress bar (the horizontal green display). You can advance or retard the location of play by pointing and clicking to a different location on the play progress bar and the system will jump and then play from the new file location. As play progresses through the library, the playing item will become highlighted.
If you only want to add a single file to your DC Tune Library, click on “Add File to Library” and browse to the desired item. Further functionality can be found by right clicking on a file and then on properties which brings up the following screen:
DC Tune Library Right Mouse Track Properties Dialog Box
Playlists and Tunes from the library can be played via the Diamond Cut “Play” button, or via any of the Diamond Cut Filters and/or Effects via the Multifilter “Preview” mode button. The Multifilter “Preview” function is an especially interesting way to listen to these files, since it allows you to string together a series of filters and effects that you can apply to the playback in real time. To commence a preview after bringing up a particular playlist, make sure that the first line in the playlist is highlighted and then click on the “Preview” button associated with the filter or effect of interest.
The standard Windows mouse selection commands can be used on the DC Tune Database. If you want to delete a particular item from the database, right click on it and then right mouse to “remove”. If you want to remove a sequence of items, left click on the first item in the sequence, hold down the “Shift” key on your keyboard and then click on the last item in the sequence. Those items and all of the ones in-between will become highlighted. Then, right click on “remove” and they will be removed from your DC Tune Library. If you have a highlighted listing of files, and you want to un-highlight one item somewhere in the listing, depress the Ctrl key on the keyboard, and left click your mouse on the item of interest. To select all songs in the list, use the menu item, Edit/Select All.
Playlists are initially displayed in the order in which they are created. You can change the order by clicking on the desired column header of the DC Tune Library spreadsheet. Clicking on it once will put it in alphabetical order and clicking on it a second time will reverse that order, so you can have it ordered in either direction. Playlists can be re-ordered by dragging and dropping the songs from one position in the playlist to another. Note that only a Playlist can be re-ordered; if you have selected “All Songs” the order is determined by the sorted column.