Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Tag problem (Read 4273 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Tag problem

I have used foobar for a while, and as it doesn't support ID3v2 tags, I noticed some bad ID3v1 tags. So I changed and updated all of them so they were ok. The problem is, foobar still remembers the old tags. When I look in my tagging program or winamp2/3 or any other media player, the right ID3v1 info is found. I even completely uninstalled foobar, deleted everything that has something to do with foobar out of the registry, re-installed, and the old tags were back. If I change the tag with foobar self, its updated correctly to my tagging program and other media players too. So this seems to be a one-way problem.

Now, I do have a possible explanation for this, but I sure don't like it. It seems like foobar has saved all my original ID3v1 info into these APE-tags, and now uses these to get the info. Is there an option or warning I missed about foobar writing his own tags without asking me? Or am I completely wrong about this? And the most important thing: how do I get rid of all the APE-tag info, without loosing the replay-gain info in the APE-tags?

Tag problem

Reply #1 –
C:\Program Files\foobar2000 (or any directory you installed it to) - delete database.foo - foobar will now re-read all tags from files.

Tag problem

Reply #2 –
"And the most important thing: how do I get rid of all the APE-tag info, without loosing the replay-gain info in the APE-tags? "

i dont think its possible

I had to do this once, the workaround as to run "Tag --force id3 *.mp3" which will remove the apev2 tags totally. but the replaygain info will be gone from the files. But, it should be in foobar's database anyway.

edit: did you edit the id3v1 tags with another program? that would be why the apev2 tags got unsynced then...
.

Tag problem

Reply #3 –
@Rivanvx: That was the first thing I did, I even completely uninstalled foobar, but still the bad tags were still there. So that's when I thought of the possibility that foobar was writing APE-tags into my files.

@musicmusic: Yes I used an other program (Tag&Rename 2.0.1 build2). This program doesn't support APE-tags, but I didn't want my ID3 info in APE tags at all. I know it's the best way to save the replaygain info, but I prefer to keep my artist/title and a lot of other things in the id3 tags, because my mp3-player can read those, a lot of other software media players can read those, and honestly, I really like Tag&Rename much more than any tag-editor from a media player.

Is there an option in foobar somewhere to disable this ape-tag writing (eg: only replaygain APE-tag writing)? Or a utility to sync the APE-tags to my ID3 tags (again, without loosing the replaygain info)? If none of these are possible, how do I keep the tags synced? Is the only solution to use ONLY foobar's internal tagging mechanism?

Tag problem

Reply #4 –
Quote
Or a utility to sync the APE-tags to my ID3 tags (again, without loosing the replaygain info)?
Try Tag with the command line "Tag --force id3 --force ape2 *.mp3" I think that may sync them back up. Try it out and let us know.

Tag problem

Reply #5 –
Quote
Quote
Or a utility to sync the APE-tags to my ID3 tags (again, without loosing the replaygain info)?
Try Tag with the command line "Tag --force id3 --force ape2 *.mp3" I think that may sync them back up. Try it out and let us know.

I guess that will work the other way round (changing my id3 tags to the value in the ape2 tags), but if nobody has another solution, I'll try that (I'll test it on a few copied mp3's to prevent loosing all my tag-info).

Tag problem

Reply #6 –
I really like Tag & Rename to tag my MP3s too. Good GUI, and the freeDB lookup is brilliant.

Now that I've decided to use Foobar fulltime for all my audio needs, here's my step by step procedure to use T&R + Tag for tagging MP3s from scratch:

1. Do the typical T&R thing and create the ID3V2 tags. Using ID3V2 will ensure that you get those tags with long values that ID3V1 won't have room for. Use the tag sync function to copy the ID3V2 tags to ID3V1. I like to write a playlist with no extended information as well.

2. Command line into the directory and use tag --removeid3v2 --force id3 --force ape2 *.mp3. This will remove the nasty ID3V2 tags, preserve the ID3V1 tags for non-APE2 compliant software/hardware, and create the APE2 tags to take advantage of ReplayGain.

3. In Foobar, make sure that both ID3V1 & APE2 tag writing is enabled (in preferences/standard inputs). Now any changes that you make, like ReplayGain or editing artist, album name etc. will be saved to both tags if possible, or just APE2. The mass tagging features in Foobar are quite good. They're not as user-friendly as T&R, but they'll be good enough for any minor adjustments to tags. Step 1 should have done the majority of the tagging work for you already.

EDIT: After furthur consideration, I decided that writing/removing ID3V2 tags first is a waste of processing power. Go straight to Tag, do not pass go, do not collect $200.  Now I just perform step 2, then use Tag's frontend or Foobar to make the changes to the ID3V1/APE2 tags that I want.

Tag problem

Reply #7 –
Quote
C:\Program Files\foobar2000 (or any directory you installed it to) - delete database.foo - foobar will now re-read all tags from files.

No...
don't delete the db, that's just stupid. update it instead.
"reload info from file"

Tag problem

Reply #8 –
So the easiest solution would be to remove the ape2 tags completely, make sure all my id3 tags are correct before I ever play an mp3 with foobar, then re-calculate replaygain, and then never touch the id3 tags anymore with anything else than foobar...

hmmm... I thought (hoped) there was a "sync ape-tags to id3-tags" function in Tag.

Tag problem

Reply #9 –
I see what you mean. It appears that editing tags in Foobar edits the APE2 tag, then adjusts the ID3V1 tag to match. And if you change the ID3V1 elsewhere, re-reading the info in Foobar will grab the APE2 tag. I guess the short answer is: once there are APE2 tags on your MP3s, never edit your ID3V1 tags anywhere other than Foobar.
 

Tag problem

Reply #10 –
Quote
I guess the short answer is: once there are APE2 tags on your MP3s, never edit your ID3V1 tags anywhere other than Foobar.

Tag can also be added to trusted programs list.