Topic: Retagging music SUCKS!

[scottws]

I decided to start retagging my MP3 files so that media libraries work a lot better.  I just have too many files untagged, which is my own fault for the most part.

Some time ago I was using Foobar 2000, I accidentally cleared my ID3 tags from all my files.  I meant to update the tags on the files with a bunch of changes I'd made.

One media library told me I had like 2500 music files in the "unknown" category.  Yikes.  So I set out to work.  I've probably spent about 24 hours on it so far (not in one sitting), and I still have a long, long way to go.  If it wasn't for Foobar 2000's nice masstagging feature, it would take even longer.

[iPPi]

Yea it does.

A lot of my music is untagged as well, but I don't care enough to tag them properly unless it's a song that I listen to on a regular basis. 

[Xessive]

I know how you feel man I had the same issue a few years back. I started thinking ahead, and I decided to tag all my MP3's, which were about 2300 files at the time. I went through them one by one, and with a little foresight I chose to stick to ID3v2 (as oppose to ID3v1), thank God! I remember back when I was using Musicmatch Jukebox it totally screwed up my tags too. It converted everything that was added to its library into ID3v1 (ID3v1 can only handle 16 characters for each entry), and that sucked.

Once I completed (re)tagging my collection I set up my own little system. Nothing goes into my Music folder unless I've tagged it and bagged it. Then "Album Art" came along, and once again I started reorganizing my collection. This time I set up folders for complete albums and a folder for all my orphan MP3's. Now I've added album art to my criteria for anything to go into my collection. The only exceptions are if I don't know the album of the individual song or I can't find a decent album image.

[Quemaqua]

My music is on CDs.  I tag nothing.

[Xessive]

Oh I tag stuff for when I burn audio and MP3 CD's too. CD Text is a handy technology if your player supports it, and having well tagged MP3's ensures that my DVD player (back home) lists everything on the disc very neatly

[Quemaqua]

I have a CD player.  It plays CDs.  You might say... it's like magic.

[scottws]

I use ID3v1.1 and APEv2 tags.  Precious few things support MP3s with APEv2, which is a shame.  But that's why the ID3v1.1 tags are there, for legacy players.

I was putting album art in the album folders for awhile, but I decided it just wasn't worth it.  Although it was pretty cool.  I made the album art the folder image in Windows Explorer.  But I rarely use Windows Explorer to get to my music anymore so it is just a pointless hassle.

[ren]

I'm anal about my tags, everything has to be perfect. Instead of doing it your way I basically deleted everything and ripped all my cd's again. This was a few years ago when I only had 20 cd's or so it wasn't that big of a deal.

[scottws]

I'm anal about my tags, everything has to be perfect. Instead of doing it your way I basically deleted everything and ripped all my cd's again. This was a few years ago when I only had 20 cd's or so it wasn't that big of a deal.

I've done that in the past, but that actually takes far longer.

I just discovered that Foobar 2000 has a sweet file naming feature.  It renames all your files based on the tags, and can even create a directory structure.  For instance, here is my file naming script:

$if(%album artist%,%album artist%\,%artist%\)%date% - %album%\$if(%totaldiscs% > 1,Disc %disc%\,)$if(%album artist% = Various Artists,%track% - %artist% - %title%,%artist% - %track% - %title%)

Looks complicated, but it's not.  Think of Microsoft Excel's if statements.  That's how they work here.

Before the first backslash is an if test.  Basically it is: "If there is an album artist, use the album artist as a folder name, if there isn't an album artist, use the artist.  Then, for a subfolder put the date of the album and then the album's title.  Then, check to see if there is more than one disc in the album, if so, put 'Disc' and then the disc number.  Finally, for the filename check to see if the album artist is 'Various Artists.'  If it is then create the file name in the format 'track number - artist - song title,' if the album artist isn't 'Various Artists' do 'artist - track number - song title.'

Pretty cool.  Works pretty well from what I can tell, but of course I have to tag all my music first.

[scottws]

Well, that didn't work right.  The last test for Various Artists didn't seem to work right so I rewrote the script completely, using some new info I discovered.  Now it works

Code: [Select]

$if2(%album artist%,%artist%)\[%date% - ]%album%\$ifgreater(%totaldiscs%,1,Disc %disc%\,)$ifequal(%album artist%,Various Artists,%track% - %artist% - %title%,%artist% - %track% - %title%)
Edit: Another edit... apparently $ifequal evaluates integers, not strings.  I guess 2pac wasn't a good test subject.  I think I have it now, although this one just tests if there is an album artist at all (Only my various artists albums have a album artist tag).  I can't seem to figure out how to compare strings.  I added a function to add the disc title, if it exists.  This helps for albums such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City where each CD has it's own name.  The disc title is a APEv2 meta tag I made up myself.

Code: [Select]

$if2(%album artist%,%artist%)\[%date% - ]%album%\$ifgreater(%totaldiscs%,1,Disc %disc%[ - $meta(disctitle)]\,)$if($meta(album artist),%track% - %artist% - %title%,%artist% - %track% - %title%)

[Cobra951]

This is why I've stuck with Windows Media Player.  Everything has been organized through it, and it works.  Other players may be less of a hog, but I don't want to deal with all the crap Scott's wading in now.

[scottws]

You're missing the point Cobra.  I have Winamp, and it is my primary audio player.  But so many of my files don't have any tags that any media library doesn't work.  I want to have tags so that I can sort by album, artist, album artist, genre, etc.  It doesn't matter what I use, with no tags that can't happen.  I'm only using Foobar because it has by far the best tagger I know of.  It's very nice when you have multiple files from the same artist or album.

The wierd strings above are something I was just playing around with.  I have so many songs that are like "01 - Today.mp3" or "smashing.pumpkins.batman.and.robin.ost.the.end.is.the.beginning.is.the.end.mp3" from various indescretions that it would be nice to have some filename consistency.  That's the only reason I was doing what I was doing above.

Other than those two things, I hate Foobar 2000.

[Xessive]

With Winamp (5.x) if your media has no tag, it uses a path process to assume a tag.. i.e. If your file is named "Gary Jules - Mad World.mp3" Winamp will assume that the part before the first hyphen (Gary Jules) is the artists and the part after it (Mad World) is the title. I think if you have a number and a hyphen preceding the artists it will assume it's the track number too. The folder which the file is inside will be considered the album title. It's very basic and not quite as comprehensive as ID3 tags, but it works in the playlist and the Media Library.

A friend of mine does things this way. He basically makes sure that everything in his library have no tags at all, and he just names the files appropriately.

[Cobra951]

You're missing the point Cobra.  I have Winamp, and it is my primary audio player.  But so many of my files don't have any tags that any media library doesn't work.  I want to have tags so that I can sort by album, artist, album artist, genre, etc.  It doesn't matter what I use, with no tags that can't happen.  I'm only using Foobar because it has by far the best tagger I know of.  It's very nice when you have multiple files from the same artist or album.

Hmm . . .   I guess you don't deal with this one album at a time, as you add them?  Because that's what I do.  If I acquire music in some way other than a rip of my own CDs, I let WMP find it, and go see where it ends up.  If in the unknown category, or if it's missing stuff, I add the missing info right there, in WMP's tag editor.  I like it because it lets you edit entire folders (albums) at once, and only changes the fields you specify (like artist, genre . . .).  Easy stuff.  Yeah, if I waited until I have a drive full of disorganized stuff, I don't think I'd ever spend the time to get it right.