are there any simple editors yet, where i can edit a flac file ?

audacity cant do that, yet.

i download from eac to wavpack, and if i keep and edit the wav file - of course, i lose all my tags.

i want to archive in wavpack. but if there was a flac editor, i would be willing to convert to flac (not losing my tags), edit it, and then convert back to wavpack.

i just dont want to do any manual typing of tags.

I can import and export FLAC files with Audacity 1.2.6. Not sure why you can't.

yes, but you lose the tags, correct ?

i have downloaded 1.3.3 - as well.

i actually have both on my computer. i dont recall 1.2.6 having a flac import/export option, but perhaps it does.

1.3.3 does have a flac export option, but i lose all my tags.

Audacity imports the flac and decodes to wav on the fly. All editing is done on the wav and then exported to flac. This is the same for all the formats it handles.

i know a wav file itself has no way of storing tags.

while i suppose audacity could keep the tags in memory, while editing the wav file - i am guessing that you are telling us that it doesnt ? so when it converts it back to flac, if it has not kept the tags in memory, it could not write any tags on the exported flac file ?

This is a common problem with audio editors in general. The problem is that the audio editor does not have an internal representation of tag metadata, or if it does it's not exactly compatible with the representation in the tags (e.g., arbitrary field names, Unicode characters, binary data, etc.) or it's not exposed to the codec plugin API.

I wrote a command-line program called “copytags” that sort of works for me in this case by simply allowing me to copy all the tags verbatim from the original source file to the edited version. However, I suspect that many of the general purpose tag editors will also allow you to do this; it's just a matter of figuring out how.

There are utilities (mp3tag, e.g.) and other software (Media Monkey, e.g.) that will allow you to rename a file based on tag data, and tag a file based on the file name. You might be able to use these features to do what you want. Of course, if you want to retain more that just a few of the basic tags the filename might be a little too long.

Use software to rename the file before you edit it so its name contains the tags you want. When the file is converted to wav or whatever, as long as you keep the name you still have the tags. Then you can retag from the filename when you are done.

It is in no way harder to copy tags from one file to another using Foobar2000 than having filename as temporary metadata storage. You keep the original file and later copy its tags to the edited version.

this i was not aware of.

let me see if i am understanding this correctly ?

i rip a cd to wavpack. it has song 1, song 2, song 3, etc., in folder a.

i also save the wav files.

i edit whichever wav files i want.

i use foobar first to convert these edited wav files back to wavpack.

i should then have the same exact file names, but in a different folder, say folder b.

there is some function within foobar, that allows me to transfer the tags of song 1 in folder a, to the tags for song 1 in folder b?

if so, which option in foobar does this ?

You can transfer the tags, but the order of songs must match. You load all files in Foobar like this.

Song_1_in_Dir_A.wv
Song_2_in_Dir_A.wv
Song_3_in_Dir_A.wv
Song_1_in_Dir_B.wv
Song_2_in_Dir_B.wv
Song_3_in_Dir_B.wv

Select these files. Then if you use Foobar 0.8 rightclick and choose Masstagger -> Copy Tags. In Foobar 0.9 I think it's Tagging -> Copy Info Between Files.

Here tags get copied like this:
Song_1_in_Dir_A.wv -> Song_1_in_Dir_B.wv
Song_2_in_Dir_A.wv -> Song_2_in_Dir_B.wv
Song_3_in_Dir_A.wv -> Song_3_in_Dir_B.wv

edit. [all has been written, sorry]

that worked BEAUTIFULLY.

Thank you, j7n. I could not figure this out and I was manually transfering the tags all the while.