Edit Audio Tags Updates Files Out Of Order

[StuD]

I am trying to assign track numbers, and update tags on MP3's I have ripped.

 

I am using EMC10. I select multiple MP3 files and Edit Audio Tags. Then in the left part of the dialog, I select a file, and edit the tag for that file. I change for example, thet rack number, and the title. I then go on to the next file.

 

I do have the "embed or replace..." checkbox selected to add the information to the file.

 

When I exit, after a few minutes, the program will have updated the tags in all of my selected files.

 

However it gets the wrong information in the files. It seems to be saving the information out of order. It saves all the same tags I just updated, but it seems to mix it up on which files get updated with which tags.

 

I am simply trying to get track information correct so that when I burn to an MP3 CD, they are all in the correct order. When doing an audio book or a recorded audio like this, that is kind of important don't ya know...

 

Anyway, I've lost probably a ten hours on this over the course of the last 4-5 months, and probably that many CD's.

 

Any pointers?

[gi7omy]

You have to remember that mp3 files atre data and they will burn in alphanumerical order

 

What you will have to do to sort is to prefix each one with a number (if you have over 100 going to the disc, you will have to start with '001' and work up from that)

 

Unfortunately it's down to the way the computer sorts data files

[StuD]

You have to remember that mp3 files atre data and they will burn in alphanumerical order

 

What you will have to do to sort is to prefix each one with a number (if you have over 100 going to the disc, you will have to start with '001' and work up from that)

 

Unfortunately it's down to the way the computer sorts data files

 

Ok, I actually had done that, and I understand several different sort algorithms, but the apparent order that was given had nothing to do with any of them.

 

I could select an individual file in the left part of the dialog such as "001 my audio book.mp3" and enter 1 for a track number, then move on to select "002 my audio book.mp3" dialog, enter the value 2 for the track number. After I go through 20-30 of these, I can verify that they are all working. Then I exit out of the Edit Audio Tags tool, give it a few minutes for the files to get updated, go back in, and the track number on file "001 my audio book.mp3" might be 9, and not the 1 that I had originally set.

 

It isn't some obscure sorting problem you can blame on "computers" it appears to be a bug in the program. I'm wondering if anyone has a workaround short of using another tool or doing one file at a time.

 

[GBR]

Hi

 

The are several different ways of accessing the Edit Audio Tags functionality in EMC - not sure of the precise steps you are using. However, I have found that sometimes the occasional track has not renumbered. Because of this, I tend to use Windows Explorer to access the Edit Audio Tags as I can then see the result in Explorer without having to open up every file through one of the EMC programmes.

 

I am assuming your files are stored in MP3 format. My operating system is Windows Vista - not sure if XP works/displays the same way.

 

Navigate to the folder that contains the music files you want to use. Ensure the filenames are in the sequence you require, etc.

 

Set the folder display to show the features you want (e.g. filename, artist, album) including track number (# in Vista). Most of this will not display if WAV files, hence the assumption you are storing your files in MP3 format.

 

Select all the files, right click and select Edit Song Information. Edit for the order/information you want. Check the box to embed or replace tags inside the auduio files.....

 

When you have finished, all of this info will display in the Explorer folder window. If you order the folder by track number, you can then see if any of the track numbering is wrong and re-edit the individual tracks.

 

In Music Disc Creator, select MP3/WMA Disc and add the audio tracks you want to burn to disc. As a further precaution, in Project settings, check the box 'Rename tracks to ensure playback order'.

 

Good luck. I would be interested to hear if this solves your problem.

 

GBR

[Jim_Hardin]

You completely missed what Daithi said…

 

He said you have to edit the File Name for the order to work in the common alpha numerical sorting.

 

To move them in the Project window, highlight one and use your mouse to drag it where you want it.

 

But again, this will only effect a Player that plays in burned order.

 

[GBR]

Hi Jim

 

Not sure whether your comment is in response to my post or StuD's.

 

What I posted has worked for me for the several hundred tracks and 60+ MP3 discs I have made. Maybe I have not included enough detail. By working from Window Explorer first before going into EMC, I find it saves corrections later.

 

Where I said 'make sure the filenames are in the sequence you require etc.' The detail is .............. In Windows Explorer I make sure that the tracks are in the order I want them and filename corresponds to a number sequence,

 

e.g

01-Room For The Life.mp3,

02-The Kick Inside

03-Clous Busting

and so on............. then do the editing detailed in my last post.

 

Therefore, if the original track number for 01-Room For The Life.mp3 was 9, it changes to 1 and corresponds with the filename. I believe from what StuD posted he is already naming the files and tracks like this.

 

In Edit Song Information, the filename is picked up as the title, so it shows 01-song1 as the title of the song. So, e.g. what I end up with is:

 

Title: 01-Room For The Life

Artist: Kate Bush

Album: The Kick Inside

Track Number: 1

 

(I don't use Album Artist, Genre, Year)

 

It may be a long-winded way of doing it, and you or others may know of better & quicker ways of achieving the same result. In the early days of my project, having wasted lots of time and discs, I adopted this method which works for me - a bit of painstaking work up front, but overall saves me a lot of re-work and wasted discs.

 

Happy to stand corrected if there are easier ways, and of course, it might not work for StuD

 

GBR

 

 

 

 

 

[StuD]

The are several different ways of accessing the Edit Audio Tags functionality in EMC - not sure of the precise steps you are using. However, I have found that sometimes the occasional track has not renumbered. Because of this, I tend to use Windows Explorer to access the Edit Audio Tags as I can then see the result in Explorer without having to open up every file through one of the EMC programmes.

 

I am on XP with SP3 applied. Although the problem occurred under SP2 as well.

I use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder where the MP3 files are stored, and select all of the files. Then right click and choose the bolded menu option to Edit Tags (don't recall the exact text here as I am on my Linux system at the moment.)

 

I can verify in XP that the tags are not getting updated correctly, using the tooltip.

 

What's worse is that when I go back into Edit Audio Tags, the tag ordering is messed up again.

 

Thanks for your suggestion, I appreciate it. Unfortunately the problem remains.

 

You completely missed what Daithi said…

 

He said you have to edit the File Name for the order to work in the common alpha numerical sorting.

 

To move them in the Project window, highlight one and use your mouse to drag it where you want it.

 

But again, this will only effect a Player that plays in burned order.

 

In the example I gave, "001 my audio book.mp3" is the filename, which I had renamed it to achieve the correct numerical sorting.

 

However as I said, when I go into Edit Tags with multiple files selected (select several files in windows explorer, right click, edit tags) they come into the Edit Tags tab out of order. I can sort them in the edit tags tab by clicking on the filename column and they sort correctly. I can then select individual files, change edit the tags, such as the track, and title. Then I exit out, wait a few minutes for the background process to update the files, and voila, all the data I just entered is mixed up iand assigned to incorrect files.

[GBR]

Hi StuD

 

Just borrowed a firiend's laptop with Win XP service pack 3 to see if I could help you get to the bottom of your problem. Tried a quick project by creating a folder with half a dozen files dragged from different folders. I am trying for the first time to add some links to pictures in this post - hope it works!

 

Here is what it looked like in Explorer before editing with all the files selected and Edit Song Information opened - it shows a mish-mash of song info.

 

http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/G...ket/Screen1.jpg

 

I cancelled out of that and went back to Explorer to put them in a different order, rename tham to correspond with the order I wanted, then selected them all, right click to Edit Song Information, then edited each in turn to give the correct track number.

 

Here is what the files looked like in Explorer after I had done the editing. As you can see, the edits are retained.

 

http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/G...ket/Screen2.jpg

 

I then opened Music disc creator and selected MP3/WMA, & then added the audio tracks.

 

Here is what it looked like - again, the order is retained.

 

http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/G...ket/Screen3.jpg

 

Just to re-check, I then selected them all, right click to Edit Song Info - all is still OK

 

http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/G...ket/Screen4.jpg

 

If you need to you can set Project settings to rename the files as previously explained (I don't think this should be necessary, but you never know!)

 

http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/G...ket/Screen5.jpg

 

I then burned the disc and checked it out by playing it in Windows Media Player - all OK

 

http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/GBR_bucket/WMP.jpg

 

If this doesn't work for you, then I'm stumped and I hope someone else can come up with some ideas.

 

GBR

 

 

 

 

 

[StuD]

 

 

 

GBR, you are very kind in going to such an extent, I sincerely appreciate it.

 

I started with the files named such that they sort properly in Explorer.

 

I then select all files, and right click to open in Edit Song Information – with the Roxio Edit Audio Tags application

 

You can see that the files are not sorted properly, so I then click on the File Name to sort in the proper order whic shows:

 

Next I walk through each file, setting the Track as I want them.

 

After exiting out, however, the track numbers do not match what I had set them to in the Edit Tags program.

 

I don't want to have to edit each file individually, the Edit Tags program is too time consuming to start up and exit. I have other free tools, such as those that come with Jet Audio I can use to do this if I have to edit each indivudually which also loads much faster. I want something that's part of an integrated tool chain like EMC10.

 

So hopefully this illustrates that the editing of the tags is what is failing. Before I exit out of the edit tags, they all look just fine. The problem appears to be when the tags are actually written to the files, they get written out to the wrong files.

 

Thanks for your attention...

-StuD-

 

[GBR]

Hi StuD

 

I think the difference between us is that I do all the editing of song Info (Audio Tags) through Explorer and I think you are doing some of it it from within one of the EMC programs.

 

Much as I like EMC, it is a bit 'buggy' and you can get different results for the same task depending on how you got to the bit you are using. The Wizards are not as good or accurate as the individual programs, and neither is there a consistent result from any of the programmes or wizards.

 

I'm not copmplaining - all software seems to be like that and is affected by the particular combination of software (& all the possible conflicts) that you have or could have on your PC.

 

Me - I'm a 'fiddler'. I work around and around a problem until I find something that works for me - even if it costs me a bit more time and effort initially, and even if the Digital Gurus or Masters (or whoever) think I'm being a pratt. But then - hey - I'm retired now - it's one of the things I can afford to spend time on. (ex-project manager for getting computer systems installed in Government departments - never did understand the Techies, but got on really well with the users!)

 

If you haven't already, try going a bit further in Explorer to the point where, in Explorer, everything looks as it should, and when you select and launch the files from Explorer into Windows Media Player, they appear and play in the correct order...................before you open up EMC............................and see if you get a better result.

 

GBR

 

 

[StuD]

I think the difference between us is that I do all the editing of song Info (Audio Tags) through Explorer and I think you are doing some of it it from within one of the EMC programs.

 

I know how to do it in Explorer, and it's very time consuming. When I get a block of 30-100 files that I want to apply track numbers to, I am looking for an efficient way to do it.

 

This is precisely why I was looking to use the EMC Edit Audio Tags program. I expect the features to work, and if not, it's a bug. Hence the reason I was posting in this section on Program Errors.

 

Much as I like EMC, it is a bit 'buggy' and you can get different results for the same task depending on how you got to the bit you are using. The Wizards are not as good or accurate as the individual programs, and neither is there a consistent result from any of the programmes or wizards.

 

I'm not copmplaining - all software seems to be like that and is affected by the particular combination of software (& all the possible conflicts) that you have or could have on your PC.

Yes, I would agree that "buggy" is a reasonable word to apply to EMC. I don't think of it as complaining to identify software defects, with the goal of improving the software.

 

I like EMC, I don't like the bugs, and awkward workflows that it requires.

 

Thanks for your efforts here, it looks like I'm just dealing with one of the many bugs that EMC customers just workaround, and are too polite to complain about... :-)

 

-StuD-

[GBR]

Hi StuD

 

Unless I'm missing a point completely, the stuff you are trying to do quickly in the EMC Edit Audio Tags can be done within Explorer. You can select all of the files and right click to bring up the Edit Song Info and within that window (which looks the same as it does when you go in through EMC Tag Editor), just click on each individual track in the left hand pane and change the track number.

 

When finished, just look in an ordinary Explorer window and it should show the tracks with the correct order in the track number column.

 

Pity we can't sit side by side to say 'yes but......' as we go through the steps.

 

GBR