Hey! I got files from multiple sources. cd, P2P mp3's. I have a clarion DXZ cd/mp3 player with a usb port for ipob/flash drives. I have 64gb flash drive that I've loaded a bunch of music on. I think what I'm what to know is how do I tag it so the the artist and song title display correctly. Some do, some don't, I guess the ones that do have the id tag do, correct? I've tied to group by artist, and put the albums in cronological order not alahabetized, I'm and old guy and anal... good luck right? I also like to get them to have the same bit rate quality and volume. I have access to multiple programs. If what I need isn't here let me know? Mediamonkey Goldwave Turnbite Riverpast vaudio converter Xrecode Freerip3 Some of my files FLAC. How do convert them so every has the same quality and volume? I greatly appreciate any help....
I am not knowledgeable about the programs that you list. These are the programs that I depend on when working with mp3's... http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/ http://www.mp3tag.de/en/screenshots.html http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html These are free and very good programs. Hope this may help.
my favorite mp3 tagger program is called Tag&Rename. It has so many functions and features its ridiculous. you can tag mp3s from the filename, the freedB, or manually. it can rename the mp3 files as well. Incredibly thorough and fairly easy to use. It is not free however, but I'm pretty sure the 30 day trial is unrestricted.
I would check out mp3_tag. I like it the best for bulk tagging and tagging using an internet database. I would suggest spending 25 USD/year for dbPowerAmp converter. You are saving tons of money on p2p so you should be able to 'afford it'. It is the high-end converter and ripper. I have been on this board many years. I have seen almost every ripper and converter screw up except for this one. I convert and rip to mp3s because they are read by every thing. I use VBR when ever I can useing abr when I have to. I will add another post that details a conversion warning after I post this. Here it is http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/753587 The LAME encoder is the cleanest encoder. Maxed out (320 CBR or the extreme setting V0 for VBR) will have an identical wave pattern as lossless after the lossless has been filtered for ultrasonics. VBR (Variable bit rate) mp3s are my format of choice. They offer the best ratio for file size and quality. I rip with LAME with slow analysis and V0 setting for VBRs. This is vast overkill but that is my choice. I convert using Helix. It is almost as good as LAME but is blazing fast especially if you have a dual core CPU. The ripping process is slow and using LAME does not noticably slow the rip down. Conversions are 10-20 times faster with Helix. The Helix artifacts are high enough pitch that a 30 year old could hear the tone in a hearing test. However, even a 30 year old audiophyle can't pick the artifact out of music even though he knows exactly where it is because he can see it graphically. I convert lossless to Helix VRB again at the hightest quality setting. If a 30 year old can't hear the artifacts I sure can't. I have not normalized my music yet. Media Monkey has improved its process but I still am reluctant to normalize/level with it. I might use foobar to level/normalize my library. That is the audiophile's audio manager. It is weak and hard to use vs Media Monkey. I am waiting until my library has reached a near steady state. Then I will research carefully before I convert my entire library. You have to do it all at one time and my library has cost me thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars so I don't want to screw it up. I would suggest checking out 2 Media Monkey script reports. Only albums and discography. Only albums lists your libray by artist, album, how many tunes you have, total tunes on the album . Discography will create a web page with every album that has at least one tune by that selected artist. There are links to where you can purchase/get info/listen to the album. You can find these in the script forum. One last thing, a suggestion for bulk tagging. I do not do any until I think I will not add any more albums for an artist. My music is arranged in folders as artist/album/tunes. I open the artist folder in mp3_tag. This opens all the albums for that artist. I batch all the artist name tags to be identical. Before that I copy out all the artist names that I want to preserve in a comment field. I do this when multiple artists are listed. This way the database will reflect how I organized my music. When I want to play an artist I can simply select the artist to play instead of having 10 different sets of the artist because of a secondary artist.
Hey Mez, I've copied and posted your 2 post in to a word.doc and saved it as "Mez's MP3 database guide. Is this the program you were refering to? http://softwonder.com/product/33835/mp3Tag_Pro.htm I googled MP3_tag and got several hits and I am unsure of which one you were refering to. Maybe you could add to this post after some more thought adding anything else you might think relevent and make a sticky guide. It would be very helpful the old guys like me trying to catch up.
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ This isn't the official site but it has a picture of the interface. I don't use it very often. I have several but this is the only one I use now. The most valuable tool I recommended is the poweramp converter. It is a must have for dealing with what you get from P2P. There is a bit of a learning curve. Each encoder has to be installed seperatly and only instal what you need. Media Monkey as built ins and scrips for handling common tag screw ups such as you can swap artist and title tags. My advice is work on the empty tags first. MM has the best utility for grabbing tag data out of the file names because you see what you will get and it has more features.
agreed with Mez. dbpoweramp is a great converter for your FLAC files. Would convert to mp3 LAME personally or the one Mez describes above. this will be a much smaller file size for use in your portable audio device. IF you use LAME set to V2 which will get you about 192kbps and is high quality. Also, I use MP3Gain to normalize volume. and you dont have to worry about it altering or degrading the quality of the file as it actually incorporates the volume info into the metadata of the file. its free and easy to use.
Thanks guys, I have installed a Clarion multi-format head unit in my car that has a USB input. So I bought a 64gb flash drive to load music on. Some of my files are tagged and , some are not. The volume of the various files is all over the place. Excuse me if I don't use the correct terms, I'm an old guy but what I'd like to be able to do is have the artist and song display on the lcd screen. There is also another thing I'd like to do is to be able to have artist releases grouped together. I'm also and Old anal guy and like the albums list in order of release like 1st,2nd, 3rd ect. Can I just put a number or letter 123,abc in front of the album so it list in the order I want then to,. or what do I need to do. I imaging I'd use the taged converter for that but I need to know what to do. Thanks for helping an old guy out,
hey Glaze, the first thing I would do is take that music on your usb drive and plug it into your computer. download MP3Gain and normalize the volumes to your liking or use the default volume they use (i think 89 db?) and now you will have normalized volume. Now, I dont know your model of that Clarion but it looks like these models play only mp3/wma, so your FLAC files wont work, nor will itunes downloaded files like AAC or M4A files. So as above as Mez mentioned your best bet is conversion to an mp3 file. i would personally not use wma, but thats just my opinion. Now, you will need a tagging software to fix all the tags for your files so you your clarion can display the right info. (some of these mentioned above) For what I gather you want to do, I think cant be done without a media player of some kind which can group and organize your tag info a zillion different ways according to your liking. You cant do that right from a USB drive unless you yourself, reorganizes the files in the drive by creating new folders for artists then in that folder have sub folder for albums by that artist. That way when you plug the USB into the car unit you can search folders and subfolders for the mp3s you want to play and your artists releases will all be in one folder. Perhaps another person or Mez can explain a better way as well?
tim22 is right. You can't expect a disk to operate like an mp3 player. That is one reason you pay more per a given size. The best you can do is go to a random play. 192 BR is a pratical maximum. I over kill. I figure I get a 20X compression I can waist a little disk space. I am an old timer as well. I do not think I can make out above 160 BR and 160 BR. It is customary to have the year in front or in back of the album name in a discograhy. You ought to put it up front. The huge problem with WMA, AAC, M4a, ect is that they do not have uniform quality with in the tune. Not only do they not play on everything they do not convert well to anything and do not convert to constant quality well at all. Your wish to have everything the same quality is not pratical. Yes you can normalize the volume but not the quality. Would you really that Flac and degrad so it sounds like the radio? It would be a great trick to take crap and make it into HiFi. That would be worth billions. The best you can do is try to find good replacemets. Use Media Monkey to create mp3 CDs. They hold 150 +/- 50 files and many hours of listening. I find their size as not too big and not too small.
hey guyzz, i m angie thom. bought new car audio from sound and alarm. want to install it manually. plz help me with the processor. Thanks
Not everyone in this forum installs car sterios. I would create a new thread and hope you get an answer.
Do not try to re-encode your existing mp3's at a different bit rate, this will noticably reduce the quality of the song.
I will second zonedout's warning. Converting from any lossy to anything will 'kill' the fidelity of your audio. Although they may sound great they will not after the conversion. To convert, I believe you need to go to a lossless intermediate format. The resulting intermediate lossless is not the same as the original. The end product is a 'dead' sounding product. The flac is lossles. It can be converted effortlessly and cleanly to anything. I would convert to mp3 or a VBR mp3 because they are played by most if not all devices. Once converted, the should not be converted or edited. Both require conversion to lossless. You might want to keep the lossless as an archive. I would keep the stuff you make high quality. It might be stupid to make low quality form the lossless just because you have some low quality. Expect not to have uniform quality unless you did all the ripping or you got everything from itunes (uniform low quality). For God's sake do not convert to a higher bit rate. You can't make quality from nothing. All you will do is TRASH what you have because you are converting again. Instead of improving you will reduce the quality but take up more disk space. You can NORMALIZEyour music. That has to do with volume not quality.
