Help wanted for beginners' guide to ID3 tags

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » February 8th, 2006, 2:32 am

I'm in the process of writing a beginners' guide to ID3 tags: what they are, why we need them, how to create/edit them.

I'd like to ask for help for the latter point.

The aim is to include brief guides to each software package out there. I can do Audacity and GarageBand myself because I use both, but have no idea how to do the tags in Goldwave or any of the other packages out there.

If you don't use Audacity or GarageBand, would you kindly post here how you do the tags? I'm looking for step-by-step guides like this:

1. Click File > Edit ID3 tags
2. In the Edit ID3 tags window, select "v2 tags"
etc...

Thank you very much!

PS In the not-too-distant future, we shall have LibriVox wikis (of which this will be one), which will allow everyone to add and edit tips more easily. However, for now, we'll do it this way! :)

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 8th, 2006, 2:50 am

I use a tag editor, MP3Tag, available from http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html It's free, but they do ask for a donation if you like it. It has a very simple interface, very fast and effective. It is a little clumsy, in that you need to confirm the changes to each file's tags, rather than confirming a batch (though the latter *may* be possible; I'm using it without investigating it).

Peter

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » February 8th, 2006, 7:12 am

I downloaded MP3Tag after Peter mentioned it and it is very easy to use. Peter, you can change the settings so it doesn't ask for confirmation for every file.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 8th, 2006, 7:35 am

Thanks, Annie: it's obviously a case of "read the manual".

Peter

RobertG · Post by **RobertG** » February 8th, 2006, 8:52 am

Nullsoft Winamp Pro (v.5.1):

1. Right-click the file name in the "now playing" pane.
2. Click "View File Info" from the contextual menu.
3. Click the check-box next to ID3v2 (on right side of dialog box).
4. Enter the tag information in the appropriate fields.
5. Click the Update button
6. Dialog box will close automatically and tag editing is complete.

Alternate method to open tag editing dialog box:

1. Select the file name in the "now playing" pane.
2. Press Alt+3 keys on the keyboard.
Steps 3-6 are the same as above.

Note: You must Stop the playing of the file in order to edit its tag.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » February 8th, 2006, 9:18 am

I use iTunes. I'll write up a guide later; please remind me if you don't hear back from me in a day or two :)

Kara

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » February 8th, 2006, 12:40 pm

Thanks, everyone. Keep 'em coming!

Kara, I've already done iTunes in my GarageBand guide. Thanks!

peastman · Post by **peastman** » February 8th, 2006, 11:04 pm

You can also use Quicktime Player. Just select "Show Movie Properties", and go to the "Annotations" tab.

Peter

vee · Post by **vee** » February 9th, 2006, 7:27 am

When I get home I'm going to checkout Songbird. It's a new open source media player, similar to iTunes. If it has a decent ID3 tag editing interface I'll let you know.

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » February 9th, 2006, 10:17 am

Thanks, vee and Peter.

Anyone else out there who doesn't use Audacity or GarageBand, or the other programs mentioned here, and can share how they do their ID3 tags?

harvey · Post by **harvey** » February 16th, 2006, 5:29 pm

Perhaps the simplest method is to use Windows Explorer in
Windows XP. Yes, it can edit ID3 tags. A big advantage of
this method over all the others I've tried is that you can
edit the tags of more than one file at a time, say, to
standardize the album or artist for sets of related files
(such as an audio book that comes in multiple files).

In Windows Explorer:
- Right-click on the MP3 file.
- Select "Properties" at the bottom of the pop-up context menu.
- Click the "Summary" tab.
- Click the "Advanced>>" button, if visible. You will see two columns, "Property" and "Value".
- Click once on any value (even if blank), and a text entry box opens.
- Type in the information.
- Repeat previous two steps as necessary.
- Click the "OK" button when finished.

One drawback of this method is that occasionally Windows
Explorer gets lost when I edit a large number of files at
once, and I have to kill it with the Task Manager. But
mostly it works just fine.

I discovered LibriVox just today, so haven't explored all
the software that's recommend. I use both Cool Edit 2000
and Total Recorder to record and edit. Exact Audio Copy (CD
ripper) also has a graphical Wave form editor and can convert
existing Wave files to MP3, and has a way to pass info to
the LAME encoder. I mostly use the RazorLame front-end for
LAME to do encoding. It also has a way to pass info to LAME
for the encoder to insert into the ID3 tag. It's clumsy,
but works okay for batch processing sets of related files,
and for recurring jobs. For example, I regularly record
certain Internet audio streams and several musical radio
programs (via a tuner connected to my PC). RazorLame can
save a set of processing parameters, including ID3 tag info,
to a named file for later reuse. If any of this interests
you, I can write up how-to's.

How do I report broken links within forum postings to other
postings? I encountered two of these looking for technical
descriptions of recording set-ups.

Rev. Steve · Post by **Rev. Steve** » February 16th, 2006, 8:31 pm

harvey wrote:Perhaps the simplest method is to use Windows Explorer in
Windows XP. Yes, it can edit ID3 tags. A big advantage of
this method over all the others I've tried is that you can
edit the tags of more than one file at a time, say, to
standardize the album or artist for sets of related files
(such as an audio book that comes in multiple files).

iTunes will let you do bulk ID3 editing too, but the advantage with iTunes is that you don?t have to use Windows.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » February 16th, 2006, 9:40 pm

harvey wrote: How do I report broken links within forum postings to other
postings? I encountered two of these looking for technical
descriptions of recording set-ups.

Hmm, best thing to do is probably post in the thread with the broken link and say HEY the link to so-and-so is broken.

Welcome to librivox :)

Kara

Mike Phillips · Post by **Mike Phillips** » February 25th, 2006, 6:43 am

No one has mentioned MP3BookHelper at http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/. It's a great tool for MP3 tags.

Cori · Post by **Cori** » February 25th, 2006, 6:55 am

I use Winamp as described above by Robert (mine's a free version 5.094, and I don't have to stop playing the file to edit it.)

But my preferred recording software, MP3DirectCut also allows it.

Simply open the Edit menu, and at the top is 'Tag ID3 and File Info'. Select that and a popup menu appears - tick/check the 'Use ID3v1 tag' box, and then you can input the information as requested by the Book Co-ordinator or by LV guidelines.