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New year, new MP3 tags
Mp3tag makes it simple to edit batches of MP3 files.
According to a recent New York Times article, 80 percent of people who make New Year's resolutions abandon them before Valentine's Day. But we can all beat the odds, right?
This year, I'm hoping to make some sense of my digital music collection. I'm a big fan of the audio-tracking site Last.fm (my username is "field_day" if you want to friend me), but I'll often get an error when trying to "scrobble" a song because my ID3 information is missing or erroneous.
ID3 is a metadata format within MP3 files that can store a song's title, artist, album, track number, genre, year, and other useful data. And editing that info song by song in iTunes, Winamp, MediaMonkey, or other music players can be a real pain in the butt.
Enter the batch taggers. These software programs make it much easier to edit multiple MP3 files at once. One of the most popular, Mp3tag, was a Featured Freeware selection back in August 2008, and TagScanner is another top-rated and popular freeware option. Among the shareware solutions, TagTuner offers a full 30-day trial and includes one unique and critical feature: the ability to roll back any batch changes.
Will 2009 be the year I finally get my MP3 act together? I certainly hope so. If you have any expert advice on organizing digital music or cleaning up my ID3 tags, tell me about it in the comments.
Another well-respected tooi for tag management to add to your list is Softpointer's "Tag & Rename", which offers automated mass-tagging.features eerily similar to those of MM but with even more flexibility. Although it's not freeware, there is a 30-day trial period and a full license costs only $30. If you're maintaining tags for a large collection, the product quickly justifies the small investment -- especially if you're using something other than MM to catalog and play your collection.
Usual disclaimers apply - I have no connection with either product other than as a satisfied user.
Rob
My song collection currently stands at 43,000+. Most of them are tagged correctly.
There are, however, hundreds of songs that are not tagged correctly.
The ONLY program that I have ever seen that would find and tag unknown tracks correctly was the old MusicMatch Super Tagging.
Mediamonkey, MusicBrainz, Last.fm etc. are ok for some things but useless for automatic tagging.
CNET advertises a "new" version of MusicMatch. Do not be fooled. It is a ripoff. It really is just a player with none of the tagging features of the old program.
I cannot understand why someone has not bought or incorporated the old Super Tagging feature.
I would gladly pay for it.
Once again, both useless.
http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm
If I wanted to tag manually I would just do it without cluttering up my machine any more than it already is.
Since the last version there is an autotagger really usefull and effective!
I've tryed Mediamonkey, the Gophather and Mp3tag still need some time to do it.
So in Winamp, either in MediaLibrary and playlist, select the files you want to tag (all of them if you have some time) and right clik on one of them, then "send to" and "autotag".
It use CDDB tag library to make it work.
I don't spend any more second to tag thoeses!
# Album/Movie/Show title
# BPM (beats per minute)
# Composer
# Content type
# Copyright message
# Date of recording
# Playlist delay
# Encoded by
# Lyricist/Text writer
# File type
# Time of recording
# Content group description
# Title/songname/content description
# Subtitle/Description refinement
# Initial key
# Language(s) used in the audio
# Length
# Media type of audio original
# Original album/movie/show title
# Original filename
# Original lyricist(s)/text writer(s)
# Original artist(s)/performer(s)
# Original release year
# File owner/licensee
# Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)
# Band/orchestra/accompaniment
# Conductor/performer refinement
# Interpreted, remixed, or otherwise modified by
# Part of a set
# Publisher
# Track number/Position in set
# Recording dates
# Internet radio station name
# Internet radio station owner
# Size
# ISRC (international standard recording code)
# Software/Hardware and settings used for encoding
# Year of the recording
# User defined text information frame
http://www.adstech.com/products/RDX-150/intro/RDX-150_intro1.asp?pid=RDX-150
I like using ACDsee but don't want to use a database that is not open standard. Then my movie collection, would be the next obvious task. Imagine getting data from IMDB.com and having your movies cataloged by actor or location setting....ahh!
I also used Mp3tag once upon a time. I thought it was pretty awesome, and ran much faster than the script I use. But there were some fine-tunings that I wanted to do and couldn't figure it out how to do it with the software. So I stick with my script.
- by §odaPlex January 7, 2009 11:42 AM PST
- I evoid Auto-Tag software and stuff like that I try to organize as I buy CD's... I personally use Wikipedia to search album and artist and suits me perfect. I use Winamp to write the tags... that way they'll appear that way in any software or Mp3 player... and iTunes for Album Art.
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- by fjohnson2 January 8, 2009 5:37 AM PST
- Gosh have you got alot of time on your hands , dounds like an awfully slow way of doing things
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