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[ferran9]

Matt seems this bug (which I have reported a dozen times) is considered as low priority, but explaining its consequences you will see that is not.

The Bug:
The tag for "BAND" is always autopopulated!
i.e: Import a set of mp3 files, the Band tag is populated, clear it, update the tags, delete the mp3 files from the library, re-import the mp3 files, the BAND tag is again populated! Maybe there is a rule somewhere for that? But Tags should reflect what the user does with them.

Why is a hight bug:
If for any reason I need to reimport all my library into media center, which is now around 5670 mp3 files, this one populates the Band Tag, although the mp3 files do not have it, then I would remove that value in the Tag editor for all the files, this forces an update in the whole lot of mp3s taking absolutely ages, but there doesn't finish the problem, then when I use my file sincrhonizer wiht my mp3 player this one ofcourse finds that the over 5600 files have changed and again... takes ages to resynchronize the files with the player. Well I could leave the Band tag inctact and let MC fill it with whatever it wants (as it does now), but then the tag editor of MC is not working, and my tags are wrong, and the mp3 files do not match the tag editor,,,, arrrggghhhh getting a bit crazy.

[Matt]

I'm not sure I follow.  Here's how it works:

When MC gets the artist:
1) Check artist from tag and use if not empty
2) If empty, use band from tag

When MC gets the band:
1) Use band tag only

When MC sets the artist tag:
1) Set only artist in the tag

When MC sets the band tag:
1) Set only band in the tag

So, the only "auto-filling" is that MC will use "Band" when a file has no "Artist" during import.

Does that clear anything up?

[Alex B]

I checked my library and noticed that over 8000 of my about 16500 audio files have the Band tag. About 99.5 % of them are album names (identical with the Album tags).

I have written that tag only to few classical albums (names of the symphony orchestras).

I don't quickly see anything in common with the files. Some are old, some are new, some are imported to MC, some are ripped with MC.

I delete the wrong Band tags whenever I notice them. Because Band is about the last item on my view, it is not usually visible.

So where do they come from?

It is not a biggie, but that is still useless and wrong information. I am not sure if I should remove them from 8134 files. (No, the symphonies are not included in the number .)

[Matt]

It's possible another program filled in the band tag on some files.

[Alex B]

It could be EAC or MC used with external LAME. I can keep an eye on this. Maybe I find a common pattern.

Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon?

[xen-uno]

No way on EAC...

It will only tag what is presented (name/title/artist/genre/year) on the main screen if using the dll's. Same for External Encoder, except you have to explicitly call out the wildcards in the Command Line. So a "Band" tag would have to have been user entered (ie for flac: -T "Band=Bix Biederbeck").

10^-27

[Alex B]

No way on EAC...

But on MC yes, I am afraid...


My MC certainly makes wrong Band tags when importing files. Here is an example:
(Sorry about the length, it was needed to explain it.)


I ripped a track with MC. Nothing special in my options:

MC secure, External LAME 3.903 with command line: %IN %OUT --alt-preset extreme
Base path: E:\Rip\, Directory rule: [Artist]\[Album], Filename Rule: [Artist] - [Album] - [Track #] - [Name]

The album was not in YADB, so I filled the following tags before ripping: Artist, Name and Album.

At first, after the track was ripped to MP3 and added to the library internally by MC there was no Band tag (TPE2):
MPEG-1 Layer 3
110 Kbit VBR (with Xing header)
44.1 Khz Joint stereo

Copyrighted: No
Original: Yes
Protected by CRC: No

ID3v1 Tag: (128 bytes)
   Name: Tone @ 1 kHz @ Max
   Artist: Pascal Gabriel
   Album: Dance Samples
   Year:
   Comment:
   Track #: 1
   Genre: undefined (255)

ID3v2 Tag: (1787 bytes)
  TPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Solo..): Pascal Gabriel
  TRCK (Track number/Position ..): 1
  TBPM (BPM (beats per minute)): 92
  TALB (Album/Movie/Show title): Dance Samples
  TIT2 (Title/songname/content..): Tone @ 1 kHz @ Max
  TCON (Content type): Unknown Genre
  COMM (Comments):
  COMM (Tool Name): Media Center
  COMM (Tool Version): 10.0.149
  COMM (Replay Gain): -20,12996
  COMM (Peak Level): 0,99997
  COMM (Intensity): 3

I deleted the file from the library and reimported it. The name of the album appeared in the Band tag. Then I added the Genre tag and MC updated the file. Of course it also wrote the Band tag to the file:
MPEG-1 Layer 3
110 Kbit VBR (with Xing header)
44.1 Khz Joint stereo

Copyrighted: No
Original: Yes
Protected by CRC: No

ID3v1 Tag: (128 bytes)
   Name: Tone @ 1 kHz @ Max
   Artist: Pascal Gabriel
   Album: Dance Samples
   Year:
   Comment:
   Track #: 1
   Genre: Dance (3)

ID3v2 Tag: (1787 bytes)
  TPE2 (Band/orchestra/accompa..): Dance Samples
  TPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Solo..): Pascal Gabriel
  TRCK (Track number/Position ..): 1
  TBPM (BPM (beats per minute)): 92
  TALB (Album/Movie/Show title): Dance Samples
  TIT2 (Title/songname/content..): Tone @ 1 kHz @ Max
  TCON (Content type): Dance
  COMM (Comments):
  COMM (Tool Name): Media Center
  COMM (Tool Version): 10.0.149
  COMM (Replay Gain): -20,12996
  COMM (Peak Level): 0,99997
  COMM (Intensity): 3

I also reimported an old album (MP3 files). It had all the usual tags except the Band tag. The same happened again. Only difference was that the rather long Album tag (The Singles Collection 1984/1990) was shortened when it appeared in the Band tag (The Singles Collection 1984/19).

Next I copied one properly tagged (without the Band tag) APE file to a different location and imported it. The Band tag was not filled. I converted it to MP3. Then I imported it to the library. Once again the Album information appeared in the Band tag. So I suppose that this is tied only to ID3 tags.

I don't think that it is any specific MC 10 version, which is adding the Band tags. I am currently using the 10.0.149. I can see that the Band tags have been written to TPE2 more constantly after the upgrade from 9.1.137 to 10.0.100. MC tag COMM(Tool Version) tells that.

I have many files that are not edited after 9.1.xxx and I can see the wrong Band tags in my library, but not yet in the ID3v2 tags (in the actual files).

[Matt]

MC was using the ID3v1 "Album" for the band if the band wasn't specifically set in the ID3v2 tag.

We'll change this for the next build of MC 11.

It'll roll to MC 10 if it looks like it's working.

[Alex B]

Thanks. It is good to know why it happens.

No real harm with it, but if the actual album name is corrected/changed afterwards the remaining wrong band tag can affect e.g. search results.