Editing metadata in AIFF files

I actually have a few questions that I could use some help with please....

I'm currently burning all my CDs using XLD on a mac to AIFF files (just a preference as a master copy - not here to debate this), with the intention of running everything through a Squeezebox Touch. There are a few things I burned with incorrect artwork etc, and I would like to go back and amend the artwork, or change the tags from compilation (or vice versa). What is the best way for me to do this?

I am on a mac - any direction would be a huge help. I'm starting to get to the point where I have a decent amount as AIFF files and I want to make sure I keep them all neat and tidy....

 

I don't believe that AIFF or WAV has any actual space set aside for the full set of ID3 metadata in its headers, as well as storing images. You can do this easily with FLAC, lossless WMA, Apple Lossless, and similar files. To me, this is a prime reason not to use AIFF, but that's just my opinion.

I concede that the choice of archival format is dictated by your playback options. But since the Squeezebox can handle both Apple Lossless and FLAC, I would go with those formats instead. From a sound quality soundpoint, they should be no different than WAV or AIFF.

 

Vidiot is correct; neither WAV nor AIFF support metadata.

 

If Hulloder is on a Mac, then I'd definitely suggest going with Apple Lossless (ALAC). This will save you at least 40% in disc space, gives you the full range of metadata options, and also will let you embed JPEG images of album art into each file. And there should theoretically be no difference in sound quality between ALAC and AIFF.

 

When I burn an audio cd in iTunes from ALAC files, the files on the cd are in aiff format. When I play them in my car the song title, artist title, and album title all display.

E.g., I believe the format does have the ability to carry metadata. Whether it can be edited, I don't know.

 

The AIFF does not store data itself on the CD. The CD+Text information is stored in the R-W subcodes on the disc (separate from the P&Q subcodes).

If the iTunes database associated with a collection of AIFF files is corrupted, you're screwed. If you use ALAC, then the metadata is embedded in the actual files, and you're fine.

 

Although I use Apple Lossless I have used AIFF in the past and I am a little confused by the claim that AIFF doesn’t support metadata. Am I misunderstanding the issue. I just imported a CD title using AIFF and all of the metadata tags as I understand them are there (artist, album title, song titles, date etc) and I was able to add the artwork just like I do with ALAC and make changes to the Comments. Is it the extent of metadata that is not suppported or am I misunderstanding what metadata and tags really are?

 

On a Mac, you should have little issues in finding support for basic tags in aiff files.

Just about every file on your computer can support metadata. With dBpowerAmp, I can convert a lossless file loaded with tag info into aiff or wav and it will keep every single tag item, including lyrics.

But will any other program be able to read any of it? Foobar doesn’t recognize the aiff metadata and neither does Mp3Tag. And that is the real problem - lack of support. And for good reason - there’s no need to use uncompressed formats (either aiff or wav) when lossless is bit perfect. Consumers know this and therefore don’t demand it. Lack of demand equals lack of support.

 

Let's put it this way: you load AIFF files into iTunes. You name all the files with Song Titles, Artist Names, Years, Track Numbers and all that. Copy those files to another drive. Give me that drive. I connect that to my computer and load those files into my copy of iTunes.

There will be no metadata there. The metadata only exists in your iTunes database.

Only with Apple Lossless, MP3s, and Apple Lossess does the file itself store tag metadata and JPEG image files. It's transparent to the user unless you pull the drive out and use it on a different computer. Or, god forbid, your iTunes database gets corrupted.

Scott is 100% right above.

 

Thanks guys - I'm really grateful for the responses.

I decided to use AIFF from an archival perspective - I didn't realise it couldn't take metdata. That's a bit of a pain I guess, as I have done a fair few hours so far...

XLD gives the option to embed the artwork which is what I have been doing, and the ones I have burnt so far seem to be visible with all the correct tags on my Squeezebox. I appreciate what Vidiot is saying, but I haven't even tried to use something like iTunes with my files yet (that will be a whole other piece of work I guess). All my editing is done at burning stage using XLD - artwork, song titles etc.

When I look at the raw AIFF files on my external drive, they all seem to have artwork attached, and all have the correct tagging data (well, nearly correct!). This isn't something I have done in iTunes.

 

Okay, understood. As I said I had used AIFF a few times and did that little test yesterday so everything seemed fine. When I transferred my music library to an external drive I am quite sure that everything was ALAC, as it is now and I didn’t have any issues with missing metadata so I wouldn’t have experienced or known about that tagging issue with AIFF.

 

If I intend to use iTunes as a way to organise my music library, will that cause me problems if the files are AIFF? I should do a test and see what happens if I import the burned files into iTunes.....

 

I cannot image why it would as AIFF is an Apple developed or co-developed audio codec, but I should probably defer to the guys with Windows PC experience and I am a Mac guy.

 

I'm just starting to file on my new iMac and used AIFF so far, this makes me reconsider and maybe move to ALAC.

Would there be any conceivable downside to it?

 

The statement above is totally wrong. The metadata and the artwork ARE embedded into the AIFF file as well as with the MP3, AAC or a FLAC and this is what makes it differ from the WAV format. Take a AIFF, edit the metadata and add a jpeg with iTunes, copy it to a USB stick. Than open it into a complete different computer (Mac or PC) and the magic occurs! I have a 2TB of AIFF's I often play outside with VLC. The artwork and data always follow.

 

I'm completely torn! I really wanted to do everything as AIFF for archive purposes, and then I was going to use iTunes as my music organising system, with Doug's applescript to convert AIFF -> ALAC on the fly when I want to use my ipod/ipad etc (a pretty cool script that converta the AIFF for you, and then deletes it from your library).

I'll need to have a play around with iTunes I think and see what it all looks like so far. As storage is no kind of issue, AIFF makes sense - it is just the tagging part that seems a concern.

If I only use iTunes to manage my music, the tagging issue shouldn't come up should it?

 

I intensively use iTunes to edit and manage my AIFF's everyday and I've never had any tagging issues. I you want your artwork embedded in your AIFF though, import it through the file properties in iTunes. Don't download it directly from the iTunes Store.

 

+1

My entire library is AIFF. No problems with tags at all. Uncompressed linear PCM audio with embedded ID3 tags:

"ID3 tags were designed with MP3 in mind, so they would work without problems with MP3 and MP3Pro files. However, the tagsets are an independent part of the MP3 file and should be usable elsewhere. In practice, the only other format which widely uses ID3v2 tags is AIFF, where the tag is stored inside an IFF chunk named "ID3". The same could be accomplished in WAV, but isn't. The only tagging system in wide usage for WAV is the Broadcast Wave Format, stored as a RIFF chunk."

Clearly other formats (FLAC, ALAC, etc.) can make use of ID3 tags also, but to state that AIFF can't is quite incorrect.

 

I think using iTunes to edit your AIFF tags is the best way to go. Like joelbertrand says, import artwork via the file properties so it's embedded rather than having iTunes get the art and keep it in a separate database.

 

Neither the JBL CD player in my car, nor the standalone Denon CD recorder/player have iTunes (of course), but both have no trouble reading the artist name, album title, and song titles in the CDs burned using iTunes in aiff format.

So, yes, the metadata is there, either in the aiff files on the CD, or adjacent to them, because neither of these devices have access to gracenote or iTunes.

If not, where is this metadata coming from? NB: I do not have "include CD text" checked when burning CDs in iTunes, so this information does not appear to be carried onto the disc that way.

 

So I have been playing around with iTunes a little with the AIFF files - it looks like I can get an image/data onto the file when I use XLD to burn the disc. I can see the individual AIFF files with an embedded visual and some tagging (see below).

However - if I do any amends in iTunes, it does not affect the AIFF file itself, only the way that iTunes can see the file. So I can change a bunch of info in iTunes and the raw AIFF file stays tagged as it always was. So it seems everything is fixed at the stage when I rip it in XLD? Or am I off base here?

What I am looking for is a way to change some of the tagging on the AIFF files - is there something out there I can use?

 

Your homemade redbook CD’s do not have tags, nor are the files aiff anymore. As Marc described above, your CD’s are using CD-Text. This information is stored in the CD’s Table of Contents (TOC) and allows for basic Artist, Album and Track information. The CD burning software is using the tag info to create the TOC.

Rippers like XLD and EAC create a Cue sheet when discs are ripped, which represents the data found in the TOC.


If your making data CD’s, which some CD players now support, it can read the metadata of supported files.

 

Why use AIFF? What advantage does it have over Apple Lossless?

Go back and look at my original statement:

I don't believe that AIFF or WAV has any actual space set aside for the full set of ID3 metadata in its headers, as well as storing images.

What I said is still true. Some ID3 metadata is available, but not the full set. And it's kludgy and buggy. I have had experiences where AIFF's have gotten corrupted when you try to shove JPEGs in there, plus they weren't readable under Windows. I came to the conclusion after experimenting with both WAV and AIFF files back in 2002 and 2003 that there were too many metadata compromises with each format. Once Apple Lossless came out in 2004, I felt that solved all the problems: full tagging and graphics support without any drawbacks. And this format is compatible with several different operating systems, music players, servers, and portable devices.

Another flaw with AIFF and WAV files is that they suck too much battery life from portable devices. Even then, ALAC and FLAC put a lot of demands on battery life as well. I ultimately opted to go with Apple Lossless for the servers and 320K MP3 for portables, to try to get the best of both worlds, optimizing the files for each device. And unlike AIFF, I have access to the full complement of ID3 tags and image formats across a broad range of devices.

 

Except that
1. I do not enable "CD text" when I burn CDs, and
2. the files on the CDs show aiff as the format when viewed in finder
3. I burn them as audio files not data files

And when I copy ALAC files from their folder in iTunes to a USB drive the artist, album, song titles come with them.

 

Your CD players are not getting tag (metadata) info from Redbook CD’s - it doesn’t exist. They are getting it from the TOC, from the internet, or the discs are not redbook CDs.

On a Mac, every proper redbook CD shows up as .aiff files. Put that same redbook CD on a PC and it will either say CDDA or .wav (depends on what codecs/software installed). But that’s just what the computer is reporting to help the user. The fact remains, the files on redbook CD’s are neither .aiff, nor .wav - they are just raw PCM data. There’s actually very little difference in each, but the primary difference is that the header information is stripped off on redbook CD’s. And that’s where the metadata resides.