iTunes and MP3 ID3 tags

[mrgreen4242]

I've been using iTunes for Windows, and when I switch, I'll be using it on Mac as well... My major problem with it is that when you view you library, everything is sorted by ID3 tags, if the file has them. If they don't have ID3 tags then the song name defaults to the file name and they get sorted as such.

This causes all of my MP3s that don't have ID3 tags and are named with filenames like 'Artist - Album - Track Number - Song Title.mp3' or more often just 'Artist - Song Title.mp3' to be sorted alphabetically by artist mixed in with the songs that do have ID3 tags sorted by Sogn Title. When I sort by artist, they get completely mis sorted, and just shuffle to the bottom.

What I want is just to have the filename, and preferably the directory/ies it is stored in displayed. Any way to do that?

Or even better, a way to create ID3 data automatically based on the filename? IE, somethign I can do to make all MP3 files in XXX directory with filename A - S.mp3 inherit ID3 data where Artist = A and Song Title = S?

Rob

PS if that didn't make sense please tell me, I am having a hard problem describing my troubles.

 

[Marble]

I can't help you directly, but someone out there has probably written a clever applescript that could be modified to do something like this. Or you could write one yourself.

Try starting here:

http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/index.php

 

[Daniel757]

Its only for Windows, but FixTunes should help you. Not only does it fill in missing tags, but it fixes incorrect / misspelled and duplicate ones. htttp:/www.fixtunes.com is the best program I've found so far for renaming mp3 files.

FixTunes

 

[jvandergriff]

iTunes and not importing ID3 tags

I have been using iTunes on my mac for about 8 months now (12" powerbook). I originally had my collection very organized with correct tags, both of type 1 and 2. When I imported my music to my mac, I carefully added things an album at a time. Rarely did I encounter problems with it reading the id3 tags.

When I got iTunes on my PC, I was horrified at how it didn't read a single id3 tag in the entire collection. It stuck stuff clearly tagged and properly named, into unknown folders. I've had to go through and re-title everything with iTunes.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? iTunes just didn't recognize ANY of the tags that were on my mp3 files. It's incredibly frustrating.

So, my entire collection on my PC has been rendered useless, as it's impossible to find anything. The tags are still there though. I originally tagged everything with Dr.Tag. Any advice?

 

[Marble]

Well, suicide is painless, so they say.

 

[Counterfit]

Well, suicide is painless, so they say.

Is there something I'm missing here? Are you actually seriously suggesting suicide as the solution to a problem that has to do with ID3 tags in iTunes?!

 

[Mav451]

Well there's 2 things I did:

One, I created a new Smart Playlist called "Recently Added".
All you do is "selected by: Most Recently Added".
Tick "Live Updating" and your done.

This way, if anything you add doesn't have an existing tag, at least you can find it. (This helps a TON if you already have 10-20gigs of music...beats looking through thousands of songs if their limited to a SINGLE LIST).

Two, NEVER, EVER click consolidate music library. It is a death sentence to your music organization.

 

[Nny]

You could get a copy of iEatBrainz for Mac or MusicBrainz for Windows. It will look at the first 20 seconds of each song and then go find the ID3 tag on a database (kind of how CDDB works with CDs). Then if you want, there's a neat little Mac program called Export Artwork that you can use for importing artwork into iTunes. It will fetch the artwork the same way iEatBrainz fetched the ID3 (though it is often-times inaccurate on soundtracks, comedy albums, and self-titled albums). I have not found one program on Mac that does both, but there may be on Windows.

To download these programs just search www.versiontracker.com

 

[7on]

I like Consolidate Library. And if you leave your MP3 sorting to iTunes rather than Finder or Explorer.exe it is quite painless. If you want to move songs from a Mac to Windows, select all your tunes in iTunes and drag to a mounted share (or do a data CD/DVD within iTunes if it isn't networked. I personally never had a problem with iTunes ID3 tags because I let iTunes handle it and just ignore the directory structure in the computer. I don't even care what the MP3s are named in their directories anymore. They could just be named 00001.mp3, 00002.mp3, etc. and I wouldn't notice any difference.

 

[DeltaTee]

When I got iTunes on my PC, I was horrified at how it didn't read a single id3 tag in the entire collection. It stuck stuff clearly tagged and properly named, into unknown folders. I've had to go through and re-title everything with iTunes.

iTunes despises having both version 1 and version 2 ID3 tags. It defaults to editing only the version that you have as default, but will show version 1 by default for editing. It gets even better: it defaults to showing the version as version 2 (if both are included), even if it is showing the data from the version 1 tag.

My best advice: use iTunes to strip all of the ID3 tags (Convert Tags to NONE) then reconstitute them from the file names. Look on Doug's AppleSctipts for iTunes for a proper script to do the latter. Note: make sure the tracks are writable before attempting a change.