I have lots of WAV and CD-A experience, but I am a newbie to mp3. I have learned much from this forum on encoding to mp3 with LAME, and have spent many weeks practicing and listening. Now I am ready to create an mp3 library for use on an iPod.

I would very much like to make smart playlists that are based on the year and the month a song was at its peak on the charts. The standard fields in an ID3v2.3 tag do not include a "month" field. Now, I suppose I could simply put my "month" data into the "Track" field, or the "Disc" field, or whatever. But I'd still like to know (for possible other future uses) - - - how can I add a custom field to the tag, and would it be usable in creating smart playlists?

It looks like iTunes restricts its smart playlist fields to its own predefined list of standard fields. So I'm guessing a custom field would be of no help here. I wonder if some alternative software like MediaMonkey might be more flexible?

And beyond that - - even if I found a library software that can make a playlist based on a custom tag field, would iPod be able to use it properly? That is - - if I can create a smart playlist in iTunes or MediaMonkey (or whatever), will iPod be able to play it? Or are there possible compatibility issues?

Thanks, in advance, for any advice you can offer.

Non-standard "custom" tag fields are usually not widely supported. Thus, if you use an iTunes custom tag field, chances are that other players won't be able to read it. Your iPod might, however.

One option here might be to use the standard Comment tag if you aren't already using it for something else. AFAIK, a lot of users (self inlcuded) put ripping/encoding information there, but if you're keeping these to yourself there's no reason why you couldn't use it.

Thanks for your ideas.

Yes, as I mentioned, I'm probably going to "borrow" one of the standard iTunes (or MediaMonkey) tag fields. Rather than using the "Comments" field, I'll probably go with "Track" or "Disc," since I won't need these otherwise, and they are looking for a simple number (and I can do the months as 1 thorugh 12). That will leave me the "Comments" field for some substantial text, in case I ever need it.

Thanks, again, for responding.

Using numbers in the track and disc fields that aren't actually related to the track or disc number might cause "sorting" problems. Like others mentioned, in iTunes I use the comments field or the grouping field for info used to create smart playlists.

Rob

I don't use iTunes or know anything about what ID3v2 frames it supports either, but according to the ID3v2.3 spec. then the "TYER" frame is for the recording year and is four characters long and the "TDAT" frame is for the date of the recording and is in the "DDMM" format. Additionally, there's the "TORY" frame for the original release year and the "TIME" frame for the recording time.

Sounds like the Grouping or Comments fields would be safer to use, so thanks for the advice, Rocketsauce.

And Martin H, it's good to learn what can be stored date-wise in an ID3 tag. I guess the problem is: What software would let me enter data into those date (DDMM) fields, and what jukebox software would recognize them? Apparently, iTunes will read only a predefined subset, and the only date-related field included is Year. I think MediaMonkey is the same, but I'll have to check.

Thanks for the help.

Grouping is what I use too (mainly for separating complete albums from individual songs).

BTW what is the original purpose of this tag? Nobody seems to know.

SUb genres
ie jazz goes to smooth and bebop etc.

I use it to know which dvd a song ins back up on. then I use itunes to show all the songs with no value itn eh filed. when the playlist gets big enough I burn them to disk.

eofor,

I read somewhere that the Grouping field is used for grouping together tracks that logically belong together and therefore shouldn't get suffled by your jukebox.

For example, the three movements of a typical symphony come out as three tracks. If you mark them as a "Group," they will stick together rather than getting shuffled apart.

I don't know if this is what the designers of the field had in mind, but it makes sense that you'd want to use something like this for tracks you want to keep together.