1. Very fast album creation (basic user experience) – see the image
Things to do:
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- Create a TurnDiscs folder in Google Drive (only if it does not already exist; it must be created directly from My Drive, specifying the name exactly, with upper and lower case letters).
- Upload a music album (1 complete folder containing “mp3”, uncompressed “wav” or “flac” music files).
- The name of the uploaded folder must be made compatible: e.g., if the name was “Alvaro Soler – The Best of 2015-2022,” it must be “XXX Alvaro Soler – The Best of 2015-2022,” where XXX is a mandatory 3-digit serial number. If this is the first album, it is recommended to choose 001 for XXX. This is a key identifier for the mobile app and must be unique for each album.
- Make the files in the music folder compatible: Add identifiers beginning with – “A01” – “A10” (if there are 10 tracks), “B01”-… if it is a double LP, – “C01”-… and “D01″… to the names of the tracks. The application will sort the songs onto the appropriate record sides based on file names beginning with “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D,” and the subsequent number will be their serial number on the side. For the mobile app, it is still worth sorting the music files onto at least two sides, even if the material is not from an LP source or if you are preparing your own selection for the app. (The app can handle a maximum of 4 record sides.) For example, the file “Alma De Luz.flac” is supplemented with the file name “D03 – Alma De Luz.flac” based on the D03 identifier and is classified as the third song to be played on side D.
- In order for the album cover to appear in the app, the music files must also have an image ID tag. Usually, content creators take care of this, but if it is not included, place a “cover.jpg” file next to the music files (the file name must be exactly as specified, e.g., “cover.JPG” is not acceptable!). The “cover.jpg” file must contain the front cover image of the album in a size of approximately 600 x 600 pixels. I recommend the website https://www.discogs.com/ as a source for cover images.
2. Quick album conversion and addition (good user experience)
Things to do:
- Follow the steps described in point 1 (Very quick album creation). Even if the music files contain the image ID tag, place a “cover.jpg” file with the front cover image content, preferably 1024 x 1024 pixels in size.
- Save the back cover image in a similar size in the “back.jpg” file and upload it to the folder containing the music tracks.
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I recommend the website https://www.discogs.com/ as a source for cover images.
In our music player app, the cover can be viewed during playback, and the back cover can also be viewed by rotating the image. In this solution, only the Custom A (B, C, D) label recorded in the program is visible on the label of the record spinning on the turntable, and the vinyl color of the record is black.
Note: The label image and record color can be specified in the third (more time-consuming) creation method.
3. More time-consuming album preparation (maximum experience in the mobile app)
Things to do:
- Follow the instructions in point 1 – Very quick album creation.
- The cover images and insert images of the album you are looking for must be downloaded individually from Discogs (if available). In most cases, images of the sides of the vinyl record are also available.
- Images taken from the sides of vinyl records must be cropped in an image editing program (e.g., Gimp, PhotoShop, Corel PaintShop Pro…) as shown in the figure. It is advisable to fill the color of the record with a homogeneous color fill around the marked point. ( [x,y -> 10px, 10px] small white ring)
- The cover images—which are irrelevant in terms of musical content—should be placed in a “picture.mp3” file, e.g., using the free Mp3tag program (X64, X32 Windows).
Link: https://www.mp3tag.de/en/
The disc label images should be placed in the “label.mp3” file. To make it easier, you can download the files I have prepared(right click -> link save as), which do not yet contain any images. - In the two mp3 files provided (opened in the Mp3tag program), you can save your prepared images as shown in the figure. After saving, you must also upload them to the folder containing the music files.
Note: If you use “picture.mp3”, do not place the “cover.jpg” and/or “back.jpg” files in the music folder! The “cover.jpg”, “back.jpg” and “label.mp3” combination also works.
Apart from the images, the metadata of the picture.mp3 and label.mp3 files is irrelevant for functionality.
4. How can it be improved?
If you want better quality images than those found on https://www.discogs.com/ you can create your own higher resolution images, up to 4096 x 4096 pixels. In this case, the higher resolution cover will give much better results. These images must be placed in the “picture.mp3” and “label.mp3” files in the same way as described in point 3.
Note: The mobile application uses the metadata of music files (song title, author, album, etc.) for display. I also recommend using the Mp3tag program to edit these, which can also connect to the discogs server to synchronize song data.