MediaMonkey Readme August 3, 2006 ------------------------- 1. Introduction MediaMonkey is an easy-to-use media organizer for serious music collectors. It catalogs music files (MP3s, WMAs, OGG, MPC, APE, FLAC, VQF, WAV files) and audio CDs, and helps you: - Organise your music and help you find the tracks you're looking for - Tag tracks in your library (automatically) in a variety of formats (ID3v1&v2, OGG, WMA, APE2, RIFF) - Play MP3s and other audio formats, level volume, and display funky visualizations - Synchronize tracks with your portable audio player - Record CDs into OGG, MP3, and WMA files - Convert any supported format into into OGG, WAV, MP3 or WAV files - Create playlists and music mixes quickly (manually or automatically) to suit any occasion + Much, much more... 2. OS Requirements MediaMonkey has been tested on: - Windows XP - Windows 2000 (SP3/SP4) - Windows 98 - Windows ME 3. Installation a) Double-click the file you downloaded, and follow the on-screen instructions. b) If you had a previous version of MediaMonkey installed, it is recommended that you rescan your drives for any Album Art so that the 'Files to Edit|Unknown Album Art' node is updated. To do so, press to get to the 'Add Tracks' dialog. Press the 'Options' button and uncheck 'Only for files with changed timestamp or file size', and then select all your drives and click 'Ok' to rescan them. After you're done, re-enable the 'Only for files with changed timestamp or file size' option for better performance. If you had a previous version of MediaMonkey Gold installed, and deleted it prior to installing the new version of MediaMonkey, then the configuration settings of your Virtual CD will be lost. Go to: Tools | Options | Virtual CD & Preview, and reset the Virtual CD directory to its previous location. c) Note: If you receive a database-related error, it likely means that data access components on your operating system aren't up-to-date or have been corrupted. If this occurs: -Install the latest version of Jet Drivers appropriate to your operating system (version 4.0 SP8 for all OSes except WinME) via: http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/downloads/updates/default.aspx#jet -AFTER the Jet drivers have been installed, install MDAC 2.7 Service Pack 1 Refresh via: http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/downloads/updates/default.aspx#MDACDownloads This should trigger components of the Jet drivers to register, after which your system (& MediaMonkey) should function properly. d) If no sound is heard when you try to play a track, you may want to try switching output plug-ins. Go to Tools | Options | Player | Output Plug-ins and change from DirectSound output to WaveOut output. e) If you have problems playing or encoding WMA (Window Media Audio) files, it may be due to outdated Windows Media Drivers. You can install the most recent drivers from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/codecdownload.aspx Note: MediaMonkey supports WMA DRM 9, but does not yet support files protected by WMA DRM 10. f) If you try to generate a report or use Scripting functions and receive an error, it is likely because Windows Scripting functionality hasn't been enabled (sometimes the case in Windows 98). The error that appears is "Microsoft VBScript runtime error. ActiveX component can't create object: 'Scripting.FileSystemObject' ". If this occurs on Win98, go to the Control Panel and: -Click 'Add/Remove Programs' -Select the 'Windows Setup' Tab -Choose 'Accssories' (List) and click 'Details' -Check that "Windows Scripting Host" is checked off g) If you use the JAWS screen reader for the visually impaired, you should copy several files to ensure that JAWS works correctly with the skinned version of MediaMonkey: Copy http://www.mediamonkey.com/sw/MediaMonkey.jcf and http://www.mediamonkey.com/sw/MediaMonkey.jgf Into the directory: \Settings\ENU\ Note: is either C:\JAWS50, C:\JAWS510, or C:\Documents and settings\\Aplication data\Freecom Scientific\JAWS\6.0\ 4. Advanced Configuration a) Command line options A number of flags can be set when running MediaMonkey from the command line: /NoSplash - don't show splash screen when starting MediaMonkey /Next - play files after the current track /Add - add files to the Now Playing queue /Party - start up in Party Mode /Play - start up and play whatever is currently in the Now Playing queue You can use these options as follows: MediaMonkey /NoSplash /Add "My song.mp3" b) .ini file customization MediaMonkey saves configuration information on a per-user basis to an .ini file stored in: C:\Documents and Settings\USERX\My Documents\My Music\MediaMonkey\MediaMonkey.ini Advanced users can edit the MediaMonkey.ini file to change several settings. If you plan on making such changes, it's prudent to back up your .ini file beforehand. Also make certain to close MediaMonkey before making such changes so that it doesn't overwrite any of the changes you've made. i) To change the location of the database from a user's \My Documents\My Music\MediaMonkey\ folder, move the .mdb database file from its current location to a new location and add the following line to the [System] section of the .ini file: DBName=full path\filename.mdb (for example DBName=C:\My Documents\Databases\music.mdb) ii) To eliminate illegal characters when auto creating file names from tags, there is a section [FilenameMappings] in the .ini file, where hexadecimal values define mappings between characters. For example E1=61 means that "/" is mapped to "a". You can modify these settings if you're adventurous. You can find hexadecimal values of characters in the "Character map" application included with Windows. Note that unicode is not supported in this feature. iii)To change the manner in which MediaMonkey attempts to interpret Track Properties from track organization and filename, edit the [SongMasks] section (MediaMonkey attempts to match the masks in that section in sequential order). c) Shared environments If you wish to share MediaMonkey's configuration file and or database among multiple users: i) Move the MediaMonkey.ini file to the \Program Files\MediaMonkey directory. This will cause all users to have the same MediaMonkey settings, however, you must make sure that all users have appropriate permissions to read/write to this directory. ii) Ensure that your MediaMonkey database has correctly set permissions so that all users can read/write to the database. 5. Known Issues Please see the support faq at: http://faq.mediamonkey.com 6. Plug-in Configuration: DeFX for Winamp v0.97 DeFX by Franco Catrin is included with MediaMonkey, allowing you to use MediaMonkey for karaoke via its voice removal function. The full features of DeFX are: a) Pitch Modulation. Choose between Chorus, Flange or Phaser (New), and set your favourite configuration, changing Rate, Depth and Amount of effect. b) Voice Removal. Remove the center channel depending of the specified amount. Most singers record their voices on this channel, if so, the voice will be removed. c) Reverberation. Make your music sounds like it were played inside/outside a big room. Pitch change, rise or move down the pitch of the song without affecting tempo. d) Balance. Lets you hear only the left or right channel on both speakers. To activate this plug-in, simply go to Tool|Options|Plugins|DSP Effects and make Defx active. Press Configure and you'll see a message box asking you to launch the control panel, just press OK. For more information about how the voice removal effect works and a full version history, see: -The DeFXInfo.htm file in the plugins directory -The new Defx www site at: http://defx.sourceforge.net/ If you want to contact Franco, write to ancelot@directo.cl. For information about future updates send a mail with the subject "I use DeFX" to be added to a mail list. THANKS to all the people who have give some attention to this little plug-in. All the people who have helped me without knowing it, publishing their knowledge on the Internet... the real democracy!. A great kiss (ah!) to my dear girlfriend Claudia (Kuaria) for his support, love, comprehension and everything she knows =D Many thanks also to Claudia's brother Miguel (ex-Mr_Peco, now cibersurfer_master) Claudio Nicora for his great idea to improve the Voice Removal effect. As you may see... it's IMPLEMENTED from v0.97, Marc S. Ressl for his help in the MuchFX bug, Guillermo Vargas and family for their continuos support, from the '80s, Johanne for his first lessons about audio when we worked together when I was I child. More friends and their ideas: Cesar Hernandez, Giorgio Marazzi, Rafael Ramirez, JUCA, Pastelito.... Franco Catrin L. Email: ancelot@directo.cl Homepage: http://www.ancelot.8k.com ICQ: Ancelot (30449379) 7. Feedback and Questions If you have any comments or questions, we'd be happy to hear from you. Contact information follows: - Support Page: http://faq.mediamonkey.com - Discussion Forums: http://www.MediaMonkey.com/forum - Technical support e-mail: support@MediaMonkey.com - Homepage: http://www.MediaMonkey.com 8. Acknowledgements MediaMonkey has become what it is thanks to a large extended community. Aside from those already mentioned in the 'About' panel, special thanks go to: - Tyll Zybura, Highelf, & Onkel Enno for the German translation - Pablo Shmerkin for the Spanish translation - Octopod for the French translation - Oliver Tonet for the Italian translation - UI, Felix Atagong, Lowlander for the Dutch translation - Paulino Michelazzo, Gervásio Antônio for the Portuguese translation - Emil Bobesic for the Croatian translation - Jozsef Tamas Herczeg for the Hungarian translation - Jaroslaw U for the Polish translation - Shashka (Alex) for the Russian translation - Panos Thomas for the Greek translation - Pavle Lacarac (aka Peke) for work on the plugins - Russell Samuels for doing all the stuff no one else wants to - Ludek Stoklasa (aka Spiker) for coding kick ass features and putting up with Russell's comments :) - Jiri Hajek for coding into the wee hours every morning and selling his soul to the monkey + Countless testers and reviewers who've helped MediaMonkey grow every day --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 2003-2006, Ventis Media, Inc.