Media Tagging (mp3, wav, etc) - How Anal Do You Get?

anathematized_one · 06-13-2013, 12:44 PM

I was just curious.

Tagging Formats
For me, as an example, I absolutely DESPISE APE tags. I will rage to myself about how stupid people are, wondering why they'd use an inferior tag format (to ID3v2), much less use a tag format that isn't NEARLY as widely used or recognised. Apparently there is an APEv2 now, but I've yet to come across it. Either way, the standard APE appends the tag data at the end of the file? How does that make sense? Just in my head alone I am thinking the program playing the files must read the entire file if it is played from the disk, or must pre-buffer every time to find that thing at the end but it also has to specifically know to look for that. Just stupid.

My preference is for ID3v2 UTF-16; I can encode everything I want in any language and it is recognised by practically everything.

What Tags to Encode
Album and Track Title
How specific do yous get here? Do you go with what it should have been titled or do you go with what the actual track is listed as? Example, in German, even with song titles, you use normal capitalisation rules meaning only nouns (regardless of being proper or improper) are capitalised (but not pronouns). However if a band is from Germany but uses an English song title, do you use English capitalisation conventions (all words capitalised or all words except articles, etc) or German capitalisation conventions? Say this track of mine as an example, „Ich bin den ewigen Tränenreichen‟ or "I Am the Eternal Lacrimosa". The first word is always capitalised in German but the only other noun in the title is "Tränenreichen", but let's just say my band was based in Germany and I decided to use the English title. Would you tag it "I Am the Eternal Lacrimosa" or "I am the eternal Lacrimosa"?

Personally, I typically go with the conventions of the language that the title is in. There are exceptions where the capitalisation of the title is relevant (say "hIV+", the album title for an album by Havoc Unit).

Also, do you include in the track field any sort of extra information like "(featuring So-and-So)" for guest appearances, especially when listed as such on the album; or "(Such-and-Such-Band Cover)" for cover songs?

Artist and Album Artist
Do you guys use both of these fields? Do you use each one differently? In most cases, both fields are identical to me but I still use both even when they're identical, but I always put the proper band/artist name in the artist field and if there are multiple bands with the same name, in the album artist field, I will put the 3 letter country code as well. Example: Quo Vadis (Can) and Quo Vadis (Pol) both have the same name in the artist field but the country code added in the Album Artist field.

What about artists by name, do you put the last name first or the first name first? Me, I always put the first name first, Example: Richard Wagner and not Wagner, Richard. Part of this reason for me is I like both Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann. So if I want to listen to Clara Schumann and not Robert, I'm thinking Clara Schumann so instantly, type in "cla" and get there without having to worry with accidentally clicking the wrong one. Or what about a band with a name that begins with an article such as "the" or something? The Embraced for example I put as "The Embraced" as opposed to "Embraced, The".

Track and Disknumber
How do you list the track numbers? For me, it has to be 1, 2, 3 etc. I cannot stand 01, 02, 03... and I absolutely loathe either format listed as 1/10, 2/10... or 01/10... 02/10... and so on. It is just really bleh to me and irrelevant as when I load an album into a media player, I will load alphabetically by track and I have the tracks saved as '01 - Song Title'.

I am the same way with disk numbers, must be 1, 2, 3 not 1/1 or 1/2, 2/2. I also always put a disk number even if there is only one disk.

Composer
Do you ever fill this field in? I do for each individual track if I can find the information.

Publisher
I also use this field. However, do you put the original publisher or do you put the publisher for the version you have? I put the publisher for the version I have, unless the version I have is no different than the original in which case I put the original.

Album Art
Use it? I do too, and I always have to have the original album cover with at least 500x500 px.

Other Tags
Do you use these too? Like lyric tags or anything like that? I don't use any others other than what I mentioned, but I am still curious as to others that other people use.

File Naming and Organisation
How do you name/organise your files?

Personally, I use Music Folder > Artist (Country Code if Necessary) > (Year) Album Title > music files.

For the actual music file name, I use the format string $num(%track%,2) - $replace(%title%,:, -,/,_) which may differ on Mp3 tagging programs or mp3 reading programs, but that's just what I use in Mp3Tag for converting the tag to file name. The actual name comes out as: 01 - Song Title.mp3.

So my overall organisation looks like:
Music Folder\Quo Vadis (Pol)\(1997) Uran\
01 - Intro.mp3
02 - Uran.mp3
[...]
06 - Nie każdy
[...]
14 - Człowiek swoim wrogiem.mp3

sidewinder · 06-13-2013, 12:50 PM

I'm anal, but this thread is too anal for me. Since I use iTunes to manage my library and play music, along with my iPhone, I simply use iTunes to tag or alter tags.

Artist
Track Title
Album Title
Track #
Number of tracks on album
Disc 1 of #
Year
Genre
Album Art

Everything else is ideally left blank, though I won't erase composer tags if they're already there and accurate.

File Names
I used to be anal about the file names too, with "01 Name of Track.mp3" as my preferred format, but these days I don't take the time to fix the names if they're not capitalized or if the artist name happens to also be in the file name. I do require the track number to be there and first, though.

File Organization
Music > Artist > Album

Mojo · 06-13-2013, 01:11 PM

For some reason the genre and the release year are the tags I get the most anal about. They have to be completed.

The file names dont mean anything to me, but the track title tags have to be capitalised and accurate, including any brackets and so on.

The album art must be tagged, disc numbers if there are more than one, track numbers, artist, album etc. Everything else I wouldn't bother myself to fix, and I would organise it Music > Artist > Album.

I'm also particularly fussy about each disc of a multiple-disc album, or boxset, having a different album title, ie '____ Disc One' and '___Disc Two'. I can't have that. It all needs to be organised under one title, with the disc numbers tagged so it appears in the correct order and as a single album.

sidewinder · 06-13-2013, 01:51 PM

I actually like having "[Disc One]" etc so they are broken up into separate folders, only because it makes it easier to split up the listening into multiple parts.

I forgot to add release year in my list above, definitely mandatory. And if I get a re-issue of something, I usually change the date to the original release date.

I'm also picky about track names having the proper capitalization, and if there's a featured artist it must be "(feat. artist name)". Basically I follow RYM rules for all that.

But if there's a bonus track on an album, that is NOT part of the track name. I will sometimes break that off into a separate album folder called "album name [Bonus Tracks]".

djchameleon · 06-13-2013, 03:15 PM

Yeah, that OP is super anal and way more than I do.

I just make sure Artist, Genre, Producers/Composers and Year is correct.
Sometimes, I will have to download the album cover art and add that in as well.

I'm really particular about making sure the featured artists aren't under song title and make sure they are under song artist box where they belong.

Sidewinder I do that exactly with featured artists too. I hate when it's something other than that so I have to fix it.

**Scarlett O'Hara** · 06-13-2013, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidewinder

I actually like having "[Disc One]" etc so they are broken up into separate folders, only because it makes it easier to split up the listening into multiple parts.

I forgot to add release year in my list above, definitely mandatory. And if I get a re-issue of something, I usually change the date to the original release date.

I'm also picky about track names having the proper capitalization, and if there's a featured artist it must be "(feat. artist name)". Basically I follow RYM rules for all that.

But if there's a bonus track on an album, that is NOT part of the track name. I will sometimes break that off into a separate album folder called "album name [Bonus Tracks]".

Definitely agree about them being split into Disk 1, Disk 2.

I have to have the song title, artist and album perfect. It effects last.fm otherwise. But I'm definitely not that anal about release date, etc.

anathematized_one · 06-13-2013, 04:03 PM

I forgot to mention genre I think? Yeah, I am anal about that too.

As far as multiple disk releases, mine are normaly organised as:
Music > Dawn (Swe) > (2004) Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy) > [folder]Disk 1, [folder]Disk 2
Then the tracks for each disk in their respective disk folders.

Track numbers listed 1-end on each disk, not 1-11 in disk 1 and 12-23 in disk 2 but 1-11 and 1-12.

I guess I am far more anal than most. I will actually delete bonus tracks and put the original art and dates and track listing if the only difference on a re-issue is bonus tracks.

Also with multiple disk releases, I put the album title as-is with no [Disk 1/Disk 2] in the album field.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanilla

Definitely agree about them being split into Disk 1, Disk 2.

I have to have the song title, artist and album perfect. It effects last.fm otherwise. But I'm definitely not that anal about release date, etc.

Eh, I used to worry about last.fm being screwed up but then I gave up because much of what I listen to is screwed up on Last.fm itself and Last.fm used to try and correct my already correct stuff to the incorrect listing they had. I gave up on that a while back though. That and certain artists show up lower than they should, like Mike Oldfield - (1990) Amarock because that album is only one track, then other artists would show up higher than they should, like Diabolical Masquerade - (2001) Death's Design which has 61 tracks (for a normal 40 minute-ish album). So last.fm doesn't factor in for me at all when tagging mp3s.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

**Scarlett O'Hara** · 06-13-2013, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anathematized_one

I forgot to mention genre I think? Yeah, I am anal about that too.

As far as multiple disk releases, mine are normaly organised as:
Music > Dawn (Swe) > (2004) Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy) > [folder]Disk 1, [folder]Disk 2
Then the tracks for each disk in their respective disk folders.

Track numbers listed 1-end on each disk, not 1-11 in disk 1 and 12-23 in disk 2 but 1-11 and 1-12.

I guess I am far more anal than most. I will actually delete bonus tracks and put the original art and dates and track listing if the only difference on a re-issue is bonus tracks.

Also with multiple disk releases, I put the album title as-is with no [Disk 1/Disk 2] in the album field.

Eh, I used to worry about last.fm being screwed up but then I gave up because much of what I listen to is screwed up on Last.fm itself and Last.fm used to try and correct my already correct stuff to the incorrect listing they had. I gave up on that a while back though. That and certain artists show up lower than they should, like Mike Oldfield - (1990) Amarock because that album is only one track, then other artists would show up higher than they should, like Diabolical Masquerade - (2001) Death's Design which has 61 tracks (for a normal 40 minute-ish album). So last.fm doesn't factor in for me at all when tagging mp3s.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

I can't believe you don't put the disk number! How can you call yourself anal then? Lol.

Last.fm has to be right for me or I get annoyed that my stats are not accurate.

anathematized_one · 06-13-2013, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanilla

I can't believe you don't put the disk number! How can you call yourself anal then? Lol.

Last.fm has to be right for me or I get annoyed that my stats are not accurate.

Because I put the disk number under the Disknumber field, not the Album Title field?

**Scarlett O'Hara** · 06-13-2013, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anathematized_one

Because I put the disk number under the Disknumber field, not the Album Title field?

Oh right. I must not of read that. I really need sleep.

06-13-2013, 12:44 PM	#1 (permalink)
anathematized_one Music Addict Join Date: May 2013 Location: Someplace Awful Posts: 123	Media Tagging (mp3, wav, etc) - How Anal Do You Get? I was just curious. Tagging Formats For me, as an example, I absolutely DESPISE APE tags. I will rage to myself about how stupid people are, wondering why they'd use an inferior tag format (to ID3v2), much less use a tag format that isn't NEARLY as widely used or recognised. Apparently there is an APEv2 now, but I've yet to come across it. Either way, the standard APE appends the tag data at the end of the file? How does that make sense? Just in my head alone I am thinking the program playing the files must read the entire file if it is played from the disk, or must pre-buffer every time to find that thing at the end but it also has to specifically know to look for that. Just stupid. My preference is for ID3v2 UTF-16; I can encode everything I want in any language and it is recognised by practically everything. What Tags to Encode *Album and Track Title* How specific do yous get here? Do you go with what it should have been titled or do you go with what the actual track is listed as? Example, in German, even with song titles, you use normal capitalisation rules meaning only nouns (regardless of being proper or improper) are capitalised (but not pronouns). However if a band is from Germany but uses an English song title, do you use English capitalisation conventions (all words capitalised or all words except articles, etc) or German capitalisation conventions? Say this track of mine as an example, „Ich bin den ewigen Tränenreichen‟ or "I Am the Eternal Lacrimosa". The first word is always capitalised in German but the only other noun in the title is "Tränenreichen", but let's just say my band was based in Germany and I decided to use the English title. Would you tag it "I Am the Eternal Lacrimosa" or "I am the eternal Lacrimosa"? Personally, I typically go with the conventions of the language that the title is in. There are exceptions where the capitalisation of the title is relevant (say "hIV+", the album title for an album by Havoc Unit). Also, do you include in the track field any sort of extra information like "(featuring So-and-So)" for guest appearances, especially when listed as such on the album; or "(Such-and-Such-Band Cover)" for cover songs? *Artist and Album Artist* Do you guys use both of these fields? Do you use each one differently? In most cases, both fields are identical to me but I still use both even when they're identical, but I always put the proper band/artist name in the artist field and if there are multiple bands with the same name, in the album artist field, I will put the 3 letter country code as well. Example: Quo Vadis (Can) and Quo Vadis (Pol) both have the same name in the artist field but the country code added in the Album Artist field. What about artists by name, do you put the last name first or the first name first? Me, I always put the first name first, Example: Richard Wagner and not Wagner, Richard. Part of this reason for me is I like both Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann. So if I want to listen to Clara Schumann and not Robert, I'm thinking Clara Schumann so instantly, type in "cla" and get there without having to worry with accidentally clicking the wrong one. Or what about a band with a name that begins with an article such as "the" or something? The Embraced for example I put as "The Embraced" as opposed to "Embraced, The". *Track and Disknumber* How do you list the track numbers? For me, it has to be 1, 2, 3 etc. I cannot stand 01, 02, 03... and I absolutely loathe either format listed as 1/10, 2/10... or 01/10... 02/10... and so on. It is just really bleh to me and irrelevant as when I load an album into a media player, I will load alphabetically by track and I have the tracks saved as '01 - Song Title'. I am the same way with disk numbers, must be 1, 2, 3 not 1/1 or 1/2, 2/2. I also always put a disk number even if there is only one disk. Composer Do you ever fill this field in? I do for each individual track if I can find the information. *Publisher* I also use this field. However, do you put the original publisher or do you put the publisher for the version you have? I put the publisher for the version I have, unless the version I have is no different than the original in which case I put the original. *Album Art* Use it? I do too, and I always have to have the original album cover with at least 500x500 px. Other Tags Do you use these too? Like lyric tags or anything like that? I don't use any others other than what I mentioned, but I am still curious as to others that other people use. File Naming and Organisation How do you name/organise your files? Personally, I use Music Folder > Artist (Country Code if Necessary) > (Year) Album Title > music files. For the actual music file name, I use the format string $num(%track%,2) - $replace(%title%,:, -,/,_) which may differ on Mp3 tagging programs or mp3 reading programs, but that's just what I use in Mp3Tag for converting the tag to file name. The actual name comes out as: 01 - Song Title.mp3. So my overall organisation looks like: Music Folder\Quo Vadis (Pol)\(1997) Uran\ 01 - Intro.mp3 02 - Uran.mp3 [...] 06 - Nie każdy [...] 14 - Człowiek swoim wrogiem.mp3 __________________ Sardonicus YouTube Channel

06-13-2013, 12:50 PM	#2 (permalink)
sidewinder Engorged Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 5,536	I'm anal, but this thread is too anal for me. Since I use iTunes to manage my library and play music, along with my iPhone, I simply use iTunes to tag or alter tags. Artist Track Title Album Title Track # Number of tracks on album Disc 1 of # Year Genre Album Art Everything else is ideally left blank, though I won't erase composer tags if they're already there and accurate. File Names I used to be anal about the file names too, with "01 Name of Track.mp3" as my preferred format, but these days I don't take the time to fix the names if they're not capitalized or if the artist name happens to also be in the file name. I do require the track number to be there and first, though. File Organization Music > Artist > Album __________________ last.fm \| my collection on RYM \| vinyl instagram @allthatyouseeandhear I'd love to see your signature/links too, but the huge and obnoxious ones have caused me to block all signatures. Last edited by sidewinder; 06-13-2013 at 01:41 PM.

06-13-2013, 01:11 PM	#3 (permalink)
Mojo Melancholia Eternally Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: England Posts: 5,018	For some reason the genre and the release year are the tags I get the most anal about. They have to be completed. The file names dont mean anything to me, but the track title tags have to be capitalised and accurate, including any brackets and so on. The album art must be tagged, disc numbers if there are more than one, track numbers, artist, album etc. Everything else I wouldn't bother myself to fix, and I would organise it Music > Artist > Album. I'm also particularly fussy about each disc of a multiple-disc album, or boxset, having a different album title, ie '____ Disc One' and '___Disc Two'. I can't have that. It all needs to be organised under one title, with the disc numbers tagged so it appears in the correct order and as a single album. __________________ Last.FM \| Echoes and Dust

06-13-2013, 01:51 PM	#4 (permalink)
sidewinder Engorged Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 5,536	I actually like having "[Disc One]" etc so they are broken up into separate folders, only because it makes it easier to split up the listening into multiple parts. I forgot to add release year in my list above, definitely mandatory. And if I get a re-issue of something, I usually change the date to the original release date. I'm also picky about track names having the proper capitalization, and if there's a featured artist it must be "(feat. artist name)". Basically I follow RYM rules for all that. But if there's a bonus track on an album, that is NOT part of the track name. I will sometimes break that off into a separate album folder called "album name [Bonus Tracks]". __________________ last.fm \| my collection on RYM \| vinyl instagram @allthatyouseeandhear I'd love to see your signature/links too, but the huge and obnoxious ones have caused me to block all signatures.