Need to batch rename files, by REMOVING part of the name

[JFetter]

Hi guys!

My problem is a little different than most "Batch rename" posts I've seen.

I have about 500 tracks by Mozart, for example. The problem is that many of them (~30%) have a song name like such.

Song name - Mozart - String Quartet in C major K.515 I. Allegro

As you can see, this is a fairly long song name to begin with, the last thing I need is the "Mozart" at the beginning of the song name.

Therefore I need a progam to simply remove JUST the "Mozart" at the begining. Either by telling it to remove the first 6 characters of the file name, or by specifying that I want to remove any "mozart" in the file name.

Coincidently I have a nifty program that can do this, but simply for file names. (Not the id3 tag, which is what I need to edit)

I am on Windows, btw.

Thank you

 

[Galley]

Try Tag&Rename.

 

[JFetter]

I tried tag&rename yesterday. From what I could tell (and from their help file) there isn't a way to simply "remove" part of the name. Only to rename it from scratch using their criteria.

 

[S2_Mac]

Huh...I thought Tag&Rename did all sorts of Regular Expression stuff on tags. I've only got one PC available to me right now, and it's got MP3Tag on it. The setup is a bit convoluted, but it does what you want. You'd create a new Action Group, then create a new action of type "Replace with Regular Expression", then edit the action to look like this --
Field: TITLE
Regular Expression: ^\w+\s-\s
Replace matches with: [leave blank]

This RegExp sez: Match only at the beginning of the field (^); match on one or more "word" characters (\w+), then a whitespace character (\s), then a dash (-), then a whitespace character (\s). By leaving the "Replaces with:" field blank, the matched text is simply removed. This will work for "Beethoven - title", "Mozart - title", "Paganini - title", etc. It wil not work for "Mozart -- title" or "Mozart title" or "Mozart-title". Worked fine on simple tests here...

 

[JFetter]

Huh...I thought Tag&Rename did all sorts of Regular Expression stuff on tags. I've only got one PC available to me right now, and it's got MP3Tag on it. The setup is a bit convoluted, but it does what you want. You'd create a new Action Group, then create a new action of type "Replace with Regular Expression", then edit the action to look like this --
Field: TITLE
Regular Expression: ^\w+\s-\s
Replace matches with: [leave blank]

This RegExp sez: Match only at the beginning of the field (^); match on one or more "word" characters (\w+), then a whitespace character (\s), then a dash (-), then a whitespace character (\s). By leaving the "Replaces with:" field blank, the matched text is simply removed. This will work for "Beethoven - title", "Mozart - title", "Paganini - title", etc. It wil not work for "Mozart -- title" or "Mozart title" or "Mozart-title". Worked fine on simple tests here...

Thanks for your reply,

I'm having a little trouble following. (different versions?) I don't see any action group, or action type in the program.

The closest thing I see is under Tools > Rename Actions > Manage Actions (Which I tried anyway, using your instructions, but couldn't get it to quite work right)

 

[S2_Mac]

Version 2.4.3; select a file for editing to enable all the icons in the "toolbar"; look for two icons with similar appearance -- an A on top of an a; the Tool Tips will read "Actions (quick)" and "Actions"; we want the "Actions" icon, the rightmost of the two. Click on the button part of the icon, not the drop-down menu part; a box will open, listing some default "action groups".

Click the "New" icon to the right of the list (a star); give your new action group a name like "Trim front word". Select the new action group and click the New button; a box with a drop-down menu appears, select "Replace with regular expression" from the menu; an editing box appears, fill it in as described above.

 

[JFetter]

Ah, I had version 3.5 (I think). The only older version I could find was something like 3.3, which upon downloading gave me a terrible virus.. of which I am still recovering...

Thanks for your help though! It seems that the newest version doesn't have any buttons like you speak of. If anybody knows a way around this, I'd be very grateful!

 

[eqblues]

I have Mp3Tag too and Im positive it can do what you want but as S2_Mac said, its not exactly easy to accomplish certain things with that program.

What Id do, is rename the FILES from the TAGS (this is easy in Mp3Tag and it has a designated button for it, just be careful before doing it and hit the "undo" if you mess up), then use a file renaming program to cut the part I dont want, then, rename the TAGS from the FILENAMES.

 

[Galley]

Too bad you don't have a Mac. That would be simple with a script.

 

[JFetter]

Oh jeez..... All this trouble because I made a stupid mistake

I got caught up in all the talk of "Tag&Rename should be able to do it", and I didn't even see that in S2_Mac's first post he mentioned MP3Tag. (I've never heard of it, and my mind just skipped over it I guess)

So this whole time I've been using a totally different program, lol. Nevertheless, I d'led MP3Tag, and within a minute had an action setup correctly.

Thanks for all the help guys, and sorry for the confusion

 

[teodz1984]

If you need good file renamers (Windows Platform...
try either
Bulk Rename Utility http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk
DEN4b Renamer http://www.den4b.com/downloads.php?project=ReNamer
Scarabée Software Siren http://www.scarabee-software.net/en/siren.html

 

[mp3renamer]

I would like to add that number of files and the names in the directory will vary from week to week but same Batch Renaming rules will be applied to all of them.