2 Scripts Needed - ID3 tags & Converting

pretty much a newbie when it comes to this, so bear with me...
i have a music download site (legal) and every time a label sends us CDs, we load the tracks into I-Tunes, convert them to MP3s 320 and 192, Then we create a play list, drag all the MP3s into i-tunes and one by one copy and paste the track information from a metatag excel spreadsheet that they supply us with all the info... artist, title, track name, genre, etc...
though time consuming, it's worked out fine because it gives us the ability to make sure everything appears uniform when downloaded. We can correct typos etc....
Today i got a 1 terabyte drive from a label with 500 folders totaling over 4000 wavs.
i think we have grown now to the point where we should look into automating some of these things... from what i can figure out, there should be 2 scripts... one to convert all the WAVS to mp3s, and then one to attach art and metatag info to the ID3 tag. It would also need to change the file name to something, which i guess could be a field entered on the Excel spreadsheet. All the ID3 tag info is in that document already anyway.
again, this is kind of new to me, but i certainly don't want to do this all by hand. If any scripts could be recommended or if someone thinks they can make a script, i'd love some help!
10 bonus points if you also know a script that will make sound clips! again, we do that all manually... starting about 25% into the track and lasting 45 - 60 seconds depending on the length of the track. Again, seems to me like an easy script, but i dont know the first thing about doing scripts, nor how to find someone to help me...
hence my post
Indevalley

You might want to try Doug's Scripts. I think it's www.dougscripts.com but I'm not at home so I don't have the link. A search for "doug's scripts" usually turns it up pretty quickly. It's a great source of scripts for iTunes for Macs.
Best of luck.

Similar Messages

Archiving cds and why do i need id3 tags

here comes another one of those questions looking at which codec to use to store music.....i also have tag questions.....
i'm about to (re-)rip my cd collection and looking at some info re codecs and id3 tags
now.....i believe i understand the benefits of alac (lower file sizes, keeping id3 tags, lossless compression) v wav(no compression)
however (and for some out there) if we just entertain the fact that wav may have some minute benefit for me depending on my questions and answers given.....and yes i know wav and alac will sound the same to the human ear - i accept that as a given of lossless compression ......
points i'd like to outline:
i am looking to rip my cds, firstly and mostly, for an archiving purpose!! purpose numero uno!!
i could well want to re-create cds with these archived records in the future
size of files is of no concern to me at all
i'm using a mac nowadays
i will convert most of these files, where needed, to use with a portable music player (i'm not bothered with having, say a wav file and then also converting and having an alac file, as crazy as that sounds)
this is where i ask for info re the benefits of embedded tags that are found in alac:
are these tags that important?
where do they come into play in ripping and later converting music?
are these uses just bells and whistles that have no benefit to my needs?
if i rip cds to wav (or aiff), say, using itunes, will cd info and track listings be available on the downloading database (eg itunes) to name these wav files?
if i then ensure these song files are kept under the album's folder, have i just done what tags do? surely not. that is all i have needed in the past.
this is where i feel i may be really missing what id tags (can) do
are tags more than just managing song files and where they belong and where they have come from?
is it just a convenience of not personally managing your song files (as per previous paragraph)?
(in the past i had ripped cds to mp3 codec. i think i used "cd rip" or something like that on my pc.
my mp3 files were individually named and sorted and kept under album folders under artist name folders.
apart form the very odd occasion all track and album info i needed was found on a database that was attached to the ripping software.
i never had a problem managing/maintaining these files and folders.)
i welcome some enlightenment on some of my questions above and other info that may be relevant
and yes, i understand that music will sound the same as a wav file or alac file - but humour me re using wav and tell me why i need id3 tags
i guess the crux of it is:
why do i need id3 tags?
does my managing of my song file in the album folder do what tags do?
what problems/shortcomings/headaches may i encounter by not having those tags if i use wav as opposed to alac?
what do i not know about these little buggers?
what codec is best for my purpose of archiving and re creating of cds (for playing in cd players)
thanks in advance for your input and any clarity that i may experience through this
peter t
excuse my long windedness (i have spent some time editing this entry)

Crows2012 wrote:
as mentioned earlier if i just have songs (wav) in album folders, when i import these albums into itunes, do you know if these will come up under AN album with their file names purely using my filename setup (but with no artwork)?
Yes, iTunes will read the filename, such as "Track 1" or something else and display it. But nothing else. No Album or Artist.
so the tracks will remain grouped as an album based on their initial folder and the albums and tracks as per file name?
Crows2012 wrote:
also, does aiff have limitations (apart from the full size of the file)?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. For all practical purposes AIFF and WAV are exactly the same thing. They're just file containers.
i thought that i had read somewhere that aiff tags could run into some issues with its tags - ie may not always be transferred 100% accurately with certain players (or hardware maybe)
Crows2012 wrote:
and how do these codecs work re-creating an album for the purposes of playing in a cd player? - this is a crucial question for the purpose of my archiving/backup of CDs THEMSELVES
That's actually going to depend on what burning software you use. Once you rip the tracks to whatever file container you choose (WAV/AIFF/ALAC) you'll never really exactly re-create the album. But for archiving purposes all three file containers will do what you want, which is to create a lossless archive. AIFF has the advantage of supporting embedded ID3, which ALAC has the additional advantage of the files also being about half the size of AIFF/WAV files.
i was thinking that maybe wav was able to recreate an album (in effect duplicate one) if my cd was lost or damaged in the future. i was thinking this IF when ripping to wav everything is unchanged (unless there is other data on the original cd). and maybe only possible with wav. the purpose for this would be to play recreated cds on my cd player
any idea on this one?
(i havent looked too thoroughly on this angle but i'll keep googling on this one)
much appreciate all info thus far
peter t

An id3 tags converting quest

Hi,
The Zen Touch doesn't use a file-tree-browsing system, so one need proper id3 tags to make the player usable.
I have a lot of music with no id3 tags (ripped from CDs, most of which I do not have), whhere it stays just Track for the name and album and artist and genre ist is just <unknown>. Could someone recommend a program (a freeware one) that could help me put id3 tags on my songs?
thanx

I believe that you have organized your "tag-less" MP3 files under proper dorectory names and filenames. If that is the case, then Creative MediaSource's Import Wizard can also help you to tag the MP3 files. Just view the PC Music Library of MediaSource. Click Import button.

Some songs won't add artwork so I need ID3 Tags but ID3 isn't in popup menu

When I Get Info on a track I get this menu but
there's nothing for Change ID3 tags. Should
there be or am I in the wrong place?

I assume adding artwork is a tag-affecting change - but I can't
add on this track - it just reverts to the black image.
I take it the tags themselves are hidden. I see no direct
editing options for them although I read than they can be
set to different types - and there are utilities available to
clean, fix, re-set, etc.
Ok, now I see your edit - this isn't an mp3, it's .aiff.
Message was edited by: Tom Meade1

HELP : Auto. Script for ID3 tags

I have songs named in Chinese.
I tried everything but iTunes never learnt how to read them.
Anyways I have a new strategy, since all my mp3 files are named in this
format : " 'ARTIST' - 'SONG' "
for ex. if I have a mp3 file:
" Ken - My Song.mp3 "
ID3 Artist : Ken , Title: My Song
I want the computer to recognize this format in the filename and change the ID3 automatically. Maybe by copy & pasting or whatever.
This way, all my songs will be readable and no more converting between unicode or whatever.
I know this can be done through Automator or some other program.
But I have n0 knowledge in programming. Can anyone tell me where I could find an answer?
Thanks and Regards

I believe that in order for your deck to show this info, the RF transmitter used has to receive the info and transmit it. If Creative supported sending the info to transmitters, perhaps the transmitter manufacturers would support the transmission.
I've heard that Creative, Microsoft and several others are working on a standard connector to digitally transfer music, UI, and control of devices to car decks for all non-iPod devices. This would be even better. Has anyone else heard of this?

Convert ID3 Tags Grayed Out

Seems to be confined to CDs that I import using Gracenote and convert to Apple Lossless. Very frustrating as other software I use needs ID3 tags and this porcess just does not seem to preserve tham properly. I think "Convert ID3 tags" would fix this but it does not seem to be an option.
Can any other software do this conversion?
G4 Quicksilver Mac OS X (10.4.6) Latest iTunes etc...

Yes, you can right-click on a file or files in your iTunes library or playlist or press Apple+i, and then go to the Info tab to edit the metadata.

"Converting ID3 Tags" Option disappeared? iTunes 8.0.2

Hey everyone!
I'm right now struggling to get my iPod to work again, and I have so many problems, but I think converting ID3 tags would help.
But then the option of "Converting ID3 tags" seemed to have disappeared.
It's not in the Advanced tab, nor is it in the right-click menu.
I need help asap, since my iPod is already acting crazy by not being able to download all of my files in once sync.
Thanks a bunch guys!

It's still there. (iTunes 8.0.2)
In the right-click option menue.
Just select the song(s) in iTunes library view.

Convert ID3 Tags

I've got a problem with ID3 tags. As far as i've been using iPod there was no such problem, but now my iPod is broken and i'm using nokia e50 smartpohone instead. The phone doesn't support ID3v2.4 so I had to downgrade all my tags to v2.3
But in some cases (later i've found those "cases" were encoded with iTunes) no conversion is possible.
my question is: how to enable the "Convert ID3 Tags" for iTunes encoded files? or if it's impossible what should I do to convert tags without using iTunes
Windows XP Pro

If you're up to it, the following should work.
Download and install foobar2000 if you don't already use it. Add the unprotected AAC files to the main playlist window. Select them all, right-click, and choose Tagging > Rewrite File Tags.
Note: At this point, you may need to remove the same files from your iTunes library and add them back again if you will be transferring the files directly from iTunes to your phone. Otherwise, moving the files from their default location to your phone should work just fine.

Converting ID3 tags: v2 to v1 then back to v2?

I converted a lot of my ID3 tags to ver. 1 so they would display properly on my CD player in the car. Can these be set back to ver. 2 again with losing anything. Please don't tell me I have to reimport the CD's again.....

If the version 1.x tags shortened any of the data fields stored in the original files, then that information will still be gone when you convert your tags back to version 2.x (2.3 recommended).
Unfortunately, iTunes isn't a player that encodes MP3s with both version 1.x and 2.x tags (at the same time), so it's best in a situation like this to make copies of the MP3 files you want to edit, and revert back to your original files after burning MP3 CDs, etc.
In the worst case, you shouldn't need to reimport your CDs; you may just have to add some missing information back into your tags once they're converted back to version 2.x.

Converting ID3 tags on iTunes/Folder problems

I just go my nano and am setting up the music files I've been collecting over the years, some of which don't have ID3 tags.
It seems when I load my libray it automatically converts the files, but it drops them into their own folder (artist, album name etc).
I would rather keep all my music files in the one root directory for easier access. Can anyone tell how I can do that through iTunes?
I've gone to the Preferences --> Advanced page and set up my iTunes folder and checked the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" box.
But when I add the files on the library, it sets up these folders I don't want.
Thanks

] I would rather keep all my music files in the one root directory
Disable "Keep iTunes Music folder Organized" & "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library" in iTunes Preferences, Advanced tab. Future files added to the library will stay right where they came from. The setting for "Music folder location" will only apply to new imports from CD and music purchases through the store. Setting this value to an existing folder of music will not tell iTunes to "discover" the music that already lives there.
iTunes relies exclusively on ID3 tags. If your files don't include tags, then you need to get a 3rd party tag utility like "Tag & Renamer" or "ID3-TagIt" and get those V2.3 tags loaded into all your files. Those utilities can even generate the tags based on the folder names containing the files.

ID3 tags won't convert!

I just learned that you can convert ID3 tags to Unicode right in iTunes. I used to use Unicode Rewriter, but now I can't convert them in either - it just stays the same! I don't know what's different in my computer now, but I did a complete system restore from my recovery partition since then! Please help! Thanks in advance.

version 7.5
and yes, I did verify/repair permissions with the utility disc.
Should I not have?

ITunes 6.0.4 Lossless to MP3 Convert Bad ID3 Tag Bug (Intel Only?)

Hello all,
I usually rip my CDs to Apple Lossless, name it the way I want, include Album Artwork, then switch rip preference to MP3 (224kbps), highlight the lossless files and choose "Convert Selection to MP3" in the Advanced menu. I do this to save the time of having to rip things twice.
Up through 6.0.3 it created proper ID3 tags with the album artwork just fine, but upgrading to 6.0.4 (Intel - I haven't verified this with my G4 Powerbook running 6.0.4) I do my usual process, the information is in the iTunes window, matching the Lossless files, but as soon as I delete the items from iTunes (but not the files themselves) and drag the MP3 files back to iTunes, the tracks show up in iTunes without ANY of the ID3 info, but WITH the album artwork.
The name lists the filename in the Song Name field as if there weren't any ID3 info.
The reason this came up is I rip to one drive, but keep the MP3s on another drive.
Anyone else out there with this problem/can verify this problem?
Thanks!
John V
Intel iMac 20" Mac OS X (10.4.5) 2GB RAM 10.4.5

There have been a lot of recent posts about tags not being updated properly in iTunes, and I am starting to think that it's a bug.
In your case, you might want to consider using Max to rip and encode. You can configure the application to rip your CDs and encode to multiple formats at once, using any of the iTunes encoders plus about twenty others, including LAME MP3. The tag information will remain intact, and the output files can be directly added to your iTunes library if desired.
Also, you may want to try Max's file encoding function for Apple Lossless files you already have stored on your HDD. You can batch encode them to MP3, keeping the tags and album art.

Question about "Convert ID3 Tags" command

I just used "Convert ID3 Tag" to convert all the songs in a library to ID3v2.4. When it was done, abotu half the album art had been killed. I have a backup, so nothing is lost, but I did not expect this to happen. My questions: (1) Is this expected behavior or a bug?, and (2) Any ideas why some album art survived and some did not?

Thank you! I actually managed to figure it out myself before you replied.
For anyone else out there who might be interested:
Change the import settings in iTunes > Preferences > General, to Apple Lossless Encoder. Then you can select the files/albums you want to convert, and click on the Advanced menu while holding down the Options/Alt-key, and click "Create Apple Lossless Version". I found that it doesn't actually convert the existing WAV-files, but creates an Apple Lossless copy of every single file, so I had to spend some time weeding out the WAV-files afterwards. This is a one-time effort, though, as every CD will be imported as Apple Lossless from now on.
Better still, solved my problem with the album artwork!

Problems with ID3 Tags in iTunes - Desperate need of assistance!

Hello all...
Desperately need some help. I just spent a very (very) long time going through my entire music collection making sure all album art is present and all tags are corrected to my preferences. Now I want to back up the entire drive (F: drive, I keep my music on a separate drive) to a new hard drive (H: drive). However, in the process I've noticed that not all the changes that I made to the tags have actually saved to the tags themselves, even though they continue to display correctly in iTunes. If I load them into another application or reload them into iTunes from the new drive, not all the tag changes I made in iTunes are showing up. It seems iTunes is perhaps storing this tag info in some kind of internal database? To be specific I am not talking about meta-data like ratings and number of times played. I'm talking about artist, genre, etc.
So my question is this: is there some way to force iTunes to save the data that is currently displayed in iTunes to the ID3 tags?
I've also been disappointed to find out that when adding album artwork, iTunes does not actually save the artwork to the ID3 tags as I assumed. Any way I can force iTunes to do that?
Lastly, if neither of the above are possible, is there an easy way to backup the iTunes database so that all my tags and artwork are present once I remove the current drive and re-load my collection into iTunes from the new drive? Will the change of path prevent me from being able to backup the database?

Hi Ed, thanks for responding so quickly. Yes, they are mp3 files, and yes, I had assumed what you told me, that changes made in iTunes would be made to the mp3 files. I also thought it could have something to do with read only, so I made sure that the files were not read only. But yes, strangely enough, even though the tags show up properly in iTunes, they do not show up properly in other players, and don't show up properly in iTunes if I remove the album, copy the album to the second drive, and load it back into iTunes (only for a portion of the files, but with the size of my collection this would still be time consuming to fix). I don't understand it either, but from research I have done online, it may have something to do with an iTunes glitch relating to the ID3 tag version.
Regardless of how it is supposed to work or what the explanation is, the situation now stands that my tags display perfectly in iTunes but are not all saved to the files perfectly. So I am hoping there is some way I can force iTunes to save the current state of tag info to the files!
About the 2 drives, it's simple. Right now my collection is on F:, and loaded into iTunes, but I want to get rid of that drive as it is IDE and too small, and store my collection on H: instead. I'm just really worried that after moving my collection and reloading into iTunes I will need to re-tag and re-load album artwork all over again. Any tips?

Songs Won't Play, Album Art Not Modifiable, ID3 Tags, Need Help

I have a 32 GB iPod Touch, Windows Vista, the latest version of iTunes and Quicktime as well as the latest iPod software.
I noticed the other day that a bunch of my songs were missing album art. I have a library with almost 7,000 songs and I have album art for everything. I went to the songs to attempt to fix the album art and noticed that it said, Album Art Not Modifiable, in the Album Art preview screen. I thought that was weird and it wouldn't let me add new album art to these albums.
I also noticed that none of these songs would play. They wouldn't play on my iPod or on iTunes. You can click play and it looks like it's going to play, but the counter never leaves "0".
I thought something was wrong with my files and that I would have to re rip or download the songs. However, by chance I opened one of the songs in Window Media Player and it worked, so I knew the files were fine.
I did a search online and found several people with the same problem and a few things to try. But nothing worked until I stumbled upon a solution of setting the ID3 tags to version "None", then setting them to version 2.4. I tried it and it worked.
But now it keeps happening, I get a new group of albums every day that won't play.
Can anyone tell me what is causing this?
How do I prevent it?
Do I really need to take every song in my library and change the ID3 tags, that could take forever?
Could anyone please help and shed some light on this.
Thank You

Thanks for replying, Please read our Operating System details before taking a guess about what 'could' be the problem...
I think I figured it out anyway, Windows Media Player might be adding extra information that iTunes does not like, either Windows Media Player and/or iTunes 7.7.1 don't conform to ID3 v2.4 standards...
Please fix your software, Apple. I know how you love to be unique and mock PC users with your one-sided advertisements but at least conform to the ID3 standards.

2 Scripts Needed - ID3 tags & Converting

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