Your Ripping Workflow #2- tagging questions*

The best method I've figured out for tagging is to create the files without tags when you rip. Instead use a convention. It doesn't matter, whatever makes sense for your. It may take a few iterations to get this right, but, this can be fixed later if you change your mind. Then stick with it. I use.

Artist - Album - Track # - Trace Title

This works for me, everything stays organized if I'm dumb enough to move the files to wrong folder. They stay together, I can see all the tracks are there because the sequence is sorted by Track #.

From here, I go into MP3Tag and use the Filename to create the tags. I use the "-" as delimiter and this usually works. I say usually. If the album title has a "-" things get wonky. But MP3Tag allows you to make adjustments for this situation. Some people use the Sort tags like ArtistSort because they don't want The Beatles or The Rolling Stones sorted in the Ts. This is fine. Easy enough to do. I recommend you do this as 2nd step where you do all the files for the Artist all at once. MP3Tag will grab all the files within a folder along with the subfolders. So it's a good idea to have a folder structure with all the albums for each Artists. Something to note is that ArtistSort or any of the Sort tags isn't a default value in the editing fields on the left side of program. You have to add the field to be included. Just right click and click "customize". Select "Tag Panel" from the tree and click on the "Add Field" icon, then use the dropdown menu to find your tag. You can rename the field from "ArtistSort" to "Artist Sort" or anything else. Mine is renamed "Artist (Sorted)". The other thing to note is that Columns aren't directly linked to the Tag Panel. If you want to see a new field (or remove the field) you have to right click on the Column to edit the shown columns. This is notable because MP3Tag will all you to see additional data fields that you aren't editable tags. These could include Bitrate and Frequency, helpful information if you are tagging files High Resolution files.

If you were playing around with file name conventions during the rip and changed your mind after you've done a few, MP3Tag will allow you to rename those initial file to the new naming convention based on tags. Anyway, once you start using MP3Tag, you figure that there are ways to make you life easier. One of these is setting up a folder structure where MP3Tag will do tags with a single folder selection and one click. This feature can be very helpful for other things as well. You can retag files that got screwed by changing the name of the file to include the data. Then use the automation to add the tag from the filename. Once you've done this, if you want to revert back to the original file name, you should have a preset from the dropdown menu to do this quickly.

 

I took Dillydipper's original post, made it italics, and inserted my comments:

It’s my hope by asking questions 10 different ways to Sunday, I’ll gain both knowlege and wisdom to help me in my ripping project, and maybe give you ideas as well.

I see lots of you on this board talking about how you go back and fix tags, so let’s drill this down a little bit. Do you do it right as you rip, or go back to it once you get a hundred or so done, or...?

I do both an initial touch up before ripping to correct obvious errors and to make conform to the way I tag my files. But I also do additional changes as I work with the music. Among the changes I make are with Greatest Hits album where I change the year to reflect the year the individual songs were released rather than the year the album was released.

Also, do most of you use “Artist-Title” as a standardized filename? And with those multiple versions or specific pieces of info, does that go into the filename, or someplace else?

I organize my files as follows, including the file name (anything in square brackets is a variable):

[First Letter Of Album Artist's Name] / [Album Artist's Name] / [Album Name] / [Three Digit Track Number] - [Song Name] . [extension]

To ensure that the file path is not too long, any long album artist is truncated to 32 characters, the album is truncated to 64 characters, and the song name is truncated to 32 characters.

I’m thinking of stuff like “single mix”, or “2009 mono box”, or “Hoffman master” or “HDCD”. Some of these are specific to track (“Ringo on drums”), some to albums (“Steven Wilson remaster”), but instead of placing them in the field of the single or album, do they go elsewhere, such as the filename, for easier browsing?

I included my own additions the metadata by putting them in square brackets ( [ ] ). This names it easy to identify what is the official metadata and what are my additions. As an example, one of the conventions I follow is when an individual performs a song in character, in the Artist I list the character's name following by the performer's name in square brackets. Some examples:

- From the movie Mulan: "Reflection" by Mulan [Lea Salonga]
- From the movie Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: "Sally's Song" by Sally [Catherine O'Hara]
- From the movie Sing: "I'm Still Standing" by Johnny [Taron Egerton]

One of the rules I follow when dealing with metadata is that each album name, song title, and artist should be unique. If two, or more, albums have the same name I add additional information in square brackets to differentiate them. As an example, I do the following for albums:

Made In America [Carpenters]
Made In America [The Flirts]

Shine [Bond]
Shine [Frida]

One of the main reasons for this is due to an issue I had with my audio player. I loaded several Greatest Hits albums on my player (each had just Greatest Hits as the album name). However, when I decided to listen to a song from the album, I discovered that my player put all of the tracks from the Greatest Hits albums into one large album named Greatest Hits and didn't separate them based on artist.

In the same way, I've recently taken to differentiating different songs that have the same name by putting the writer's name(s) in square brackets after the song's name. So I have "It's Too Late [Bobby Goldsboro]" and "It's Too Late [Carole King]".

Do you try to keep your standardized filenames standard, or do you try and re-format them on occasion for the ergonomics of readability when playing them on your mp3 player, or your car audio, or how they come up in the bedroom...?

I use MediaMonkey to manage my music library. One of its features is auto organization, where you can set rules for how you want your library organized, and it will arrange your files in that way. If you make a change to the metadata, it will automatically reorganize your files to match your new metadata.

This extends to when you load your files on your player. You can tell MediaMonkey how you want your file arranged on your player (including truncating long file names if it is needed), and it will automatically do this as it loads them on your player. It won't affect the tracks on your computer, just the tracks loaded on your player.

This extends to auto conversion, where it will automatically convert the files as it loads them on your player. As an example, I used to use an iPod Classic and I had it auto convert my FLAC files to MP3 files when loading them on my iPod Classic. Once set up the process was automatic.

How many extra fields do you add on occasion to make shuffling more specific (Diament master on Time-Life”, or “dub mix from CD-5“)? Do you add info you don’t expect to look at, but to help with separating the Sinatra franken-duets from the Sinatras, for instance?

One thing I sometimes like to do is just listen to music. The problem is that many genres, such as Comedy, mix spoken word tracks with the music tracks. My solution was to create a custom field called "Music" and put either "Yes" or "No" in the field. This makes it easy to just listen to music if I choose. In the same way, I did the same thing with instrumentals (created a field called "Instrumentals" and put either "Yes" or "No" in the field).

Do you have a special way to configure your EAC or dbPoweramp or whatever for consistent ripping before you even go in and tweak something further?

I pretty much just use the standard settings, but I rip everything to FLAC and then convert as needed.

Do you always file “exceptions” the same way, such as “The”, “A”, or numbers

(are “The Three Tenors” before the alphabet as “3” would be, for instance, or further down, as “T-h-r-e-e”? And, would you file “The The” like that, or, “The, The”?). As an example, I file A Flock of Seagulls under “Flock”, but I make an exception for A Fine Frenzy going under “A”, because the artist chose that name from an exact Shakespeare quote.

When it comes various metadata, I basically treat each item as a single string when it comes to sorting them. So "The Beach Boys" and "The Beatles" and "The Rolling Stones" would be near each other. I do apply some special rules when it comes to artists:

- If an person's name is part of the band's name or is separate entity they would be filed the same. As an example, Huey Lewis and Huey Lewis & The News would be filed together, and Huey Lewis would not be filed as "Lewis, Huey."

- If an artist's name contains the word "and" or the "&" symbol then which use depends on the context. If it is in a group name (like Mike And The Mechanics) or a duo (like Simon & Garfunkel) then I use "&". If it is a one-off pairing then I use "And". With the song "My Little Town" I list the artist as "Paul Simon And Art Garfunkel" because even though they recorded together as a group, for this song they hadn't reunited.

Also, does Donald Fagan automatically go with Steely Dan, or not? Then there’s Paul, Wings and The Silver Beatles...! Or that Randy Bachman solo album, decades removed from both BTO, and Chad Allen & the Reflections...?

I treat each one as separate artist/act. Donald Fagan is a separate entity from Steely Dan, just like Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Wings, Paul McCartney & Wings, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon would each be separate artists/acts. I'm a Carpenters fan, but I list The Carpenters, Karen Carpenter, and Richard Carpenter as separate artists/acts rather than putting them all together.

To me, the key is to keep it consistent. A problem I had with filing my physical CDs is that there was so much inconsistency in the way some of them were labeled. Some had a grouping title like "Reflections" with the artist name barely mentioned, which made it difficult to find many CDs. In the end, I decided to just file them by album name, and use my music library on my computer to locate a specific CD (calling up an artist/act would give me instant list of every album they had in my collection).

I hope this helps.

 

You kiddin'? I hope this helps dozens of people!

(By the way, don't forget to search the other four threads in this series, and see if it helps you keep your tips and questions separate. I've numbered the threads, rather than titled them differently, for this purpose. The 5th one also has links to threads you might find helpful).

 

Wow my head hurts. My suggestion is folks learn to tag each song on a compilation as a compilation. How cleaver huh!

And learn to use “Artist” field when it’s all about the (or that) album. And “Album Artist” field when it’s not just about that album but the entire career of the given artist. Exactly opposite of what I would have guessed. Yeah learn to think backwards there.

 

A little quirk of mine is to name the artist folder as it is on the record label. So, for me, it's Mike + The Mechanics. But, for Rufus, every variation of Rufus, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, and Rufus & Chaka all go under the same folder.

 

Thinking about it, that's how I would list "Mike + The Mechanics" since that is the actual name of the group. But I would treat the groups you mentioned as separate acts. In that case, an option would be to put "Rufus" in the Grouping tag as a way to allow you consolidate the various configurations of the group, then you can just create an auto playlist of songs that feature "Rufus" in the Grouping tag to allow you call up a list of all of the Rufus songs.

One tag I make a great deal of use of is the Album Artist tag. For the Artist tag, I put in the actual performer/act for that specific song. However, for the Album Artist tag I put in the artist/act for the entire album. An example of this is the Petula Clark album Duets where each song on the album is a duet between Petula Clark and another individual (such as "I Can't Get You To Love Me" with Gilbert O'Sullivan). For the entire album the Album Artist is "Petula Clark" but the Artist for that song would be "Petula Clark And Gilbert O'Sullivan" (since it is a one-time pairing).

I also use the Album Artist to logically group compilations. An example of this are albums by the morning radio comedy team "Bob & Tom." For all of their albums I list the Album Artist as "Bob & Tom" but put the actual performers for each track in the Artist tag. I also put "Various Artists" in the Album Artist tag for actual compilations (meaning a collection of songs by various artists). One of the reasons I use this for compilations is that the Album Artist tag basically works across all music management programs, while using a Compilations check box (like in iTunes) may not work in other programs.

One of the things I consider with metadata is to use the tags that work in various programs. I've had some songs travel many times from one program to another for various reasons (such as the program doesn't work for me, it is no longer supported, it doesn't support all of my players), and for that reason I try to avoid using tags that only work with certain programs.

This just brought to mind an issue: Album Art. Different music management programs handle album art in different manner. As an example, I found that Windows Media Player stores the album art as two hidden system files in the album folder, while other programs store it as a "folder.jpg" file in the album's folder, and others store it in the ID3 tag.

Another factor to consider is how different players handle album art. As an example, I had a problem with my Walkman players when it came to getting album art to consistently display. In the end, I found that it requires the following: (1) it must be a .jpg file, (2) it must be stored in the ID3 tag as a front cover, and (3) not too large (600 x 600 pixels is fine). In fact, Walkman players require that your files to be properly and accurately tagged to allow you to listen to your music the way that you want.

To sum up my views, I basically organize my music on my computer in a file structure that allows me to locate it just like I would with a physical copy, but when it comes to manipulating the files on my computer and my player I rely on the metadata. As an example, at times I like to listen to sad songs so I tagged my sad songs as "Sad" using the Mood tag, created an auto playlist of sad songs (songs with "Sad" in the Mood tag) and loaded it on my player so I can listen to sad songs whenever I choose. A combination of comprehensive tagging combined with auto playlists allows you to easily manipulate your music any way you choose.

 

The problem with treating "Rufus" as individual groups is that it's essentially the same, exact band under different monikers. See, I do not use grouping with any of the playback software I use. I don't create playlists using tags. I do it old-school by creating a discrete compilation.

One fun thing I do is tag the Band Chicago with the Registered ® logo because that's how it is on some of the record labels. They actually trademarked their band's name.