win10, 2.4.2
I am fairly new to digitizing music. i just started using audacity about a month ago. I have been using Music Monkey to manage collection.
I am starting to find out that keeping track of music information in metadata is unreliable. I fill out the metadata window in audacity, export to folder. import into Music Monkey. this can be either flac, mp3, or m4a format. look at metadata in MM and find data missing. or reopen the file in audacity (before or after imoporting into MM, data missing. or moved to a different field. in fact not all the fields that were there when exporting from audacity are there when reopening the same file in audacity.
Clearly metadata is not something to be relied on for keeping info about music. Not even the track title and composer info is reliable. How do others deal with this situation?
The underlying problem is that there are hundreds of “standards” for metadata. For example, for MP3 there is id3v1, id3v1.1, id3v2, and dozens of app specific variations. Another example is that many apps do not support metadata for WAV at all (Audacity supports RIFF INFO chunk metadata in WAV files).
Metadata in OGG and FLAC files tends to be more reliable as the file format specification is well defined.
The most reliable way to use Metadata is to use the same app for writing the tags as you use for reading the tags. For example, if you want to read the metadata in Groove Music, use Groove Music to add the metadata.
yes, that is exactly the problem. too many standards, and then claims by one program that the other isn’t following standards.
I have previously seen the page that you referenced about how audacity handles metadata. as it states "By default, Metadata Tags Editor appears for each exported file after choosing the file format in the Export Audio or Export Multiple dialogs, the project metadata is passed through to tracks. "
However I found that a track that i exported with some metadata fields filled, when brought back into audacity, did not show all of those fields. so… regardless of the possible reasons for why this happened, the fact remains, metadata doesn’t not seem to be a reliable way to hold music data.
I understand that it is likely better to fill out metadata in the program that will play the music. however the problem remains. If i decide to change format for use in a different device, or change music managing program, how much of the data will be lost? again, metadate is not reliable.
so, what other methods have people used for storing info about digitized music?
yes, that is exactly the problem. too many standards, and then claims by one program that the other isn’t following standards.
Most media players & tag editors actually do a pretty good job of complying with the standards. I haven’t used Media Monkey but I assume it does a good job with multiple formats. But if you edit a file in Audacity you are making a new file (or over-write an existing file) when you export and you might have to re-enter/edit in Media Monkey.
Audacity has a more difficult challenge because the data is entered before you export and it doesn’t know what format you will export to. …I suppose Audacity could make a better metadata editor and it could ask what metadata format you want but there are already good metadata editors out there and most “converter” programs also do a pretty good job.
I understand that it is likely better to fill out metadata in the program that will play the music. however the problem remains. If i decide to change format for use in a different device, or change music managing program, how much of the data will be lost? again, metadate is not reliable.
Most “format converter” programs will do a decent job with the basic information (artist, album, title, track, artwork) but there are cases where the field-length is different or some fields don’t exist in some formats, etc., so it’s sometimes a judgement call or a compromise or sometimes there is no good solution.
step by step? take a track, export as m4a> fill out metadata fields> export to any folder> close the track in audacity> open the just exported m4a in audacity> edit metadata> see what fields are there and what is in them.
this is the only format i tried this with. can’t speak to other formats.
“Audacity has a more difficult challenge because the data is entered before you export and it doesn’t know what format you will export to. …I suppose Audacity could make a better metadata editor and it could ask what metadata format you want but there are already good metadata editors out there and most “converter” programs also do a pretty good job.”
audacity has you pick the format before showing the metadata window.
audacity and media monkey are the only 2 software I have tried so far. my experience with them re metadata is why i posted the question. I don’t know if other software is better in this regard.
I am not blaming audacity, or media monkey, or, now I can add FFmpeg to the list of links in the chain not to single out. It is clear to me that the metadata format is chaotic, and therefore unreliable, for the task of maintaining information through time. I don’t expect that bringing up the issue here is going to fix the metadata issue, unless someone will establish a standards committee and get all formats to sign on. in the meantime…
What methods are others using to document info about digital music/videos, so that they can reasonably expect to access all of the info when moving to another device, program, etc? a handwritten notebook? a separate doc/spreadsheet, a digital file of some sort that can be attached to the music/video file? other?