I'm using the very latest version of Foobar and all components (I just did a fresh install) and I'm running into a problem with Masstagger that has plagued me ever since I started using Foobar (maybe a year ago).

When working on more than 20 or 30 files, Masstagger becomes incredibly, painfully slow. For example, I just changed the genre tag of 72 MP3s (ID3v2) using Tag&Rename, and it took perhaps 2 seconds; using Masstagger, it took well over 3 MINUTES.

As I said, this has always been the case for me. It seems the time Masstagger takes to do an operation increases nearly exponentially with the number of files it has to modify. It's so bad that I can't use this component except for changing somthing on maybe one album-full of songs.

Is this a known issue? Is there a workaround?

Thanks.

Do you always write ID3v2 tags? There is a known issue with the ID3v2 component that it takes very long to modify tags. As of yet, there really isn't a workaround, except use APE instead of ID3.

A-ha! I just tried tagging 3 sets of 50 files. The MP3s with ID3v2 tags took about 120 seconds; the FLACs with whatever tag they have natively took about 7 seconds; and the APEs with APEv2 took about 2 seconds.

Conclusion: Masstagger's problem is only with ID3v2 tags.

That's a shame -- I know this standard is a mess, but ID3v1 fields are so short as to be a bad joke, and sticking APE tags in MP3s would make the files incompatible with most hardware (and software, for that matter; I don't use anything but Foobar, bless its soul, so I believe I could do it, but I'm the only person I know who does so, which would mean...).

Does anyone happen to know if a fix is in the works? I'd really love to use Masstagger for everything (there's something inherently sweet about using one program --Foobar-- for just about all my audio needs).

Cheers!

Another proof of ID3v2's evilness


Well quite a lot of us here use APEv2 tags instead of ID3v2 on MP3s. And also, why does it bother you that you're the only person you know to use foobar/APEv2? Or does it bother the people you give the music to? Anyways, I'd say use APEv2.

I'd say: don't care about others, unless you're distributing the music-files.

What should be important for you is: Do you own portables/use other software? If yes, can you live with those apps/portables only showing the id3v1 tags? If yes, then you can gain a huge speed increase + perfect unicode-support (international-characters) by switching to id3v1 + apev2.

BTW: you can easily convert from id3v2 -> ape and from ape -> id2v2 afterwards..... just by changing the tagging-combo in the prefs, loading the files into the playlist, and then choosing "rewrite metadata to files".

- Lyx

"Distributing" sounds so... hardcore. But yes, I do occasionally pass on new discoveries to a friend or two. Probably not more than 4 or 5 albums a year, but still.

In any case, I'm very hesitante to put APEv2 tags in MP3s, for several (other) reasons.

--- It's a hack. Sure, ID3v2 has problems, but at least everything *tries* to process them, and nothing's going to choke to death on them.

--- It ties me into Foobar for listening. As I said, I don't use anything else nowadays (ever since I installed Columns UI; I must say the default interface wasn't to my liking at all), but who knows what will happen in the future? There's no guarantee that Foobar will be developed in 2010, for example.

--- I don't know what the effects would be on other types of audio programs (editing, restoration, etc.).

--- And most of all... I have about 130 GB of music, archived on DVD+Rs, and retagging all that would take several days, plus a week to re-record all the disks.

But supposing I do decide to go ape(v2)shit and retag everything, what's the best combination of tags and tag placement to (1) avoid incompatibilities with software and hardware, (2) have all the info I want in the files, and (3) only have id3v1 tags read if nothing else works?

Erm.. It isn't a hack. If I've understood correctly, there is no official standard tagging system for MP3s, it's just that ID3 tags were the first to come and have become the an unofficial "standard".


Do you really need the tags to be able to listen to the files?


Why would foobar need to be developed in 2010? Ok, perhaps recompilations for the new operating systems/new whatever, but I'd say that's it. Also, there possibly will be a tagging program that'll change your APE tags to whatever ID3 version there is at that time.


If the programs are properly coded, there should be no effects on them. Audio editing programs shouldn't touch the metadata parts of files.


Good point.


0) APEv2 isn't shit
1) As I said before, different tags should not cause any problems for properly working hard/software.
2) Well that's up to you. A good combination would be APEv2 and ID3v1, for legacy support, but you could also just use APEv2.
3) Do you mean you would want foobar to read just the ID3v1 or other software to do so? For the former you should then only use ID3v1, for the latter, all software should read APEv2 if they support it, otherwise they'll read ID3v1.

I had to switch from "APEv2 and ID3v1" to "ID3v2 and ID3v1" because of the mp3 portable device I got recently ; instead of ignoring APEv2 and displaying ID3v1 - what I exepected it to do - it will display what seem to be the APEv2 tags heavily punctuated by chinese characters :/

I am slightly obsessive about metadata.




Things change so quickly in the computer world. I "still" use W2K, for example, but I'm sure that in a generation or two I'll need to use a later OS to support new hardware, and sooner or later Foobar will need to adapt to new OSes. And from what I understand, we're only a fatal beer-drinking binge away from that not being able to happen (the core being closed-source and all).

But I will admit this is nitpicking. In 5 years I may have to retag everything, but I'm sure I'll also have to transfer everything to new DVDs, too, optical media being so unstable (transferring 1-3 year old CD-Rs recently, I had a failure rate of about 1 in 12! And I also noticed on a couple that the ink from the "Special CD-R Markers" I used has been absorbed deep inside).




Just how big an "IF" is that?




I totally agree -- that part about possibly going "ape(v2)shit" was a joke... "go apeshit over something" > "ape(v2)shit". :-)

Is there some sort of list showing what software supports APEv2?

I started using ony ID3 tags when I started playing around with Musicbrainz and foobar would not recognize the changes MB made to the files. I think MB was using some tag format that foobar wasn't recognizing at the time. I might change back, though, now that I know that ID3v2 tags are slowing down masstagger. Proper support would be nice, but hey, who am I to demand anything?

Actually Winamp also supports APEv2 tags via plugin, so you wouldn't be tied just to foobar.



Its effortless to convert between them, so if you ever loose interest in foobar and Winamp, just switch tag types.

Frankly though, by the time you can't run a Win32 app, you'll probably have trouble finding an MP3 decoder too.



If its burned to DVD+R, then you can't edit the tags anyway, making slow editing time with ID3v2 a moot point. Just leave these as ID3v2, and tag new stuff in APE. The two are functionally identical from the standpoint of foobar or winamp, so theres no need to change tags that are satisfactory.



The tags at the end of the file next to the ID3v1 tag, so its pretty unlikely that it'll be a problem. Particularly if your software tolerates ID3v2 (which is at the front of the file). If it is, then remove the tag.

Also, why are you editing MP3 files? That sounds like a great way to have poor quality edits.

APEv2 + ID3v1 is a combination which works exceptionally well with a lot of software and hardware.
The ID3v1 tags (which IMHO are more than enough for the tiny screen of my iHP-120) will be read correctly and the APEv2 ones ignored.

I only do this in one case, which is with certain genres of music that were recorded on 78s in the 20s and 30s. It's very hard-to-find stuff, and often the only version of a given song that I can find is an MP3 that's floating around out there. I restore the audio on some of these tunes, and then convert the songs to APE to avoid additional loss.

I haven't had any noticeable quality issues -- MP3 at 128kbps (which is typical) is more than sufficient for recordings with a frequency range of maybe 200 Hz - 5500 Hz.

Sounds like you may want to stay with id3v2, and tolerate the slow tag-writing until its fixed in an upcoming version of fb2k. However, when adding _large_ amounts of metadata, then you will still sometimes get slow-tagging..... thats because id3v2 is written at the beginning of the files and when it runs out of padding then the entire file needs to be rewritten instead of just the metadata.

- Lyx

Hi, could you please tell me where to get this Winamp Plugin?
Thanks,
Melkor

http://www3.cypress.ne.jp/otachan/in_mpg123.html

It also supports _reading_ (not creating) replaygain-data and if i remember right also supports gapless playback. Thats because its based on the same mp3-decoder which fb2k uses.

- Lyx

is there a program or foobar command which will safely go through mp3s and strip id3v2 files reclacing them with apev2 and id3v1

would it keep all custom tags?

in foobar i have seen the option undr standard input about mp3 tag writing but "remove id3v2 while updating" is greyed out.

But it also says above the drop-box "other supported types will be stripped from the file". I'm pretty sure that if you set foobar to write apev2 and id3v1 tags, then rewrite all the tags (right-click, "database", "rewrite tags from database"), the id3v2 tags will be removed.

ok thanks

is there a program to tell what tags are in an mp3 and not just display a preferred choice.

Not that I know of. I generally just use Textpad and look at the file if I want to see for sure. ID3v2 is virtually always at the very front, and ID3v1 the very last 128 bytes. APEv2 would be just before the ID3v1 tag.

Its very easy to spot tags in a hex editor because they begin with "ID3" or whatever and contain actual words instead of just random binary data.

Tag.

I compared the tagging speed of Fb2k with MP3 Tag Tools using ID3v2.
10 songs with an overall size of 60MB:
MP3 Tag Tools = < 2 Sek.
FB2K = ~ 15 Sek.

My question:
Shouldn't be the speed similar since they both changed the ID3v2 tag or is only Foobar rewriting the whole file every time instead of using the given padding first?


JD

foo_id3v2 for foobar2000 v0.8 does not use padding. The ID3v2 support code in the v0.9 standard inputs does.

Thank you foosion!

That explains!

JD

/offtopic: Just checked the new/improved features of 0.9beta: Looks very nice. Congratulations!