I need to be taught about ID3 tags - help, anyone?

Some of my songs are only appearing on 'Songs' on my iPod, and not simultaneously under 'Artists'. I have found this is because probably because of ID3 tags.....I don't know what they really are and I don't know how to fix ones that aren't 'complete' - in that they aren't under 'Artists' on my iPod. All help (including tips on any programs to help fix this) is appreciated!

Don't worry, I found out about Media Monkey and through that I got the missing tags from amazon!

Similar Messages

Question about Id3-tags and song managem

Hello, I am getting ready to buy a Zen Touch 20GB in a couple of weeks and I have a few questions about the management software.
(Correct me if I am wrong about something)
) Are songs organized into groups by Genre instead of just folders like on the Ipod?
2) Are Id3-tags used instead of filename for identification?
3) What parts of the tag are needed besides title and artist?
4) Which version of tags does the Zen Touch recognize: Version or Version 2?
5) If I edit my tags using an external program such as Id3-TagIT, will the tags carry over to the Creative software and to the player?
Thanks a lot for your help. I want to make sure I have my music collection in order before I get my Zen Touch.

euph_jay wrote:Ok, so lets say I have all my music in folders right now seperated into different categories on my hard dri've. Some folders denote the artist, some the album, and some a genre. Example: Folder: Chicago Contents: Chicago .mp3 files Folder: Techno Contents: various Techno artist's songs What is the best way of organizing my folder system, so that the transition will be easy to the player?
Folders are pretty much irrelevant. What the software will do is look at the *tags* in the files and then use these to build the player's library.
Will imbedded folders work on the player? (like Techno->Crystal Method->Cystal Method .mp3's)
Again the player has no concept of folders, although if you set Techno as a Genre tag you will be able to view via this in the Music Library.
Or, am I misunderstanding how music is stored into the mp3 player. Instead of storing music in a "folder like" system (like the Chicago folder or Techno folder), does it store all the songs individually on the device? Then you have to sort it by artist, album, or genre?
Using your example, in the Music Library you have essentially three categories: Album, Artist, and Genre. So under Album you would see "Vegas" (the Crystal Method's album), under Artist you would see "The Crystal Method", and under Genre you would see "Techno" (and then either the album or artist under this... I forget which it is offhand).
Make sense?

Question about id3 tags

i had all of the fields of all my songs just how i liked them. i thought itunes had written everything i had edited into the id3 tags of all the songs. apparently, it didn't work.
i am using another software called serato. i took the mp3's whose tags i edited in itunes and imported them into serato. i know this program is able to read all versions of tags, so i found a suggestion someone made to strip the id3 tags. this process called for selecting all the songs, converting the id3 tags to "none", then changing them back to a certain version (v2.3 or v2.4).
after doing this, i take a look at my itunes library and about 80% of all my songs have their tags messed up. either the genre is back to what it was before i changed it a while ago, or (more annoyingly) the song titles are all truncated to a certain length.
1. is there any way to undo this? or am i going to have to manually go back and re-edit all the fields?
2. is there a better way of ensuring itunes is correctly changing the id3 tag fields? for example. if i edit the id3 tags on itunes on one profile on my mac, then take the same mp3 file and import it into itunes on another profile, the id3 tags seem to not have been changed at all.
help anyone? this whole thing has got me really frustrated. thanks in advance.

In Serato setup, check box Read iTunes Library. However this doesn't solve the problem, only creates yet another location for cleaning up....
Having somewhat same issue: Converted all id3 from iTunes succesfully, but couldn't import files correct on other macbook in iTunes (same version)?!?!? Doesn't read id3...

Itunes id3 tags help

here is the question:
in itunes no matter how many times ive tried ID3 tag editing and software for editing id3 tags the songs never stay in one album the songs split up and thier is like 10 songs in their own album when they should be together what should i do ive tried id3 tag editing it wont work..
[email protected]
Message was edited by: giants29
Message was edited by: giants29

Apple have this help, which I guess you will have seen:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1468
There is a very comprehensive discussion of the issue in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8180252#8180252

I sometimes get this message after syncing. "5 items could not be synced, see iTunes for help." (or something close to that). I cannot find anything in iTunes about this. Help anyone?

I'm using an iPhone 4S with iOS 5.1

I got that message sometimes as well. The next time it happens you should also get the message in iTunes. If you look closely at the iTunes message box, there is a "+" box, that will open up a list of the items that were not synced. For me, it was some podcasts that I have set to auto delete. Rarely it was an app, but the app would sync correctly the next time. You will have to open up the list to see what's not syncing for you.

ITunes "grouping" tag - ID3 tags and file rewriting

From Wikipedia's entry about ID3 tags:
"ID3v2.2 and 2.3 require that the tag data precede the file. Whilst for streaming data this is absolutely required, for static data it means that the entire audio file must be updated to insert data at the front of the file. For initial tagging this incurs a large penalty as every file must be re-written."
So what I'm wondering, essentially, is whether the "grouping" tag in iTunes is a part of the ID3 tag information, which would mean that altering this tag necessitates re-writing the entire file. I don't like the idea of this, because I'd be paranoid/anal about the possibility of introducing errors in the process. However, I'd love to use the "grouping" tag for creating smart playlists. So does anyone have any more information about this tag? Thanks.

iTunes uses the TPE2 frame tag for grouping. This is also known as the 'Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment' frame which is included in the list you linked to. This isn't a guess - I've been playing about with dnuos and querying id3 tags in mp3 files. I can confirm it is a id3v2 frame.
As to having to re-write the entire file. Yes this is likely but the id3v2 standard also covers padding which can be used to avoid a complete re-write in these situations. Whether or not this happens in the case of iTunes I couldn't tell you.
As far as worring about quality or reliability when performing this... If a player (in this case iTunes) can't even write some tags you probably need to be worrying about using it full stop. Damage could also happen if the storage device itself is dying but again you don't want to be using it full stop.

Missing songs / won't add or import files / corrupt id3 tags?

Hey Folks,
I can't seem to get some songs/files to add or import to itunes...
My computer crashed while itunes was open. When I rebooted the itunes library was corrupted and all playlists and songs were missing.
... no problem...
I'll just add the itunes folder right... Which is what I did.
Problem is now a good 20% of the songs are missing. They are on the harddrive in the itunes music folder, but won't import or add to itunes.
I suspect maybe it has something to do with corrupt ID3 tags?
Anyone know the answer to this mystery?
Thx

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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!

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

My iTunes library and metadata/ID3 tags issue

Since 2010, iTunes is the only media player I use to play music. My library consists of music purchased from the iTunes Store, CD rips and stuff many artists these days release as freebies on the internet to promote a new album. Also, M4A and MP3 are the only formats I use so far.
Since iTunes, I really got into editing my library's metadata tags by hand, in order to create a custom archive which serves my preferences best. I should mention that besides iTunes being the only software I use to play my music library, it's also the only software I use to edit their metadata. Also, before iTunes – when my library was on different media players – I never bothered with editing them.
A few days ago, I found how a lot of people in forums complain about the way iTunes edits and stores metadata. So, I experimented and moved a few of my songs to other media players after editing their tags within iTunes. And indeed the tags and/or artwork were often displayed messed up and/or incorrect, some times partially and some times completely.
Some people were referring to the version of the ID3 tags being the issue, while others suggested using the "convert ID3 tags" feature. I myself am a little bit confused. "Converting the ID3 tags" wasn't available for my M4A files and once I performed it for my MP3's I didn't know which setting I should apply or what version to choose. I chose one version randomly but I'm not sure what happened.
My goal is to make my music library able to play and display my custom metadata on the majority of the popular media players. I hope that firstly this is possible and that secondly it won't be a solution which requires me going through every single song individually.
I really hope that all those years work on my library wasn't for nothing.
I'm using a MacBook running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and my iTunes version is 10.7
While my music library is more important that my iTunes version, I do like iTunes 10 more than 11.
I apologize for any grammar mistakes, since English is not my first language. Thank you all for your time and any suggestion is welcome.

itsjamesd wrote:
Hello turingtest2 and thank you for your reply.
In response to "a possible cause of problems is multiple embedded tags", what exactly does that mean and how can I avoid doing it in the future?
Anything ripped with iTunes should get a single tag. If multiple tags in some of your older mp3 rips are the cause of the problems when you try to access the files elsewhere then you should apply the suggested remedy selectively, not to the whole library indiscriminately. Once fixed you shouldn't have the problem again unless you use different ripping software. If so check the options to ensure you generate a single ID3v2.3 tag. Downloads from elsewhere are pot luck.
If I use Convert ID3 Tags>None before converting to v2.3 as you suggested, how many times is "several times" and why do I have to do it more than once? Also, what are your thoughts on 'v2.3 vs. v2.4'?
Several is at least two, but more could be needed if a file has both v1 and v2 tags in multiple languages. If there are two tags, the first conversion to none should remove the first one, and the second conversion the second. Experiment, And stick to v2.3.
In response to "the process removes any embedded art but otherwise preserves the data that iTunes knows". All fields excluding cover art remain the same? Does that mean that I will have to start from scratch and apply new cover art individually for each album? That would be too time consuming given the fact that I embed custom art.
Yes, everything but artwork is held in the iTunes database and is restored with the final Convert ID3 Tags... v2.3. Use Doug's scripts SaveAlbumArtJpeg before you start and RestoreArtworkFromAlbumFolder afterwards to save and the restore your existing artwork.
Also, what happens with my M4A files' metadata? ID3 tags are only used for MP3's, right?
Yes, m4a/aac files have a different tag mechanism. Multiple ID3 tags is just one possible issue that you might have. You said:
So, I experimented and moved a few of my songs to other media players after editing their tags within iTunes. And indeed the tags and/or artwork were often displayed messed up and/or incorrect, some times partially and some times completely.
It might be worth going into some more detail about exactly what differences you noticed. iTunes can automatically associate (instead of embedding) artwork when it can match the album in the store which could be why some tracks didn't get artwork.
tt2

ID3 Tags and multiple Libraries

I think I really have 2 separate questions here.
1) I have an external hard drive at work with all my music files on it. I use iTunes to listen to these songs at work. I have spent a lot of time adding song ratings, and album art, and cleaning up some of the album titles, song names, etc. on these songs. I copied all of these music files to my hard drive on my home computer. I don't listen to music on my home computer very often. Is there a way to copy over all of the updated song information to the library on my home computer?
2) I assume that much of the information about a song (artist, album, etc.) is stored in the ID3 tags. Is there any way to write ID3 information to a file from iTunes?

Some, but not all of the information is stored in the ID3 tag. Examples of information not stored included (but are not limited to): ratings, play counts, date added, and last played.
If you want to transfer information about some songs, you can put those songs into a playlist, then export it as a text file (select the playlist, then File..Export). On the other computer, you can then import it. NOTE: if the path (folder) of the song is different on the two computers, you will need to edit the text file before importing it on the second computer.
Also note that the exported playlist still does not contain all of the iTunes information. But it does have the rating, play count, and some other stuff not stored in the ID3 tag.

I need to be taught about ID3 tags - help, anyone?

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