I've just released Mp3tag v2.36!

The most significant change is full support for ID3v2.4 tags - along with many bugfixes and minor changes.

You can download it from
http://mp3tag.de/en/download.html

The huge changelog is here
http://www.mp3tag.de/download/mp3tagversion.en.html

Hope you'll like it

Best regards,
Florian

cheers Florian.
Mp3tag is great. I (and I'm sure many others) appreciate the continuing dev work and support

Excellent, ID3v2.4 in UTF-8. Thankyou.

Great job, thank you.

RE: NEW: completely rewritten APEv2 tagging module./NEW: binary APEv2 are now preserved on tag updates.
Doest that mean ablum art too?

Yes, cover art is preserved now, if you've used another app to add it to you APEv2 tags.

so if I have mp3Tag to save tags in Id3v2 and APEv2 tags and have it include a cover file will it now be stored twice (in ID3v2 AND APEv2)?

thanks

Maybe this is a dumb question, but does MP3Tag support command line based inline tagging? I'd like something I could use with MAREO to tag special genres and custom fields. (LAME doesn't allow for custom genre names, only the ones in its list), and I also want to be able to tag BPM from foobar when using MAREO to encode, but I'm having trouble making that go.

Thanks Florian, Mp3tag is a great tool

Only if the cover was added to the APEv2 tag previously by another application. Mp3tag itself doesn't write new cover art to APEv2 tags - it only preserves existing cover art. I'd also suggest to use only one extended tag format: ID3v2 or APEv2.



No, command line tagging is not supported by Mp3tag (and not planned at the moment).

Thanks, Florian.

Hi,

Florian, is it possible to check which encoding has an id3v2 tag? (UTF-8, UTF-16 or ISO-8859-1)

I have been using your program a lot but I don't remember which encoding I was using with older versions. How can I check this?

Also, why do you recommend against using two extended tag formats?

Right now I'm using both id3v2.3 and APEv2 in my mp3 files because I need the tag functionality of MP3Gain.

Unless MP3Gain supports id3v2 tags, there's no other way. You have to use both APEv2 and ID3v2. (Because my portable mp3 player doesn't read APEv2 tags).

Kind regards.

For some reason I can't download it. I just keep getting the html thing, not the executable. Hep!

Not within Mp3tag itself but by using a hex editor. The encoding used is flagged by the byte before the actual text data where 0 is ISO-8859-1, 1 is UTF-16, 2 is UTF-16BE and 3 is UTF-8. Please contact me via PM if you need additional support.


foobar2000 stores ReplayGain values in the ID3v2 tag for example.



Maybe hotlinking prevention triggers, because you're using a fixed value for the HTTP referer.

may I ask why? I'm using mp3Gain and it stores the undo information as APEv2. I need ID3v2 since iTunes etc. doesn't support APEv2. To make sure that programs that do support APEv2 read the song title and not just the mp3Gain undo data, I have mp3Tag store the data in both tag formats.


what is the advantage of those different versions? It doesn't tell anything about it in the help file. iTunes shows some weird character at the end of each seperate tag when using ID3v2.4, so I'm stuck with ID3v2.3...but what's the advantage of all those different methods (UTF-8, UTF-16 or ISO-8859-1)?

thanks

The difference is in the characters those methods can encode. ISO 8859-1 is sufficient for most Western languages, while the UTF-N modes are different but equivalent Unicode encodings. UTF-16 comes in different flavours using little-endian or big-endian representation which favour particular CPU platforms, while UTF-8 is an endian-neutral encoding that has some other subtle advantages. (For example, a tag writer does not need to pay special attention to desynchronization when writing text encoded in UTF-8.) Why the ID3v2 specification allows different Unicode encodings is a very good question. Given a correct implementation of the standard, the user should not need to care about this at all. In reality, various applications lack support of features required by the specification, which is in part due to the (unneeded) complexity of the specification with regard to text encodings.

Does this mean foobar2000 replaygain values will be preserved after I edit files with Mp3tag? I see that the RG values are lost when the files are modified with other Tag editors (eg. writing Volume information in iTunes, rating in J River etc)
Also, how do I know which version of id3 V2 is is used within a particular file?

Sure, ReplayGain values from foobar2000 are preserved.


You can create a new column 'Tag type' using 'View > Columns...' and use %_tag_read%[ (%_tag%)] as value. This will display the tag type of the displayed tag and all existing tag types in the file.

I've been using mp3tag for quite a while but you learn something new every day

What is the difference between %_tag_read%[%_tag%)] and just plain %_tag%? They seem to output practically the same...
Also, is there a way to have a file's cover art show up in the tag panel without having to select the extended tag window?
On the subject of cover art, can you import just the cover art from amazon? I always thought it would also overwrite all other tags.

Thanks Florian. From a longtime fan of your work.

From the help file:


No, but it's on my wishlist.



There is a web source in the Web Sources Archive which does exactly what you want.



Thanks! Glad that you like it

Thanks a lot for the info! I didn't know how to tell them apart. However, I'm finding that it's a bit cumbersome to open each file with XVI32 and visually look for that flag.

I'd like to request a feature for future versions of Mp3tag: Could you please add a placeholder to the "Export configuration" to show the character encoding of the id3v2 tag? It could be added to the Technical Info section. Perhaps something like %_tag_character_encoding% or similar?

Maybe it doesn't sound like something terribly useful, but I think it can be handy for people like me, who have portable mp3 players that don't understand unicode id3v2 tags



That's very nice. But I'm still stuck with two extended tags because my portable mp3 player doesn't understand APE tags.

The problem would be solved if MP3Gain offered an option to write its undo and replaygain information in ID3v2 tags. But currently that's not possible.

Oh, and by the way, thanks a million for Mp3tag! It's really useful.

Regards.

So in version 2.36 can we select ID3v2.3 to use with iTunes? I haven't noticed a place in the older versions to do this, other than checking v1 and/or v2. Or will iTunes be fine with v2.4 if I use all US English characters?

Love the app!

You can enable writing of ID3v2.3 with UTF-16 at 'Options > Tags > Mpeg' (iTunes still has a broken ID3v2.4 implemention).

Thanks for the info and keeping Mp3Tag able to work with iTunes.

I see the default is now ID3v2.4 -- I'm all for support of additional pseudo-standards, but I do think ID3v2.3 should still be the default since ID3v2.4 is far from being the "de facto standard" tag standard. Of course, my opinion...

agreed

there is a bug related to ID3v1 tags. I have mp3Tag to remove any kind of tags. So I had mp3tag to remove all tags from several files in one step. Those files were only tagged with ID3v1. mp3Tah reported the tags being removed and they also don't show up anymore. However, when I start foobar it still shows the content from the ID3v1 tag and it also reports that there are ID3v1 tags in the file.

When I went to mp3Tag it still didn't report any ID3v1 tags. When I set mp3Tag to just read ID3v1 tags and nothing else and refreshed the list, there were still no tags showing...even when I went to the advanced tag editor (where the cover etc. is shown). Please let me know once you have a hot fix available.

thanks

foobar2000 caches tags. Remove the files from the playlist, close the player, open it, then re-add the files to force it to re-read the tags (or lack thereof).

Much easier: Just do right click > Tagging > Reload info from files(s)

that's not it. Refreshed it and tags are still there.

@ Jojo

By any chance, are you using foobar v0.9.1 with the Special File Info Box (foo_infobox.dll)? The Reload Info button in the Special File Info Box does not seem to refresh the tags. If I just select File Properties (default foobar infobox) and click on Reload info button, the tags get refreshed. This happens if I have changed the tags with any external tagging program. Pretty strange . I do not know if anyone else has come across this problem.

no, I'm using foobar out of the box. I renamed the files and the tag is still there...

Sorry, but I really can't reproduce this. If you really think that this is something related to Mp3tag, you can send me a test file which shows the described behaviour (no ID3v1 tags in Mp3tag, ID3v1 tags in foobar2000).

Best regards,
Florian

Is there a way to display which encoding is currently used in the tags? UTF8\UTF16\ISO..
That's something i was looking for in many taggers and could not find.

See above, Post #13.

Err, missed that. Guess I'll open up a few mp3s and try for myself.

The test file contains an ID3v2.3 and an APEv2 tag. You probably didn't enable APEv2 reading at 'Options > Tags > Mpeg' so the APEv2 tag wasn't displayed in Mp3tag but in foobar2000.

If you remove the APEv2 tag and the ID3v2.3 tag, Mp3tag will display an ID3v1 tag, because there is an ID3v1 tag in front of the APEv2 tag as well. It seems that the APEv2 tag was written by a broken app, because it was appended to the file instead of written in front of the existing ID3v1 tag.

thanks for looking into this


no, I just double checked, mp3Tag is set to read all tags.


well, I hate to say it, but I used mp3Tag only. And it did not just happen to one or 2 files, but rather to a bunch of files.

Here is what I did (a little more detailed):
After encoding my mp3's, they contain an ID3v1 tag only. So far so good, mp3Tag displays them correctly and there is no problem whatsoever. I then have mp3Tag to save the tag again (in the options menu I checked the ID3v2 ISO and APEv2 checkbox in the writing section). Once that is done, I go back to the options menu and select that I only want ID3v1 tags removed. After that, I'd click on that little red x icon to remove the tag. Now, mp3Tag displays that there are only ID3v2 and APEv2 tags. However, as you could see from the file I sent you, this isn't the case. The ID3v1 tag is still there...

thanks

I've just followed these steps and can't reproduce the problem. The result is a file with an ID3v2 and an APEv2 tag.

Hi Jojo

Tried the same steps as you detailed above on a bunch of mp3s. However, I got the same results as Florian got (ID3v2.3 and APEv2). This really beats me!! Any cues from Florian?

thanks for testing it. Is there a possibility that my ID3v1 tags are somewhat corrupted and that's what causes this? foobar and mp3Tag display the correct information stored in those ID3v1 tags.

However, I just noticed that if I have mp3Tag to remove all tags on my files that just contain an ID3v1 tag that was written right after the encoding process, I have to click on the 'remove all tags' button twice in order to have the tag removed. When pressing it the first time, nothing seems to happen on those files. It says that all tags were removed, but mp3Tag still shows all of its values (even after a refresh).

The mp3's itself are fine. Both Music CRC + Lame CRC values are matching with the checksum stored in the lame header.

As I've already stated above: ID3v1 in front of APEv2 tags is very nonstandard and Mp3tag only scans for ID3v1 tags at the end of the files. That's why Mp3tag detects the ID3v1 tag after you've removed the APEv2 tag.

Thanks Florian. That explains it.

but that doesn't make any sense. mp3Tag recognizes the ID3v1 tags before I made any changes. The changes I made then were all performed using mp3Tag. So if there is an ID3v1 tag in front of the APEv2 tag it must have been done by mp3Tag, because the original file was tagged with ID3v1 only, which was properly recognized by mp3Tag and I did not use any other program.

I'm confused.

I have noticed in the past (and continue to notice with the latest beta) that mp3tag reads aac tags much slower than it reads mp3 tags...
Admittedly all my files are on a network drive, but still...id3v<whatever> or ape tags are read much faster...Anything I can do about this?

You can wrap the AACs in a MP4 container, this should speed-up reading of the tags.

im not sure if Florian checks this as a feature request area, but a cool thing i think would be to grab tag data from allmusic.com.

iono include title, author, composer, images etc.

That's already possible go to the Mp3tag forum to see how...

Great program fella... From the little time I spent to take a look at it, I'm impressed...

One question though. How can make the tracknumber appear as 01, 02 and not 1, 2?

You can use the action type "Format value" on the TRACK field with this string: [$num(%track%,2)]