instead of letting EAC do it ! I am a newbie at all that MP3 thing (just got a iPod). I don't understand the advantage of using LAME do it by inputing a string in the command line.

Can some of you explain me why it is better than using EAC.


Mush

the description of EAC's tag editor says the file has to be new created by EAC. There are also reports about tag editior which create "destroyed" MP3s. It's more safe to let Lame produce the ID3 tags to avoid broken MP3s.

One thing I don't know is the purpuose of the place where tags are written (Lame produces at 100 till 400 bytes, while EAC can place it at 4 kilobytes of the MP3 file....)

@Greatmush: just let EAC do it. I've asked this same question a few times before. I've only seen vague second hand reports that someone heard it wasn't good, or received no reply. I've done hundreds of CDs with EAC tagging both ID3v1.1 and v2.3 and never noticed any problems.

On the one hand, singaiya might be right - even if EAC produced bad files in the past, it is very likely that this issue has been fixed. On the other hand, EAC is a (very good) ripper, and lame is a very good (some say the best, but I don't as I don't want to prove it ;) MP3 encoder, although the name says that it ain't, but that's history. So why not let EAC, the ripper, rip and LAME tag?

Lame is NOT a very good tagger. I mean, it works, but it only writes ID3v1-style tags. Meaning that you can't take advantage of v2 things like xx/xx track number formats and custom genre names. Even when writing v2 tags.

I don't know if EAC's tagger does or not.

@Jebus are you sure that LAME doesn't support custom genre names?
That may explain my problem.
Previously, I used EAC to tag the tracks, but as someone else has pointed out, there are occassional tags done by EAC that magically stuff up the track number formats in the comment field.
EAC tags would sometimes show like
1/16
2/16
03/16
04
5/16
etc

So I followed the recommendations of this website and the topic here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=28124
Which advises:

So I switched to using LAME for tagging and am using the recommended switches:
ID3v1 and ID3v2:
-V 2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

That seems to have fixed the problem with the track numbers in the comment field, but introduced another tagging issue. My newly ripped mp3s all have empty genre field!
This is a real PITA, since I usually specify a custom genre, since most of my music gets classified as 'Electronica'.
If you are right, then LAME is incapable of tagging the genre as 'Electronica', which is really annoying.
Can anyone confirm this?

I don't use the genre tag. But I only rip with EAC.

I let foobar2000 do the encoding part. With APE2 tags, of course.

I have never had any problems with my iPod whatsoever.

Hi theUtmost, I confirm:

I'm using LAME as my compressor (3.97b2):
This is my command line, as I'm using LAME as both my compressor and tagger:

-b 192 --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d
Note: %m -- MP3 music genre for EAC

No matter what I commands I use, my genre tag ALWAYS comes up empty. It isn't in the above command line, but it comes up blank regardless.
IT IS SO ANNOYING!!!! But I'll deal since EAC + LAME = SOUNDS PERFECT!

IIRC LAME only takes the standard genres from its internal genre list which is available through

lame.exe --genre-list

@Florian and SlipViper

Thanks for your comments there folks, that explains my problem.
Where do I go to request that "custom genres" be put in the "to do" list for LAME development?
Cheers,
tU

"Electronica" isn't in the genre list, but "Electronic" is. Considering that "Electronica" isn't a real genre and was more of a lazy media construct, it probably wouldn't kill you to leave out the 'a' for now.

However, I do agree that LAME has some serious tagging issues, like this custom genre thing and the fact that it won't pad tracks 1-9 with a leading zero.

you can use --ignore-tag-errors.

Electronica is spanish for Electronic.

Lame ID3v2.3 parameters in EAC WITH GENRE TAG:

--add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" --tg "%m" --tc "[writeherewhatyouwant]"

The --tg "%m" switch is the genre tag. It works with all standard genre tags available in the EAC's genre list.

How embarrassing
I had been using exactly that switch on my old PC, and it was working perfectly for me.
I will give it a go with the newer versions of EAC / LAME I'm using on my newer PC

Despite the fact that I am using a genre that:



I nevertheless find it useful, since in MY music collection, I found that the majority of the CDs I own are not easily categorised into the stark pidgeonholes of "official" genres.

Take any studio CD by "Thievery Corporation" for instance.
I would LIKE to be able to tag the genre as: Acoustic/Ambient/Dance/Dub/Easy-Listening/Electronic/Funk/Hip-Hop/House/Jazz/Jungle/Latin/Pop/Reggae/Ska.
(Dub is in bold since I really feel it ought to be in the genres list. I have a few dozen CDs that actually ARE easily classified into a single genre, and that genre is dub. Reggae etc they are NOT.)
Anyway, even if I could tag my Thievery Corp as all the genres listed above, that would be next to useless for playback purposes. I can't envision any sort of system whereby I could usefully choose to listen to certain types of music if all the tags were as long and waffly as this post is becoming ...
So, I use 'electronica' as an all encompassing pseudo-genre to put most of my downbeat music into.
This is useful to me, since I have enough music that I choose stuff to listen to by "mood" rather than picking a certain artist, let alone a particular CD. So extensive use of playlists, and ratings.

Parting shot. If they were available, I would use the following genres:
Dub
Downbeat
Indian
Asian
Gamelan
Cook Islands
Tongan
Pacific Islands
NZtronica - I have a lot of New Zealand electronica
African
Irish
Scottish

I mean to say, how many people REALLY use "Christian Gangsta Rap" ?

More than "NZtronica" fans, I imagine.

The ID3v1 genre list is fixed and cannot be expanded. With ID3v2, you can enter "Kiribati minimal twostep" if you want. What's the point of this rant, then?

I think the point is that he/she is having problems with EAC's tagging of tracknumbers or some other thing, otherwise they'd just use EAC for tagging. Personally I've never had any problem with EAC tagging any fields -- I guess I'm just lucky (btw I don't use xx/xx style tracknumbers for one thing).

Touche - I was not suggesting anyone ELSE would want to use such a genre...
Apologies to all for getting off topic.

@singaiya you are right.
If I use EAC for tagging, I get messy tracknumbers.
If I use LAME for tagging according to the recommendations on this forum, I can't use custom genres (even using the ""--ignore-tag-errors" switch as suggested by kwanbis).

The really strange part is that custom genre tagging (with LAME) used to be working perfectly with older versions of LAME and EAC. I can't share the version numbers / config with folks unfortunately, since that install has been nuked.
Current versions I'm dealing with here are LAME 3.97b2 and EAC 0.95b3

Yes, I'm a weirdo and want to use odd things in the genre field, but then it is MY music, and I have no intention of ever sharing it (insert petulant pout and foot stamping...)
I guess I'm just suprised there are not more weirdos out there - or at least people with the same problem.
Anyone have any comments on efficacy of track number tagging in the newest version of EAC available (v0.95b4)?
I'd rather not use 0.95b4 if possible, since Andre has felt compelled to remove the very useful function "retrieve native TOC", and I do actually use this now and again.
Cheers,
tU