MP3 tag version

[mick1010]

I am using Intrepid package for audacity 1.3.5-beta. I cannot figure out how to specify mp3 tag format on export. I wish to use id3v2.3 format but audacity always uses id3v2.4 and I can find no way to override this. Is this just a constraint of the beta package or am I not finding the appropriate place to override this?

[steve]

You may be able to override it by using the "external program" option in the Export dialogue. Then select LAME as the external program and supply the appropriate switches.

I'm not sure what the exact commands should be, but I think it's something like:
lame - "%f" --id3v2-only

Other switches are documented here: http://lame.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checko ... itchs.html

[mick1010]

I don't understand how this will cause the tag to be written as id3v2.3 - the id3v2.4 tags are not compatible with my application. I know I can use kid3-qt to rewrite them but that adds another step to the process which I would like to keep simple for the less technical users creating the recordings.

[steve]

Audacity itself has rather limited meta-tag support, and until there is a universally accepted standard for id3v2 I don't expect it to improve very much. For Windows users, the advice is generally to do the meta-tags in Explorer. For Mac users, in iTunes.

Audacity can cut down the work a bit by providing some of the meta-tag data, but there are so many variations from application to application, and from one OS to another that it is not going to do everything that everyone wants.

[mick1010]

While I understand that audacity cannot completely support a standard that is in flux, they seem to claim that they support ID3V2.3 at least on the basic fields. The following is from the features list on their website:

* Audacity imports ID3 tags from MP3 files, which give the Artist, Title, Album, and other song info, using libid3tag . You can see these tags by selecting "Edit ID3 Tags..." from the Project menu. Audacity will let you save these tags if you export an MP3 file. You can write either ID3V1 tags or ID3V2.3 tags. (Audacity 1.1.1 through 1.2.0-pre1 wrote ID3V2.4 tags, which are not widely supported, so we reverted to ID3V2.3 tags.)