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Topic: Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe (Read 3947 times) previous topic - next topic
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Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Hi Guys,

Newby here and apology's if this has been answered... It may be quite simply but im not finding tag.exe's documentation very easy to understand...

Im trying to batch encode all of my .ape files with id3v1 tags...
The filenames are as follows:

eg. c:\music\The Al Di Meola Project - Kiss My Axe [EAC APE]\The Al Di Meola Project - Kiss My Axe - Global Safari.ape

I want to populate the tags with the Artist - Album - Title information.

Evertime i refer to the A L T scheme i end up with the following information in the ARTIST field in the tag:

The Al Di Meola Project - Kiss My Axe [EAC APE]

when it should just be:

The Al Di Meola Project

I take it that TAG is pulling the Artist information (A - scheme) information from the foldername...

Is there anyway to tell it NOT to pull this information from the folders and filename and from the cuefile?

or

failing that, is there anyway of telling it not to look at any of the information BEFORE the "-" in the folder name?

ANY HELP WOULD BE LEGENDARY!!!

* Maybe theres another command line tagger i can use that will pull the fields from the .cue file as oposed to folder and filename???

Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #1
Im trying to batch encode all of my .ape files with id3v1 tags...

Why? My educated guess is that any software which can handle APE playback also can handle APE tags.

eg. c:\music\The Al Di Meola Project - Kiss My Axe [EAC APE]\The Al Di Meola Project - Kiss My Axe - Global Safari.ape

I want to populate the tags with the Artist - Album - Title information.

You can use foobar2000 to masstag your files, just select the files, right click and open the properties. Then click on Tools->Automatically fill values... If, as per your example, the file name contains the whole relevant information, and the folder name is not needed, you can use "File names" as the source (default). Then use the pattern
Code: [Select]
%artist% - %album% - %title%
to fill the correct values in the tags. Mind you that this will create APE tags, not ID3, I don't know how to put ID3 into APE files and honestly I don't want to know or care.

Your filenames are missing tracknumber information, so you'd need to add that later, manually. As I understood you have CUE sheets though, you can use those to tag your files using foobar2000, too. You can simply load/open the CUE sheet in foobar2000, and if it finds the referenced files, it will properly be able to play the tracks from the CUE, and you will be able to read the embedded metadata.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #2

"Why? My educated guess is that any software which can handle APE playback also can handle APE tags."

Well i believe the ID3v1\v2 tags are FAR more compatible and well supported than the apev2 tagging format ... Can someone confirm?

"You can use foobar2000 to masstag your files, just select the files, right click and open the properties. "

I'm looking for something command line based as my issue really is that im automating the whole process from "unzip-decompress-split-re-encode-tag."


Does anyone have any experience with command line based tagging utility's that can simply write id3v2 (or ape tags) using fields from .cue or filenames exclusively?



Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #4
If it's compatibility that you want then why are you using Monkey's Audio?


I hear ya... My reasening is that i've always used monkeys for years and have around 20,000 tracks already in the format... although as of the last few weeks i am seriously thinking of porting over my collection to FLAC to stay current under a format that i believe is still being worked on? I spose my biggest issue with the APE tags is the potential issues i may run into when with having to tag to id3 when porting my collection to mp3 for my phone, car stereo etc... as tagging isnt super important to me as i just want the ARTIST, TITLE and ALBUM info i thought id opt to use what i deemed the most widely supported tag format (ID3)

But going back to my original post does anyone know if i can use tag.exe to read the cue files and populate the .ape files with (any format of tag) as i cant seem to find a command to do it...

Anyone got any commandline alternatives to tag.exe for this? It's literally the last piece of the puzzle for my script and ive trawled the net and forum posts trying to dig out a little self contained command line exectuable i can call in a batch...

Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #5
The idea that you're going to have fewer issues with ID3 tags is silly. ID3v2 will require re-writing all your files to disc and ID3v1 has character limitations.  Concerns about compatibility are imaginary.

Use APE tags.

 

Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #6
Thats great, cool i'll do that...

But what Command like utility (cant be GUI) will allow me to ADD apev2 tags to split ape files obtaining the info from reading the .cue file? Thats my real dilemma.

Failing that, what will allow me to embed the .cue file into the full ape image and then allow me to tag it whilst it's split... (command line)

Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #7
If you're using Windows, then you can use shntool to split but you'll probably have to create your own script to parse the cue sheet in order to rename the tracks since shntool only assigns generic names unless this has changed. From there you can probably use tag.exe, though it might also require additional scripting to get what you want.

I don't know about other OSes but because Monkey's is primarily used with Windows I wouldn't hold my breath.

Suck it up and use foobar2000.

Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #8
I'm decoding it fine, splitting it fine, re-encoding it fine... The problem simply is with adding an APEv2 tag to it.... TAG.exe CAN do it ... but the problem is for some reasen it keeps pulling the ALBUM information from the folder structure as oposed to the filename... but it populates the TITLE and ARTIST from the filename!

Basically, in a nut shell...

I have a lot of ape files in the following format: ARTIST - ALBUM - TITLE without any tag information at all

eg, John Smith - The Best of John Smith - Smithing around.ape

HOW in the HELL can i force tag.exe to add a APEv2 tag for the file using the filename for the information???????

I have the filename broken up with the - limiter so in theory it should be easy!

Alternatively, How can i force TAG.exe to look at the beginning of the filename for the ALBUM information... ? At the moment it pulls the info from the foldername as oposed to the filename

This has been kicking around for the last few days and i'm pretty sure someone knows!

Tagging from path and file name with tag.exe

Reply #9
Cussed it!!

Basically i needed to edit the tag.cfg with the scheme:

%A - %L - %T

Works a treat.

Thanks everyone for your input.