Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Brovig]

I import both FLAC and ALAC files to MC21 and I have discovered that MC21 has a different way of handling the tag fields Style or Grouping depending on whether the imported file is FLAC or ALAC. If the file is ALAC then MC21 recognizes Style and maps that to Grouping. If the file contains the tag field Grouping it is ignored.

But if the file is a FLAC then it ignores the tag field Style and only recognizes Grouping.

Is that a bug or a feature? I would find it preferable if these tag fields were handled consistently irrespective of the audio file format.

.../S

[Arindelle]

hmm interesting ..

I started a long time ago using grouping, style and genre fields as they are standard fields recognized by most players ... (I use grouping as a sort of supra-genre, with style being a sub-genre)

The only time I have seen re-mapping is when the Grouping field was tagged first in Itunes. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with flac, alac or mp3 formats for me. Itunes usses the grouping field in a "specific" way (read wierd IMO) To me this is neither a bug or by design, but rather how the tagger is writing to the files.

Were you/have you switched over from iTunes recently? If you use or have used iTunes, I'd stop tagging with it and the problem should go away.  If not what ripper are you using ... might want to do a tag dump and see what is actually written to the files. All 3 fields should be set to write the tags to the files.

Once you isolate what is causing this, you can easily correct the ones you alreay imported if they are consistent (like filter by alac, and in the Grouping field type =[Styles] or vice versa in the grouping field of the tag box type =[Grouping]

[Brovig]

Many thanks for your interesting response! Clearly food for thought.

I have indeed used iTunes in the past, but that was some 3 years ago, and I've not been anywhere near it since then. However, I have until very recently converted any FLAC files to ALAC (using dBpoweramp) before loading them into MC21 so that the library remained iTunes compatible (I have family members using iTunes). But I've been increasingly moving away from that, and staying with FLAC, and that's how I discovered the behaviour I described.

I do nearly all my tagging before I bring the files into MC21, though. I find MC21 too slow and cumbersome for whole album tagging. The tool I use is MP3tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/). 

So I guess it's in the workflow process of MP3tag, dBpoweramp and MC21 that the tagging inconsistencies are happening. I'll have to investigate further. When you say "do a tag dump", did you have a particular tool/method in mind?

[Arindelle]

So I guess it's in the workflow process of MP3tag, dBpoweramp and MC21 that the tagging inconsistencies are happening. I'll have to investigate further. When you say "do a tag dump", did you have a particular tool/method in mind?

oh ok ... if you are using the "standard" tagging window. Select one track (does not work on multiple selections). With the tag pane open in the action window, on the top just to the right of the album icon there will be something like FLAC or ALAC, the file size and track duration ... this is a link actually ..  just click on it and it will show the metadata written to the file. If you are using the new tag window, this is more obvious as it is under a specific heading (if you haven't tried this its pretty cool and totally customizable => http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=101448.0 )

You might notice that some are doubled -- eg could be  ALBUMARTIST and ALBUM ARTIST, which could be indicative of a problem or just a remapping. Bear in mind that FLAC and JRiver use Vorbis Comment (as well as dbPoweramp btw). Also the FLAC container has the least tagging limitations for metadata FLAC>ALAC>MP3>WAV or AIFF.

Most however use common ground from the ID3 standard (which mp3tag uses) -- in my limited understanding, that was originally designed for MP3s. This might be interesting to you ?? http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Tag_Mapping Actually in relooking at this Vorbis comment is the only one that supports the field "Style" directly without a remap?!

I do nearly all my tagging before I bring the files into MC21, though. I find MC21 too slow and cumbersome for whole album tagging. The tool I use is MP3tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/). 

So I guess it's in the workflow process of MP3tag, dBpoweramp and MC21 that the tagging inconsistencies are happening. I'll have to investigate further. When you say "do a tag dump", did you have a particular tool/method in mind?

Well I use dbpoweramp for my ripping and it does have a very good batch converter. I think it probably is not in that part of the work flow or I would have noticed it. It could have something to do with some fields not being supported when converting to the ALAC container though?  I bet however that it is the limitations in Mp3tag which is based solely on IP3v2 conventions ... just guessing though. you'd have to test each one separately before importing I suppose, retagging after import would be hard to figure out what is not being supported.

You say tagging in JRiver is tedious? Well I use dbpoweramp to rip too. I retag only in JRiver (I do not have access to all of the tag information in the mp3tag so its not a choice). Personally I find using 2 JR views and the linked column option which allows you to quickly go to all albums of a particular artist already in your collection by jumping to another view the opposite of tedious. 

However the standard tag window is not intuitive for everybody. It really shines if you customize a tagging view and have it show the fields in the view. The "new" window allows you for complete customization without redoing your views or clicking all the fields you want to show. Just expand it or contract it as needed.  the mp3tag window is what it is I suppose, but to have some consistency I would have to go back and forth between programs. I'd give JR another try. My basic workflow is rip via dbpoweramp (which writes a custom tag to my Grouping field during the rip) to a temp directory (also in my import config in JR so I an listen before I'm finished); retag in JR via a view which filters only the music sandboxed that contains the custom tag); when I am satisfied, I remove this custom tag and use the rename, move, copy tool in JR to move it to my main media directory. Any conversion I do later (mp3s for my phone ALAC for my kids' big ipods). Of course everyone has there own way of doing things .. [if retagging externally, remember to have the external changes option checked so it updates the library]

There's a learning curve but its worth spending a bit of time on it -- the WIKI is being updated more often these days