Track Tagging

[Ross1985]

Hi

I’m looking for a bit of software that links to Beatport or some other good dance archive to get information about tracks such as the genre in order for me to sort my collection a little better.

I’ve been looking around and found a few programs but they don’t seem to offer what I’m after.

Mp3Tag has a plugin which allows you to scan single tracks but this isn’t really practical.
Trainspotter uses Traktor which I don’t use.
Beatport Pro uses Mac not Windows.

Anyone got any other suggestions?

Thanks

[Glitchwerks]

I use Foobar with the Discogs auto-tagger. It might suit your needs, I don't know. Here's what it does.

autotag.jpg

As you can see in the picture, that's all the information that the auto-tagger will attach to the file (except BPM and Initial Key, Traktor added those.)

You'll need to copy pasta the STYLE tag to the genre TAG, otherwise Discogs tags nearly every form of dance music as "Electronic."

I also add the label to the comments field, for other programs, and edit the date so that it shows up properly in Traktor.

You probably won't need to edit the year like that.

The auto-tagger will correct all the track tags as well. However, Discogs can sometimes be missing some releases.

[ImNotDedYet]

I haven't found the auto-tagger to work very well in foobar, so I just do everything manually.

[Ross1985]

Thanks, looks like one way or the other I'm going to end up doing them manually!

[Patch]

I'm sure MP3Tag can do this in Batches?

Have you tried CTRL + CLICKING (or CNTL+SHIFT+Click first and last in list) to highlight a batch of tracks, and THEN starting the update?

[Hippie]

Have you checked the mp3tag.de forum for a script that does what you want?

[Ross1985]

Yeah I downloaded the script which uses Beatport as a reference source. Unfortunately this only does one at a time, however it's the most accurate tool I've found so decided to use that.

Thanks for the assistance.

[Patch]

There are also dedicated pieces of software that'll do this in batches - some (lots!) are free.

[Scalage]

I have yet to find one that does this properly. I've used mp3tag and Trainspotter and a few I can't remember. Any recommendations?

[Patch]

I've never really trusted any software to do this well for me.

I ALWAYS populate the Genre tag myself, and really don't use any extended tags (release year, label, Album, etc, are not important for me, so I don't populate those Tags).

Using MP3Tag, you can set up "rules" that will populate the Genre Tag based on teh Artist Name. Not 100% accurate, but it'll get you 90% of the way there.

PRO TIP: You will go MAD trying to get all tracks tagged completely. Work out a system that works for you, and stick to it. The ONLY tags I populate are:

ALBUM (This is where I keep my Camelot Key info)
TRACK (This is where I keep my BPM/Tempo info)
ARTIST NAME
TITLE
GENRE
SORT DATE (Autopulated using an action in MP3Tag, taken from the "Date Downloaded" info)
COMMENTS (Sometimes I put some (often more than one) descriptive "attributes" in here, like "Banger;", "Happy;", "Classic;", "Noisy;", etc... These are based on my own tastes, and you'd make your own "attributes" based on how and what you mix)