I need to clean up the tags my collection of around 8000 mp3s in preperation for the arivial of the empeg. I'd like to do this on my OS X Powerbook, so I can sit on my couch and watch tv while doing this insanely boring task.

I also have a linux desktop/server (which actually holds the mp3s) and vmware running win2k on that machine. I suppose I could use them if I HAD to, but I'd prefer not to, especially if I had to pay for software. I don't really use windows enough to justify buying more software for it.

So, any mac users out there care to comment on which of these is the best to use?

I'm leaning towards Mp3 rage at the moment since it seems to support looking up info from various internet sources. The web page for ID3X doesn't provide much detail into the features, so I'm not so sure. I'll download them both tonight once I get away from my work windows machine and check them out anyway.

A good unix gui app would work fine too, I do have a working X11 setup on my mac...

Comments?

If you are comfortable with the command line (which I assume you are since you have a linux box) there are lots of command line tools that will run on linux or OS X to do mass tagging. Do a search or sourceforge.net for id3. I do initial tagging with iTunes and clean up/mass tagging with a perl script I wrote a while back. For me it is usually faster to do this kind of stuff with a good command line tool and a web browser pointed at allmusic.com than with a GUI tool.

-Mike

I use ID3X -- I bought it and am happy with it.

Early versions were kinda buggy, but that has all been worked out.

Best,

_owen

The problem with mass taggers is my mp3s aren't really too organized. Mostly it's:

artist/arist name/song.mp3
but sometimes it's:
artist/artist name/album/song.mp3
or
artist/artist name/album/track num.mp3
or
artist/artist name/bootlegs/song name - location.mp3
and sometimes:
genre/soundtrack/song.mp3
genre/collection name/song.mp3
genre/theme songs/A team theme.mp3

6 years of cruft and strangeness....

The genre directory is pretty small though, only a few hundred tracks that didn't fit in the artist/album mindset. That's why I just need to hit every song, play it, look it up, tag it, and move on. Then I can use a mass organizer to get the directory structure in line and a jukebox program (empeg, iTunes, etc) to play them.

Ideally what I'm looking for is something that's interactive (curses or gui) that's all keyboard and shortcut driven. Select song, hit shortcut - play, tab around, edit name, hit shortcut - AMG pops up search on arist name, hit shortcut - save, hit shortcut - next song, and so on.

I'm digging around freshmeat, but no luck yet. Maybe I'll end up writing my own. I'll post a tarball (or dmg, depending...) here if I do.

How are keyboard shortcuts in ID3X? Do I have to use the mouse to get around it, or can I completly move around with shortcuts and tab?