ID3 tags

[Melon]

For the sake of boredom, let's talk about how we tag our mp3s!



English songs are pretty obvious. So how do you do your tags for foreign songs?



Lately I've been doing them like so:

Song Title: 愛あらば IT'S ALL RIGHT (If there's love, it's all right!)



In the comments section I'll put the romaji if needed. (we can all recognize the MM titles by now, right? lol)



It's way easier with Japanese songs. I'm having trouble with the korean ones using that system. Usually it's just the name in English unless the rip I found is in hangul, then I know I will have to spend a good time with google. Chinese is worse, I usually end up leaving those alone because the pinyin system is confusing. But it BOTHERS ME. What is the song title? What does it mean? And then everything is kanji and after it's out of normal rotation I forget what the kanji/hangul looks like so I'm stuck with these things that have no meaning to me and I have to click and listen to remember. :(



I also hate not having the covers. I'll delete songs off if I can't find a cover or a suitable cover replacement. I hate it when artists do collabs and it lists both artists in the collab, thereby clogging up my artist list for one freaking song. I will add a "feat." to the song or add them in the comments section. It also bothers me when an artist changes names and I don't know what to put their stuff under. Do I keep the original release name? Or put it under their new name? <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... nfused.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[Ap2000]

I don't care about the tags at all. I have several songs that have empty tags and/or tags where the album, artist, title and track number are in one single tag (not joking).

All I want is the file name to be "Artist - Title.mp3" or "Artist - Title (Live).mp3" if it's a live version.



I hate how when you download an album the files are just "06 - Analbumcovers.mp3" and the artist is not in the file name. What were those releasers thinking !?



2~3 times already I thought about correcting at least artist, title and album name. But I always ended up only doing 10~20 songs, since I don't want some music programm to connect to the internet and send my mp3 list to a server to check for correct tags.

Maybe I'll just hire petit for a week and let you sort and tag all my songs correctly.

[JFC]

[quote name='Ap2000' timestamp='1307721063' post='101270']



I hate how when you download an album the files are just "06 - Analbumcovers.mp3" [/quote]It must be the lack of coffee, but I read that as "Anal bum covers". <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... >/rofl.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[kira]

In iTunes there's a 'sorting' tab when you look at the 'more info' page, and I use that to tag all of my songs.



The original title, artist, album name, etc. in the original language all go in the left hand columns, while the romanized version goes in the right hand columns. With Korean songs, I tend to use the English translation instead of the romanization in the right hand column.



By doing this, all of my songs, artists, albums, etc. are sorted alphabetically in my library, instead of having all the songs with foreign characters for titles at the bottom of the list. It's a time-consuming process though.

[Ap2000]

[quote name='JFC' timestamp='1307722938' post='101275']

[quote name='Ap2000' timestamp='1307721063' post='101270']



I hate how when you download an album the files are just "06 - Analbumcovers.mp3" [/quote]It must be the lack of coffee, but I read that as "Anal bum covers". <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... >/rofl.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[/quote]



You need to watch more SNL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM0gPmkCYsg

[EmEl]

Before mp3 players, I used to not care because my filename system was already established that let me drag and drop whatever folder I wanted easily into winamp and I could see just what I was listening to. Then many mp3 players started being based on tags. But it was easy enough to find one of those programs that automated my tags for me based on my naming scheme.



[quote name='Petit Melon' timestamp='1307720199' post='101267']

English songs are pretty obvious. So how do you do your tags for foreign songs?

[/quote]

I do whatever the back of the CD says. It's some groups that annoy me. SCANDAL, chatmonchy, and S/mileage for example like to switch around if they write their name in katakana or not, so I just have to make an executive decision sometimes.



The file name is in romaji.



[quote name='Petit Melon' timestamp='1307720199' post='101267']I hate it when artists do collabs and it lists both artists in the collab, thereby clogging up my artist list for one freaking song. I will add a "feat." to the song or add them in the comments section.[/quote]

I hate when a song title has "feat." in it, because that's not part of the song title. I used to have this same dilemma with the artist list, but now that most players recognize and can sort by the "Album Artist" field, it's much better. For example, I can put "Morning Musume" as the Album Artist for all the songs, but when the CD credits a song to a single girl or whatever, she can go in the Artist field.



[quote name='Petit Melon' timestamp='1307720199' post='101267']

It also bothers me when an artist changes names and I don't know what to put their stuff under. Do I keep the original release name? Or put it under their new name? <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... nfused.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[/quote]

Old stuff goes on their original name, new stuff goes under Momoiro Clover Z their new name. Whatever it says on the box basically.

[sadude]

I tag everything in the original language. I decided to do that when I was first learning Japanese, and it helped because I ended up knowing certain kanji from the song titles they were in. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' />



With Korean, I left them in Hangul. I then used that as motivation to teach myself basic Hangul a year or so ago, and I got enough working knowledge to muck my way through reading artist names at a pre-k level. Now that I'm actually taking a Korean class, I'm super thankful that I have all these songs in Hangul. I get excited when a KPop song comes on during random because I get to read it. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /weeeh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':weeeh:' />



I have no fucking clue what any of my CPop songs are, though. I can differentiate them based on number of characters and what kanji they contain that I may know from Japanese, but I have no idea how to read them. But I will know someday, dammit. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' />





In related self-diagnosed not-actual OCD news, 1123/11074 songs in my collection don't have covers, and 7869/11074 songs don't have lyrics. Still need to work on this last one.

[Shoujo Q]

My tags are a big hot mess. Such is my life I guess? :D sadude would kill me for what he sees I'm sure.



I fix them when I find the time, but it's all still a mess. Half in original language and half in something else and don't get me started on the duplicates I stumble upon every now and again.



Though I noticed after switching to automatic sync on my ipod that ALL my album covers have disappeared and been replaced with a grid of four album covers that aren't the original album cover or an album cover that is for a different song. It's pissing me off because that's the only thing I managed to keep updated. DAMN YOU APPLE!

[freezingkiss]

My Hello! Pro tags are pretty much fixed up, but my Sailor Moon Anime music and Sera Myu ones are so all over the place it would take days to fix them. ;__;

[Vikitty]

Same here, freezingkiss. I switched from labeling the artists by character names, to actress/actor names, etc etc. Especially for songs that I have 5 or 6 versions from each musical (like La Soldier, for example).

[tsukinobyouin]

Aw man I totally missed this thread. Joining in after the bump!



I'm pretty OCD. Because I can read and understand Japanese pretty well, all of my Japanese songs are tagged true to their official song/album titles and artist names. No romaji or English unless the artist writes something that way. This works out most of the time because it forces me to learn new kanji they pop up, though every once in a while I get stuck on the songs I don't listen to as much.



Korean songs I write romanized with the hangul in parentheses. I can barely read it so it's really only there for my OCD need completion. I used to use hangul only to be "official" but I'm very slow at reading it so I finally caved and compromised. English songs are of course in plain old English.



Regardless of the language I'm very particular that the tags match what's "official" as much as possible. So if the title has a bunch of funky symbols, I have them. Songs must be associated with the appropriate album. So as soon as a single's a-side is included on an album, I change the album field from the single title to the album title. If the album only includes a remix of the song, it stays with the single.



I have to have album art too, but if I love a song I'll keep it even if I'm totally unsuccessful at finding any. If it's something unofficial (fan karaoke or a radio only release or something) I'll make a cover myself sometimes. For every song the title, artist, year, track _ of _, album, and genre must be filled out. All other fields blank. Otherwise it just bugs me xD

[Vikitty]

I keep all the original Japanese and Korean in mine too. For artists, though, I sort them in romaji (ie Hamasaki, Ayumi) so that it will show up with the Hs and now in a huge jumbled pile at the very bottom of the list.

[tsukinobyouin]

^Ugh yes that's one feature I really wish iTunes / iPods had - better language features. I can set my iPod to be in Japanese, but it still doesn't sort the artist names in proper order. I suppose to it's credit, it sorts the hiragana/katakana names correctly, and kanji can be read multiple ways so it may have trouble sorting those.



I assume if you were to buy an iPod in Japan (or any country that uses a character system other than roman letters) the artists would sort properly? Or maybe it only works if you purchase the music through iTunes where it might already have the data to know the correct reading/where it should go in the order.

[Sabaku Ika]

I have my music sorted in iTunes by "Album by Artist". So I generally change the Album Artist to romaji to make it alphabetize correctly. I leave the Artist field in whatever writing system it came in. This works well for me.

[sadude]

[quote name='TnB' timestamp='1309523380' post='102760']^Ugh yes that's one feature I really wish iTunes / iPods had - better language features. I can set my iPod to be in Japanese, but it still doesn't sort the artist names in proper order. I suppose to it's credit, it sorts the hiragana/katakana names correctly, and kanji can be read multiple ways so it may have trouble sorting those.



I assume if you were to buy an iPod in Japan (or any country that uses a character system other than roman letters) the artists would sort properly? Or maybe it only works if you purchase the music through iTunes where it might already have the data to know the correct reading/where it should go in the order.[/quote]

I always assumed that it sorted based on the number from some system of the first kanji, so roughly in order of complexity or something similar instead of by reading. If you were to buy an iPod in Japan I figure the artists would sort the same way.

[EmEl]

While there is radical-and-stroke ordering that some systems use, my Japanese Walkman sorts just based on syllabic ordering regardless of kanji: a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, (etc.)



It interprets most kanji correctly, but when it makes mistakes I don't know how to correct it. Maeyamada is not Zenyamada!!

[Vikitty]

Grrrr after installing Windows 7 SP1, all of my Japanese and Korean song titles have turned into the boxes of DOOM and I have no idea how to restore them. ;_;

[sadude]

[quote name='Valerie' timestamp='1309580976' post='102840']Grrrr after installing Windows 7 SP1, all of my Japanese and Korean song titles have turned into the boxes of DOOM and I have no idea how to restore them. ;_;[/quote]

Filenames or just id3 tags? If the latter (going from my XP knowledge): make sure you have East Asian languages installed, and make sure your media player supports them.

[Vikitty]

It was both (iTunes renames the files based on the ID3 tags). I did have Japanese installed. Did some googling and changed my locale to Japan which seems to have fixed the problem, but it's strange that it happened to begin with, as I've never had to change my locale before to be able to see the Japanese/Korean.

[kira]

[quote name='TnB' timestamp='1309523380' post='102760']

^Ugh yes that's one feature I really wish iTunes / iPods had - better language features. I can set my iPod to be in Japanese, but it still doesn't sort the artist names in proper order. I suppose to it's credit, it sorts the hiragana/katakana names correctly, and kanji can be read multiple ways so it may have trouble sorting those.



I assume if you were to buy an iPod in Japan (or any country that uses a character system other than roman letters) the artists would sort properly? Or maybe it only works if you purchase the music through iTunes where it might already have the data to know the correct reading/where it should go in the order.

[/quote]





I had the same problem when I first started tagging all my songs in the original language - all my Japanese/Chinese/Korean songs wound up at the bottom of the song list.



The only solution I found to get iTunes/my iPod to sort them alphabetically was to open the 'get info' page for each song, go to the 'sorting' tab, and fill in all the sort fields in the right-side column with the romanized titles and names. The iPod displays the stuff on the left (which is the default title/artist/etc. names entered), but it sorts by what's on the left-hand side.



...I think I said this already. Ahaha. Anyway, it's a long process, so unless you really want it to be alphabetical, it doesn't matter. I can't read Japanese or Korean (I can do some Chinese though), so I really rely on putting the songs in alphabetical order to find them.

[tsukinobyouin]

[quote name='Ojinguh' timestamp='1309535256' post='102769']

I have my music sorted in iTunes by "Album by Artist". So I generally change the Album Artist to romaji to make it alphabetize correctly. I leave the Artist field in whatever writing system it came in. This works well for me.

[/quote]



I like this idea, but does it also sort that way on your iPod? I haven't found a way to sort by album artist on the iPod itself.





[quote name='Em-El' timestamp='1309577073' post='102834']

While there is radical-and-stroke ordering that some systems use, my Japanese Walkman sorts just based on syllabic ordering regardless of kanji: a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, (etc.)



It interprets most kanji correctly, but when it makes mistakes I don't know how to correct it. Maeyamada is not Zenyamada!!

[/quote]



That's the kind of sorting I really want (a i u e o) but iTunes doesn't seem to quite have it down. I'm not really sure WHAT it sorts by for kanji, as mine goes 少年隊ー＞山口百恵ー＞岡井千智ー＞嵐ー＞工藤静香. "Arashi" definitely has more strokes than the "ku" in kudou. Oh well.



[quote name='kira' timestamp='1309585511' post='102846']

The only solution I found to get iTunes/my iPod to sort them alphabetically was to open the 'get info' page for each song, go to the 'sorting' tab, and fill in all the sort fields in the right-side column with the romanized titles and names. The iPod displays the stuff on the left (which is the default title/artist/etc. names entered), but it sorts by what's on the left-hand side.



...I think I said this already. Ahaha. Anyway, it's a long process, so unless you really want it to be alphabetical, it doesn't matter. I can't read Japanese or Korean (I can do some Chinese though), so I really rely on putting the songs in alphabetical order to find them.

[/quote]



Stupidly, I have never messed with the sorting tab before. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/doh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':doh:' /> Good idea. I may play around with it in the future to get them in a-i-u-e-o order, but that would definitely be a long process. Having them in alphabetical order is a good idea for those who can't read Japanese as well, but for me having kanji all mixed in with my romanized artists would be an OCD meltdown xD

[EmEl]

[quote name='TnB' timestamp='1310083888' post='103205']

[quote name='Em-El' timestamp='1309577073' post='102834']

While there is radical-and-stroke ordering that some systems use, my Japanese Walkman sorts just based on syllabic ordering regardless of kanji: a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, (etc.)



It interprets most kanji correctly, but when it makes mistakes I don't know how to correct it. Maeyamada is not Zenyamada!!

[/quote]



That's the kind of sorting I really want (a i u e o) but iTunes doesn't seem to quite have it down. I'm not really sure WHAT it sorts by for kanji, as mine goes 少年隊ー＞山口百恵ー＞岡井千智ー＞嵐ー＞工藤静香. "Arashi" definitely has more strokes than the "ku" in kudou. Oh well.

[/quote]

I'm guessing that's some sort of radical-stroke order that you might find in a kanji dictionary. First kanji are separated out by their base radical, and then within that radical it's done by number of strokes. ノ radical is one of the early ones, so 少年隊 is first. Then you have the 山 radical in your list. 岡 and　嵐 both are also in that same radical but 岡 has less strokes. Then 工 is a later radical.



I don't think this is iTunes's decision as it's probably the OS's default sorting behavior. It's a cumbersome system, but it's the most objective since kanji, of course, can have so many readings and the OS can't guess. When I was searching for a way to tell my Walkman to fix its readings, I'm pretty sure Sony actually listed its auto-conversion as one of its features.