Editing Song Titles and ID3 Tags

[Micron]

Has anyone here delved into managing song lists and associated ID3 tags? I'm contemplating an Access db that would do things like batch editing of titles, numeric prefixes to achieve list order and especially ID3 tags since my car seems to be more driven by that than by song title. I've done some cursory research on tags (seems it requires I download a dll and register it) and wonder if all that would go into it would be worth my while. So I'm looking for suggestions or comments regarding the idea if you have ID3 editing experience with VBA.



Note - I realize there are good and free ID3 tag editors (and I have one) but AFAIK they lack the ability to edit actual song file names which is something I would like to be able to do in batch processing. Having a searchable catalogue would be nifty too.

[Welshgasman]

I use Tag & Rename which is not free, but was well worth the purchase price.
Site seems down softpointer.com, but other downloads are available. Not sure on the free version? I am 3.9.15

You can set tags from filenames, set filenames from tags, with masks. Update multiple tags on multiple files, play the music and so much more. I have only used it for tagging correctly though.

It is probably on my 4th computer now.

Isladogs has done a fair bit with file properties https://isladogs.co.uk/extended-file...ies/index.html

[Micron]

You can set tags from filenames, set filenames from tags,

If I understand what that means it would require me to fix the titles first when they are not as required and there are no titles in the ID3 properties. I suppose find and replace operations can fix unwanted text in titles right in the files themselves and then perhaps use my tag editor. I use Stamp ID3 Tag Editor (free NCH software version). My car will list songs alphabetically but by tag title, not song title.

[Micron]

You can set tags from filenames, set filenames from tags,

If I understand what that means it would require me to fix the titles first when they are not as required and there are no titles in the ID3 properties. I suppose find and replace operations can fix unwanted text in titles right in the files themselves and then perhaps use my tag editor. I use Stamp ID3 Tag Editor (free NCH software version). My car will list songs alphabetically but by tag title, not song title.

EDIT - If Isladogs weighs in here perhaps he can clarify: it seems the app will retrieve the info but the write up on the app doesn't say it can edit the tags (or I missed that).

[Welshgasman]

If I understand what that means it would require me to fix the titles first when they are not as required and there are no titles in the ID3 properties. I suppose find and replace operations can fix unwanted text in titles right in the files themselves and then perhaps use my tag editor. I use Stamp ID3 Tag Editor (free NCH software version). My car will list songs alphabetically but by tag title, not song title.

If you still have the media, it might be worth just ripping them again?
When I started ripping it was on dialup. I would insert a CD, dialup, get the tag info, hang up and rip the CD.
I had probably 400 Cds by then, so my music is backed up in about 4 places as I do not want to do them all again even with constant broardband connection.

[Micron]

Of course, except that this is on my vinyl versions so I get the files from YT. This would be legal since I already purchased the content.

[Salty Mariner]

Get MusicBrainzPicard. MsicBrainz is a DB kept on a remote server and Picard is he application that runs on your PC. Aside from the MusicBrainz DB you can search most of the others that are searchable online. It's cross platform and free to use on a CC license. it is probably the most sophisticated application for this out there. If it cannot find a tag through conventional methods you can even scan a song for a sound signature. It's kind of like intelligent guessing to be used with caution because it looks for a matching audio signature. You just need to know it doesn't always get it right, but it's a good last resort when nothing else works. It allows for scripting, add-ons etc... I used it to go through and organize my collection of over 40,000 music files. If you have a collection that big I found that you will crash the program if you tell it to do the whole collection in one pass. I did mine in roughly 5,000 song file batches. It can find duplicates artwork etc... the options available are pretty deep.

With applications out there that are this sophisticated I can't see rolling my own unless you are doing it for personal satisfaction.

[Welshgasman]

Of course, except that this is on my vinyl versions so I get the files from YT. This would be legal since I already purchased the content.

Ah, I only have a few vinyl and tried converting them to mp3. I stopped after one album.

[Micron]

Get MusicBrainzPicard.

Checking it out. Can you say if it will batch find/replace in titles as is, or I'd have to learn the scripting language to do that?

[Salty Mariner]

Checking it out. Can you say if it will batch find/replace in titles as is, or I'd have to learn the scripting language to do that?

No scripting is necessary. It's optional for those who want to go there. Yes it will do batch replacements. It's the most sophisticated application for what it does that I have found.

See if these help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAc-UyO0NA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYy7jdJ5f78

[Welshgasman]

No scripting is necessary. It's optional for those who want to go there. Yes it will do batch replacements. It's the most sophisticated application for what it does that I have found.

See if these help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAc-UyO0NA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYy7jdJ5f78

That is quite powerful. Will take a while to get the hang of it and not bugger up any files.

[Micron]

No scripting is necessary. It's optional for those who want to go there. Yes it will do batch replacements.

I will check those out later. I've just spent an hour and a half or more trying to change one example of this format (caps are variables)
ARTIST - TITLE (Official Video).mp3 to
TITLE.mp3

with
$set(%foo,$num(%tracknumber%,2) $replace(%title%,ARTIST - ,""))
$replace(%foo%, \(Official Video\),"")

and I still don't have a 2 digit track number that I want.

[Welshgasman]

You have %foo in firstline and %foo% in the second?

Does this help?
https://community.metabrainz.org/t/r...nippets/2786/2

[Micron]

I thought what I posted worked - until it didn't. I've got it inserting a number prefix, but it's going to pick 00 for every file in a folder. On top of that, it inserts what looks like double underscores so I get 00__TITLE__.mp3 so it actually renamed the file with that 'format'.
I saw that post already and it doesn't help.

Not sure I want to learn another language, especially when it errors when you type $Set because it's case sensitive (it's $set). I can see how that sort of thing will continue to crop up since VBA uses Set. The error warning tells you that you have a wayward ' or whatever, but it doesn't tell you where. You'd think you could nest functions like Replace(Replace(...) ...) like in VBA but apparently not. I searched that and didn't come up with an example.

[Welshgasman]

Yes, it looks very powerful, but as you say, you need to learn a new language really.
Also if you do not have a disc number in the tag, then I would perhaps expect 0?

I downloaded it, but I will stick with T&R, as most of my music is from CD