I've started the monumental task of re-ripping my entire collection to VBR with EAC and LAME 3.87... Lots of fun, but I am taking the opportunity to fix my tags once and for all.

Following the general consensus here, I am using MP3-Tag Studio for my new tagging. Since 2.1 supports ID3v2 tags it should be no problem, right? Wrong... Tag Studio reports errors in frame size calculation. Because if this it refuses to add the year tag which inexplicably gets left out of the v2 tag. Repairing with Tag Studio allows the tags to be rewritten, but neither WinAmp nor Emplode recognize the v2 tag, even if the v1 tag is removed...

Doing some searching, I've found reference to EAC using ID3 v2.4 for MP3 tags. The only answer is to not set v2 tags with EAC. Can anyone confirm this? Is there a work around anyone knows that will let me set v2 tags in EAC and have them work? I am trying to make this painless as possible, but having to go back and retype all those long titles will make me cry.

For instance: Jitterbug Boy (Sharing A Curbstone With Chuck E. Weiss, Robert Marchese, Paul Body And The Mug And Artie)

Thanks...

Brian H. Johnson
MK2 36GB Blue
"Honey, you're wasting ammo..."

Some of the recent builds of lame 3.88 alpha do a much better job than 3.87, especially with vbr. Check it out before you rip your whole collection! EAC supports v2.4, most programs don't support it yet. Just create v1 tags and convert them to v2.

Sean

Arg... I just finished fiddling with removing the EAC v2 tags and recreating from v1 in MP3-Tag Studio. It works, but the v1 -> v2 makes trailing spaces in the v2 fields. Any idea how to stop this "feature?"

I'll look into 3.88, thanks...

Brian H. Johnson
MK2 36GB Blue
"Honey, you're wasting ammo..."

Lame 3.87 (and probably 3.88) support the creation of v2 tags and you can probably get EAC to pass the correct info on the lame command line.

That way it'll all be done automatically in one program.

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

I am in the process of ripping 300 CD's! I've done about 20 with lame 387 and would liek to use the latest encoder. I checked around but I could not find the compiled lame 3.88 alpha that you referred to. Do you know where I can download it?

thanks,

pete

This it?

http://www.hot.ee/smpman/mp3/

I am currently using Xing Audiocatalyst, but am thinking about trying Lame. Can someone give me a quick overview of how to use it in the most convenient way? (using CDDB, front ends, etc.)?

- Thanx
- Jon

If you use Linux then grip is a good one.

On windows I hear EAC is good too.

They can both use lame as an encoder.

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

If you use Linux then grip is a good one.



I really liked alot of the features in GRIP, but I'll be damned if it didn't rip correctly (on my systems). It looked like it ripped correctly, and it runs through correctly, but on playback, it appears that it is mis-judging the track boundries. It's really weird. Some songs will be ripped perfectly, some come out with half of the next song appended to it. Without any reason to it, in so far as I can tell.

I went back to abcde (a better compact disk encoder). Textmode, not as good on the feature list, but it does a flawless rip for me. It will also use lame and gogo without a problem.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem...

On a windows side, EAC is probably the best ripper I've seen, quality wise.

Thanks - that link was it.

I found that the best way to go is to use the EAC (Exact Audio Copy) front end and point it to your external compressor of choice.

EAC checks for song titles on the disc and if they are not there it polls CDDB. Next, it pulls the WAV files off your CD's and compresses each one-by-one.

I have been using LAME 387 set to VBR 128 (using the following parameters: -V1 -ms -h -q1). My CD's have been taking about half an hour each.

There is a long FAQ here that is a must-read.

pete

I'm currently investigating a problem whereas my songs will be missing a chunk of data at the end.

It would seem so far that the problem is with lame (I'm using 3.87 right now) since the wav files are ok after both ripping and normalizing.

It's a good thing to tell grip NOT to delete the wav file so that you can investigate problems like this and find out if it's a ripping or an encoding problem.

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

A little update on this trailing space thing... It's actually something either LAME or EAC is doing to the v1 fields, but I cannot find an answer. Each field is padded with spaces to make the character count exactly 30(?).

Anyone have a clue why it is doing this? I don't recall this happening before...?

Brian H. Johnson
MK2 36GB Blue
"Honey, you're wasting ammo..."

What command line are you using with lame?

It's actually something either LAME or EAC is doing to the v1 fields, but I cannot find an answer. Each field is padded with spaces to make the character count exactly 30(?).

That sounds almost right - the fields should be padded with binary value 0. Reference: http://www.id3v2.org/id3v1.html

Borislav

Each field is padded with spaces to make the character count exactly 30(?). Anyone have a clue why it is doing this? I don't recall this happening before...?

Well, by definition, the Title, Artist, Album, and Comment fields are always exactly 30 characters in a V1 tag.

I have noticed that some programs (including WinAmp) will pad the fields with spaces, and others will pad the fields with binary 0's. Both are valid ways of doing it, as I understand it. When I wrote the tagging portions of my software, I opted for making it behave like WinAmp, because that's such a popular program, I wanted to go with the majority.

Refresh my memory: Why are space-padded V1 tags a problem for you? I've never had any trouble with any of my V1 tags when they were padded with spaces.

___________
Tony Fabris

Common practice? Weird... That means something else in my rip-encode-tag process is going awry.

The reason this is a problem is I am copying the v1 info to the v2 fields (because nobody seems to like the v2.4 stuff.) If I don't double check the spaces, I get odd formatting in WinAmp and Empeg like the included image.

Huh... I can now confirm this is coming from MP3-Tag Studio. It includes the spaces in the v1 tags when I strip the v2 tags out... Uh, is this a bug I should report to the MP3-Tag Studio guys?

Brian H. Johnson
MK2 36GB Blue
"Honey, you're wasting ammo..."

Okay, I've had a play with Tag Studio, and I see where your problem lies.

Yes, the problem is that the fields are padded with spaces. Tag studio will fix the padding if you check the box called "Auto case-fix". In addition to repairing case, it also has an option to trim the spaces off of the ends of fields.

___________
Tony Fabris

Uh... I am really sorry to keep bringing this thread back to life, but I am confused by your proposed solution, Tony.

The only place I can find the option to strip space padding is in the automatic tag from file name tab. This works, in a fashion, but it also screws up my Album names.

Perhaps that problem is due to my file naming convention. I use "{Artist} - {Album} {TrackNr}. {Title}.mp3" The lack of hyphen or otherwise between {Album} and {TrackNr}. is causing difficulty with the auto tag option. Arg... a quick peek at the FAQ shows that at least you personally separate all fields with hyphens... Strunk and White would not be pleased.

Is there another way to achieve the final result I am looking for, or am I totally missing the point? I much prefer my naming convention...

Ray Charles - The Complete Country & Western Recordings 1959-1986 (Disc 1) 06. Born To Lose.mp3

Thanks for everyone's help...
(heh... the 'greaterthans' in my message freaks the board out....)

Brian H. Johnson
MK2 36GB Blue
"Honey, you're wasting ammo..."

The only place I can find the option to strip space padding is in the automatic tag from file name tab. This works, in a fashion, but it also screws up my Album names.

Assuming TS 2.1, it exists in the "Direct Tag Manipulation" tab, as well. Under the "Setup" button next to "Auto letter case fix".

As I understand it, what you're looking for is to strip padded spaces from the ends of V1 tag fields, then write those tags back into the files. This option will do that for you.

I only wish there was a way to do it without going through the case-fix operation. I don't see how to do it without running through the case-fix algorithm.

___________
Tony Fabris