MP3 text Changing.

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Does,anyone know of a software,wich enables you to change the text,inside an MP3.
I,know,you can just right-click an MP3 and change the visible text.
But.some MP3`s have the text encoded inside the MP3 and you can`t change that.
It,wouldn`t be a problem had these guys(or girls)the same knowledge about music,as they have about making MP3`s.
Right song,wrong artist or vice versa.
So,I`m looking for some software that breaks the MP3 open and allows you to change the text from the inside.

Greetz.

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I assume you are talking about the ID3 tag, which includes some of the following, and more:

• Artist
• Song Title
• Album
• Year
• Genre[/list]If that’s the case, here’s a Google search all loaded up and ready to go for you. You can also edit the ID3 tag from nearly all media players on the market – each one is different, of course – and believe it or not, Windows Media Player (the XP version) excels at this. Also excellent is MusicMatch Jukebox. I won’t even go the Real route because I don’t care for ads and spyware, and Real has a history of both.

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Slight on the thread re MusicMatch. I have only started burning MP3’s lately (got a DVD player that reads MP3 last winter solstice, burner two months ago, maybe a car player for next winter solstice?), and I’m using MMJB. Problem is, MMJB doesn’t seem to burn the tracks in the same order I list them. Anybody know if I’m missing a setting or something?

Sounds weird when the tracks jump from Divinyls “All the Boys in Town” to Taj Mahals’ “Cakewalk into Town”, if you know what I mean.

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Yes that`s exactly what I,mean.
I,think I`ll,try “Tag & Rename 2.0.5”,it`s only 1290k.
Small program that hopefully does what the name says.
Thanks again Mark.

Greetz.

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Check out this thread for a roll your own approach using Excel.

Andrew C

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Thanks,for that reminder.
I,just took a quick look at it and it “sounds”interesting.
Needs some concentrated reading though,but that never hurt anybody.

Greetz.

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You,say you can change the MP3`s,Artist,Song,Album etc.
By using your mediaplayer.
My player has “Read Only Access”to the files.
So,if I,change that to “Full Access”I,can change whatever is listed in the Media-Library permanantly?
In other words can I,change,what`s inside the file,using this way or just the way it is listed in the library?

Greetz.

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The mothod for changing that data depends on your media player, but I would be surprised if you couldn’t edit it. What are you using?

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I`m using Windows Media Player version 7.
And this is some of the garbage I`m talking about.

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Or this,I`m sure it`s on that album,but it`s a collection album.
The original album for”Echoes” ofcourse is “Meddle”.
And the origonal album for “The Great Gig In The Sky” is ofcourse “The Dark Side Of The Moon”.
Besides that it ain`t Classic Rock but Psychedelic Rock or Symphonic Rock wich ever you prever.
Now this is the stuff that I,want to correct.

Greetz.

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I,just changed the settings in my Media Player from “Read Only”to,
“Full Access”.
Then I,edited some MP3`s,changed back to “Read Only Access”and,
removed all files from the Media Library.
Then I,searched My Documents(where all my music is)in my Media Player,to load,
them back into the library.
But the edited M`P3`s where changed back to their old misinformation.
So,that`s not the way to do it.
So,is there a way to change them with Windows Media Player 7 and have them stay that way.

Greetz.

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I`m thinking of downloading the latest version of MusicMatch.
I`ve read your other post`s on MusicMatch and although you say it uses up,
a lot of resources(someone said:”It`s kind of piggish”),I,want to give it a try.
But there`s something that troubles me,and that`s the fact that it has a cd-burner in it.
Because I`m using Nero for burning cd`s and I`m not gonna change that,because it`s simply the best overall burner.
Now since you seem to be some kind of an expert on MusicMatch,can you tell me how it co-excists with Nero.
I`ve read all the FAQ`s on MusicMatch but it says nothing on how it co-excists with any other cd- burning progs.
For instance can I,disable the cd-burning function of MusicMatch.
I,only want to set it as my MP3 default player(Jukebox).
And use the ID3 tag option to rename files.
Now these functions can be selected when installing the software.
So,my quistion again,can I,select not to use the cd-burner of MusicMatch?

Greetz.

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You don’t have to use MMJB’s burning capabilities, but they are convenient when building a burn playlist. I’ll have to look into Nero, as the only other one I have used is Roxio; but then I’m new at this.

In my experience with V6.1, MMJB gets really slow to select files from the track roster as the playlist gets large, and the repainting of the playlist is very slow as you scroll through it with playlists of over 150 tracks.

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John answered the main point already – just because it can burn CDs doesn’t mean that it will interfere with other applications that do. How does it coexist? Just fine – I’ve had it installed alongside EZCD, Nero, and another little app called FireBurner. I never, ever had an issue with it. When you install it, watch out for it stealing other file types that you don’t want it to be the default player for. I don’t think it was me that stated it was a resource hog. Piggish, maybe – but it isn’t hard on your resources.

John, I don’t know what constitutes a large playlist for you but I didn’t have that issue with MMJB. Winamp, on the other hand, will positively if you try to add large numbers, either with the “enqueue” function or by adding a directory with a large number of files in it. The latest version of MMJB is pretty decent, as far as I can see.

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Mark, I may be confusing the terminology, but by Playlist I mean the tracks currently selected to play through MMJB, where “Track Roster” is the Library (& I think that’s what MMJB calls it) of all the tracks registered with MMJB. On a 256Mb RAM 1.8 Ghz Pentium XP machine, if I have more than say 100 tracks on the playlist, scrolling and manipulating the playlist is very slow, and right clicking library files to add to the play list is so slow to respond that sometime I’m not sure that I right clicked the tracks at all!

If you have any suggestions to goose it, let me know. What version are you on? Most recent is 7.2 I think.

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I’m using 7.2, recently upgraded. Maybe I shouldn’t say I’m using it though – I’m given to using Exact Audio Copy to rip my CDs because I think it is unbeatable in regards to the end-quality of the sound. It’s not as intuitive, but if you take a bit of time, well worth the effort.

I’ll have to sit down and take a looky-loo at large numbers of files in the playlist. I’m an old-school fan of Winamp 2.x and it’s usually what I use to listen to audio – MMJB is a great program but it’s a bit slower to launch in my past experience, and I need immediate gratification. I did a little Googling and didn’t see anything about the playlist issue you described, but then again, searching the Internet with a keyword like “slow” is not the best way to get results either!

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It appears that EAC takes some plug-in tweaks to encode to MP3. Are you doing direct rips to the 14Kbps AIFF (tell me if I have the jargon wrong!), or are you converting to MP3’s? I prefer to rip to VBR MP3’s for space reasons.

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Yes, EAC does require a plug-in to encode the audio files into MP3 format. I’m using the LAME plug-in to do the encoding. I’ve also used the Blade encoder as a plug in but I didn’t care for the sound quality as much (I’m really really picky so that may just be a nit).

It first rips to WAV format, then encodes into VBR MP3, at 192 Kbps. The files are slightly larger that way, but they sound EXCELLENT. You can reduce the bitrate and change other options too, most people prefer 128K for their encoding because it’s a smaller file, but I prefer to err on the side of quality.

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Can EAC convert cda files to MP3pro files?

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EAC doesn’t actually do the conversion – it provides a unified interface for a two-step process, and one of those steps is to use a software encoder to make a compressed audio file as the output. In other words, it’s doing all of the grunt work for you.

1) The audio is extracted in pure digital format. To use popular terminology, it’s “ripped”. Think of this as akin to copying an 8-track (gasp) or LP to cassette – except in this case, you’re going from CD to a computer file.

2) Once the audio is in the computer file, in its raw, uncompressed (WAV) format, you can manipulate it any number of ways. EAC will easily interface with several codecs, such as LAME for conversion to MP3, or just about any other of your choosing. The basic premmise of these codecs is the same: to squish the file down as much as possible without audibly destroying it. It’s the JPG of sound.

Your challenge is to find a software codec that can encode into the mp3PRO format. Lucky for you, it’s available for free download at Thomson Multimedia or at mp3prozone.com. The free codec appears to be limited – encoding maxes out at 64KBPs. The following is quoted from the Thomson player help file: [indent]

---

mp3PRO at 64 kbps performs better than mp3 at 96 kbps

---

[/indent] I typically encode in MP3 at no less than 160K, usually 192K. I haven’t had much time to play with this to determine if there is an audible difference but I can assure you that I shall. I expect the difference to my picky ears will be noticeable. The WMA standard does much of what mp3PRO does (space savings and great sound quality) and there’s no penalty/fee/license to use it.

I also looked at an article from PCWorld that may be of interest in the general scheme of MP3pro. Lastly, there is a quickie tutorial on creating mp3PRO files with the Thomson player/encodere here.

Have fun!!

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As I,understand it only MP3`s playing at 128 KBPs are C.D. quality.
Every other speed is called near C.D.quality
If there`s a choice I,always download the file which is 128 KBPs.

Greetz.

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Calling any MP3 “CD quality” is kind of misleading. To compress the file size and make it more manageable, some data has to be thrown away. This is known as lossy compression because the lost data can never be reconstructed from what’s left. Look at a poorly rendered JPG sometime, particularly where there are large areas of the same or similar colors, and you will see the blocky artifacts that lossy compression leaves in an image. Remember too, that CDs can contain more sound information than the human ear can keep up with – which is what makes the compression viable. The same thing is happening with an MP3 that happens in a JPG: data is lost, forever, for good – and you probably won’t notice.

At 128KBPs, you’re compromising between a smaller file size versus how much audio information that you are discarding. Higher bitrates throw away less data at the cost of a larger file. I personally can hear the difference between a file encoded at 128k and one encoded at 190k (my usual preference). 128 is probably the best compromise between size and sound.

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I,think I,got it, the lower the KBPs speed,the smaller the file but the poorer the sound quality.(You loose too much of the origional data)
And the higher the KBPs speed the larger the actual file but the better the sound quality.(Larger up to a point of course).
So to speak 128KBPs is the break even point of MP3 files.
Yes,you loose some data but the quality doesn`t suffer too much and the file size is acceptable.
Thanks for that explanation Mark.

Greetz.

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And I assume you understand the value of Variable Bit Rate, which expands the bit rate higher when the music is complex, lowers it when it is more simple. Like Mark, I use mostly 192 Kbps VBR’s, which gives me a much larger file than a fixed bit rate, but very good quality, and file size is still about only 10% of a DAC.

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I,understand the value of it alright,but don`t ask me how it works or how to make one.

Greetz.

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I typically encode in MP3 at no less than 160K, usually 192K. Have recently been converting SHNs (compressed WAVs) to play on an iPod. This has led me to revisit my settings in Exact Audio Copy. EAC “High Quality” uses a LAME setting of 2 – which is the same whether you set your VBR to 192 or 320. (Supposedly a LAME setting of better than 2 is imperceptible to most ears.) Using LAME – on the command line – at 0 (the actual highest setting) produces something MUCH clearer, but also a smaller file size. (~10% less on a test.) Am I missing something – or is it just a case of EAC’s configuration of my CD drive settings?

Edited: Looks like I picked a rogue example. As expected, other tests show larger files.

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I typically encode in MP3 at no less than 160K, usually 192K. Have recently been converting SHNs (compressed WAVs) to play on an iPod. This has led me to revisit my settings in Exact Audio Copy. EAC “High Quality” uses a LAME setting of 2 – which is the same whether you set your VBR to 192 or 320. (Supposedly a LAME setting of better than 2 is imperceptible to most ears.) Using LAME – on the command line – at 0 (the actual highest setting) produces something MUCH clearer, but also a smaller file size. (~10% less on a test.) Am I missing something – or is it just a case of EAC’s configuration of my CD drive settings?

Edited: Looks like I picked a rogue example. As expected, other tests show larger files.

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Why do you have so many? Does each one have a special use for you? Would you share with us?

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I presume you mean “many” in reference to media players…? I hope so, because looking over this I ended up writing a short novel.

I use MusicMatch for quick and dirty rips. MusicMatch does not allow you to use alternate encoding plug-ins, such as LAME (my favorite) or Blade. The Fraunhofer codec, which (to my ears) produces overly-bright sounding files, is the encoding engine. MMJB also allows for some interesting options, such as track fading and offsets, which are admittedly somewhat advanced. I also use it to produce “samplers” for various purposes. The CD burning facilities it provides are too basic for my tastes so I don’t use them at all. The other turn-off for me is the user interface, which is somewhat obtuse and confusing. Once it’s set up, it’s great – and an excellent media manager.

Exact Audio Copy is my preferred “ripper” but it takes a bit of effort to use, and for someone new to digital media on a computer it’s probably not a great choice because it assumes familiarity with some advanced concepts. It excels with media (CD) that is scuffed and hard to read, it uses excellent error-handling routines to extract the digital audio – MMJB will drop back to analog (unless they have changed that recently) and the resulting MP3 sounds just like it would in a low-end CD player….scratchy, skippy and bumpy. You can use whatever encoding engine you choose with this free download. Like MusicMatch, this application will query the FreeDB and download the track listings for CDs that you put in.

I prefer the version of Windows Media Player in XP to manage my video library. It’s great for this – fairly intuitive, and it will play back nearly any media file you can feed it. The CD burning feature it includes is sub-par and I’ve had more than one experience with distortion in the final CD it produces. I have also heard distortion in audio tracks that aren’t present in other media applications, which I cannot find a reason for. The versions of WiMP for all flavors of Windows except XP are poor by comparison, so if you don’t have WIndows XP, it’s not an option – and I don’t have XP anywhere but on my desktop system at home.

Winamp is what I tend to use most often, because it’s small, fast loading, and has a huge base of third party skins and plug-ins for visualization and audio control. When I want to create a CD compilation, I use Winamp to produce WAV files that I can feed to Nero. EZCD used to have weird issues with converting MP3 into an audio disc – empty tracks, hiccups in the audio, and sometimes a half-track that stopped abruptly because of an error in the MP3 that you couldn’t hear, and I got into the habit of converting the files first. The down side to Winamp, and the reason that I don’t really think it’s good for most people, is that it requires direct interaction with the file system. It’s also small and hard on the eyes, so anyone who opposes squinting will not like that aspect.

In a nutshell, I’m picky, and I use different applications for their respective strengths. But you probably didn’t even notice that.

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Mark, can you supply a URL for the LAME plug-in? MP3 sites are censored by my office Admin.

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Sure thing John…here’s where I grabbed my build: http://mitiok.cjb.net/%5B/url%5D

And a few more, in case you can’t get to that site:

• http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/%5B/url%5D (This is the official LAME website)
• http://lame.sourceforge.net/%5B/url%5D (Mirror site for the LAME homepage)
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/lame%5B/url%5D
• http://hot.ee/smpman/mp3/%5B/url%5D (Includes other MP3 related tools as well)
• http://www.dors.de/razorlame/index.php%5B/url%5D (RazorLAME, a front-end for LAME that will encode standalone WAV files)[/list]

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Mark
Have you tried this one? It works great with my MP3 player

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iTunes? I’d love to use it, if I could find a Windows port. It’s excellent software so I’m told. I don’t use a portable MP3 player (it smacks of planned obsolesence to me) so that’s not one of my use considerations….but I’d be interested in hearing about your experience with iTunes.

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Mark, I have taken your direction and started using EAC and LAME ( for both), and I can now hear that the Fruenhof MP3 codec definitely encodes “bright”, enough that it’s noticeable and annoying on my midstream home stero system.

After a few false starts with EAC calling the LAME executable, I’m now doing on-the-fly conversions using the DLL, where I seem to have more fexibility on setting the VBR rate. Do you have a preference of executable over DLL, and if so why? If you are using the executable could you share your command line parameters? One thing that is annoying me is that the DLL names the resulting file ‘*.WAV’, instead of ‘*.MP3’; while this plays fine the computer, I’m wondering if I will have to rename it to MP3 to burn for use on MP3 players. I can’t find a parameter to fix this naming convention for the DLL (though I’m still not completely proficient with EAC), though it exists with the called executable.

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John, which version are you using? I’m use version 0.9 beta 4. When I installed it, I ran the configuration wizard to configure the EXE for me. I’ve always used the DLL in the past, not for any specific reason other than that was all that used to be available. In EAC’s early days you had to go through a lot of motions to hook it to the DLL in. The DLL is also capable of working with several other front ends (such as RazorLAME) where the EXE was not. Things have changed.

Under the EAC menu in the application, click on Configuration Wizard to invoke this feature. For the record, I tell the wizard I prefer accuracy – this results in an MP3 that is compressed at 192K, using VBR (Variable Bit Rate) compression to produce as small a file as possible. I leave many of the settings at the defaults because the audio quality is stunning the way it is. Certain types of music might benefit from additional tweaking, and EAC will allow you to save and load various profiles. For example, classical doesn’t have heavy low end, and is very full range – rap/hip-hop is not. One size may not fit all. It might be worth experimenting if you have time – I certainly do! I can’t give you a “recipe” because everyone has their preferences (I like to boost midrange, par example).

To set the naming conventions and for the resulting MP3, under EAC Options You will see a tab named Filename. You can set the naming of the MP3 here. I use %A – %T as the filename. Again, go through each tab carefully, there are a LOT of things that you can change. If you don’t understand the setting it’s probably best not to alter it.

To make sure that playback applications show the track and other information the way you prefer and to set file size options, click on the EAC menu and select Compression Options. On the tab with ID3 Tag you may want to change the settings. In fact, go through each tab carefully, chaging things that you recognize to suit your tastes. Same as the other options tab – if you don’t know what it is, ignore it for now.

To create the final result – an MP3 with no WAV file lingering about – these are the steps I use, after configuring EAC:

1. Grab the CD information from the FreeDB using ALT+G (think “get”), or You can configure EAC to automatically access the FreeDB. Under EAC Options – General. To enable it, you put a check next to On Unknown CDs, and then select Automatically access online freedb database. Very handy for persisntent (high-speed) Internet connections.
2. Select the tracks from the CD that I wish to record (no throwaways, just smasheroos )
3. And this, I believe, is the step you were missing: on the Action menu, under Copy Selected Tracks you have the option to copy them compressed or uncompressed. You can create MP3s automatically by simply pressing ALT+F5 or using this menu option.

Hope that helps you some – if not, of course, post back!

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Mark – Have you had any experience wusing Audiograbber? I use it to rip my CDs straight to MP3 files (with no WAV files in its wake) and it uses the Lame encoder. Is it possible to compare it to EAC (for better or worse)? So far I haven’t had any complaints – and as far as CDDB misspelling is concerned, do they still enable you to submit corrections?

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I haven’t used AudioGrabber for a few years. I prefer EAC simply because of its error-correction algorithms – which in my experience have been far superior. AudioGrabber worked well when I used it, before EAC became what it is now, and it was one of the first – I just don’t trust the on-the-fly compression. Again – not having used it I may be misguided about that aspect of it. The all-important thing is the codec that’s used, so if AG uses LAME, I would think the results would be comparable.

I think my main rason for sticking with EAC is that comfort-thingy – I’m used to it, and I like the features that it has, so I have no reason to change. There’s also the price: EAC is and AG looks to have a $25 registration. What can I say? I’m cheap!

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Excellent. That’s exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you very much.

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Thanks,Mark,that`s exactly what I,needed to know.
I`m going to give it a try and see how I,like it.

Greetz.

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I am intrigued about this text imbedded inside the MP3. Where do you see this text? I have about 2000 files and have never run across this. Is this new??

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You can see it in the play-list of your media-player.(Library).
Often,you can just change the song or artist,by right-clicking on the MP3.
But sometimes the song`s info is inside the MP3 and you can`t change that by right-clicking.
And then there are some that have just plain garbage in them,like a website(beam to http.http://www.etc.).
I,just want that out,but because it`s inside the file,you must have a program that breaks open the MP3
and allows you to change all that crap.
Hope that clears it up for you.

Greetz.

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No Bruce, it’s been there in MP3 formatted files since day one. It’s part of the file specification for that format.

In Winamp, for example, the song titles in the playlist are populated by default using ID3 information. A few years ago ID3 v2 was announced, which basically allows you to write in additional information.

Visit http://www.id3.org/history.html%5B/url%5D for a background on tagging and it’s purposes.

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I went to the site and now am intrigued with this little tidbit. First, if it is to be used to textually correctly identify a file, how is it placed there in the first place? How could the ones on Liberator’s examples (some choice tunes BTW) be encoded with the incorrect info such as the “Meddle” album misinfo?

I went rooting through my extensive collection of MP3s and am I just lucky that they are all correct or not embedded w/ the nonessential garbage?

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[indent]

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if it is to be used to textually correctly identify a file, how is it placed there in the first place?

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[/indent]It can be done through a program, such as EAC, MusicMatch, etc. Or it can be done manually.
[indent]

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How could the ones on Liberator’s examples (some choice tunes BTW) be encoded with the incorrect info such as the “Meddle” album misinfo?

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[/indent]Because some folks, the ones the record companies really hate, want to advertise their website, or tell you how to get there. And some people can’t spell, some don’t know the information, on and on.[indent]

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am I just lucky that they are all correct or not embedded w/ the nonessential garbage

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[/indent]Yup!

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I’ve noticed several spelling errors in the CDDB database information.

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Now this is some piece of software(MusicMatch).
At least a 50% sound improvement and the re-tagging is as easy as 1,2,3.
The features are too many to name them,great lay-out and the skins are beautifull.
And everything is so easy to use,a baby could work it.
The only thing that`s gonna take some getting use to is the visual change of the MP3`s.(see picture).
Thanks for recomending it.

Greetz.

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