Collectorz.com MP3 Collector 2.2 Pro

The proliferation of MP3s is a phenomenon that is reflected in a wide range of digital technology that utilizes this format. Support for the popular music file type is being included in devices ranging from cameras to stereo systems to DVD players. It seems that the MP3, along with similarly compressed digital audio files (such as WMA and OGG), is becoming the medium of choice for more and more people these days. Its compressed size makes it incredibly easy to store on a huge range of devices, from computer hard drives to MP3 players' flash memory to CDs and DVDs. At the same time, it manages to retain an incredibly impressive amount of the original recording's quality. With such advantages, and a constantly growing popularity, sorting, organising and managing an MP3 collection can become an exceptionally difficult task for fans with huge libraries.

This is where software like Collectorz.com's MP3 Collector 2.2 Pro comes in. Providing an easy and convenient, yet powerful organisational tool, MP3 Collector 2.2 Pro gives users the ability to document, edit, sort, and search through their digital music collection. With a broad range of features and a relatively simple and easy to use interface, Collectorz.com help to make your MP3 collection easier to access than ever before.

After booting up the software, you can opt to either search your computer for available files, or import them into the database yourself from selected locations. The main database display window immediately lights up, sorting MP3s by file path, while a Windows Explorer-esque navigation frame on the left provides options for sorting through the database, playlist, and your computer's file structure. From here, the user can begin to organise, edit and manipulate their MP3s.

Organising MP3s is a breeze with the program. Tracks can be sorted by album, artist, track name, year, file size, bit rate ... the list could go on for paragraphs. The database is capable of displaying a vast amount of information regarding your files, and sorting by whichever characteristic you desire. The ability to edit ID3 tags is a big part of this, and really gives users an incredible amount of control over how their songs are identified and classified.

Editing MP3 files is generally a pretty tedious process, but the extent to which MP3 Collector 2.2 Pro automates it is incredible. Tracks can be automatically updated from the database, edited in batches (a very useful feature for those with huge collections), and file information can even be parsed from filenames. Changing the filenames of tracks already in the database is exceptionally easy, and filenames can be configured to any format desired (eg, 01 artist - album - track name, or year - artist - track name, etc).

Once you've got your songs sorted and labeled the way you want, you can start, well, listening to them! Songs can be added to a playlist (which is accessible via the navigation window on the left side of the screen), which can be played in your default media player, saved, and edited as you see fit. We were disappointed to find that we could only have one playlist open at a time, but otherwise we found this feature to be very useful. We were even able to export our entire database to html format, displaying the characteristics (artist, album, etc) that we wished. A great feature for showing off MP3 lists to friends!

In the end, this software doesn't actually do anything that can't be done manually, or with free programs online. However, the extent to which it automates and integrates the features that it provides makes it far superior to any other MP3 management software we've come across to date. Users with small collections probably won't be able to take full advantage of everything that this software offers, but for those aching to finally get a handle on the thousands of MP3s scattered around their computer will find a surefire solution at http://www.collectorz.com.