Hi Audacity Forum -
My husband and I
- renamed and re-numbered our mp3 tracks in Audacity, and then
- filled in the track info for each track (including the Track Number) in the Metadata box that seemed to have popped up for each track.
After we finished doing #1 and #2, my husband decided to record additional tracks to add to his album, and some of those tracks must be added in the middle of the album, not at the end.
Now we must re-number the tracks again. My husband tried to edit the Track Number for the mp3s in the Metadata box, but for some reason, it wasn’t obvious how to do this, and he couldn’t change the metatag track information. Does anyone happen to know how to do this?
We are concerned that this Metadata box information will show up somewhere when someone plays our CD or mp3s, and if we cannot change the Metadata box information (the Track Number), the Metadata info will not match the mp3s. If we cannot change the Metadata box info, is there a way to turn off or disable the information?
Thanks for your help!
karen
My husband tried to edit the Track Number for the mp3s in the Metadata box, but for some reason, it wasn’t obvious how to do this, and he couldn’t change the metatag track information.
Did you try Edit → Metadata?
If you can’t get it working, try [u]MP3tag[/u]. You can open a folder (usually a whole CD) at once so it’s easier to add/edit the common album-information, and of course you can edit the song info too. You can also add the album artwork.
We are concerned that this Metadata box information will show up somewhere when someone plays our CD or mp3s
MP3 players should show the information (depending on the player and how it’s configured). You should also be able to play the tracks in track-number order (if desired).
Audio CDs don’t support the same kind of metadata. Some CD players support [u]CD Text[/u] but it’s not universal and many (most?) CDs don’t contain CD Text. When you play a CD on your computer, the player software uses a “CD fingerprint” to find the information from an online database (FreeDB or CDDB). But of course, your homemade CD won’t be in the database. 
Also if you’re making regular audio CDs, you shouldn’t be using MP3s (lossy compression). 16-bit, 44.1Khz, stereo WAV files use the same underlying lossless PCM format as audio CD. (Regular audio CDs don’t have WAV files or any “computer files”.)
Depending on your burning software, the track number metadata may be ignored. And again, depending on your burning software you can use a [u]cue sheet[/u] to set the track number order, or you can prefix the file name with the track number, etc. (Since audio CDs don’t contain computer files, the file names don’t get written to the CD in any case.)