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Topic: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one? (Read 3025 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Recently I noticed that iTunes has been messing my classical music albums with their awful matching system. So I had to rip my CDs again. I used to edit the metadata manually, but now that I have at least 300 song to edit it's name and artist individually, I thought maybe there's a way to copy the metadata from my already existing files to the new ones in bulk using foobar2000, or even copy of Apple Music to my albums.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #1 –
I use MP3Tag.  (It works on virtually all formats, not just MP3.)

You can select all the files in a folder at once to edit the common information, or you can select just one file, etc.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: DVDdoug on
I use MP3Tag.  (It works on virtually all formats, not just MP3.)

You can select all the files in a folder at once to edit the common information, or you can select just one file, etc.
Thank you so much. I'll try it out.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #3 –
You need to have Mp3tag, so you might as well install it yes.
Also, MusicBrainz Picard can do tagging, and it is capable of "listening to" the music. Be careful, that isn't always the most reliable. https://www.dbpoweramp.com/perfecttunes.htm can do likewise, but costs money.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Porcus on
You need to have Mp3tag, so you might as well install it yes.
Also, MusicBrainz Picard can do tagging, and it is capable of "listening to" the music. Be careful, that isn't always the most reliable. https://www.dbpoweramp.com/perfecttunes.htm can do likewise, but costs money.


Thank you. I'll try them and see which works the best for my case.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #5 –
I have both Mp3tag and Picard, and use them for different purposes.

If you have well-identified albums (only iTunes match messed up the music?) then copying album by album for something that is in nice order: Mp3tag. Can be done by n source tracks (sorted in the right order!!), mark all, Ctrl-c, dump n target tracks into the window instead, make sure you get them sorted in the same order, Ctrl-v. If those 300 tracks are on 25 albums, that is not much of a job.

If you do wish to get lots of information in automatically rather than just what you have: Picard has add-ons like https://picard-docs.musicbrainz.org/v2.4/en/variables/variables_classical.html .


Also CUETools - on a lossless rip - does good metadata lookup. That is also "an application you need anyway". It has a decent CD ripper too.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Can be done by n source tracks (sorted in the right order!!), mark all, Ctrl-c, dump n target tracks into the window instead, make sure you get them sorted in the same order, Ctrl-v.
Is there a way to export all your tags to a text file, then apply those tags to another set of files, e.g. to copy all the tags on your FLAC files to your MP3 files all at once?

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Porcus on
(only iTunes match messed up the music?)
By that I mean iTunes has been matching some while uploading some of my songs in each album. This causes the tracks to not play in a gapless way; even worse, to have a slight repeat at the beginning of the track as some CDs divide tracks slightly different. Anyhow, Thank you so much for the Copy&Paste tip, it worked great for me. Is there any way to do the same from Apple Music files to mine? Discogs metadata mostly isn't as precise as Apple's. It usually has one artist names for all the tracks, sometimes it's incorrect.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: trist55 on
Is there any way to do the same from Apple Music files to mine?
Not sure what you mean. If you have files, you can just dump them into Mp3tag and copy metadata the same way?!
Note for drag and drop: if you hold down Ctrl while you drop file(s) to the Mp3tag window, they will be added to the list, rather than replacing it.

@Aleron Ives : there are ways to export tags (pictures are maybe not as well exported to a "text file"), but the problem is still: how do you identify what files are supposed to have what tags? 

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: trist55 on
Is there any way to do the same from Apple Music files to mine?
f you have files, you can just dump them into Mp3tag and copy metadata the same way?!
Most of my music is from CDs or FLAC downloads that I edit manually (iTunes doesn't sell Flac). I add the same album from Apple Music streaming service, copy each song name and artist to a note, then paste to my files. I wonder if there's an easier way? I tried the same method with m4p (apple streaming format) but Mp3tag doesn't recognise it.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: trist55 on
I wonder if there's an easier way?
Mp3tag can retrieve tags from various sources including freedb, Discogs & MusicBrainz.

Re: How to replace an album metadata with another existing one?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Porcus on
@Aleron Ives : there are ways to export tags (pictures are maybe not as well exported to a "text file"), but the problem is still: how do you identify what files are supposed to have what tags?
The folder structure and filenames are the same for the FLAC and MP3 files, other than the extensions. It seems like it'd be doable to me, even if it's nececssary to open the text file and do a "replace all" operation to change all the .flac strings to .mp3.