CNET Editors' review
It can be a challenge to maintain a pristine music collection once you've migrated to a digital library. With all the moving, copying, downloading, ripping, and transferring files that sometimes goes on, many of us are bound to end up with some duplicate tracks scattered around our hard drives. If you want to get things all nice and tidy again--not to mention clear up some space on your computer--Similarity is here to help. This fairly basic utility scans your system for music files and helps you locate and delete dupes.
Similarity is a quick and light app, with limited options during install. Once you fire it up, you'll be greeted with a minimal interface modeled after Windows Explorer. The left pane lays out an expandable folder list with tick boxes next to each path. Checking off the drives you want to be scanned gets the process started. A simple toolbar lining the top of the window presents the next steps. Clicking the play icon will begin the scan of your music files.
As with most programs that involve a comprehensive scan of media, Similarity requires a fair amount of time during the initial scan. How much all depends on the amount of music you need analyzed. The good news is that the software doesn't task resources too heavily, so you can continue to use your computer during the process.
As for this process, Similarity goes above and beyond simply comparing the track titles and other ID3 tag info for each song. Rather, it actually analyzes files based on various parameters such as bit rate, frequency, amplitude cut value, amplitude average value, and amplitude maximum among others. The program also supports a wide variety of file formats including MP3, AAC, M4A, WMA, OGG, WAV, FLAC, APE, WV, and MPC. In addition to its scan functionality, Similarity offers an integrated tag editor, a spectrum analyzer, and an automatic tag converter.
Once the scan is complete, you'll be able to view some detailed information on all the tracks that have similar selections in your library. The free version of Similarity displays measurements for two factors: the percentage of similar content as gathered from the waveform, and the percentage of ID3 tag similarity. You then have the option of deleting duplicates manually. The premium version, which costs $19.95 for a one-year membership or $34.95 a lifetime license, adds a precision comparison metric as well as the ability to automatically delete or move dupes--a worthy investment if you have a lot of musical clutter.
Publisher's Description
From Almaz Gaifullin:
Similarity is a useful program that helps you to find and remove similar, duplicate musical files (MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF, WAV, FLAC, APE, WV) with the same or similar sound content, music tags (ID3,WMF,Vorbis). This is the best program where similarity of a sound part is checked, not just music tags or file content (byte to byte comparision).
What's new in this version: Version 1.6.3 has added Export feature to Results/Analysis tab (CVS,HTML), first implementation and fixed some bugs.
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All versions:
2.9 starsout of 13 votes
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Current version:
0 stars Be the first to review this product -
My rating:
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"Needs work. Not ready for wide distribution"
Version: Similarity 1.6.2
Pros
Good Concept
Cons
Verty fragile. FIrst scan took a LOOOONG time. Second scan never did complete
Summary
Not ready for prime time. Uninstalled same day.
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"Says all chamber music sounds the same"
Version: Similarity 1.6.2
Pros
Didn't work well enough to find anything positive
Cons
I ran it on my collection and stopped it after it found hundreds of matches for each piece of music.
Summary
It seems like it could tell the difference between chamber music and a full orchestra but that was about it. Also, it seems to think all allegro molto movements are the same piece because they have the same track title.
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"Works nice for me"
Version: Similarity 1.6
Pros
Good for finding duplicates by comparing the contents of music files.
Cons
I don't know any
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"Required too much user interface"
Version: Similarity 1.5.3
Pros
I guess it is ok.
Cons
Required too much user interface
Summary
Looking for something else
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"Very good at identifying closely-related files."
Version: Similarity 1.5.3
Pros
Finds lots of dups.
Cons
Also finds a lot of 'duplicates' in no way related to one another.
Summary
Very good - just be careful what you delete. Maybe the paid version is better at file matching.
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"Does what it claims."
Version: Similarity 1.5.3
Pros
love it!!!!
Cons
none so far!
Summary
Go 4 it!
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"Risky to use."
Version: Similarity 1.5.3
Pros
None I can think of.
Cons
I tried one of these types of programs and ended up with a mess. I would never use one again. It deleted all of my pictures but one all of my videos but one. Alot of duplicate files are there for a reason, I found out later.
Summary
Unless your are really sure you know what to delete, I would stay away from duplicate file cleaners. and never use the auto delete. You can never trust any software to delete automatically for you. Bottom line, stay away from these types of programs.
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"lo prob� para organizar mi coleccion"
Version: Similarity 1.3.0
Pros
Encontro muchos duplicados que ni yosabia
Cons
No tengo todavia
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"Installed on Vista 64; doesn't run"
Version: Similarity 1.1.0
Pros
None; didn't work
Cons
Won't run as installed
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"awesome prog. continually updated, easy to use"
Version: Similarity 1.1.0
Pros
Accurately identifies many duplicates based on sound and/or id3 tag similarities.
Easy to use, Intuitive, simple. Saves cache of songs scanned even after program is closed. (faster compare on next go round).Cons
Takes some a long time to scan the songs if using audio similarity. (as expected).
identifies most but not all duplicates. Doesn't list all of an mp3's attributes, artwork, lyrics, so i must use another program to decide which duplicate gets deleted.Summary
Way better at identifying duplicates than any other program I've found. including the ones based on musid id, music ip, id3 comparison, abee, etc.
I have a laaaaarge library which enjoys meticulous care.
A huge unorganized library is a worthless waste of disk space.
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