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[vagskal]

I am a new user trying to get all important information in the tags in my mp3 and flac files into the MC database. The ability to do so (it must not necessarily be an automated process) is essential to me and I guess many other new users/potential customers.  A music management software without the ability to manage, or even display, essential information in the existing tags is not optimal for me.

Please correct me if I have overlooked something or if there is a workaround. I am sure some of my requests have been put forward before and to that extent consider my post a support for those requests.

Handle Multiple Vorbis Comments in One File

Only one of several Vorbis Comments with the same name in one file can be imported into MC. Having multiple Vorbis Comments is encouraged according to the standard (http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html).

Request: Add support for importing several Vorbis Comments with the same name in one file into one MC field with a separator character (preferably user configurable) between the different comments. Do this at least for all Vorbis Comments which are supported for automatic import in MC, especially for the ARTIST and COMPOSER comments (other users may want to add also the GENRE tag). I would prefer to have the Artist field in MC as a list type field with a user configurable separator character, but the most important thing is that the information can be imported and displayed in MC.
Arguments: It is hard to use a music management software effectively if it cannot display all artists. Users who have several entries separated with a separator character in one Vorbis Comment will not be affected. Making the fields list type fields would – I hope – handle the situation where there in the same file are several entries separated with a separator character in one Vorbis Comment and also other Vorbis comments with the same name, i.e. this situation (where the MC field Artist should contain X; Y; Z, not X; Y; Z; Y; Z)
Artist: X; Y; Z
Artist: Y
Artist: Z

Request: Add support for writing several Vorbis Comments with the same name back to the file from one MC field based on a separator character (preferably user configurable) in the MC field. Do this at least for all Vorbis Comments which are supported for automatic import in MC, especially for the ARTIST and COMPOSER comments (other users may want to add also the GENRE tag). Since some users may want to have all entries in one Vorbis Comment (for compatibility with other players, for instance) the writing feature should be implemented in the following way. The first time a user is trying to change tags in a file containing Vorbis Comments display something like this:

MC is about to write tags to a file that can contain multiple tags with the same name or one tag with multiple entries.
Note: Having only one tag with multiple entries may be supported by more other players. You can always use MC later to change the way tags are written.
Always write
[Button] Multiple tags   [Button] One tag
Only this time write
[Button] Multiple tags   [Button] One tag

Under Tools – Options there should be a corresponding option to choose between writing one or several tags.

The option to have multiple tags should overwrite all comments in the file with the same name. The option to write only one tag should write one comment with the contents of the MC field and delete all other comments in the file with the same name.

Until support for multiple Vorbis Comments in one file is implemented _please_ ensure that MC always reads the first occurrence in a file of a comment and that MC only writes data back to that comment and does not delete or alter subsequent comments in the file with the same name. I think this is the case today. It would also be nice to be able to have the display of entries colour coded according to file type (or other criteria). That way I would notice when I am about to edit a flac file.

Add Support for Original Date Tags

The ID3v2.3 tag TORY cannot be handled with MC.

In this post: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=50762.msg361205#msg361205 Alex B has put forward some suggestions for implementing support for original date tags in various file formats, which I fully support.

Change Field Names for Fields Importing Data From MusicMatch Tags

I have been told that some MC fields only import data written by the now discontinued software MusicMatch. If I remember correctly MusicMatch wrote ID3v2.3 comment tags looking something like this COMMENT_MUSICMATCH_[whatever].  The MC field Mood is such a field.

If a MC field name is “occupied” the user cannot import ID3v2.3 TXXX tags with the same name. A commonly used software (MP3Tag) writes, for example, a TXXX Mood tag when importing metadata from a major metadata resource (AMG). The TXXX Mood tag cannot be imported to MC.

Request: Change the MC field names for those fields imported from MusicMatch tags to MM_[whatever]. The display name could still be just [whatever].
Arguments: The import of tags from a software that has been discontinued for years should not hinder users of commonly used current software to import their tags. There must be far more potential customers using current software than users that are still using MusicMatch. Users with MusicMatch tags will, however, not be affected.

Do Not Write Tool Tags

MC is automatically writing ID3v2.3 tags and Vorbis Comments with information that MC has been used as a tool.

Request: Don’t. At least make it a user option to write such data.
Arguments: I do not think that it is polite to automatically write data that, as far as I can see, serves no practical purpose for the user.

[vagskal]

Do Not Write Multiple Tags for the Same Information (Without the User's Knowledge)
 
I just noticed that MC writes the information entered in the MC field Album Artist to the mp3 ID3v2.3 tags TPE2 AND TXXX Album Artist. I noticed this when I entered Album Artist information in MC for files which did not have any of those two tags. I then tried to changed the information in the MC field Album Artist for an mp3 file which had only the TPE2 tag (i.e. no TXXX Album Artist). Also in this situation, where MC obviously had collected the information from the TPE2 tag, MC changed the content of the existing TPE2 tag AND created a new TXXX Album Artist tag with the same information.

This behaviour was for me totally unexpected and unwanted. Before I started using MC I had no mp3 ID3v2.3 tags TXXX Album Artist, only TPE2 tags for the album artist information. I had wanted to keep it this way, since having two tags supposed to contain the same information (who is the album artist?) will increase the risk for conflicting data, should I use another tool to change the tags and forgetting to change both tags. I actually discovered the behaviour when I tried to change the tags using Mp3tag and, by chance, noticed the "new" TXXX tag in a file, whereupon I investigated further.

As a workaround I tried to disable the option to write information back to the files for the Album Artist field, but then no tag at all was written when I changed the field (that makes sense).

I then tried to figure out a way in MC to search for all files that had gotten a TXXX Album Artist tag so that I could at least manually delete those tags using another tool, but I found no way to do that. I could not even find out a way to compare the TPE2 and TXXX Album Artist tags to see if there were any inconsitencies. I then contemplated to update the MC database from the tags, but hesitated since I do not know how MC will handle inconsitencies. Will MC inform me if there are inconsitencies and which tag takes precedence when the Album Artist field is filled out? (And what about users having on purpose different information in those tags, i.e. using the TPE2 tag as the Band tag - Teddy Wilson Orchestra - together with an Album Artist tag - Billie Holiday? Where does the MC field Band get its information from? etc.)

I would welcome any ideas on a workaround for using MC to write Album Artist information to the tags and for searching for inconsistencies in the TPE2 and TXXX Album Artist tags. I would also appreciate information if there are other MC fields that writes its information to multiple tags in the file.

I guess the feature request would be just to have a better handling of the MC field Album Artist when writing data back to the files. A quick fix which would satisfy me would be
a) never write a TXXX Album Artist tag if that tag does not already exist in the file and there is a TPE2 tag already in the file
b) never write a TPE2 tag if that tag does not already exist in the file and there is a TXXX Album Artist tag already in the file
c) if there are no TXXX Album Artist and TPE2 tags in the file, write only a TPE2 tag (or make it a user option which tag to write)
d) if the file contains both a TXXX Album Artist tag and a TPE2 tag, write the changed information in the MC field Album Artist to both tags - I guess this is the current behaviour even when there are different data already in those tags, but I can imagine that there may be users having different types of information in those two tags who do not appreciate the behaviour (but they will at least not be worse off than today)

I guess the root of this issue is that MC seems to collected information to one MC field from two different tags, and I think a more robust solution would require MC not to do so. What about introducing a user option to treat the "Band" data in the TPE2 tag as Album Artist (see SqueezeCenter for how such an option can be explained to the user) and otherwise import the data in that tag to a new MC field (Accompaniment? since Band and Orchestra are already occupied in MC)?

[Alex B]

MC was one of the first programs that supported the "Album Artist" concept. Before the changes in MC 13 the following ID3v2 tags were used with MP3 files:

Album Artist = COMMENT MEDIA JUKEBOX: ALBUM ARTIST   (it was an additional COMM frame with a descriptive header)

Band = TPE2

Unfortunately the ID3v2 tag standard does not define a tag for "Album Artist". You can blame MS and Apple for starting to use the TPE2 frame for "Album Artist" instead of the ID3v2 defination (= band/orchestra/accompaniment).

Some other programs have started to use TXXX ALBUM ARTIST.

Support for these two different styles of "Album Artist" tags was requested frequently and finally the developers created a system that reads and writes both tags. In addition MC can still read the old COMM tag in order to be compatible with old "MC tagged" files. The preference order on a tag read is as follows:
1. TPE2
2. TXXX ALBUM ARTIST
3. COMMENT MEDIA JUKEBOX: ALBUM ARTIST

The Band library field is now stored in a custom TXXX frame (TXXX JR/BAND).


You could have found various threads in which these issues were discussed by using the forum search.


In general, I think the current approach is a good compromise, but as always, your mileage may vary. Also, you must not forget that the primary metadata storage location in MC is the database. MC supports many kinds of formats and not all formats can hold physical file tags. MC tries to store compatible file tags when possible, but there are lots of complex issues because of the lack of good tagging standards.

[vagskal]

Thank you, Alex B, for your kind and, as always, knowledgeable and informative answer!

The information on the read order was especially helpful. With that information I could figure out a way to ensure that all TPE2 tags and TXXX Album Artist tags have the same information. But since that solution would involve modifying some +38k files (and backing up them afterwards) and therefore take a long time and result in duplicate TPE2 tags and TXXX Album Artist tags in all those files, I finally decided on another solution. I instead imported those +38k files into Mp3tag and deleted all TXXX Album Artist tags in "only" +11k files and thereafter updated the library from the tags. Now that I am back at square one but with knowledge of what MC actually does to my files, I decided that I for the time being can live with the fact that MC writes duplicate tags. I just have to be careful not to use any other tool to change the TPE2 tag. After careful evaluation of the available options for a music management software, I found that MC suits me best and has an active development and friendly and helpful forum inhabitants, so I will try to use it for as many tasks as possible. (I just do not want to be surprised by what is done with the tags, since one primary purpose for my use of MC is to get the tags into even better condition, preferably using MC to also manipulate the tags.)

I still stand by my feature request to have an even better handling of the issue. At least there could be a general user option (with the current behaviour as default) which tag(s) to write: Write the information about Album Artist to mp3 files in
X Both the Band (TPE2) and Album Artist tags (best for compatability with other players)
X Only the Band (TPE2) tag
X Only the Album Artist tag

I totally agree that there are lots of complex issues because of the lack of good tagging standards, but think the solution for this is intelligent default options, which will suit the majority of users who probably do not want to be bothered with something like tags but only want things to just "work" (and MC is probably very good at that), in combination with "advanced" somewhat hidden user configurable options for those who know their tags.

(I did try searching the forums before posting and indeed found many posts on the Album Artist issue, i.a. one thread (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=48502.0) where you informed that  "the Album Artist tag is now saved to the TPE2 "Band" frame", but no information I understood about MC writing duplicate tags. Maybe I did not dig deep enough... Sorry if this is common knowledge for people who have been following the forums for a while.)