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[yannis]

I've been experimenting with custom fields in MC to take advantage of info scraped with Picard. Reading through the forum, I managed to create some fields using =tag() at calc. data.

Q1. Is this the correct way? Or is there a better alternative?

Q2. Even though some fields I create work, others don't, esp. MusicBrainz fields like "Songs-DB_CustomX" (they do show in the tag dump). I've checked char. case and made sure that the view doesn't show MC's comment field. What am I doing wrong?

[yannis]

bump?


OK, I've sorted q1 out myself; and I found a long way to solve q2 editing the tags in MP3tag to map [COMM (Songs-DB_x)] to simpler, custom names that are then readable in MC as custom tags. But for obvious reasons I'd like to avoid this path.

So, please: isn't there some way to import this info directly in MC? I've read every possible thread and I've understood most of them, but I can't figure out why MC fails to import simple string tags like "Songs-DB_Occasion" and "Songs-DB_Custom1". Could it be the underscore?

[blgentry]

MusicBrainz is really hard to use.  I've tried many times in the last few years and I just can't get it to do much.  I just spent 15 minutes trying the lastfm plus plugin, trying to get these fields you are talking about to be populated.  I can't find them in the MBPicard interface anywhere.

But I did get MusicBrainz to write some extra tags to some of my files.  Tags like "MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID" .  You can see these in the Tag Dump window in MC.  Go to the tagging window and click the header where it says something like "FLAC 3:12 12 MB" . That will bring up the Tag Dump window, which will show you the raw tags inside the file.  The name displayed there is the name you need to map with a custom field inside of MC.

I notice that at least one of the fields you listed is in the documentation for LastFM plus.  It calls that field a "comments: " field.  Which makes me wonder if that field gets stuffed into the Comments field instead of being it's own field.  But again, I can't get MBP to populate these fields, nor does it seem to populate the Comments field.  So I'm not sure.

Hopefully the info about the tagging window will point you in the right direction.

Good luck,

Brian.

[yannis]

As I said, I've used tag dump, and I've also had quite a few MBnz tags read by MC. The ones I can't import are indeed Comment "frames". I don't know how MC handles them, but it certainly doesn't bring the into the stock Comment field.

Now, MP3tag has no problem reading them, and it's not at all picky about character case. So when I map them to some custom field, they are saved as TXXX tags and these are imported readily in MC. Which makes me think it' either a matter of character case in MC (and I've tried countless different spellings, with or without the Comm/COMM/Comment parameter) or smth related to the reading of the "frame" (about which I've no idea).

The LastFM plugin also gives genres and these are easily imported into MC's native tag, as is TMOO and other tags. Esp. the version available at Github offers accurate genre descriptions (e.g. "cool","bebop" etc rather than just "Jazz").

As for Picard, it's actually very simple (considering the data it handles) once you start working with the Add>Cluster>Lookup procedure. Maybe the biggest "trouble" is selecting the proper release out of quite a few for each album. They do have problems with their server lately, but truth be told, I've had hugely better progress with their db rather than with YADB. Now, if I could only import those damned tags without going to MP3tag...

[blgentry]

As I said, I've used tag dump, and I've also had quite a few MBnz tags read by MC. The ones I can't import are indeed Comment "frames". I don't know how MC handles them, but it certainly doesn't bring the into the stock Comment field.

I suspect that if you can't see them in the Tag Dump, MC can't see them either.

There's something goofy about the Comment: tags because if you read the docs, they tell you to do some weird procedure in MP3Tag to make those fields "visible".  This implies that they are some sort of non-standard tag.  I'm not 100% sure on this of course, as I can't get those tags to write in MBP and I've never used MP3Tag (I don't run Windows).  So I might be wrong.  Still, if you can't see these tags in the tag dump, I don't think MC can see them at all.

Brian.

[yannis]

But that's what I'm saying, I CAN see these tags in the dumps in MC; see attached.

To show these tags in MP3tag you do the same as with any other tag - yes, it's quirky, but not related to these tags only.

[RoderickGI]

It seems to be all over the place doesn't it?

I tested with an Expression Column some time ago, and got these sorts of results

For tag;
TXXX (Dynamic Range (DR)): 9

tag(Dynamic Range (DR)) doesn't work, and returns a value of ). i.e. The last ) of the expression is displayed.
tag(Dynamic Range /(DR/)) works and returns 9. So an escape character is sometimes required.

Similar for tags such as TXXX (Peak Level (R128)): and TXXX (Dynamic Range (R128)):.

But then for;
TXXX (Volume Level (Repl..): -1.8763947
tag(Volume Level /(Repl..) doesn't work. Could that be the ".." in the name?

I couldn't get;
COMM (MusicMatch_Tempo): Moderate
to work at all. Could be that underscore. Escaping the underscore doesn't work. Removing it, replacing it with a space, or anything else. Doesn't work.

I couldn't get;
PRIV (WM/WMCCollectionID): 9d762&%kfy suus8726
to work, even with an escape character before the "/".

Basically, I couldn't get anything to work if it had a . / _ or similar, and a ( only worked with an escape character. I decided I didn't know enough about tag formats and put it on the back burner to look at some time later.

So if you find the solution, let us know! 

[yannis]

Fields like DR and R128 are filled by MC's au analysis, so I wouldn't mess with them. Besides, as I understand it, custom tags only work for data not inserted to stock MC tags.

Tags are also case sensitive, so =tag(albumgenre) works, but =tag(Albumgenre) won't. MP3tag is not at all picky in this respect, and it has no problem dealing with the _ in tag names, but it has its own learning curve and I woulnd't want to expose my hard-collected tags to it if I could avoid it.

 

[JimH]

If you're looking at tags in another program, the names of the tags must match exactly, including case.

[yannis]

Thanks JimH, but the screenshot above is of the tag dump inside MC; I'm trying to replicate the names as they appear there, using =tag(Songs-DB_Occasion) or =tag(Songs-DB_Custom1) but the fields I create remain empty. Simpler tags like =tag(albummood) do work.

[ferday]

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Tag_Mapping

it's simply not possible to directly map every tag to every format. Some very specific id3 fields will even break a vorbis container!

There is probably a workaround, I don't have time to test right now though

[yannis]

Thanks ferday, I've seen this link in one of the threads, but I fail to see the relevance here. I don't need to map tags between formats - I "just" want to import info from an ID2.3 or 2.4 tag into MC.

As Roderick pointed out, MC seems to have trouble with tag names containing an _  . I think an official comment on that by the devs would conclude the issue.

[ferday]

I used mp3tag to create:
 
COMM (MUSICMATCH_TEMPO)
PRIV (WM/WMCCOLLECTIONID)

tags in some files.  then checked the value in MC tag dump, made a custom field that matched the tag dump, then did an update library from tags, and the values as i entered them in mp3tag populated fine

(entered as in screenshot)


didn't use any escapes characters or anything, so the _ or / is not the issue here

[yannis]

Could it be then that the _ placed by Picard has some codepage problem?

[ferday]

just tested with COMM (SONGS-DB_CUSTOM1) and (SONGS-DB_CUSTOM1).  works fine.

definitely starting to seem like it has nothing to do with MC at this point.  i neither use nor will be installing picard, so i'm making these tags with mp3tag as mentioned and then importing into MC

[yannis]

I'll take your word for it

At this point it does seem like a non MC issue, but being curious I sent you a Picard-tagged file to check when you have some time.

[blgentry]

At this point it does seem like a non MC issue, but being curious I sent you a Picard-tagged file to check when you have some time.

I'll bet a dollar that Ferday can't read the tags in the file you sent him with MC.  Something is goofy about the way Picard is writing these "extended tags".  Or I'm about to lose a dollar! 

Brian.

[ferday]

well i think your dollar is safe mate

i did find this on the picard site

"This is not able to be populated by stock Picard. It may be used and populated by certain plugins."

it shows in mp3tag tag dump as COMMENT SONGS-DB_CUSTOM1
it shows in MC tag dump as COMM (Songs-DB_Custom1)

but i've literally tried everything i can think of and can't get it into MC.  i've mapped to every tag standard known and it simply doesn't show.