I have been using ID3-TagIT. It has a few functions that I really like. However, the software has no update since 07.08.2005. It has crashed more often recently. I wonder if there is any software that has the following features?

1. Parse filename to ID3 tag (e.g <Artist>-<Title>)

2. Use ID3 tag to rename files (e.g <Artist>-<Title>)

3. Batch editing ID3 tags

4. Support for v2 incl. original information and composer/lyricist

5. Editing both v1 and v2 and transfer b/w them

6. Copy/Paste of tags (from one file to another).

Thanks!

You can use foobar2000, but this program can't editing both v1 and v2 separately and transfer b/w them

Have you looked at Mp3tag?

fb2k can handle v1 and v2 at the same time, info will be written to the corresponding fields in both tags (if v1 does not support it its ommitted).

But editing both tags individually is not possible, i.e. adding "blah" to the artist field in v1 and "blob" into the artist field in v2.

I think Tag&Rename is for you

http://www.softpointer.com/

I'll second the recommendation of Tag&Rename.

i'll throw in a 3rd vote for tag&rename.

i finally got around to purchasing it in 2004, but i had been using it for several years before that. I love the interface and features.

i have put over 2600 albums through it.

Thanks for the recommendation. I downloaded mp3 tag&rename. A few tags I need are not supported. I emailed the author and hopefully he will add them.

1. TLAN (language). This is available in WMP with a drop down selection (code name like en-US)

2. TDAT (date of the release). Even better, combine TYER and TDAT. Typing 2007/08/01 will create 2 tags.

3. TOAL (Original album/movie/show title)

4. TLEN Windows seem to need it to display the correct bitrate. Ideally, a function to set the correct TELN. BTW, how did you calculate average bitrate right now?

5. TOFN (Original filename)

6. Is there a way to force using only ID3v2?

I know you are looking at Tag&Rename, but I wanted to show you that tags available in Mp3tag. If you look at this chart it would appear all are available in Mp3tag. You also can turn off reading and/or writing of ID3v1 in Mp3tag.

actually, i've been looking at expanding my tags in my audio files to include custom tags like %subgenre% & %style%.

tag & rename does not have support for custom tags or writing ID3v4 tags, so i have been looking into using a combination of Mp3Tag and/or Foobar2000's MassTagger.

I'm still in love with Tag & Rename, but it looks like necessity is forcing me to move on...

I use tagscanner

Any other proggie besides Tag & Rename (and Winamp) which can do that please?
Anyone know if it's a planned update for Mp3Tag maybe? Thanks.

Nobody in the know ?

I know that it's not planned.

Thanks for the reply, could you please elaboprate a bit why?
I mean, not really useful? Or is there a convenient way to edit them separately (that is not at the same time) already?

IMO, offering a GUI for separate editing of ID3v1/ID3v2 tags in a tagger that has support for many different audio formats (where not all of them have this ID3v1/ID3v2 dualism) is complete nonsense. I also doubt that most people who are using bot ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags really need both tags (I know there are some dead old portables that only support ID3v1).

To edit ID3v1/ID3v2 separately in Mp3tag you can use the various options for reading and writing the different tag formats at 'Options > Tags > Mpeg'.

Kind regards,
Florian

Thanks a lot for your time and clarity.

I'm currently trying to switch from the GodFather to Mp3Tag, if I find myself comfortable with the latter I'll donate for sure.

You can do all the above (except writing different v1 vales to v2 values coz it doesnt make much sense) in http://www.jaikoz.net plus autofixing tags using musicbrainz

I've finally ended my months-long research project, to wean myself off of having to boot to Win98 in order to run Fraunhofer's MP3ENC31.EXE (professional v3.1 EXE, circa 1998) as my encoder to produce MP3's (invoked from Audiograbber, producing CBR 192kbps MP3 files). MP3ENC31.EXE cannot run in the DOS Command Prompt window of WinXP, so I've kept a Win98 boot partition around for just this one program.

Having recently learned that Fraunhofer had made a "Professional" encoder (better and much faster than MP3ENC31.EXE from 1998) available with WinXP Windows Media Player (v10 or v11) in L3CODECP.ACM (which only needed to be "registered" in order to activate it as an alternative to the much less capable "advanced" L3CODECA.ACM encoder in standard Windows XP) I decided to try it out, and compare the audible results with what I'd been building for many years previously.

I also decided to look at LAME as a VBR alternative encoder. The comparison was extensive, including invoking LAME as DLL and EXE, MP3ENC31.EXE, and L3CODECP.ACM... at varying CBR and VBR bitrates. Quality settings for all tests was "highest quality, stereo" as well as "highest quality, joint-stereo" when possible. Lots of listening comparisons.

And at the same time I reviewed my organizer and tag editor choices. I gave second looks at products I'd been using for a long time, and tried other alternatives that I'd given up on some time back or new products that were mentioned and suggested in this forum.


The project is now completed, and I'm happy to say that I no longer have to boot to Win98 to make MP3's. I now have a 100% acceptable (and much faster!) WinXP-based solution. And the MP3 results are definitely superior to what I'd been producing for all these past years.

I've decided to stay with Audiograbber v1.83 as my all-in-one ripper/encoder/tagger, along with keeping WINAMP v5.55 as my player (coupled with G-Force v3.75 Platinum as my "visualizer"). After much playing with EAC, I've decided it does not work for my needs... certainly not when compared to Audiograbber.

I've selected MP3 Tag-Studio v3.5b19 as my tag editor utility, and decided to use MP3-Explorer v5.1 as my organizer (though I still use MP3 Manager 32 v5.10 and ShufflePlay/2 v2.80b1 when the need arises).

And, most significantly, I've decided to go with LAME v3.98b6 as my encoder, invoked as an "external encoder" from Audiograbber so that I have complete and absolute control over the command-line parameters I want to specify in order to produce the MP3 files I want to end up with. I'm now producing highest-quality 128/320 VBR files, instead of 192 CBR files as I'd been doing with MP3ENC31 in the past. Yes, the files are about 25% larger than the 192 CBR files I'd been generating with MP3ENC31, but they sound better and they're still considerably smaller than 320 CBR (from LAME) as well as "lossless" (e.g. APE) and WAV.


(1) Virtually all players have "file info" or "MP3 Tag Editor" capability, but it's usually just for basic functionality and manipulation of primary tag fields. I use WINAMP v5.55 as well as CD-Runner 2007.

Same with organizers and playlisters. Again, some better, some worse, most similar and mostly basic. I use MP3-Explorer v5.1, MP3 Manager 32 v5.10, and ShufflePlay/2 v2.80b1. I've also tried MP3-Info Extension v3.4.23 (which is an Explorer shell extension in Properties for MP3 files). Nice, but not terribly convenient.

After lots of tryouts of standalone MP3 Tag Editors over the years (including MP3TAG recently, per recommendations from this forum... and which I didn't care for, I must say) I've finally settled in on what I feel to be the most convenient, powerful, elegant and easy-to-use tag editor: MP3 Tag-Studio v3.5b19

Supports all tag formats, individal/batch/mass operations, manual/automatic operations, file renaming, ID3v2 advanced field display/update, ID3v1 and ID3v2 comparison/duplication/edit, etc. Best product I've found.


(2) Also, despite the fact that EAC v0.99b3 may technically be "the best ripper available", I find its user interface clumsy and inadequate. While it "supports" interfaces to internal and external encoders I find that it does not do a top-notch job tagging (requiring manual editing afterwards, something which really should be entirely unnecessary).

I've been experimenting with trying to use EAC and LAME 3.98b6 (both internal DLL and external EXE) but simply cannot get the combined total results I want (both quality of MP3 with my parameters, along with properly built ID3 tags) because of flaws/bugs in EAC.

Furthermore, its "player interface" to sample CD tracks before you decide what to grab doesn't work well with its standard Windows Explorer user-interface. What is really more useful is a "check box" interface (not standard Windows Explorer, but more user-friendly) in order to try one track at a time and check what you want as you move along.

So I've settled in (again) on all-in-one the program I've been using forever, Audiograbber v1.83. In my opinion it can't be beat for simplicity, user-interface (i.e. check-box design, single-artist or compilation formats, etc.), and overall mastery if ID3 tagging perfection (including automatically inserting extended fields and comments, showing the encoder used along with encoding parameters).

I tried using EAC to rip to WAV and then Audiograbber to encode from WAV to MP3, but this turned out to be 100% manual since the original track data used for tagging was lost in EAC if it wasn't also asked to encode/tag.

Furthermore, in my opinion and experience, the exposure to ripping problems (from problem CDs) on brand new just-purchased CDs is essentially zero. Setting up Audiograbber to stop on any error seems "safe enough" to me to ensure highest quality results, and it has only rarely rarely ever occurred. So going with Audiograbber and its sublime user interface rather than live with EAC and its issues seems like a no-brainer.


(3) Finally, after much debate with myself (and others on this forum) along with lots of listening experiments, coupled with the best way to configure Audiograbber to utilize LAME with my desired encoding parameters (i.e. either as "internal encoder" LAME_ENC.DLL or "external encoder" LAME.EXE) while at the same time getting ID3 tags built the way I wanted, I've settled on using LAME v3.98b6 as an "external encoder" with "user defined" parameters (rather than a LAME preset): %s %d -q 0 -V 0 -b 128 -B 320 -m s --vbr-new.

Yes, I decided to go with best-possible VBR (ensured by my command-line parameters) and "stereo" (rather than "joint stereo"). Other than saving a few bytes which I don't care about, I honestly could not tell the difference audibly between the two methods. And logically I could not convince myself that "joint stereo" could possibly actually sound better than "stereo", meaning it's only claim to fame is that its files may be a tiny amount smaller. Allowing for VBR maximum (but non-CBR 320) bitrate, and with no concern about a slightly larger file, how could "stereo" not be equal to or better sounding than "joint stereo"??? Anyway, I've decided to go with "stereo".

And Audiograbber automatically installs all of the CD track data into both ID3V1 and ID3V2 tags, along with a record of the LAME version used and the encoding parameters specified.

Perfect.


Very happy.

That is one of the several misconceptions in your post, which are borderline TOS#8. Instead of writing a would-be guide here, i believe it's you who needs to learn a bit more about lossy audio compression. Forced stereo results potentially in worse quality than joint stereo, not better. Take it directly from a LAME developer: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=36116

Please, read around on HA, listen to the good advice some people give here, and why they prefer the highly tuned VBR switches to a bunch of custom switches. And if you're unsure about certain things, try to search for information on it, don't try to figure it out yourself with limited technical knowledge...

I'm not adversed to people choosing to use rippers other than EAC; however, in fairness to EAC, I must raise a couple of points.

• I would be interested to know how EAC is inadequate when tagging, in comparison to Audiograbber.
• There is no reason why you cannot get EAC to use the "custom" switches that you desire. Suggesting that your failure to do so is a flaw or bug in EAC, rather than a fault of your own, is a little unfair.

Your opinion of what is "best-possible VBR" is just that: your opinion. I personally would never restrict a preset so that it could not go below 128kbps, or force stereo, and restricting it to 320kbps or below seems a little unnecessary.

NB: If you are suggesting that your command line is superior to a simple: %s %d -V0 --vbr-new, then you may be in violation of TOS #8, unless you can provide some evidence of the superiority of your settings.

Edit: Removed text about joint stereo as I see CiTay has it a lot better covered. Users may wish to read about joint stereo in our wiki.

Well first, I really don't like EAC's interface of selecting tracks. It uses the standard Windows Explorer-like controls, so you select tracks using standard keyboard assists (like shift, ctrl, etc.). But there's no way to listen to a track, decide you like it and check it for extraction, and then move on to the next track and repeat until done. Each time you click on the next track to listen to it the previous selections disappear... a la Windows! Also, there is no volume control when playing CD's in EAC, so you have to go to the Windows Mixer for that purpose.

In contrast, Audiograbber has its own non-Explorer track presentation which works in a very user-friendly way, with a checkbox next to each track. You select a track for listening, then push the PLAY button (possibly adjusting the Volume slider that's also shown on the window). If you like it, you check the box and move on to the next track. When you're all done some tracks are checked and others are not. Very intuitive. Plus, there's a volume control.

Also, there's an Audiograbber setting to have all tracks either checked or unchecked by default when the whole process starts. If you choose the former then you would simply un-check the tracks you don't like, rather than the other way around. With EAC you always must check the tracks you want to grab.


Also, when dealing with compilation CD's, I much prefer Audiograbber's unique columns for title and artist. EAC has no such interface even when you check the "various artists" box. The expectation I suppose is that you will create a track title according to a syntax that can be separated at tagging time into an artist portion and a title portion.

But I may or may not want to create a track title that looks that way, even though I realize I'm dealing with a compilation CD. Audiograbber's approach allows me maximum flexibility to specifically provide artist and title, as well as allowing me to compose track name any way I want, as well as allowing me to create target folders any way I want.


But back to tagging... and my complaints about EAC (and contrasted with Audiograbber)...

Using EAC and LAME_ENC.DLL is very inflexible. The program insists on saving the result with a .WAV extension (instead of .MP3) so you have to manually rename the resulting file after the fact.

Yes, I understand MP3 is a form of WAV and the file actually does have an ID3 tag in it, but various products (including Winamp) will not look for ID3 tags in a WAV file. So even though EAC wrote the ID3 tags, they won't be visible unless the extension is .MP3. But at least Audiograbber creates an .MP3 file extension when you use the internal DLL method.

And even with EAC in external LAME.EXE mode, the default extension for the encoded file is also WAV. The only way you can override this is to select "external user encoder" instead of "LAME external encoder" (even though you have to point to the LAME.EXE file in both setups). Then the "extension" item is un-grayed and the .MP3 value can finally be specified!

Regarding a "bug" in EAC, when using LAME_ENC.DLL and internal encoding EAC only creates the ID3v1 tag even though the option is checked to create both ID3v1 and ID3v2. Seems like a bug. It creates both ID3v1 and ID3v2 when using external LAME.EXE as the encoder. In contrast, Audiograbber always creates both tags if the corresponding option is checked... no matter whether internal or external LAME is used.

Furthermore, even EAC with external LAME.EXE, the TSSE item in the advanced ID3v2 tag data only provides the name/version of LAME being used. In contrast, in addition to this LAME name/version Audiograbber also stores its own name/version as well as the encoding parameters used in the TSSE item. This is hardly crucial or critical, but certainly is nice. Audiograbber also allows for a user-provided "Encoded by" value to be place in the advanced ID3v2 tag data allocated for it... if you want to make any special comments.


Finally, when using LAME_ENC.DLL as an internal encoder EAC creates what appears to be a CBR 128kbps result, i.e. the VBR flag is not shown by players (including Winamp 5.55's File Info and CD-Runner's ID3 Tag Editor). This occurs even though all items are checked requesting a VBR file (128kbps minimum, 320kbps maximum) along with -VBR 0 and -quality 0. This is either a bug in EAC or a bug in LAME_ENC.DLL but I think the former, since the problem is not present when using Audiograbber and LAME_ENC.DLL and where the VBR flag is set and displayed properly.

Curiously, when I play the EAC-produced file with Winamp the displayed bitrate does change, suggesting it really has been encoded properly with VBR. So it's apparently only the VBR flag bit that seemingly failed to get set by EAC.

Ok, I yield to a developer's comment. I've now changed my setup to use -m j as suggested.

Just in passing (and I suppose in further support of your comment) I point out that with Fraunhofer's latest v3.40 of their CBR-only L3CODECP.ACM the unchangeable encoding method for all bit rates is "joint stereo".

In contrast to this, their previous v3.32 of the encoder used "stereo" for bit rates 192, 224, and 256. At 320 "joint stereo" was imposed.

I yield. Those who know better than I know better than I.

Actually, my original post started off intended to be nothing more than a tout for MP3 Tag-Studio over MP3TAG, and I got carried away.

I was not suggesting that my command line was superior to -V0 --vbr-new. I only had specified explicit operands because I'm used to having done that for years with MP3ENC31 and I feel comfortable seeing important values explicitly, even if they are the defaults. I was trying to get optimal VBR results, and thought I had elected the optimal values for my explicit operands... assuming I still wanted to be explicit.

I've now conformed to collectively optimal group-think and gone to -m j. And I will lower my floor to -b 64.

Again, I wasn't pretending to have found a "superior" set of settings at all (and have looked at the pinned "best LAME settings" thread at the top of this forum). I was simply detailing what I had decided to use with Audiograbber and external LAME.EXE (since no specific override command-line parameters are possible when using internal LAME_ENC.DLL and only key English-described settings are available as radio buttons).

Not to mention the massive violation of TOS #5.

To bring the thread back to tagging... several posts mentioned how having different values in id3v1 and v2 makes no sense. I beg to differ and here's a perfect example when this makes perfect sense:
Let's say this is the track title: "Song Title (A Very Long Specific Remix by a Long Name Artist)"
In this case not being able to have different values would force a very ugly value of "Song Title (A Very Long Specif" in v1. If on the other hand you could enter different values, you could shorten it nicely to "Long Title (VLS Remix by LNA)". As far as I'm concerned the 2nd option is highly preferable and I have used it quite often. It's not hard to imagine having similar issues with most other v1 fields which is why having the option of different values in v1/v2 should not be frowned upon.

DSperber,

I still believe that you don't have a full grasp of EAC, and have some misconceptions of the way it works.

However, I do appreciate the effort that you spent in replying to me, and the friendly manner in which you did reply.

Although I cannot fully comprehend the aspects of Audiograbber that you have described - I haven't used it for around 10 (!) years - I have to admit that it does sounds like it certainly has some benefits.

Thanks.

I am also glad that you have been open-minded enough to reconsider your LAME switches. I'm sure that you will benefit from it.