Advanced guide to using MP3Tag to tag your music

[Steve]

MP3Tag is a free piece of software for Windows that allows you to manage and edit tags of audio files. It supports various tag types and pretty much any common audio format you're likely to be using, including MP3, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, APE and WMA. The advantage of having your music tagged properly is that it makes it easier to manage your library, whether you're using a DVS for DJing or you're using a hardware or software based music player.

 

You can download MP3Tag here: -

 

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html

 

It supports 29 different languages, so if English isn't your first language, you should be covered.

 

The program allows you to search for tag data online, but I prefer to do it manually as that way you'll know that the information is correct. The first thing you'll want to do after installing the program is set up MP3Tag to read, write and remove certain tag types. These settings are fairly standard: -

 

 

I always make sure that the actual file and folder names of my music are correct and nicely formatted, as that's going to be the basis of my tags, plus it's also easier to browse and search for files and folders on my PC. Once you've done this, you can use actions in MP3Tag to automatically tag your files based on file and folder names.

 

Here's the actions I have set up: -

 

Folder Name to Tag

 

The folder names for music on my computer take the format ALBUM ARTIST - ALBUM TITLE. Using this action, MP3Tag will take this info from the folder name and write it to the appropriate fields in the tag. To set up this action, do the following: -

 

1. Make sure at least 1 audio file is selected in MP3Tag, highlight it, then click on the Action button in the toolbar, choose Actions from the Actions menu, or press ALT and 5. That'll open the actions window.

2. Click the button top-right to create a new action. Give it a name and hit OK. This opens another window that's similar to the first.

3. Click the New button again (top-right) and select "Guess values" from the drop-down list and hit OK. A new window will open.

4. In the "Source format" box enter in "%_directory%" without quotes.

5. In the "Guessing pattern" box, enter in "%artist% - %album%" without quotes and then hit OK.

 

Your action has now been created. If you don't use the same folder naming scheme as I do, you can edit the action accordingly. Press Help on the Actions window for more tips.

 

File Name to Tag

 

I use the file name format SONG NUMBER - SONG TITLE. This action will take that information and write it to the appropriate tag fields. To set it up: -

 

1. Make sure at least 1 audio file is selected in MP3Tag, highlight it, then click on the Action button in the toolbar, choose Actions from the Actions menu, or press ALT and 5. That'll open the actions window.

2. Click the button top-right to create a new action. Give it a name and hit OK. This opens another window that's similar to the first.

3. Click the New button again (top-right) and select "Guess values" from the drop-down list and hit OK. A new window will open.

4. In the "Source format" box, enter in "%_filename%" without quotes.

5. In the "Guessing pattern" box, enter in "%track% - %title%" without quotes and then hit OK.

 

Again, if your file naming scheme is different to mine, you can edit the information accordingly.

 

Artist to Album Artist

 

The artist and album artist fields are usually the same. The exception would be with compilations, where the artist is the artist of the particular song, while the album artist would be "Various Artists". Some hardware/software players will read the artist info from the artist field, while some will use the album artist field. It's therefore a good idea to fill out both. This action will simply copy the artist info to the album artist info field, which I do for all non-compilations.

 

1. Make sure at least 1 audio file is selected in MP3Tag, highlight it, then click on the Action button in the toolbar, choose Actions from the Actions menu, or press ALT and 5. That'll open the actions window.

2. Click the button top-right to create a new action. Give it a name and hit OK. This opens another window that's similar to the first.

3. Click the New button (top-right) and select "Format value" from the drop-down list and hit OK. A new window will open.

4. In the "Field" box, enter in "ALBUMARTIST" without quotes.

5. In the "Format string" box, enter in "%artist%" without quotes and then hit OK.

 

Import Cover From File

 

As you probably know, you can insert album art into the tag of audio files and this will be displayed by some hardware/software players when you play the song. In Windows, if you place a picture of the album cover in the same folder as the music and name that picture "folder.jpg" it will be displayed as folder art. This action will look for folder.jpg files inside folders and automatically embed them into the music found in those folders.

 

1. Make sure at least 1 audio file is selected in MP3Tag, highlight it, then click on the Action button in the toolbar, choose Actions from the Actions menu, or press ALT and 5. That'll open the actions window.

2. Click the button top-right to create a new action. Give it a name and hit OK. This opens another window that's similar to the first.

3. Click the New button (top-right) and select "Import cover from file" from the drop-down list and hit OK. A new window will open.

4. In the "Format string for image filename" box, enter in "folder.jpg" without quotes. If you want any existing album art to be over-written, you can check the box to do that. Hit OK and you're done.

 

Once album art is embedded into the files, it'll be the icon for those files in Windows, for example: -

 

 

That's just a few examples of the kind of thing you can do. It seems complicated, but you only need to set it up once. Each action has a check box next to it, so you can specify which combination of actions you want to apply to your files when tagging them: -

 

 

Using the actions above, I can quickly tag a whole bunch of files in a single click. The actions I have selected there cover everything except the year of release of the song/album.

 

Some may argue that you're better off just using freedb or another database to pull the info in from the web, but as I mentioned above, this info is not always correct, plus for more obscure music, there may be no info available at all.

[ELGEE]

nice one steve, i need this as i just got a nano and my info is all over the place.

[doppelkorn]

Cheers from me too Steve

 

Shall be doing a big spring clean of my mp3 for when I get Traktor up and running

[doppelkorn]

Just had a big tagging sesh, better than sex (with Jimmy anyway).

 

I'd well reccomend this as it's more intelligent than me. I fucked up in a major way when I tagged KISS greatest hits as "De La Soul is Dead" and couldn't work out what I'd done.

 

EDIT: do not approach this program if you have OCD-like tendencies as you'll be using the "case correction" button all night to get rid of filenames like "rolling stones - Satisfaction" and turn it into "Rolling Stones - Satisfaction". Once you've started you can't stop.

[d00ban]

Hey Steve, I downloaded this to get all the album art work that are in my files to be put on to the mp3's themselves. What settings do I need to use to do this, I don't really want it to fuck around with the rest of my shit coz it's all not too shabby really.

 

I mean, do I still only want it to write the ID3v2 etc??

 

Cheers for the help

[Steve]

You can still set it up as in the top screenshot, then just use the action for embedding art into the tags. You can run that action on your whole MP3 collection in one go.

[savwar]

i'm on a mac...

just downloaded one called tritag and gonna give it a go, depending how that goes might try using this with Crossover...

 

I've got 400GB of music that i'm tryin to sort through...

i haven't posted my "how the fuck do you organise your music in serato" thread yet...

[Jimmy]

simple way round all of this (including the serato saga sav) is to develop OCD and spend your evenings doing it yourself to perfect. like me.

 

this recently took a turn for the better/worse when dooban introduced me to mix in key. so i had to go and double check all the tagging again. happy times.

 

also @ sav, if u keep ur itunes in order (mine is immaculate) you can make serato read straight from the itunes library so it matches, so organizing tracks in serato isnt a problem

[savwar]

simple way round all of this (including the serato saga sav) is to develop OCD and spend your evenings doing it yourself to perfect. like me.

 

this recently took a turn for the better/worse when dooban introduced me to mix in key. so i had to go and double check all the tagging again. happy times.

 

also @ sav, if u keep ur itunes in order (mine is immaculate) you can make serato read straight from the itunes library so it matches, so organizing tracks in serato isnt a problem

 

i hate itunes.... only use it for podcasts..

 

i just drag music into vlc player to listen to it...

 

i already have the OCD thang. i'm wondering what to do tho because i've 400 GB of music, and i'm tryin to decide whether to have an entire library on an external, and then taking only the stuff i'll play at gigs and puttin it on the Internal or a seperate external and workin on that for serato... or just dragging every single tune into serato...i can prolly only fit 80GB on my mac... so exterrnal is probably the way to go, but with only 2 USB ports, one wil be serato one will be externalHD, and i was considering gettin a controller, so i'llhave to get a USB adaptor thang too... which is more leads and shit in the way...

 

any ideas? what do you do...?

[Steve]

There's no good reason to be OCD and type things in manually instead of using this method. The tag info is all based on how you've named your folders and files anyway, so if you're OCD about that, then it's just taking the info you've already typed in and filling it into the relevant tag fields, so typing it all in again is quite literally a waste of your time.

 

Sav, I would just upgrade the internal drive of your Macbook so you can put all of the music on there. Having your music on an external is only really useful if you need to use multiple computers, but if you don't, it's just something else to carry about with you to gigs. You can get a 500GB 2.5" SATA drive for 40 quid now. It's worth also getting an external for backup purposes though.