[TriLUG] Slightly OT: editing mp3 tags

[Maxwell Spangler]

On Tue, 2011-01-11 at 08:52 -0500, stan briggs wrote:

> my music directory is further divided by artist and, within there, album
> directories where the songs are. nothing special there. the file names are
> complete and long and tell me artist-album-cut#-song. but this detail is not
> in the mp3 tags. when i put these songs into iTunes (as one example) i get a
> bunch of Unknown Artist/Unknown Album entries.
> 
> so, recognizing my source data and it's defects does that change anyone's
> opinions or suggestions?

One of the coolest features of EasyTAG is its "Scanner" tools.

Case #1 - Your mp3 file is tagged perfectly but the file is called

unknown.mp3

You setup an expression in the "Rename File and Directory" scanner like
this:

%n - %t - %a - %b

and it will rename that file to

01 - Roxanne - The Police - Greatest Hits.mp3

You set your expression any way you like it, tell it to apply this to
1000s or files and it will do it as you wish.

Case #2 - Your mp3 file has no or bad tags, but it's named like the
above:

You use the "Fill Tag" scanner to make an expression of the exact same
type shown above "%n - %t - %a - %b" and it will parse the filename and
fill in the tags.

EasyTAG also has an automatic mode where it will take a set of tracks,
try to guess the album, look it up online and offer you data to be
applied.  If it can't find it automatically, you can do a simple search
and browse through what is in the database, select track data someone
has input and choose that to be applied.

Case #3 - The "Process fields" scanner will beautify your mp3 tag
information.  If someone gave you mp3s with all uppercase and you want
them lower, the "Process fields" scanner will take care of that, conver
spaces to/from underscores, eliminate special characters, etc.


I often use Easytag in this way:

1) Select a full album of mp3s and let it try to find accurate track
data for it.
2) apply that track data
3) use the Process fields scanner to clean it up a bit
4) use the rename file and directory scanner to put the mp3 files in my
standard format

artist directory/album directory/track # - track title

Police/Greatest Hits/01 - Roxanne.mp3

Been using Easytag for about 8 years and love it.

-- 
Maxwell Spangler
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