[Arkats]

Dear friends,

I have decided to shift from iTunes to MusicBee (windows 8.1). I would like to take advantage of it for erasing and cleaning some tags of my music files.

1. A part of my library is in aac, the other one in mp3.

2. Along the years, I have properly tagged all my files with iTunes (various versions on the last fifteen years on Mac and PC) and after inspection I have some ID3v1.1, ID3v2.2, ID3V2.3 and ID3v2.4.

3. I have planned to erase all ID3v1 (to avoid problem when using my files with other soft or hardware) and to convert all the rest in ID3v2.3 with text encoding UTF16 (knowing that most of my data are written in French and English but I have also some Chinese, Arabic or Hebraic texts).

4. I have also planned to erase (aac and mp3) all unneeded tags from Apple like iTunNORM, iTunSMPB, iTunMOVI, iTunes_CDDB_xx, //www.cddb.com, Account Type and name, Artist and catalog and type ID, etc.

5. I have played a bit with Mp3tag and Kid3 on a test folder but I haven't found the way to proceed in one batch and I have noticed for example that Kid3 was changing (on some albums?!) the type of music into a number (like jazz into 8 according to the norm) even if I was not touching the ID3v2 tag and "type as text instead of numbers" is ticked in the options!

6. I have read also about APE but I don't really understand nor see where it is.

7. Finally, I would like also when I will import all my files into MusicBee to structure all the files' names in the same way.

8. And for sure, I don't want to mess up my library (25,000 files).

So, do you think:

Q1: that points 3 and 4 are good ideas?

Q2: which tools and process would you recommend to me?

Q3: what to do with point 6?

Q4: is point 7 a good idea? and if yes which files' name structure do you recommend?

If needed I can give other specific details.

Thank you so much for your help!

Laurent

 

[Roseval]

6 - APE can be found here: http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
It is one of the lossless compression codecs.
Over the years FLAC has gained a much wider support.
Don’t know if MusicBee supports APE
I do think FLAC your best bet.

7- Doubtfull. Make sure all tracks belonging to an album are in the same dir.
Having the file names start with a track number might be convenient if you are in need of browsing a file system. Otherwise I don’t see much use of file names.

 

[m-i-c-k-e-y]

For around 15yrs now I am using this program for burning cd, coverting audio and editing metadata: https://www.poikosoft.com

Too complicated for me on what you are after. But the Metadata editor of the said program is top notch.

Like today. Discovered that some albums have no cover pictures. Highlighted the files in explorer(pc) right click, edit metadata, download cover and save.

Hope it helps.

 

[Arkats]

6 - APE is one of the lossless compression codecs.

Dear Roseval, thank you for your comments.
Concerning APE, I was not on the compression format but on the APE tag used in music files: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APE_tag
So, it seams that it is somewhere in the file but I haven't seen anything like that going into the metadata with Mp3tag and Kid3.

Having the file names start with a track number might be convenient if you are in need of browsing a file system. Otherwise I don’t see much use of file names.

That's a good point... will I need to browse into the files? I don't know. May be I should consider the French expression saying "Better is the enemy of good" (I don't know if it means something in English said like that...)

 

[Arkats]

For around 15yrs now I am using this program for burning cd, coverting audio and editing metadata: https://www.poikosoft.com.

Dear m-i-c-k-e-y, thank you very much for your comment.
The soft seems very serious and good. So, I keep the link. But today, I first try to find a soft only dedicated to ID tags management (if possible). Thanks!

 

[Roseval]

I must admit using the APE tagging schema outside the APE file type is new to me.
I expect most media players won’t support this convention.

Sometimes you will miss a track. In these cases it is convenient to have 1 folder per CD as a file structure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good
I know it as “jede konsequenz führt zum teufel”

 

[m-i-c-k-e-y]

You're welcome Bro!

 

[Arkats]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good
I know it as “jede konsequenz führt zum teufel”

Thank you! Interesting to learn that the expression is not French but from Italy in the 17th century!!
Nice your WTC website many interesting information!

 

[properlydeafnd]

I've used the Jaikoz tag editor for years...it's extremely powerful once you figure out it's quirks. http://www.jthink.net/jaikoz/

 

[Arkats]

I've used the Jaikoz tag editor for years...it's extremely powerful once you figure out it's quirks. http://www.jthink.net/jaikoz/

Dear properlydeafnd, thank you very much for the advise. I have checked and it seems quite interesting. So I will start with the trial version and see how it goes!!