When importing several tracks into a project, the metadata (as displayed by Edit Metadata) of all the tracks are set to those of the last track, although the track name displayed in the Project window is that of the actual track.
When later exporting the tracks (through Export multiple), the track name displayed in the pop up Metadata dialog box is set back to the original track name, however all other metadata (including the artist name) are still those of the last track.
What I’d like to achieve is just to import some tracks from various artists, make some modifications such as adjusting the volume level and then export them back in order to burn a compilation CD. Is there a way to keep the original metadata ?
Setting up a Chain Macros - for batch processing and effects automation - Audacity Manual and running the Chain on your files should preserve the metadata for the seven standard fields in Audacity’s metadata editor. If these are MP3 files, other fields will be converted to standard TXXX frames so won’t appear in players that don’t read TXXX frames.
But it would be the wrong approach to re-encode MP3 files as another MP3 because MP3 is lossy and so you are degrading the files by re-encoding them. So if you want an MP3 CD, use Macsome or similar instead that can adjust the volume without re-encoding. See Missing features - Audacity Support.
But you can’t apply filter effects like equalization that way. You would have to re-encode.
Thanks for your explanation and your advice.
As for the re-encoding matter I had to do it anyway because the original songs were mp3 and the CD I wanted to make had to be AIFF since my commercial CD player doesn’t read MP3 records.