Help? It has been about two years since I researched, learned, and setup my EAC with Monkey Audio to rip my CD's to APE have a legal backup to my owned CD's.

I then used LAME with Monkey Audio to convert to MP3.

This worked fine for my ZEN Micro (4 Gb) mini-disk player.
At the time, I can't recall, I thought I was capturing ID Tag (ID3?) info.

You see the ZEN Micro Media Explorer uses Folder paths to id Album/Artist in player.

NOW, My wife and Daughter, I bought them both a Zen V 2 Gb Flash mp3 player.

Used same process i used two years ago for my Zen Micro, and lo and behold all mp3's come across as UNKNOWN artist and UNKNOWN album info.

Help ???

How do I get ID Tag info encoded into mp3's?

Go back and re-rip all CD's into Ape using Monkey Audio(as back up),
then re compress into mp3 using LAME attached to Monkey Audio?
After I change a setting in one of the programs?

I hope not!

Help?


Thanks!

UPDATE:

I was reading through these and other Forums;
and after downloading mp3Tag v2.36a - it appears that my Monkey Audio APE files have very good ID Tag info.

However, the mp3 files converted, due not.

How do i convert APE files to MP3?

I was using LAME with Monkey Audio - either it is set wrong
OR
LAME with Monley Audio will not carry over Tag info to mp3.

I am so confused and over-whelmed???

UPDATE 2:

I am so confused.
I do Not understand Tag ID's etc.
Two years ago I set up EAC with Monkey Audio 3.99 with LAME
I use LAME to convert to MP3 with Monkey Audio.

Unfortunately Monkey Audio only uses WAV to compress, which has no ID Tags - as I understand it.

My APE files have Tag info - I found out, today.

So how can one use Monkey Audio APE files with Tag info to get tags into and convert APE to MP3?

The APE files do have tag info.

P.S. I Use LAME 3.90.3: --r3mix -b128

That preset (and Lame version) are long gone. You can always check the mp3 forums's sticky to see the current recommended Lame version (3.97 stable has just been released, look at the main page). This is far more tuned for quality at standard settings (however I would recommend using something like --preset fast medium for your purpose).

As for the converting, try foobar2000 - It has great conversion capabilities, and carries the tag from your ape files. It's even possible to change the formatting options, and proberbly also to add directories.

Edit: Oh, and next time try to search through the forum. This has been discussed a million times!

According to the last post (EDIT: which I did not quote and has now since been edited), his ape files have no tags.

Use an automated tagging program like TagScanner to add tags to your existing ape and mp3 files.

Here's real crux of problem.
I may not have been clear:

Hi,

It has been 2 years since I did anything with mp3's.
I have Monkey Audio to backup and store all of my CD's on Hard Drive.

Then I used LAME 3.90.3 with Monkey Audio 3.99 2 years ago on the wav files to create MP3's.

This was fine for my old ZEN Micro.


NOW, 2 years later, I have only APE files and MP3's.
The MP3's have no Tags I found out, today; when I put MP3's on new Zen V Flash mp3 player, and no Tags, and no way to id Artist/album. Apparently my 2 year old which Zen Micro didn't use id tags, so i never knew mp3's didn't have them. (Zen Micro used file path to get that info.)

So how do I convert my 1000 of APE files to MP3 while retaining/transferring Tag info?

I recall from my research 2 years ago that LAME 3.90.3 was the best.
But it only converted WAV to MP3 using Monkey Audio 3.99 and NOT APE to MP3.

Now I see a new LAME recommended stable version 3.97 and a new Monkey Audio 4.x.

Can I use these new versions to convert APE to MP3 - and transfer Tag info?

Thanks!

By doing what odyssey said and use foobar2000.

foobar2000 will allow you to use any version of Lame that you choose. The newest version of MAC, btw is still 3.99. Only the GUI has changed.

??? I just download and installed FooBar2000.
It looks to be a player with a converter.

I tried opening APE files in it,
and I get error messages on each one saying unsupported format ???

You need to install the Monkey's Audio plugin from here: http://www.foobar2000.org/components/index.html

Just to make this clear, Monkey's Audio3.99 can write ID3 v1.1 tags to converted MP3 files. I just tried it. Perhaps you had some setting wrong.

However, I agree that foobar2000 is a fine tool for the task. Though, it writes ID3v2.4 tags and not all portables are capable of reading them. You may want to configure foobar to write ID3v2 + ID3v1 tags and also tick the "Compatibility Mode" option if needed. It would then use v.2.3 and a limited set of tags. Another option is to use Mp3tag for changing the v.2.4 tags to v2.3 format.

Edit

You need also lame.exe. The latest version is available here: http://rarewares.org/dancer/dancer.php?f=109

Perhaps I id, a little help there understanding . . . (see below)




1. Thanks for all of the quick help.

2. Yes I know that Monkey Audio is capable of creating MP3's.
I did it 2 years ago. However it seems to want to do it with WAV files, and not the converted APE (WAV to APE) files. I can not figure out how to get MAC to recognize APE files when I have Compress selected.

3. I did get (tonight) the latest stable release of LAME v 3.97.

4. Thanks for pointer to Plug-in. I'll get that, too.

Q. Do I use --preset standard? vs. format that is default for Lame in FooBar?

AND where do I put Lame or Lame.exe so Foobar knows to grab and use it?
Do I copy the Lame .exe into foobar directory somewhere? Like I do for MAC?

I converted a test file directy from APE to MP3. Did you check the Monkey's Audio help file? It is available here: http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MACHelp.chm


Foobar's VBR quality slider has ten positions. You can see what VBR quality setting each position uses in the textbox below it. The V2 option is the same as --preset standard. With the current encoder version you can also use the Fast option with good results. (check the recommended settings here: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME).


You can put it e.g in the program or components folder. foobar will ask the encoder path if it cannot locate the lame.exe file.

Yes I did get that new HELP file. It says to use Convert, but whenever I do MAC just SKIPS the APE files and does nothing. So I must not be doing something correctly, but I cannot figure it out?


Yes, but how do i actually convert a file in FooBar? I could not find it on the Player's menu,. At least not a selection that was obvious to me that it was a converter/compressor menu item.



That page was blank.

Try this link http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

The first top bar icon should be "Convert" and the second "LAME" (External > LAME). Then it should work. Other things are optional, like the used LAME command line string and file naming & tagging options. MA is a quite simple program. You should be able to find the correct settings by experimenting a bit with it. (This is for Monkey's Audio v. 3.99. I didn't check if the 4.x version is different.)


The conversion tool is in the right-click menu. Select the track (or tracks) in foobar's playlist and right-click it (or one of the selected tracks) to access the "Convert" menu.


Thanks pdq. The forum software included the parenthesis in the link.


Edit: pdg -> pdq

That is how I have MAC 3.99 set up set -- using with LAME 3.97 Configured as --preset standard
After I wrote this I had a thought, so i checked, and it turned out to be true.
I had the old untagged, converted from WAV mp3 files in the directory I was now trying to convert to MP3. Once I removed the old MP3 files, MAC was able to convert. Apparently LAME (OR MAC) will not overwrite an existing mp3 when converting to mp3.
AND using mp3 Tag 2.36a as suggested in this forum, the converted mp3's have their tAGS! Thanks to all for your help.

Thanks Alex B,!!! I would never have thought to use Right-Mouse to convert in Foobar.