Bulk importing recordings

[wakevortex]

Hi all..setting up Bandhelper from Scratch on an IPad Pro..I have 160 songs to import, but for the life of me I can't seem to bulk import the mp3's
I have imported all the SONGS  into the song list  by using iTunes file sharing feature  as described..they all came across no problem (they were RTF lyric files) so I have all the songs there but now need all  the recordings.
Tried zipping a few up and trying  from the Batch Import form at the top of the Recordings list. ..if more than one file is in the Zip , the bulk import fails and shows only one mp3...

so both methods fail to import more than one song at a time...
what am I doing wrong?  Im sure its something obvious !

thanks in advance

Bill P

[arlo]

What do you mean by "the bulk import fails" -- what do you see on your screen?

Does your zip file contain only MP3s, with no subfolders?

Also, please note the difference between songs, documents and recordings:

http://www.bandhelper.com/support/glossary.html

I think you're interchanging "song" and "document" and that makes it hard to tell what you're describing.

[wakevortex]

Hi Arlo- thanks for the reply.
Ok firstly I used Itunes file sharing and added all my Lyrics (which are documents in RTF Format) ..this produced them all appearing in SONGS as a list ..which seemed a good start ...! So I have all songs there...title artist ..I can then associate the RTF's  to each song next as a DOCUMENT (my lyrics and chords)
I then tried the same thing with MP3 files..no subfolders , using Itunes file sharing... after a 10 minute or so wait after hitting SYNC on Itunes, NO mp3's appeared in the "recordings " of bandhelper either on ios or the web app .
So I then tried Zip file import from the WEB app ..firstly all songs zipped up (over a gig) ...after a long wait (unsurprisingly) NO mp3's showed up in recordings.
I tried importing ONE Mp3 zipped up as a test...success..it showed up in Recordings
so I tried importing 4 mp3s all zipped up... only ONE showed up...when I say it Failed this is what I meant- there is no error message, just the fact all files in the zip do not appear in recordings - only one bizarrely ...
Im pretty sure im clear on the distinction between the types.. but I simply cant get more then one mp3 to import at a time... (all from the web app by the way)
I hope that gives you more of the picture- appreciate your help

thanks

Bill P

[arlo]

Ok firstly I used Itunes file sharing and added all my Lyrics (which are documents in RTF Format) ..this produced them all appearing in SONGS as a list ..which seemed a good start ...! So I have all songs there...title artist ..I can then associate the RTF's  to each song next as a DOCUMENT (my lyrics and chords)

Adding documents to the app through iTunes File Sharing does not create songs in the Songs list. Did you add the songs by importing a spreadsheet file, perhaps?

Furthermore, adding documents through iTunes File Sharing doesn't even create documents in the Documents list. It just puts the files where the app can access them, but you still have to register each file with the app by tapping the + icon at the top of the Documents list and selecting a file. This is explained here:

http://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/attaching_documents.html

I then tried the same thing with MP3 files..no subfolders , using Itunes file sharing... after a 10 minute or so wait after hitting SYNC on Itunes, NO mp3's appeared in the "recordings " of bandhelper either on ios or the web app .

This works the same way as documents. Simply copying a file into the app doesn't do anything. You have to register each file with the app:

http://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/attaching_recordings.html

That's why the batch import is better for large numbers of files, because it adds the files and registers them automatically.

So I then tried Zip file import from the WEB app ..firstly all songs zipped up (over a gig) ...after a long wait (unsurprisingly) NO mp3's showed up in recordings.

The file size limit is 500MB, and some browsers will give up sooner than that when uploading large files.

I tried importing ONE Mp3 zipped up as a test...success..it showed up in Recordings
so I tried importing 4 mp3s all zipped up... only ONE showed up...when I say it Failed this is what I meant

Can you send that zip file to me to look at?

[wakevortex]

Well this is even more bizarre..I have no spreadsheet of the songs..only rtf files and Mp3's...so NO idea how I ended up with everything in the SONGS list !
ok lets clear it all out and start again to try and track it down
Everything now bulk deleted...no songs documents or recordings listed in app or webpage...reset local data performed on app..
Bulk Import of zipped rtfs (small file) worked as expected.. good start !
Import of a 37 meg zip of 5 mp3's has taken 5 minutes to complete upload (I have a 3 meg upload speed so thats slow! ) but all mp3's now did appear- so it seems its a very slow process to upload ...
Is there any other way to get my mp3s in - I do have lots of them and this will take forever it seems...
All files are in dropbox..can they be bulk imported , or is the only way from the browser? - the itunes import route seems long winded as you mention as each one will have to be added manually when on the iPad...
Also how do I generate a spreadsheet of my songs to upload into the songs list without having to type each one out one by one..I have over 200 :-)

really appreciate your help- getting there , but for some reason this is taking a while LOL :-)

thanks !

Bill P

[arlo]

Import of a 37 meg zip of 5 mp3's has taken 5 minutes to complete upload (I have a 3 meg upload speed so thats slow! ) but all mp3's now did appear- so it seems its a very slow process to upload ...

After the actual upload (file transfer over the Internet), the website has to unzip the files, move them to a separate server for long-term storage and create a database record for each file. So the upload speed isn't the only factor here.

Is there any other way to get my mp3s in - I do have lots of them and this will take forever it seems...

There's no instantaneous way to transfer lots of data into your BandHelper account. If you can be patient and let the batch import do its thing, I think it will be worth it.

Also how do I generate a spreadsheet of my songs to upload into the songs list without having to type each one out one by one..I have over 200 :-)

See this tutorial:

http://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/importing_songs.html

[wakevortex]

Thanks Arlo

will persevere with the bulk import and see how I get on
thanks again !

Bill P

[wakevortex]

Glad to say I finally got all my Mp3's in by splitting the bulk import into 250 meg ish zips... it did take quite a while for each one to complete, which was partly my initial issue as it looked like the webpage had just frozen while waiting for it all to happen.
Maybe a progress bar of the upload and importing would be really useful, so we knew SOMETHING was happening , and how far it had got?
As it stands after hitting submit on the zip file , the webpage just sits there waiting to refresh and we have no idea how long that will take...just a  thought !

thanks

Bill P

[arlo]

Your browser should show a progress indicator of some kind, but in some browsers it is subtle and easy to miss. Adding a more noticeable, custom progress bar is on my to do list.

[wakevortex]

FYI I use Safari..it sits at around 30% till everything is complete....

[arlo]

Check out this page for info on how the document linking and batch uploading will be simplified in the next app version:

http://forum.arlomedia.com/index.php/topic,1149.0.html

[arlo]

I just updated the web interface so the batch upload button is replaced by an upload progress indicator when you click Submit (except on Safari, which sadly doesn't support the normal methods for doing this).