Need a metatag program for Mac

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Guy Gadbois, Jun 13, 2018.

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  1. Guy Gadbois

    Guy Gadbois Chief Inspector Thread Starter

    I'm having problems using Perfect Tunes on my Mac.

    Since I'm new to the Mac world I'm wondering if there is another program that will easily allow me to tag WAV files. Help!
     
  2. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    I thought WAV files couldn't be tagged?

    At any rate, Music Brains Picard for Mac is free and great.
     
    Steve Martin likes this.
  3. Guy Gadbois

    Guy Gadbois Chief Inspector Thread Starter

    @Rolltide Yes you can tag them, at least I could in Windows. I did a bunch of them last week. Thanks
     
  4. superstar19

    superstar19 Authentic By Nature

    Location:
    Canton, MI, USA
    I don't think the WAV format allows for embedding of tags in the files. I know Windows programs (like Mediamonkey and foobar among others) will allow you edit tags with WAV files, but I think it is handled outside of the WAV format standard and not recommended if you are going to be using different music software or different devices to manage your music. FLAC or ALAC are a couple of the lossless formats that allow embedded tagging.
     
  5. Guy Gadbois

    Guy Gadbois Chief Inspector Thread Starter

    @superstar19 So I'd have to change the files to FLAC in order to tag them on a Mac?
     
  6. Guy Gadbois

    Guy Gadbois Chief Inspector Thread Starter

    The Mac world is so frustrating. I used Windows for 25 years and switched to Mac. Just last week I tagged a load of WAV files, added artist, album, song, etc.

    I just tagged a bunch of WAV files using Music Brains, saved them, and when I plugged them back into my Node they weren't listed under artist.
     
  7. superstar19

    superstar19 Authentic By Nature

    Location:
    Canton, MI, USA
    The WAV tagging issue is not a Mac issue, it's with the WAV format. Windows seems to have some work-arounds for it, but I know in the past they didn't as I lost info on a bunch of live Zep shows I had in WAV format that I previously tagged, but then lost when I switched to Media Monkey.

    I'm not familiar with the mac, but if you are going to be using iTunes to manage your music library, ALAC would be your best bet instead of FLAC.
     
    Galactus2 and Bingo Bongo like this.
  8. Guy Gadbois

    Guy Gadbois Chief Inspector Thread Starter

    @superstar19 Here is what I got going...

    A few weeks ago I ripped a bunch of CDs in WAV format on a Win10 system. I ripped them to a external drive to be used with a Blue Sound Node streaming device

    My Win10 PC croaked so I got a Mac

    I used db compressor on Win10 to tag the files that were untagged

    I tried using the same program on Mac and it's not working for Wav files

    But wav = flac in terms of sound quality right? The only difference is the file size I think

    So I guess I should transfer the Wav to Flac and tag them that way
     
  9. Jimi Floyd

    Jimi Floyd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pisa, Italy
    If you now have a Mac be aware that iTunes, the main music player for macs, is not FLAC friendly. ALAC is the lossless format of choice for macs, unless you know what you are doing.
     
    Galactus2 likes this.
  10. Guy Gadbois

    Guy Gadbois Chief Inspector Thread Starter

    I have no idea what I'm doing. As usual.
     
  11. matthew2600

    matthew2600 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colorado
    The freeware app "Tag" for osx is what I've always used, it's from 2006 but well you're not needing anything fancy to just edit metadata of a file. I only tag flac files though, not wav. If for some reason I'm giving mp3s to someone itunes would work.

    Tag for Mac | MacUpdate
     
    Guy Gadbois likes this.
  12. ZenArcher

    ZenArcher Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham, NC
    Yes, best to convert to FLAC or Apple Lossless. Same sound quality, smaller files and more support for tags. Can’t recommend Mac playback SW other than iTunes but the free Kid3 tagging software is great.
     
    Guy Gadbois likes this.
  13. superstar19

    superstar19 Authentic By Nature

    Location:
    Canton, MI, USA
    My suggestion was going to be to convert the wav files on your external drive to ALAC with your Windows PC using something like Foobar, musicbee, etc., but if your PC is dead, then you're going to need to find a macOS app to handle it which I can't really go any further. I think I've seen mac users recommend XLD.
     
    Guy Gadbois likes this.
  14. gd0

    gd0 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

    Location:
    Golden Gate
    Welcome to my world.

    I can't help you with after-the-fact tagging; I tagged mine easily using dbPoweramp, ripping to ALAC for a Mac server.

    But, just so you'll have some quality assurance...

    AIFF = WAV... full-blown-no-compromise lossless.
    FLAC = ALAC... compressed lossless. Sounds like an oxymoron, but these are lossless.

    So soundwise, AIFF = WAV = FLAC = ALAC. Proven in innumerable tests.

    Yes, inevitably some audiophile someone will post here to refute that.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    They all sound the same, though FLAC does have some options that ALAC does not. Basically you can set it to a higher level of compression, but that doesn’t change the sound, but may take more CPU horsepower to decode.
     
    Guy Gadbois likes this.
  16. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    You know all those times people brag about ripping to WAV and claim they’ll never have any tagging problems? You also know all those times people beg for others not to rip to WAV?
     
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  17. jkauff

    jkauff Senior Member

    Location:
    Akron, OH
    If you want to keep your files uncompressed, convert the WAV files to AIFF. That's the uncompressed standard format on a Mac, and you can embed an ID3v2 tag into an AIFF file. You can do all this and much more with dBpoweramp for OS X, which isn't free but not very expensive, either, as Mac software goes.
     
    Guy Gadbois and Melvin like this.
  18. Melvin

    Melvin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    dBpoweramp is well worth the money IMO. Guy, if you're going to stick with iTunes then aiff or alac works great. If your intent is to use a program like Audirvana Plus, Amarra, or HQPlayer then you might want to consider flac. dBpoweramp has an option for "uncompressed" flac which is basically wav with great metadata support. (Note, it's not "zero compression" which is still compressed.) I never looked back once I switched.
     
    Guy Gadbois likes this.
  19. lwh1

    lwh1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, England
    I use a player called Colibri on my MacBook Pro and it handles FLAC, ALAC, WAV, DSD etc.. It's available on the App store.
    For my tagging requirements I use a programme called Music Tag Editor Lite.
     
    Guy Gadbois likes this.
  20. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    If you want to spend $20, Yate is a really good program for tagging: Mac OS X Audio Tagger | Yate | 2ManyRobots

    I got tired of using free stuff so spent the cash. I use it for 99% of my tagging. The interface is good and it's easy to use. Also once you upload your files to Itunes, if you want to change the metadata drag and drop the files into yate, hit the Itunes link, and it'll make the changes directly so you don't have to delete and readd the files to itunes.

    I use another program no longer made for that other 1% called, MediaRage. It's great actually & very comprehensive. It was a paid program but you can d/l it for free now as the company is defunct. It does some cool things like converts filenames to metadata (including using folder names for album title, artist). But the Yate interface is nicer and easier to use.
     
    Guy Gadbois likes this.
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