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[gregeas]

I'm trying to find a way to permanently tag about 300 albums I have ripped as FLAC files. About 10% of these albums have missing information, including missing track numbers, which are painful to add in by hand.

Is there a way to tag these files in MC so that the tag information is attached to the original audio files, as opposed to stored in the MC library and thus not readable by other applications?

I just made the mistake of retagged a huge number of Apple Lossless files in MC, and then discovered that the tag information does not carry over to the iPod or to the Squeezebox.

I only have sanity to do this one more time...

PS: If MC isn't ideal, can someone recommend another app that will work for tagging FLAC? 

[JimH]

I don't think you'll have to tag again.  If MC converts to APE, for example, which it should be able to do, your tags can be stored in the file.

I'm not certain about FLAC, but you could set up a second library to test this.  See MC File/Library Manager.  Tag a few, then delete them and reimport them.

Check the FLAC threads in the Third Party Forum for more info.

[Listener]

I'm trying to find a way to permanently tag about 300 albums I have ripped as FLAC files. About 10% of these albums have missing information, including missing track numbers, which are painful to add in by hand.

Is there a way to tag these files in MC so that the tag information is attached to the original audio files, as opposed to stored in the MC library and thus not readable by other applications?

I just made the mistake of retagged a huge number of Apple Lossless files in MC, and then discovered that the tag information does not carry over to the iPod or to the Squeezebox.

I only have sanity to do this one more time...

PS: If MC isn't ideal, can someone recommend another app that will work for tagging FLAC? 

So far, I've tagged about 15,000 FLAC files in MC 11.  MC 11 has very good support for editing the basic set of standard tags and the best support I've seen for editing adanced and custom tags.

Step 0: Be sure that you have both the FLAC encoder and Decoder installed.  (Tools/Plugin Manager.  Look at the Encoder and Input plugins.)  Search this forum and the 3rd party plugins forum for info on getting the current FLAC plugins.

Step 1: Create a library if you don't have one.  I usually import files into a work library and when I have the files tagged, I import them into my permanent library.  It is much easier to edit a group of files in a small work library than when they are in a large library with thousands of other files.

Step 2: Check the database fields in the library (Tools/Options/Library).  You want all the tags you are interested in present as library fields.  You also want the "Store in File Tags checkbox checked for the fields of interest.  Click  the Edit button to the right of the list of fields to see the properties of each database field.  Click on the Add button to add fields to the database.  (This database is different for each librqary so you will have to do this step for the work library and the permanent library.

Step 3: Tell MC to write library field changes back to the music files.  (Tools/Options/General/Update Tags when file info changes)

Step 4: Import your FLAC files into a MC library.  (Tools/Import Media)

Step 5: Edit your tags.You can customize the file list to show the fields you are interest in (Right Click on a line in the file list and choose Customize Current View). You can change the sort order of the list by clicking on the field display name at the top of a column.

Sometimes it helps to sort on the file name.  Sometimes it is useful to sort on a Tag you want to set like track number.  Then you can scroll to find an missing values that need attention.

You can edit a field value for a single file in the file list or you can set a field value for a number of files in the Tag Info window to the left of the file list.  (If it isn't visible, Right Click on a line in the file list and choose Tag Info.)

If your FLAC files are in folders with useful charaqcteristics (Album or Artist for example), you might import one folder at a time, edit those files and then remove them from the work directory.
 ----
Your editing changes will be copied back to the FLAC files as you edit (If you followed Step 3.) For FLAC files, updating the files is quite quick.  It is much slower for MP3 files.

The FLAC plugins for MC 11 seem to work well in general.  I did find that FLAC files made by a beta version of EAC were not recognized.  I have not followed up on that problem.

I didn't know how much detail you needed. I Hope this helps.

Bill


 

[gregeas]

This is excellent. Thanks a million.

My main problem is that I don't have track numbers for many albums... It is very painful to add this data by hand. All the songs are stored in albums folders.

I found one program called Tag&Rename that can find the albums data on Amazon, but you still have to manually match the song tags with the files.

This is frustrating because I thought I tagged my entire database of Apple Lossless files, but I found out that I only tagged the MC library.

[ocenter]

I used "The Godfather" to tag all of my FLAC files. It is pretty good software for mass tagging and its free.

[Alex B]

My main problem is that I don't have track numbers for many albums... It is very painful to add this data by hand. All the songs are stored in albums folders.

I found one program called Tag&Rename that can find the albums data on Amazon, but you still have to manually match the song tags with the files.

You need to have all album tracks in the correct order before you can make freedb based tools like Tag&Rename, Godfather or Mp3tag work. If you don't have track numbers in the library or in the filenames you are pretty much out of luck with getting the tracks numbered automatically.

MC has a tool that can fill track numbers from the list order, but you must first manually correct the order in a playlist or in Playing Now.

You could try MC's "Lookup Track Info From YADB" tool. It tries to find info for individual tracks from JRiver's YADB database. The search is based on audio fingerprinting so it may be able to find info if it is submitted. Make a library backup and try it with a few files first.


EDIT

YADB may have a problem at the moment...
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=35872.msg244574#msg244574

[Listener]

This is excellent. Thanks a million.

My main problem is that I don't have track numbers for many albums... It is very painful to add this data by hand. All the songs are stored in albums folders.

I found one program called Tag&Rename that can find the albums data on Amazon, but you still have to manually match the song tags with the files.

This is frustrating because I thought I tagged my entire database of Apple Lossless files, but I found out that I only tagged the MC library.

In my previous post, I gave you a step by step process for importing files.  You may jnot wish to use that process but it contains some ideas for cutting down the work of editing.

Ripping your CD collection again is a brute force solution requiring a lot of time and effort from you.  You can get the job done with less time and effort expended if ...

1. You recognize the useful characteristics of the files and library you already have.  You appear to have ALAC files, FLAC files and some MC library field data for the ALAC files.  The file names for the ALAC and FLAC files may contain tagging information that can may your job easier.  Most ripping tools provide an option to build file names from tag values.  The folder in which files are stored may also contain useful info such as artist, Album, track title and track number.

2. You can use the features of the tag editing tool you are using.  MC provides lots of useful commands and UI methods that can help.

a) I already mentioned sorting by various fields. You can use this to group all the files from one CD together.

b) MC has a command for filling properties from file names (Tools/Library Tools/Fill Properties from File Names)  Select some files in the file list and choose this command to set properties for the selected files.   A dialog box appears with text fields for setting the pattern to be used in extracting tag info from the directory name and the file name.

c) When you edit a field in the file list in MC, you can move to the same field in the next line in the list by pressing the downarrow key when you finish editing.  Click once to select a line and again on the field you want to edit.  Adding track numbers for files in the library manually can be quite fast.  The key will be to sort the file list so that all the files from a CD are grouped together.  The files may not be in track order but if you can the CD case in front of you, you can enter the track numbers quickly.

d) MC does have a command for looking up track info for files in the library from the YADB database (Tools/Library Tools/Lookup Track Info from YADB).  I don't use it but others can tell you more about how it might work for you.

I don't think that you will find a better magic bullet than MC.  It needs better documentation but I haven't found another Tag editor that is both powerful and fully documented.

Bill