Id3 tag editors? best?

what is the best id3 tag editor?
i used id3 tagit for pc and was pleased...anything like that for mac?

Jaikoz...hands down.
The best tag editors (like the defunct iEatBrainz) use the muscibrainz data base. Essentially, by using an evolving list of proprietary softwares a song can be given an "acoustic fingerprint". This means that it can take an audio file with no information and sometimes deduce what the track is (along with retrieving it's metadata). There is a huge open and evolving database (musicbrainz) that it accesses to get your info. (Kind of like a wikipedia concept for music release data).
MPFreaker just fills in blanks if you have some info. Jaikoz is a very powerful, customizable ID tag editor. I'll warn you though, there's a bit of a learning curve. While it is user friendly, there is a lot to to learn. Try the 'getting started' tutorial and just start messing around. You'll get the basics soon enough.
I use Jaikoz a lot and have gotten my money's worth out of it. AND, it's free upgrades for life. Can't beat that. Combined with a few favorite scripts from "Doug's Applescripts" I finally feel like I can edit tags with abandon for iTunes.
Try Jaikoz, and try these scripts" from Doug's...
"Remove N characters from front or back"
"Proper English Capitalization"
"Find Album Art with Google"
And if you haven't discovered this yet, check it out...
"Add-Subtract half a star"

Similar Messages

ID3 tag editor on MP3 play

Hi all,
How is it possible to change the ID3 tag info on your mp3 player itself?I own a Vision:M but if you need to select the folder/removable disk with the Creative Media Toolbox (Auto Tag Cleaner) the Vision:M doesn't appear as a removable disk, but when I open 'My Computer' it is shown as an 'Audio-Device'...
All help is welcome !
Greatz, Von Belgium

Scratch that!
I just found out how to edit tags already on your player. Basically connect your player to your pc, open up Mediasource, and right click the song you want to change and click Properties. There you can change the fields and the changes will show up on the player.
Check out epizenter.net in a little while. I'll be making a picture guide for this.

ITunes ID3 tags handling for artwork

I have created MP3 versions of my band's artwork for inclusion in an online radio. I am running into some issues with ID3 tags.    The MP3s show the artwork and everything just fine on my Mac. However the artwork doesn't show up in the radio software (Centova) when the files are uploaded. Because of this, I've got a crash course in ID3 tags--at least the album artwork tags.
It turns out, in ID3 tags version 2, there are no less than 15 different ID3 tags reserved for artwork--meaning you can attach up to 15 separate pieces of artwork (in theory) to each MP3 file. Here are the tag reservations:
$00     Other
$01     32x32 pixels 'file icon' (PNG only)
$02     Other file icon
$03     Cover (front)
$04     Cover (back)
$05     Leaflet page
$06     Media (e.g. label side of CD)
$07     Lead artist/lead performer/soloist
$08     Artist/performer
$09     Conductor
$0A     Band/Orchestra
$0B     Composer
$0C     Lyricist/text writer
$0D     Recording Location
$0E     During recording
$0F     During performance
$10     Movie/video screen capture
$11     A bright coloured fish
$12     Illustration
$13     Band/artist logotype
$14     Publisher/Studio logotype
Yes, you read that right, there's a tag for "A bright colored fish". So here's the rub: I'm finding that iTunes defaults album artowrk to the first position (00), which has a certain logic to it. But, I'm finding that this radio software, and some other pro level software looks for cover art in the third tag (Cover Art) be default. This makes a number of problems. It means that I'm having to find a serious ID3 tag editor to change the iTunes artowork tag from "00-Other" to "03-Cover Art" in order for it to be properly displayed.
NOW THE QUESTION: Does iTunes have any sort of method to select which "type" of cover atwork tag you want to apply to the added artwork? Or am I at the mercy of iTunes' default designation and that's that?

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

Itunes doesn`t read half of my id3 tags

Hi,
I am stuck with a problem with itunes.
In the music library, itunes only writes half of my tracks with the id3 tags. All of my songs are mp3s. Every single id3 tag of all my songs gets recognized in winamp, wmp, or in the windows file browser.
But Itunes doesn`t!!!! Even if I click on the songfile, and go on information, it shows my art cover, but not the id3 tag!!
About 6 months ago when I installed itunes, all my tracks did get recognized, but after (i guess) 2 months, half of my songs were unwritten.
I did several updates since then, but no changes.
Now with the new Version 7, I even deleted the database who stores all the information, created a new music library, still doesn`t recognize it.
Winamp - new library - recognizes every single id3 tag.
Any Ideas??
Would need to update my ipod, but i don`t want to plug it in now, as it probably would **** up my library on the ipod.
If someone wants I can send you a mp3 file, which doesn`t get recognized, I just can`t find anything.
Thanks
Mario

It could be that the tags are corrupt or do not strictly follow the ID3 standard.
You might try an ID3 tag editor and convert the tags to an newer ID3 version. Maybe that'll fix any tag problems.

Can't edit ID3-tags in iTunes 7.3.1

I can't edit any of the properties in the id3-tag editor in iTunes. My files are mp3 and are not protected.
It seems to work if I convert my files to mp3 (although they are already mp3s) but there a lot of files to convert then.
What should I do?

open system preferences
open network pane
select airport in the left list
click the advanced button
go to the TCP/IP tab
set the configure IPv6 field to OFF.
click OK
click apply
now try again to connect to your remote speakers.
if this doesn't help, you may be suffering from wireless interference.
download iStumbler and note the channels other networks in the vicinity are broadcasting on, then change the channel your network is using as far away as possible from those.

File Export question and ID3 Tags

First question, have tried using Apple's recommended method of using QT Pro to export movies as "iPod" but when attempting to sync to an iPod get an incompatible file format. What is the "right" export option?
Secondly, on one file I've imported it into iTunes then set all the ID3 fields to my liking, then uploaded into iTunes U but the fields are incorrect. I've tried deleting the file from iTunes U several times and re-imported the file into iTunes and set the ID3 fields and still nothing. Any suggestions on how to get my file up and hold the ID3 fields info?
thanks
Jerry

http://www.oit.duke.edu/dms/resources/fileformats.html
http://www.oit.duke.edu/dms/itunesu/itunes_tagging.html
If you've been having ID3 issues with MP3s, that was recently corrected (well, just the album art thing, everything else worked as far as I know). I've had bad luck with third party ID3 tag editors, so we are recommending people do it through iTunes.app
Since you are already doing that, I'd be worried that my site was set to overwrite the tags (this is an option). If you're the admin, you can check it, otherwise you can ask them.

ITunes Library and ID3 Tags cause confusion

Okay, so this is what happens. I play a song that has Garage as the genre, but right after I double click on it, the genre changes to Other, and the track name shortens. Now, this doesn't happen with every file, but it happens with enough files to get really annoying. And no matter how many times I change it, it will always revert when I play the song.
I have an idea of what's happening, but I don't know how to fix it. My hypothesis is that the data in the ID3 Tag and the iTunes library are different, and when I edit the song tags in iTunes, it is changing the library data, but not the ID3 tag on the song file. I would use an ID3 tag editor, but all of them I have seen do not give access to Grouping and some of the other fields. I also use Serato Scratch Live, which accesses my iTunes music, for DJing.
Is there anyway to tell iTunes that it needs to write tag data to the ID3 on the song? I have searched preferences, but there is nothing concerning this.

YES... this is seriously messed up. It was the same issue in 7.5 and is now obviously present in 7.6. I would guess that many people don't see it because they never do anything with their mp3s after they are in the library, or if they make tag changes they never have to reimport the files. Or they don't care.
I've spent a LOT of time over the past 6 months cleaning up tags, adding details, adding artwork and ripping CDs and now have about 500gigs of tunes in my library. The symptom is the same.. after I've changed or added tags they look fine. If I then bring them into itunes on another mac (this is a shared drive) the edited tags all disappear and revert to either what they were before my edits, or disappear completely. Interestingly (maybe a hint as to whats happening) if I embedded artwork in the file, IT stays, but other tags revert/disappear.
What is the deal here? I can't really see any pattern, some mp3s were downloaded, some were ripped by me, some are CBR others VBR. I have full read/write permissions. MOST of the time I can edit tags and it sticks. its about 10-15% of them that have problems. I've also tried changing the tag to NONE to remove it and then create a new one but that doesnt consistently fix things either. Its either a conflict between the iTunes database and the embedded tags as you suggest or perhaps a conflict between different ID3 versions.
I'd like to hear how other people have got around this... Looks like I've got about 15% of six months of on again off again work down the drain since the tags don't exist in the files (or they're corrupt now).

Trying to edit 'Category" in ID3 tag

I have a podcast by John MacArthur that shows many different category names. I want to edit the mp3 ID3 tag to change the category name. I tried using "Easy change MP3 tags" software and although it said/acted as though it changed the category, when I opened itunes again the category field still had the same old data. Is there a way that I need to refresh the Database somehow, other than opening itunes?

I had previously tried that to no result. Tried it again. Still no result. Several of the freeware ID3 tag editors I've looked at didn't have the feature to edit the category field in the tag. The program I mentioned does but I'm not seeing the result of the category changes.
Does anyone know the name of a program that will update this field?

Changing ID3 tags and replacing tra

I'm playing with my new Xtra and enjoying it. I will want to jigger many of the tags to organize the genres and artists better.
) The software stored the albums (as I requested) under Artist/Album. If I shift an album under a different artist name, I assume it will not automatically change the tags for the artist. (For instance, I have a few "Elvis Costello" and a few "Elvis Costello and the Imposters"... I want them all under the same artist name).
2) Can I change the basic tags (Artist, Album, Genre and even Track #) using Create MediaSource Organizer, or should I download a decent/free ID3 tag program recommended on various guru FAQs?
3) Here's my real question: Once I alter the tag on a track I've already loaded onto the player, I will want to replace it with the updated tags. If I re-transfer, will it overlay the tracks with the updated ones -- or will it create duplicates? Do I need to delete the album or tracks from my player before sending them back over?
Thanks
Michael

zmulls wrote:I figured the PC was easier to change tags. Just for the typing (!)
Well you can only edit tags using the PC. I meant with respect to which data source you use, the player itself (when connected to the PC) or the files on the PC's hard dri've.
The "move" would be just taking a subfolder ("album") and moving under a different "artist" folder -- in Explorer. I figured also that I'd still have to change the tags (the ripping program reads the tags and creates the directories, but I assumed the intelligence doesn't go another way).
Ah right. Yes, you have to change the tags themselves. It doesn't automatically realise the folder has changed, although you can get many programs which will use folder and filename data to generate the tag.
So I should grab a tagging program, and plan to "Delete From Player" and "Re-Transfer From PC." Not as bad as it sounds, as I can delete whole albums at once from the Player.
It's certainly the method I use. It really depends on what approach suits you.
I saw the list of tag programs on your FAQ -- are the "free" ones good enough? Is there a real advantage in the shareware or paid programs (other than the one you cite on Nomadsync).
I've never bought a tag editing program, and have used 2 or 3. I prefer overall though, but some don't like the UI. Best to check some out.
Nomadsync is listed in the programs to copy files. Remember that Nomadsync is not a tag editor, it's a program for copying files.

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

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

Itunes, ID3 tags, & hard drive corruption

My wife is having a strange problem with her iMac, and it’s got me a bit mystified. I’m hoping someone here can shed some light on what might be going on. I apologize in advance for the long post.
The problem is that when she plays some songs in iTunes, and entirely different (wrong) song plays instead. Most songs play fine, but some just play entirely different songs (or sections of a song or podcast). All of the tracks are MP3 (either 192 kbps or 256 kbps) and almost all of them were encoded using Windows Media Player on an XP machine. Initially, I copied the music over from an NTFS drive to a newly formatted (Mac OS/HFS+) drive on the Mac, then I ran iTunes and created the library. At that point, everything seemed fine. All the meta data (song title, album title, artist, album artist, genre, album art) showed up in iTunes, and everything played correctly.
Now we’re getting this weird behavior where we play some songs and get the wrong music. At first I thought the iTunes library files (ITL and/or XML) had been corrupted, but it seems on closer inspection that the entire hard drive has been corrupted. When I look at the files on Mac hard drive via the Finder, all seems ok – the directory structure is intact, the file names and sizes are all correct, and a Get Info on any MP3 file shows that the ID3 data is all there and seems accurate. This is true even for the songs that play wrong, but if I play one of those songs using the little mini player in the Get Info dialog, the wrong song plays (the same wrong song as in iTunes). So now I’m getting the behavior straight off the drive, with iTunes closed and the iTunes library completely out of the equation.
Some other interesting clues/evidence:
* This has happened before. When her first hard drive got corrupted (in the same way), I was mystified but chalked it up as a bad hard drive and got her a new one. Then we started over with a clean HFS+ formatted drive and clean music files and built a new iTunes library. And now the same thing has happened again. So I don’t think it’s just a bad hard drive.
* It seems to be progressive. That is, everything was fine in the beginning, but over time more and more files get messed up. We know this because we have a backup that’s about a month old on which we can locate files that are fine (on the backup) but that are messed up on her connected day-to-day drive. So it seems like some activity on the drive is causing problems that are growing over time.
* There is some weird meta data (ID3) behavior. I copied a few hundred MP3 files from the Mac drive back to the PC (over our home network) and looked at them in the Windows Explorer. The first thing I saw was that the same (wrong) music played for the bad tracks as had on the Mac. And I also saw that a lot of ID3 tags were not showing on the Windows side. Lots of tracks have no ID3 data (album, artist, genre, etc. is missing) when I look at them on the PC. There are many albums where tags show up correctly for some of the tracks but not for others. In fact, the number of files where the ID3 tags aren’t visible on the PC far exceeds the number of songs that play incorrectly on the Mac. When I look back on the Mac at the songs that have no ID3 data on the PC and do a Get Info, I see the ID3 data.
* Often, though I can’t say always for sure, the wrong music that plays on the Mac is stuff that has been recently added. Either podcasts or music that my wife has added since the initial library was established.
My best guess (though still full of holes):
Something is confusing the Mac OS into writing on top of occupied space on the hard drive or into mapping files incorrectly in the drive’s allocation table, and chaos results. The Mac doesn’t think anything is wrong, and it shows everything as being clean in the Finder. So I started thinking about the kind of reads & writes my wife is doing on that drive. She rips new CDs to add to the library, she downloads new Podcasts and deletes old ones, and she changes ID3 tags.
I’m focusing on the changing ID3 tag activity. My wife doesn’t like the way I tag genre. I like big broad categories, an she likes smaller, more specific categories. So she has gone through the initial library of 42K+ songs and changed the genre on thousands of songs. She’s change some from Pop to Power Pop or from Pop to Indie Pop or from Rock to Indie Rock, etc. Both WMP (where the tags were created) and iTunes support ID3v2.3, and so these two programs ought to be able to change tags in a totally interchangeable and safe way. But what if iTunes writes its new genre tags in a way that’s slightly different from WMP? Could iTunes be writing to memory/disk locations that are outside the boundaries of the file and thus creating some kind of buffer overrun?
It really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it does tie back to the evidence that this has something to do with meta data, gets worse over time, happened on more than one disk, and seems to be a file allocation table issue.
Even if I get to the bottom of this, I think my wife’s HD is toast for sure. Here’s what I think I will do: I’ll reformat the drive, re-copy the music over from the PC, and build a new iTunes library. Then, first thing, I’ll open iTunes, select all the songs in the new library, and run “Convert ID3 Tags” to ID3v2.4. If that works and everything behaves correctly, I’ll try to change some genre tags and test the results. The problem is that the library is so large that problems can go undetected for a long time, so maybe I should do this first with a small subset of the music as a trial run.
The thing I want to avoid is having to do this (ever) again, so I’d feel more comfortable if I understood the bug/problem before just following this guess (which feels like a roll of the dice). If anyone has seem similar behavior or has heard of any IDS incompatibilities between WMP 11 and iTunes 7, I’d love to hear about it. Any help is appreciated.
Jim

Wow, that was a long and detailed post. I haven't the energy to reply in equal fervor, but I will just say that lately these boards have been peppered with posts from people whose MP3s are being eaten alive by iTunes. What I don't get is why you suspect the hard drive is at fault. Unless the rest of the system is caving in, I don't think there's any reason to suspect a failing drive. Check the S.M.A.R.T. status in Disk Utility if you haven't already, and perform whatever maintenance you believe is in order.
For the most reliable ID3 tag editing, I'd certainly recommend using foobar2000 on a Windows PC (or a Mac with Windows installed) or MP3Tag. I would definitely, at least for the time being, not put your huge music collection at risk by doing any further editing of the tags in iTunes.

MP3 song information not retained after iTunes 7.0 - ID3 tags at fault?

I'm having some strange problems with track information in iTunes. I first noticed it when I tried to copy some mp3's from my Mac to my mobile phone: certain tracks did not retain the song information, like artist, album etc., while others did.
A similar problem has been discussed in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3698498
However, my problem seems to be a little bit more specific.
If I look at the music in my library in iTunes, all the track information is there. However, for MP3's encoded after 16th October last year, the "Imported With" field, using Get Info, is shown as "Unknown". Before this date, it is shown as "iTunes v7.0". For all MP3's the ID3 version is v2.2.
I believe that I must have upgraded to iTunes 7.0.1 around this time, since I have a number of Apple Lossless audio files which have also been imported and don't show this problem.
The main problem is with the file ID3 tag information (I think). If I select one of the problem tracks, find the original file, open it up in Quicktime and "Get Info", no track/album/artist/composer information is displayed. This is NOT true for 1) MP3's encoded before 16th October 2006 and 2) Apple Lossless files encoded at any time.
In other words, the track information for songs encoded with iTunes 7.0.1 and later is either encoded in a way that no other application can read, OR is only being stored in the iTunes playlist, NOT the file itself. I can see all the track information for these problem files on my iPod, but NOT my mobile phone (where I have to manually copy them over), even if I drag and drop them directly from iTunes.
I have this problem with Quicktime, my mobile phone music player and RealPlayer, so I'm assuming it's "system wide". It even occurs if I copy a problem file out of my music folder and onto the the Desktop, then manually add the track to iTunes: all the song information has disappeared.
I have all my music stored on an external hard disk - 160GB Freecom ToughDrive formatted as HFS+. Previously it was stored on an external disk formatted as FAT32, but copying the files over to the new disk didn't change the problem.
I considered using the "convert ID3 tags" option to see if it would make a difference, but both the good and bad files are listed as using v2.2. I also don't understand enough about them to feel confident converting them to something different - perhaps to v2.3 or v2.4 - just to see if it makes a difference.
Any information on how to "recover" the missing information (for anything other than iTunes) would be greatly appreciated!
MacBook Pro 17" 2.16 GHz 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.9) iTunes 7.1.1

Okay, some more information as I try and track down the source of the problem.
By using an id3 tag editing program - ID3 Editor - I was able to view the song information for each track, even though all the other music players I had tried would not show it. If I then chose to modify and update the ID3 information, this would somehow modify the tags in such a way that they become readable in all other programs.
I tried using the "Convert ID3" tags option in iTunes, just on a whim, but without any success. Saving the song information in ID3 Editor doesn't change the version of the ID3 tag - it's still listed as v2.2 in iTunes - but it DOES make it readable in other programs. I also tried the various text conversion options, again without any success.
This looks to me like a bug in iTunes. While its possible for me to get around it, in an extremely long winded way, I still can't understand why iTunes would be writing ID3 information that other Apple programs cannot read.
Any suggestions? Should I be posting this question in a different forum perhaps?

ID3 tags taking So long to write

I am hopign someone can help figure this one out. I'm using iTunes 11 on an iMac running Mt. Lion but had the same experience on Snow Leopard. I have a bunch of music files that are about 2-hours each in length - all DJ sets from a BBC Radio show. In order to keep them organized the way I want, I have added them to iTunes by creating new playlists based on years, each one with 50-70 tracks. I then select all of a playlist and edit a tag (Album and Album Artist specifically). I am putting the year into the Album Artist field so that I can then click "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and everything will be sorted by year on my drive. That may not be relevant but thought I would explain for some context. The strange thing is this: When I select 60 files and try to change the tags on anything prior to 2005, it takes forever to finish. I mean like 20 minutes or so. When I do the same thing on files dated more recently, the process is finished instantly. I thought maybe it has to do with the type/version of ID3 tag used on older files versus the newer ones but cannot seem to figure out which type iTunes 11 workes best with. Why would the same process take so long on certain files while being almost instant with others? I hope this makes sense.

Set the default startup disk.

Are anyone else's ID3 tags all jacked up after upgrading to iTunes 11?

I have a large library that I'm downright OCD in managing tag information. All are set at v2.4 and genres, album artist, groups, both track and cd #'s as well as album art have been MANUALLY scrubbed religiously upon import to ensure a manageable library. I've noticed in the past that iTunes does a fairly horrible job in actually changing the ID3 tag info of the AAC or MP3 file itself resulting in horrible tag info when using the files in another system (Chrysler's MyGig system, Microsoft's Sync system, etc.) but iTunes always listed the songs correctly, making my smart playlists, sort and playback very easy and clean. That is until I upgraded to iTunes 11. Apparently they've re-read all the file ID3 tag info as I now have MANY different genres listed and album artist info has disappeared as well as track listing info. Do I need to get an external tag editor and redo all the tag editing I had done previously to now clean this up or have they fixed iTunes to do a better job of actually editing the file info itself?

Get Info on the song within iTunes is how I know the comment field is empty.
I don't have Match or iCloud enabled.
All other tag info is there and left untouched, only the comment field is blank. Tried removing and re-adding the tracks multiple times, but that didn't help.
Reason this annoys me is that I add information to my comment field such as additional genre/style information, band origin or location, related artists, etc. Very helpful stuff for smart playlists.
I can try Stephen Spark's suggestion to convert my ID3 tag version, but I've never, ever had to do that before, so, if iTunes 11 is suddenly only reliably reads one correctly it seems to be a bug with iTunes.

Id3 tag editors? best?

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