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Topic: Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging. (Read 9186 times) previous topic - next topic
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Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

In the past when I've made compressed audio (usually ape or mp3) from my vinyl transfers I've split the recording into individual tracks and used the format "side.track" for the track number. For example the third track on side one would get the track number 1.3 and the 5th track on side 2 would get the track number 2.5 etc.

Up until recently foobar had no problems with this format. Since the last time I updated (currently 0.9.5.5) however it no longer likes this format. It will still display the tags correctly (eg as track number 2.3 etc) but it wont let me edit them in this format and if I mass-edit any other fields then it clobbers the track number tag and sets it to just the whole number part. For examlpe 1.3 would just become 1 etc.

Do you think this is a "bug" in foobar that might get fixed or is the standard that the track number must be a simple whole number only. If so I guess I'll have to edit all the track number tags in all my vinyl rip collection?


*ape = monley audio lossless

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #1
Have you considered using DISCNUMBER instead of TRACKNUMBER to record, well... the disc number?

 

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #2
I include all the info in the filename:[Artist] - [Song] - [Album] - [Side] - [TrackNumber]

Then generate the tags automatically from that file name template.

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #3
Have you considered using DISCNUMBER instead of TRACKNUMBER to record, well... the disc number?


Yeah that was the first thing I considered when I discovered foobar no longer liked the format I'd been using. It's not really a second disc though, it's a second side on the same disc. But if I do end up retagging then that's what I'll do.

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #4
This is a bit OT, but can someone please explain to me why, when music is transferred to an unconstrained storage medium (like hard disk), many people feel the need to maintain tags that reflect the physical constraints of the source medium? If you ripped an album from CD, you wouldn't tag them to reflect the sides of the original LP (or maybe you would?), so why do it just because the rip happens to be from vinyl?

Counter-example: If the LP happens to contain two separate works (eg. Kate Bush's fifth LP had "Hounds of Love" on side 1 and "The Ninth Wave" on side 2), then there is an argument for storing them as separate albums - even when ripping from CD.

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #5
This is a bit OT, but can someone please explain to me why, when music is transferred to an unconstrained storage medium (like hard disk), many people feel the need to maintain tags that reflect the physical constraints of the source medium? If you ripped an album from CD, you wouldn't tag them to reflect the sides of the original LP (or maybe you would?), so why do it just because the rip happens to be from vinyl?

I, personally, would tag the "side" in very few situations.  If I felt the physical layout of the tracks on the distribution medium was part of the artistic intent of the work, I would preserve the info.
It is not uncommon for some artists today to purposefully group tracks not just into a large work (album) but also into subsets (side).

Though I have no albums from back in the heyday of vinyl, I also suspect this was the case in times past.  When everybody had to physically get up from their seat to change the side of a record, I would like to believe that what track went on what side was something taken into consideration by at least some of the artists.
Creature of habit.

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #6
For me it actually came about initially from the way I first named the wave files when I started systematically recording my vinyl a while back. I was recording each side to a separate wave file and then cutting them into tracks. Initially when cutting I just call the pieces 1.1.wav, 1.2.wav etc for side one and 2.1.wav 2.2.wav etc for side two.

After I'd finished all the cutting and editing then I used the track information printed on the LP covers to re-name the tracks more appropriately. For no particular reason when I first started doing this I decided to keep the 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc at the beginning of the file name. So for example I ended up with files names like, "1.5 - Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks - God Save the Queen.ape" or whatever. When I used foobar to automatically tag the tracks from the filenames I ended up with track numbers like 1.5 etc and thought that looks ok I'll stick with that. So that's been the way I been doing it ever since. I also like that it lets me clearly see that the track is originally from vinyl (though that info is of course in the tag comment but that's not visible in the playlist like the track number is).

BTW. I turns out that this is only an issue with ape tags, if I use id3v2 tags then foobar has no issue with editing track numbers in that format.

Also note that older versions of foobar (pre 0.9.5.5) have no problems dealing with these "x.y" track numbers in ape tags and neither do any other tag editing programs that I've tried.

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #7
This is a bit OT, but can someone please explain to me why, when music is transferred to an unconstrained storage medium (like hard disk), many people feel the need to maintain tags that reflect the physical constraints of the source medium? If you ripped an album from CD, you wouldn't tag them to reflect the sides of the original LP (or maybe you would?), so why do it just because the rip happens to be from vinyl?


I'm far too lazy to actually cut up the sides into tracks. As it stands, for a lot of stuff, I don't even cut on the sides (ie the 1 hour 45 minute FLAC of The Nose I just finished up with).

I can see an argument to preserve the source material as much as possible; in fact, I'm getting into the habit of recording label/catalog IDs on my rips, in case I wind up getting two different pressings of the same thing someday, etc. Keeping the cuts based on the sides (perhaps combined with embedded cue sheets) would make some sense there.

Also note that older versions of foobar (pre 0.9.5.5) have no problems dealing with these "x.y" track numbers in ape tags and neither do any other tag editing programs that I've tried.
Have you reported this on the foobar forums?

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #8
Quote
Have you reported this on the foobar forums?

Yeah I made a post about it there. There didn't seem to be much interest though one person did point out there while the ape tagging format didn't have any fixed rules there were some official "recommendations" and one of those was that the track number was an integer format.

For the moment I've decided not to re-tag. I can use other software to tag if necessary and foobar still displays these tags correctly (just wont edit them).

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #9
Semantically, the track-field is the "most wrong" field to put the side of a "disc". If anything, it should be part of a disc-field. However, the disc(-number) field as well i think is considered to be an integer.

Still, i agree with simply tagging it as multiple discs. Trying to organize stuff according to physical constraints instead of content-meaning is obsolete IMO. What would you for example do, if you have a doublelayer DVD with both sides containing data..... and regarding contents it being identical to another version of the album, which comes on two DVDs? Would from a content-POV it then still matter, if the "seperator" physically is a "side" or a "disc"?
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #10
This is a bit OT, but can someone please explain to me why, when music is transferred to an unconstrained storage medium (like hard disk), many people feel the need to maintain tags that reflect the physical constraints of the source medium?


Marshall McLuhan was mostly loony, but to some extent the medium is part of the message. It's just the case that physical format is part of our experience of a work, and some of us tend to preserve it when we go to a new medium. Like those originally three-volume novels that are now printed in one, but sometimes still have the original different volumes marked by blank pages. As people have said, turning the record over is part of our experience of some albums, and we tend to preserve it.

Totally irrational, of course, and sometimes without any kind of point, but there you go.

Michael (wanting a :shrug: emoticon)

Vinyl transfer. What format do you use for tagging.

Reply #11
I use a SIDE field. DISC seems logical too.

Changing your old format to something new is absolutely trivial with foobar2000 though.