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Topic: Issue with Tagging (Mac) (Read 9924 times) previous topic - next topic
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Issue with Tagging (Mac)

I'm at my wit's end and I would give most anything for a solution to my dilemma.  I am not especially tech savvy so please be kind.

I have about 25,000 WAV files that were burned from cds with the windows program, MusicMatch.  While MM is able to recognize the tagging info (or whatever that info is called in WAV files), other programs have issues with recognizing any tagging info.  To compound matters, I've switched to mac. 

My primary goal is to get iTunes (or any other jukebox program anyone cares to recommend) to recognize these files.  I realize that I probably need a tagging program to re-tag them but I don't know of one for the mac.  A secondary goal is to convert the WAVs to a lossless codec such as AIF.  Perhaps one program can take care of both issues?

Any help will be hugely appreciated.  Thanks, glenn

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #1 –
As far as I know there is no real tagging standard for Wav. That is probably the reason only MM can read the 'tagging' in your files. It may use some 'self-invented' way that is not compatible with other apps.

The chances you'll find anything that can read them on the Mac are very slim. I'd suggest to try to use MM to convert you files to FLAC files. FLAC files are a good choice for use on the Mac and their tags are standardised and read by various OS X programs.

You talk about AIF (AIFF?) as being a lossless (compression?) format. Actually AIIF is not really a compression format. You might call it the Wav of OS X. It stores the same info but doesn't compress so the files will be just as big as Wav's. I'd suggest choosing FLAC instead. It is lossless and well supported on the Mac. Rumour has it it will even be a standard format on the next version of OS X.

If you are looking for players on OS X, I can recommend Cog and Play. For conversion of various formats I recommend Max, it won't help with your Wav files, though. At least, I seriously doubt it.

First thing for you to try now is fire up MM and convert one of these files to FLAC (or any other lossless format that Max can read) and see whether Cog or Play can play these files and see the tagging.

Edit: Hhmm, only now do I see you actually meant MusicMatch and not MediaMonkey. I know nothing about MusicMatch but someone else might.
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Maurits on
the chances you'll find anything that can read them on the Mac are very slim. I'd suggest to try to use MM to convert you files to FLAC files. FLAC files are a good choice for use on the Mac and their tags are standardised and read by various OS X programs.


It doesn't look like the MusicMatch software can handle FLAC. I just googled it, and here's its list of formats:

http://wwws.musicmatch.com/faq/PLAY002.htm

Quote
My primary goal is to get iTunes (or any other jukebox program anyone cares to recommend) to recognize these files. I realize that I probably need a tagging program to re-tag them but I don't know of one for the mac. A secondary goal is to convert the WAVs to a lossless codec such as AIF.


So long as iTunes will import these files - which it may not if they're corrupt in some way - then you should be able to convert them in it. Go to the menubar and select

iTunes > Preferences > Advanced

Click the "Importing" tab and change "Import Using" to "Apple Lossless Encoder".

Whatever is set on that tab will also be available for transcoding into: you simply highlight the track/s you wish to convert, right-click, and choose "Convert Selection to Apple Lossless" off the context menu.

Apple Lossless is the only lossless format iTunes currently supports. AIFF, as has been said, does not use lossless compression: it's uncompressed.

iTunes also has a built-in tagger: highlight the track/s you wish to tag, right-click, and choose "Get Info".

If you don't want to re-tag all these files manually, or if iTunes won't import them, you're a bit stuck.

Musicmatch lists mp3 as a supported format, and perhaps it will transcode the WAV files it made into that format, at the same time extracting the meta-information it put in them, in whatever way it did that, and putting it back in standard ID3 tags. If it can do that, then iTunes should be able to import them and read the tags.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #3 –
Many thanks for the responses.

I'm unwilling to go the MP3 route for the obvious reasons so it looks like I'm screwed. 

Btw, what would be the point of going from WAV to AIFF if they're both uncompressed?

You have no idea how much time I've spent trying to figure a way to solve this problem.  I know this probably sounds crazy, but I am at a point where I'd be willing to pay someone to accomplish my goals of tagging the files and converting them to a compressed lossless format, i.e., FLAC.  Do you have any suggestions of where I can find such a person?  Again, thanks for the help, glenn

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #4 –
Did you try opening on of the WAV files in a hex editor?

It's possible there is a chunk (like LIST) that MM is using to store the metadata.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #5 –
Quote from: gsusser on
Many thanks for the responses.

I'm unwilling to go the MP3 route for the obvious reasons so it looks like I'm screwed. 

Btw, what would be the point of going from WAV to AIFF if they're both uncompressed?

You have no idea how much time I've spent trying to figure a way to solve this problem.  I know this probably sounds crazy, but I am at a point where I'd be willing to pay someone to accomplish my goals of tagging the files and converting them to a compressed lossless format, i.e., FLAC.  Do you have any suggestions of where I can find such a person?  Again, thanks for the help, glenn
AIFF has tag metadata supported, at least with iTunes... as such, it's supported by 'most players' since iPod/iTunes is the most popular playback device and software.

If you are Macintosh (and iTunes) centric, Apple Lossless or AIFF is probably your best best.

If you still have access to Windows, maybe try another media program that can read Music Match's non-standard WAV tags and convert it to a format that does support tags.  I think www.mediamonkey.com may be able to read those tags.  You can then convert to FLAC or another tagged Lossless format, for example.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #6 –
MusicMatch Jukebox adds ID3v2.3 tags to the end of the wave files. This is proprietary.

I tried quickly a few programs. It looks like the Godfather and Tag&Rename taggers can read these tags. Perhaps you could use either of these programs for mass renaming the files so that all needed info is included in the folder structure and in the filenames. Also MMJB has a simple mass renamer, but it is possibly too limited.

If you can make this work well enough for your purposes then it would be easy to use the filename & path info for mass tagging the converted files afterwards.


Edit

For the format conversion you could try for example dBpoweramp. It supports most formats and has a nice file selection tool for mass conversions.

Edit 2

These are Windows programs, so you need to have access to a PC or be able to run Windows on your Mac.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #7 –
Oops, what happened? I meant to edit instead of replying. Then I couldn't access HA for a couple of minutes.


Anyway, dBpoweramp supports also Apple Lossless and Mp3tag can easily mass convert filenames to MP4 tags.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #8 –
I didn't have much luck with MediaMonkey.  I have the gold version and was dealing with support for about a month before we both gave up.  It seems MM would recognize many of the files but not others.  And it refused to scan a lot of the files.  A similar situation with Tag & Rename but much of the time it didn't recognize the files.  Is there no Apple equivalent to Tag & Rename? 

To add to my problems, my Windows computer just died.  However, I was able to save all the files onto a 1TB external drive which is formatted for Apple. 

Btw, I'm not exactly a Windows pro and I'm completely new to the Mac world.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #9 –
Quote from: gsusser on
Is there no Apple equivalent to Tag & Rename?


There are taggers. The best known is Media Rage from Chaotic Software. There's a free trial, so you could check it out. It's quite nice - although they did annoy me by two things they just did:

(1) update it just after I bought it 

and more seriously:

(2) the new version, which I haven't bought, adds a hack into OS X involving so-called "smart crash reports". That's very much a no-no, and so far as I'm concerned I'm not buying or using any OS X application that does that:

Quote
Apple certainly doesn’t recommend using an input manager hack to modify the system’s Crash Reporter at runtime.


Other than that, IIRC there's a German developer that has a Carbon-based tagger. Sorry, I haven't got the URL for that one. I'll see if I can locate it again.

But I guess there's no particular likelihood that an OS X tagger would recognize non-standard tags in WAV files, and it's a shame the Windows machine has died, since Alex reckons the Godfather will do the job.


EDIT: Here's the other tagger. It looks like it reads only ID3 tags, unfortunately:

http://www.three-2-one.de/321apps/main/global/index1.htm

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #10 –
Quote from: gsusser on
I didn't have much luck with MediaMonkey.  I have the gold version and was dealing with support for about a month before we both gave up.  It seems MM would recognize many of the files but not others.  And it refused to scan a lot of the files.  A similar situation with Tag & Rename but much of the time it didn't recognize the files.  Is there no Apple equivalent to Tag & Rename? 

To add to my problems, my Windows computer just died.  However, I was able to save all the files onto a 1TB external drive which is formatted for Apple. 

Btw, I'm not exactly a Windows pro and I'm completely new to the Mac world.

Possibly you could gather enough information from the current file and folder names for filling the basic tags such as Album, Artist, Track Name and Number. (You didn't mention how the files are organized now.) Tag might be able to do this on a Mac if you convert the files to FLAC.

You can use the already mentioned Max for converting some test files to FLAC. For playback you may want to try the mentioned Play and Cog programs.

Another option would be to find a friend/relative/co-worker/etc who has a relatively modern PC and some PC & audio formats knowledge and ask help. You can use MacDrive for reading and writing your apple formatted drive on a PC.

Edit: I just noticed that Tag does not seem to support ALAC tagging and edited the reply respectively.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Alex B on
Possibly you could gather enough information from the current file and folder names for filling the basic tags such as Album, Artist, Track Name and Number. (You didn't mention how the files are organized now.) Tag might be able to do this on a Mac.


Well, yes, Tag has got a "Guess Tags" function which will do that, using, for example:

{artist}/{album}/{trackNumber} {title}

But Tag will only read FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Monkey's Audio and WavPack, so he'd need to convert the files first.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #12 –
My problems continue.  I had copied my files onto a 1TB external drive formatted for the Mac.  I stupidly and incorrectly figured (I think) that I could simply copy the files onto another 1TB external drive formatted FAT32 so I could use the files in Windows.  It didn't work.  And Western Digital says they don't support this.  The plan was to access MusicMatch on my virtual Windows OS on the Mac (it's got an Intel chip).  So much for that.  Now I'm stuck dealing only with OS X.

I keep spending money and even more time and getting nothing accomplished. Alex said it's possible to write a program to convert the ID3v2.3 tags.  Is there a programmer amongst us or that someone might recommend to get this accomplished?  At this point, I am willing to spend whatever is necessary.  Thanks.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #13 –
Quote from: gsusser on
My problems continue.  I had copied my files onto a 1TB external drive formatted for the Mac.  I stupidly and incorrectly figured (I think) that I could simply copy the files onto another 1TB external drive formatted FAT32 so I could use the files in Windows.  It didn't work.  And Western Digital says they don't support this.  The plan was to access MusicMatch on my virtual Windows OS on the Mac (it's got an Intel chip).  So much for that.  Now I'm stuck dealing only with OS X.

Did you try the MacDrive program? (I posted a link earlier).
It makes possible to mount native Mac HFS+ drives on Windows. I use it daily for transferring DV video and audio projects between my Mac and PC workstations.

Quote
I keep spending money and even more time and getting nothing accomplished. Alex said it's possible to write a program to convert the ID3v2.3 tags.  Is there a programmer amongst us or that someone might recommend to get this accomplished?  At this point, I am willing to spend whatever is necessary. Thanks.

I didn't mention anything about writing a new program. Though, I suppose that would not be very difficult for someone who is familiar with developing ID3 tag readers. Perhaps the fine tagger or converter developers here at HA would be interested about checking if their ID3v2 tag readers could be easily changed to read ID3v2 tags in wave files too. Florian, Spoon?

If MusicMatch Jukebox really is the only program that can read your tags properly you could try also the following:
1. Convert the wave files to MP3 with MMJB. Use the fastest and smallest settings. 32 kbps, low quality, no optimization, etc.
2. Convert the wave files again to FLAC with one of the previously mentioned tools (if FLAC is your preferred lossless format).
3. Use Mp3tag or foobar 2000 for mass copying the MP3 tags to the FLAC files. Both programs have tools for that. You may need to do this in small batches for keeping the file amount that is listed reasonable, but it should work. After this you can delete the MP3 files.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #14 –
Sorry if I didn't get the facts straight.

Before I download Macdrive, will it read my external Mac formatted drive and allow me to work with MusicMatch?  As I said, I have Windows on my Mac.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #15 –
Quote from: gsusser on
... another 1TB external drive formatted FAT32 so I could use the files in Windows.  It didn't work.  And Western Digital says they don't support this.


Too large?

Quote
I keep spending money and even more time and getting nothing accomplished. Alex said it's possible to write a program to convert the ID3v2.3 tags.


I take it this is referring to this comment:

Quote
MusicMatch Jukebox adds ID3v2.3 tags to the end of the wave files. This is proprietary.


The problem isn't reading or converting ID3 tags. There are any number of programs for Windows, Mac, and other platforms that will do that. The problem would seem to be that tagging WAV files with ID3 tags--indeed, tagging them at all--is not a standard thing to do. The two taggers I named above--Media Rage and MP3 ID3X--can certainly both read ID3 tags, but whether they can find and read them in a WAV file is another matter. I assume you tried, and they wouldn't.

If you find a tagger that will--I can't think of any others for OS X--his suggestion is that you use the tagger to create filenames and folder hierachies from the ID3 tags. Then, when you convert the WAV files to a lossless format, you could use a similar--but, as it were, reversed--function in the the same (or another) tagger to suck the information back from the filenames and folder hierarchy into the new set of tags. It's a bit round-the houses. Four steps:

1. use a tagger to create filenames and folder names for the WAV files based on the ID3 tags;
2. convert the files from WAV to a lossless format;
3. put the resulting files in the nested folders the WAV files were in;
4. use a tagger to fill in the tags in the new lossless files based on the filenames and folder names.


But, as said farther down the thread--again by Alex (see the thread at "Alex B @ May 9 2007, 11:18")--step 1 is unnecessary, and you don't need a tagger that can read the ID3 tags in the WAV files, so long as the files are already suitably named and in suitably-named nested folders.

1. not needed
2. convert the WAV files to FLAC, using Max;
2. put the resulting files in the nested folders the WAV files were in;
4. use Tag to fill in the tags from the filename/folder hierarchy using its "guess tags" function.

However, since you said that at the end of this you wanted to add the files to your iTunes library, you'd also then need to use to Max to transcode the FLAC files to Apple Lossless, since iTunes cannot (currently) handle FLAC.

But really this is all so far round the houses you might be better off ripping your CDs again. A set of files in an uncompressed format and tagged in a non-standard manner isn't a lot of use. They're both unnecessarily bulky and unlikely to be recognized outside the application which produced them.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #16 –
Quote from: gsusser on
Sorry if I didn't get the facts straight.

Before I download Macdrive, will it read my external Mac formatted drive and allow me to work with MusicMatch?  As I said, I have Windows on my Mac.

It should work. It works fine on regular Windows PCs and I have read positive reports about using it with Windows that runs on Apple's Boot Camp. For example:
http://murphymac.com/access-mac-formatted-...s-from-windows/
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/apple_boot_camp.asp

Macdrive v. 7 works with Windows XP SP2, Server 2003 and Vista and it has also a free trial download.
The older v. 6 is still available for older Windows OSs, but I didn't find a trial version of it anymore.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #17 –
Thanks Nick.  I think I get it.  [And thank you Alex!] I don't have the original cds any longer.  I had no room for them and sold them.  I never thought I'd have an issue with WAV files.  As for iTunes, I don't care about the jukebox so much as long as it's rich in features.  I haven't tried any other Mac jukeboxes yet.

Quote from: Nick E on
Quote from: gsusser on

... another 1TB external drive formatted FAT32 so I could use the files in Windows.  It didn't work.  And Western Digital says they don't support this.


Too large?

Quote
I keep spending money and even more time and getting nothing accomplished. Alex said it's possible to write a program to convert the ID3v2.3 tags.


I take it this is referring to this comment:

Quote
MusicMatch Jukebox adds ID3v2.3 tags to the end of the wave files. This is proprietary.


The problem isn't reading or converting ID3 tags. There are any number of programs for Windows, Mac, and other platforms that will do that. The problem would seem to be that tagging WAV files with ID3 tags--indeed, tagging them at all--is not a standard thing to do. The two taggers I named above--Media Rage and MP3 ID3X--can certainly both read ID3 tags, but whether they can find and read them in a WAV file is another matter. I assume you tried, and they wouldn't.

If you find a tagger that will--I can't think of any others for OS X--his suggestion is that you use the tagger to create filenames and folder hierachies from the ID3 tags. Then, when you convert the WAV files to a lossless format, you could use a similar--but, as it were, reversed--function in the the same (or another) tagger to suck the information back from the filenames and folder hierarchy into the new set of tags. It's a bit round-the houses. Four steps:

1. use a tagger to create filenames and folder names for the WAV files based on the ID3 tags;
2. convert the files from WAV to a lossless format;
3. put the resulting files in the nested folders the WAV files were in;
4. use a tagger to fill in the tags in the new lossless files based on the filenames and folder names.


But, as said farther down the thread--again by Alex (see the thread at "Alex B @ May 9 2007, 11:18")--step 1 is unnecessary, and you don't need a tagger that can read the ID3 tags in the WAV files, so long as the files are already suitably named and in suitably-named nested folders.

1. not needed
2. convert the WAV files to FLAC, using Max;
2. put the resulting files in the nested folders the WAV files were in;
4. use Tag to fill in the tags from the filename/folder hierarchy using its "guess tags" function.

However, since you said that at the end of this you wanted to add the files to your iTunes library, you'd also then need to use to Max to transcode the FLAC files to Apple Lossless, since iTunes cannot (currently) handle FLAC.

But really this is all so far round the houses you might be better off ripping your CDs again. A set of files in an uncompressed format and tagged in a non-standard manner isn't a lot of use. They're both unnecessarily bulky and unlikely to be recognized outside the application which produced them.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #18 –
Quote from: gsusser on
My problems continue.  I had copied my files onto a 1TB external drive formatted for the Mac.  I stupidly and incorrectly figured (I think) that I could simply copy the files onto another 1TB external drive formatted FAT32 so I could use the files in Windows.  It didn't work.  And Western Digital says they don't support this.  The plan was to access MusicMatch on my virtual Windows OS on the Mac (it's got an Intel chip).  So much for that.  Now I'm stuck dealing only with OS X.

I keep spending money and even more time and getting nothing accomplished. Alex said it's possible to write a program to convert the ID3v2.3 tags.  Is there a programmer amongst us or that someone might recommend to get this accomplished?  At this point, I am willing to spend whatever is necessary.  Thanks.


Don't give up yet.

Step 1a. Can you mount the 1 TB drive under OSX and have the Parallels s/w or VMWare map the drive through OSX to appear as a network drive under Windows?

Or

Step 1b. Can you put a PC running Windows on a wired or wireless Lan with your Mac?  if so, you can make some disk space on the Mac or PC visible to the other computer as a shard folder on the network.  Then you can copy files from one computer to the other.

Step 2. Either way, you can then use MusicMatch to convert files to a lossless format with standardized tag support.  (Flac for example.) 

Step 3. Once you get the files into that lossless format, you can use a different tag editing and format conversion program to convert to Apple's lossless format (ALAC).  There are very many Windows programs for tag editing and format conversion so you should be able to find one that does what you want.

Experiment before you take a big plunge.

Bill

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #19 –
1a - I don't think it can be done but I'm not technically savvy enough to do it if it can.  Parallels seems to have a lot of limitations (not to mention crummy support.)

1b - I do have a Windows XP notebook also but again, I'm not savvy enough to network it to the Mac.  Sounds like a workable idea and I wish I knew someone I could contact to help me do this in person.  I'm in the NYC area and you would think there'd be some company who'd be able to provide hands on assistance.

Quote from: FasterThanEver on
Don't give up yet.

Step 1a. Can you mount the 1 TB drive under OSX and have the Parallels s/w or VMWare map the drive through OSX to appear as a network drive under Windows?

Or

Step 1b. Can you put a PC running Windows on a wired or wireless Lan with your Mac?  if so, you can make some disk space on the Mac or PC visible to the other computer as a shard folder on the network.  Then you can copy files from one computer to the other.

Step 2. Either way, you can then use MusicMatch to convert files to a lossless format with standardized tag support.  (Flac for example.) 

Step 3. Once you get the files into that lossless format, you can use a different tag editing and format conversion program to convert to Apple's lossless format (ALAC).  There are very many Windows programs for tag editing and format conversion so you should be able to find one that does what you want.

Experiment before you take a big plunge.

Bill

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #20 –
Quote from: Nick E on
Quote from: gsusser on

... another 1TB external drive formatted FAT32 so I could use the files in Windows.  It didn't work.  And Western Digital says they don't support this.

Too large?

Windows XP has a 32 GB limit for formatting FAT32 volumes. XP can mount bigger FAT32 volumes if they are already formatted. Here's more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463

Quote
1. use a tagger to create filenames and folder names for the WAV files based on the ID3 tags;
2. convert the files from WAV to a lossless format;
3. put the resulting files in the nested folders the WAV files were in;
4. use a tagger to fill in the tags in the new lossless files based on the filenames and folder names.

Since the Windows is up and running on his/her Mac:
1. Possibly The Godfather could be used for this - if needed at all. (gsusser mentioned only that MediaMonkey and T&R had problems.)
2. & 3. dBpoweramp can mass convert the files so that the original filenames and locations are preserved and the wave files are removed. Also ALAC is supported.
4. on Windows Mp3tag can be used (supports ALAC)

EDIT

gsusser,

Your money is not wasted on that new 1 TB drive. Certainly you should have a separate drive for backing up your media library. Especially when starting mass conversion and tagging operations.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #21 –
Quote from: gsusser on
1a - I don't think it can be done but I'm not technically savvy enough to do it if it can.  Parallels seems to have a lot of limitations (not to mention crummy support.)

1b - I do have a Windows XP notebook also but again, I'm not savvy enough to network it to the Mac.  Sounds like a workable idea and I wish I knew someone I could contact to help me do this in person.  I'm in the NYC area and you would think there'd be some company who'd be able to provide hands on assistance.



About 1A.  from the Parallels user's Guide, Page 141

Using Shared Folders
Shared folders are folders in Mac OS X file system that are visible to the guest OS also. These folders can be used for exchanging files between the primary OS (Mac OS X) and a virtual machine or between several virtual machines. In Mac OS X shared folders appear as usual folders, while in guest OS they are objects of the network neighborhood.
Using shared folders is possible in the following guest OSes:
􀂃 Window 2000/XP/2003/Vista.
Setting Up a Shared Folder
Setting up a shared folder requires two steps:
1 Make sure that Parallels Tools are installed in your guest OS. See Installing Parallels Tools (page 66) for detailed descriptions on how to do so in a particular guest OS. We recommend that you perform the typical installation, but if you perform a custom installation make sure the Shared Folders tool is selected.
2 Add a shared folder(s) to your virtual machine configuration.
See below for detailed instructions.
Adding a Shared Folder
1 To open the Configuration Editor, select Edit -> Virtual Machine from menu.
2 In the Configuration Editor, select the Shared Folders tab (see the Shared Folders (page 108) topic). Select the Enable shared folders option.
3 In the Shared Folders tab, click the (Add) button to open the Add Shared Folder dialog.
4 In the Shared Folder Properties box in the dialog:
􀂃 specify a name for the folder which will appear in your guest OS in the Name field;
􀂃 specify a folder in your Mac OS X file system that will be shared in the Path field;
􀂃 if you want to restrict writing to this folder from inside the guest OS, select the Read Only option. You will be able to save files to this folder in the primary OS only;
􀂃 make sure the Enabled check box is selected;


--- About 1B
Networking PCs and Macs isn't hard these days.  You should be able to find a friend who can help.  Is your Mac connected to the Internet through a router and a cable or DCL modem?  If so, your mac is already using networking.


Bill

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #22 –
Quote from: gsusser on
As for iTunes, I don't care about the jukebox so much as long as it's rich in features.  I haven't tried any other Mac jukeboxes yet.


You won't find much. There are players; but there are only two jukebox-type applications I know of. In addition, both are pre-release (iTunes is the only jukebox application for Mac versioned more than 1.0).

Furthermore, only one of the two is a native Cocoa and aqua application. There's Play (0.1.1 version) for OS X and the cross-platform Songbird (0.2.5 developer preview).

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #23 –
I hope he doesn't mind that I post this.

Sbooth updated his Max program so it includes whatever it needed to include to tag and convert my files.  I am incredibly grateful and for a while, was beginning to think I was chasing a rainbow.  A BIGTIME thanks!

Now, to move on... I'm still a little confused about Apple's lossless files.  What is the difference between M4A lossless files and AIFF files?  The latter does not tag, at least with Max.

Issue with Tagging (Mac)

Reply #24 –
Quote from: gsusser on
Now, to move on... I'm still a little confused about Apple's lossless files.  What is the difference between M4A lossless files and AIFF files?  The latter does not tag, at least with Max.


The old uncompressed formats (WAV and AIFF) do not natively support tags - such an idea was simply not in the cards in 1990 or before. As you have seen, some programs add tags to them (MusicMatch, iTunes) but this is really a hack and there is no way to support it across many applications in the absence of a standard.

M4A lossless is part of the MPEG4 standard as implemented by Apple. It provides low rates of compression very similar to FLAC, about 40% - 50%. The files are completely lossless and can be converted to WAV or AIFF bit for bit.

Why use one or the other? Editing. If you wish to edit raw audio, it is much easier to do in an uncompressed format like WAV or AIFF. If your only concern is playback, then Apple Lossless or FLAC will be equally perfect and will save you many GB of space.

I use both Mac and Windows and tend to favor Apple Lossless because it works perfectly in iTunes. Tagging is fully supported and conversions to other formats are flawless when needed.

MAX is a terrific little utility for conversion on the Mac.