Just wondering what a “go to”/best program is to use for editing audio files. I recently tried editing a FLAC file natively in Windows by: right clicking > selecting properties > details tab, and I noticed it didn’t give an option to change the album artwork. So I’m looking for better options.
I’d like to find some tool also, but for now foobar2000 does the artwork stuff, and then right click that other stuff
MP3Tag is pretty great - especially for mass tagging/editing. I’ve been using it for, must be over 10 years. Using it, you can edit the metadata of pretty much any audio file.
It even includes editing thru regular expressions - e.g. I have created a rule for changing the selected songs’ titles to “title case” (including lower case articles etc. if they’re not the first or last words).
Also included are retrieving tags from filenames, or renaming files according to tags.
1 Like
I’ll keep it in mind. By chance, do you know if editing the metadata of FLAC files can be done through VLC Media Player?
edit- Looks like it’s possible for VLC Media Player to edit meta data (by opening the file, going to: Tools > Media Information), but it’s very ghetto and quite untrustworthy.
For example, when attempting to perform a single change, in this case: downloading cover art/album art and then closing the file, the art is not saved to the file. Essentially, no changes have been made. However, if a change has been made that is not the cover art/album art, for example, changing the artist name, and then downloading the cover art/album art, and then selecting the “Save Metadata” button, then closing the file, then the changes have been made. So it seems to only apply the art when another field has been changed along with it.
VLC media player has just been a horrible experience for me all around with the exception of being able to play FLAC files. It’s just very buggy.
Winamp was my goto for everything related to audio.
I had a look at it. It’s got a high end feel to the UI. Like a Manjaro Linux distro. Have you tried Foobar2000? If so what do you think in comparison?
That’s the ones I’d suggest as well. It also has WebSources, parsers from the community that can read out info from various web services (via API or not).
Another one that is often recommended is Foobar2000, though I have not used it for TagEditing myself (only for listening and gain levels). The syntax that MP3Tag uses it also derived from foobar.
If you have files that don’t have any info at all and you don’t know what it actually is, try MusicBrainz Picard. It can be a little weird at first, but it’s not all that bad. It analyses your files and generates a fingerprint, then searches MusicBrainz for that fingerprint.
Have been using it for short testing. So far from what I’ve been using it, it seems to hold its ground well. I really like the save option, as apposed to other tag editors that I’ve been using -which do not prompt anything of the sort, they just apply the changes (wtfh).
Not sure if I personally can recommend it yet, since I haven’t gone into full depth testing, but I appreciate you both bringing it to my attention.
I gave it a shot in depth and it was horrible. Please explain in detail your reason for choosing it.
It screams bloatware. A built in browser? The built in automatic data harvesting? I just don’t get it. The design makes me sick. It just feels so gross.
Have you tried Foobar2000? I feel like you would like it as an alternative. I really just don’t get why you chose/choose that. I know I might seem like I’m coming off a bit strong, but I just hate it. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to use it. Like, are you being forced to use it or something?
I use MusicBee. It’s been working for me for a few years now.
He was probably referring to the old Winamp before it got killed of and sold to another company.
1 Like
My bad, I some how misread that. I saw it as “is” rather than “was”
When did that happen?
Edit: I haven’t used windows in a while. Winamp was ultra customizable, had plugins for anything and everything, eq, visualization, managed external media drives, playlists and of course managed tags.
Edit: down hill after 2007 sold in 2014. Sad. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winamp
Yeah Winamp was basically Foobar2000 before Foobar2000.
I use MusicBee as well. It can edit metadata and all that fun stuff. It can also pull things like the album artwork, track names, and lyrics automagically from the internet.
-posted moved to appropriate thread