Cleaning up your MP3 tags

[Anachostic]

How to clean up your MP3s to display correctly in Zune.

This article uses Mp3tag, a freeware application. But you can accomplish the same thing in the Zune software using Edit Track Info.

This first screen shows more or less the default view for Mp3Tag. The screen shows two compilation albums, where the album name is the same, but the songs are performed by different artists. Prior to cleaning, the Zune software would show these songs scattered around, where I wanted them all under the same album.




To key MP3 tag is Band, or as Microsoft calls it, Album Artist. To add this field to the main view, right-click the column header and choose Customize Columns.



The screen shows the columns that are displayed, but Band/Album Artist is not listed. Click the new field button and enter the new tag information like in the screenshot.



I found the column order shown to be the easiest to work with, you might have a different preference. When you click OK, the screen shows the new field.



As the screen shows, the album artist for both albums is Fat Wreck Chords, although each song has a different artist. This means the Zune software thinks: There are two albums by Fat Wreck Chords, instead of: There is an album called Fat Music… by Propaghandi, and an album called Fat Music… by Lagwagon, and an album called Fat Music… by Strung out, etc.

After adding this field you may be saying “That’s where that came from”. I found lots of variations on the artist name in this field, which was confusing because they would show up as two different artists in the Zune software, each with their own album listing. Or the songs would be split into two albums when they should be together. Or you may just see a bunch of blanks. When this field is blank, Zune uses the Artist field. The problem is when some songs have the band field and some don’t.

So how to resolve it? Highlight all the songs by the same artist, and click the View>Extended Tags menu (or right-click>Extended tags, or Alt-T) The screen will show the merged values of all the selected songs. If the values are different, like album, the field shows <Keep>, otherwise it shows the common value.



Edit the Band field to be a common value. If you do not have a band field, click the new button and create the band field like in the screen below. I recommend having the artist and band fields the same unless you are dealing with a compilation.



And that cleans up the Zune software, but what about the Zune device? It’s funny, actually. The Zune device uses the Artist field. So if you are browsing artists (in my example), you will see all the values in the Artist list. So I see Propaghandi, Lagwagon, Strung Out, etc. I also have a full album by Lagwagon, so if I choose Lagwagon in the Zune, I see the album listed first, then the straggler songs listed below. But I can also find Fat Wreck Chords in the artists and see all the compilation albums listed under it. So I have the best of both fields.

In summary: All your MP3s need to have Album, Band (Album Artist), and Artist fields defined
Cleaning up your ID3 tags is very time consuming, but if you don’t do it, you will have a poor mobile music experience. Hopefully this article will put you on the right track (no pun intended).

[CameleonMK]

Kool, I'm sure tons of people will appreciate this.

[Dizzy]

Excellent Tutorial. Artist and Album Artist have always been a pain. Unless you're listening to a soundtrack, 90% of the time they'll be one in the same.

[CameleonMK]

Never been a hassle for me.

[Dizzy]

I guess it's more of a which is which deal. Or a do I need one or the other.

[CameleonMK]

I use both.

[wetworker]

This is great stuff, thanks for this.

[rahul1309]

Thanks..repped ya

[Ricardo Dawkins]

Hello...nice guide. I know how to use MP3Tag. i'm posting here just to add later to my IE favorites.

[kevin245]

Thank you for this guide! fixed alot of the tag problems with my mp3 werent downloaded in an album.

[thegoogler]

great, hate it when i download songs and the tags and stuff are all messed up

[Gow616]

Florian's program is just the best I have used. The new 2.39 beta has features to export and import album art from jpegs in the folder. This tutorial should give newbies to the world of tagging a leg up.

[Lvivske]

Highlight...right click....edit track info....apply

why is a 3rd party program needed for this?

[Carlos]

I'll look through all this later today, bit to late to start it now.

[Anachostic]

Originally Posted by Lvivske

Highlight...right click....edit track info....apply

why is a 3rd party program needed for this?

It's not. I mentioned that.

[scurr]

MusicBranz picard software (free ware open source database...)

musicbranz.org seriously...

it queries a shared database and compares your song title, lengths and names versus the database and will automatically give you suggestions and auto rename your mp3's id3 tags..

you can lower the thresholds to a level where you dont even have to click much anything to have this done for you..

regards
scurr

[Dizzy]

I've been promoting Musicbrainz for a couple of months, but it's just a personal preference. To each, his own.

[Anachostic]

Originally Posted by scurr

MusicBranz picard software (free ware open source database...)

musicbranz.org seriously...

That's fine, but the point of this tutorial is to recognize that there is another ID3 field, "BAND" or "Album Artist", that is often not defined, which causes lots of problems with album splitting.

I would hope musicbrainz sets this field in the ID3 tag.

[lextexrex]

Is there something like this for videos and movies? That's what I think is the hardest to change. Right-clicking the file in explorer may allow you to edit tags, and apply it to the zune program, but it doesn't apply it to the zune itself.