Cleaning up your MP3 tags

[tripl3.a]

OMG... thank you man....this makes things much more easier

[Graheart]

great guide, ty

[Velojet]

Originally Posted by Anachostic

Cleaning up your ID3 tags is very time consuming, but if you don’t do it, you will have a poor mobile music experience.

Yes, time-consuming, but you've definitely made it much less time-consuming, Anachostic, and for me anyway, helped to make my mobile music experience much more enjoyable. Thanks for a great tutorial!

[m_hael]

ok so I just tried music brainz... and it completely fails on ALL my music.

[coolmanlr]

There is an automated way to do the whole Band tagging thing with MP3 Tag. Select the Actions (quick) icon in the main toolbar, then format values and then for field put "BAND" and format string to "%album%". I think it should make things simpler for a lot of us. :-)

[kehumble]

Ah! My hero!

[e_p_a_k]

hmm i managed to use mp3tag to edit some of my problem files, but some remain messed up. i've got a song showing up under a different album and displaying different album art despite that same file showing the correct metadata in both mp3tag and WMP11.:| help with this?

[FudgeMaster]

Fixing ID3 tags on my MP3's is a constant battle for me, as I am always expanding my music collection. These programs are okay, but EasyTag takes the cake. This software has numerous features which work on almost any music format.

Some of these features are (copy/paste from easytag.sf.net):

o View, edit, write tags of MP3, MP2 files (ID3 tag with pictures), FLAC files (FLAC Vorbis tag), Ogg Vorbis files (Ogg Vorbis tag), MP4/AAC (MP4/AAC tag), MusePack, Monkey's Audio files and WavPack files (APE tag),
o Can edit more tag fields : Title, Artist, Album, Disc Album, Year, Track Number, Genre, Comment, Composer, Original Artist/Performer, Copyright, URL, Encoder name and attached Picture,
o Auto taggingarse filename and directory to complete automatically the fields (using masks),
o Ability to rename files and directories from the tag (using masks) or by loading a text file,
o Process selected files of the selected directory,
o Ability to browse subdirectories,
o Recursion for tagging, removing, renaming, saving...,
o Can set a field (artist, title,...) to all other files,
o Read file header informations (bitrate, time, ...) and display them,
o Auto completion of the date if a partial is entered,
o Undo and redo last changes,
o Ability to process fields of tag and file name (convert letters into uppercase, downcase, ...),
o Ability to open a directory or a file with an external program,
o CDDB support using Freedb.org and Gnudb.org servers (manual and automatic search),
o A tree based browser or a view by Artist & Album,
o A list to select files,
o A playlist generator window,
o A file searching window,
o Simple and explicit interface!,
o French, German, Russian, Dutch, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Czech, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Danish, Greek, Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese translation languages,
o Written in C and uses GTK+ 2 for the GUI,
o Package available for GNU/Linux and Windows.


Don't take my word for it, check it out yourself. EasyTag is an open-source application so it is guaranteed to be Malware free. Go ahead, download the source code and see for yourself!

You can get it here:
easytag.sf.net

[e_p_a_k]

i followed the guide exactly, and set up both album artist and artist fields. however, it doesn't seem to work as billed. for example: i have the album "step up 2: the streets original motion picture soundtrack". under that album , i have "various artists" as album artist. one of the songs from that album is "get low", and under artist i have "flo rida". so i have the ff.

title: get low
artist: flo rida
album: step up 2
album artist: various artists.

however, on both the zune software and my zune device, "flo rida" doesn't show up under artists, and i find "get low" exclusively under "various artists". i want to have "get low" come out under the "flo rida" artist, with all other songs from step up 2 as going under just one same album.

i don't want my zune to have several different albums for each artist that contributed to the soundtrack. is it possible to have all songs from "step up 2" to be under the album "step up 2" by "various artists", but still have the individual artists for each track, like flo rida, come out under the "artist" tab?

[FunkyBoss]

Originally Posted by e_p_a_k

i followed the guide exactly, and set up both album artist and artist fields. however, it doesn't seem to work as billed. for example: i have the album "step up 2: the streets original motion picture soundtrack". under that album , i have "various artists" as album artist. one of the songs from that album is "get low", and under artist i have "flo rida". so i have the ff.

title: get low
artist: flo rida
album: step up 2
album artist: various artists.

however, on both the zune software and my zune device, "flo rida" doesn't show up under artists, and i find "get low" exclusively under "various artists". i want to have "get low" come out under the "flo rida" artist, with all other songs from step up 2 as going under just one same album.

i don't want my zune to have several different albums for each artist that contributed to the soundtrack. is it possible to have all songs from "step up 2" to be under the album "step up 2" by "various artists", but still have the individual artists for each track, like flo rida, come out under the "artist" tab?

I just picked up my Zune yesterday, and have the same exact problem now with my compilation/soundtrack albums. Is there something we are doing wrong, or is the new Zune software not handling this correctly. It sounds like the older version of the software did it right.

[FunkyBoss]

Okay, after messing around with the Zune for a while, I figured out that you need to go into the 'Settings' on the Zune itself and under 'music' choose 'artist: song and album'. Once I did that, it now displays the artists from compilation albums individually when browsing by 'artist' on the Zune player. sweet!

[db_]

Originally Posted by FunkyBoss

I just picked up my Zune yesterday, and have the same exact problem now with my compilation/soundtrack albums. Is there something we are doing wrong, or is the new Zune software not handling this correctly. It sounds like the older version of the software did it right.

add "ALBUMARTISTSORT" into the extended tags, and sort by what ever you're doing it by, if its various artists, or w/e ... i did that and all the albums show up in various artists like they should.

[mr.handsomeman]

this really is a nice add.

[thetrippster]

Thanks great tips.

[mortified]

Cool, very useful, thanks for this!!!

[ricts]

Help? I am having a difficult time understanding all of this.

Can someone please tell me, in plain language, which settings I need to change in MP3Tag to make my Zune behave? Assume I am a simpleton, because I am.

This tutorial certainly seems informative, but I'm lost.

"In summary: All your MP3s need to have Album, Band (Album Artist), and Artist fields defined"

How do I do this? In what order?

I'm so lost. Thanks for your patience with me.

[Gregory]

It doesn't matter what order.

[ricts]

Is there one place to do all of this in MP3Tag? (Those settings, I mean.)

And when I figure that out, will those settings stay that way, so that I can begin the long process of fixing all of this stuff?

I hate being so stupid.

[ricts]

OK, deep breath.

I think I managed to do the first part of the tutorial, adding the Album Artist column. I even understand why we need to do that, I think.

Can someone please explain to me how to make MP3Tag do what it's supposed to do? Meaning, how do I make it check the tag, fix the tag, make me a sandwich...

Will this program check each tag, and make it "right"? If so, how do I do that? I have a huge Unknown Artist section of music that obviously isn't tagged properly.

Signed, Very Lost.
(thanks)

[Gregory]

MP3Tag will do what is is supposed to do if you follow the tutorial. The program is not sutomatic, you will need to edit the metadata.