Well, with (so cool) version 2.00-beta3 loaded on the new Mk2a "backup" I am progressively trying to clean up past sins in my earlier, rushed ripping/encoding of CDs. I have reconciled all misspelled and duplicate artist names and eliminated all leading instances of "The". Soundtracks are now Soundtracks and have real artist info. Life is good.

Aside from a plug for 2.00-beta3, the plug is for MP3 Tag Studio (from www.magnusbrading.com). I think it is mentioned in one of the FAQs, but I couldn't resist a little additional plug/bump. The initial adware behavior was a pain, but it took me only about a day to decide to spend the $19 to register. Much better now. I've used it to mass-fix truncated titles/albums and years, get those accented characters back in titles, fine-tune genre info and lots of other stuff. If the existing track info was already correct, I'll just re-edit the year to "touch" each mp3 and synch v1 and v2 tag info.

I should feel as good about every other $19 I've ever spent! End of plug...

Agreed, it's great software. The adware component, however, is evil. My hard drive was running full blast at random times when I wasn't using the computer. I tracked it down to a program called "CD_Load.exe", which turns out to be the from the CyDoor adware package, using by MP3 Tag Studio.

There's lots of information about CyDoor here:
http://www.cexx.org/cydoor.htm.

Luckily, you can remove the original CyDoor DLLs and replace them with some dummy files that pretend to be the adware.
http://www.cexx.org/dummies.htm

I didn't mind the advertisements, but I did mind my hard drive grinding away in the middle of the night from their buggy adware.

DWallach: . The adware component, however, is evil....

Yep. I will admit that I had a few ambivalent moments....Do I want to reward Mr. Brading for subjecting me to this?... I had never seen such aggressive adware -- spawned all sorts of stuff. Ultimately I decided that, while I didn't like it, I could live with it as a shareware gambit -- pay $19 or de-install it? I paid.

Thanks for those links. I'll probably grab those DLLs anyhow just in case I run into this again. My habit is to register shareware I like anyhow, but I could live without that preliminary CyDoor aggravation.

I use a program called "AD-AWARE" by Lavasoft which prunes the hard disk of all known adware.

MP3 tag studio stopped working when I removed all my adware.

My question: When you register tag studio, does it work completely without adware, or does it still require the adware code to exist on the hard disk? Some programs still need the DLL's even if they don't get invoked. CD_LOAD was causing all sorts of problems on my system and I refuse to have it installed at all.

This might be a stupid question, but I assume that when you say you're cleaning up all the MP3s using the software, that you'll need to upload them all again to the player. There isn't any way to edit the tags with 3rd party software while on the Mk2?

I assume that when you say you're cleaning up all the MP3s using the software, that you'll need to upload them all again to the player.

Depends on what you're trying to do.

The whole idea of using a product like MP3 Tag Studio is to clean up the tags in the collection on your PC. Generally, you should do this BEFORE you send the files to the player in the first place.

There isn't any way to edit the tags with 3rd party software while on the Mk2?

There isn't any way to edit the tags PERIOD on the player at all. The tags are not touched once they're in the player.

You're perfectly welcome to rename things with Emplode once they're on the player. With the 2.0 release, there are actually some pretty nifty renaming features in Emplode.

The only problem is that Emplode only edits the player's database. It does not edit any actual MP3 tags. It does not write the changes into the MP3 files, either on the player or on your PC's hard disk. It's just changes fields in the player's database.

This is why many people are asking for utilities to help them. There can be a discrepancy between the tags on their PC and the database entries on their player. MP3 Tag Studio won't help you synch up your player and your PC, but it will help you get things right the first time before sending them to the player in the first place.

I've been searching for "dummy" dlls like the one linked at that site. I was sure they must have existed somewhere, I just didn't know where to find any. Nice.

In reply to:

---

There isn't any way to edit the tags PERIOD on the player at all. The tags are not touched once they're in the player.

---

I figured this was the case.

In reply to:

---

With the 2.0 release, there are actually some pretty nifty renaming features in Emplode.

---

Yeah, I just installed 2.0 last night. I'm very impressed with what a good job it does. I use a mix of the tag editing features in MUSICMATCH, along with MP3 Tag Studio when I'm editing my MP3s. MP3 Tag Studio is definitely the best tag editor out there. I'd love to see some of those features implemented into Emplode (eventually).

While on the subject of tags, I noticed that when I updated to 2.0, some of my MP3s are coming up as Invalid (while trying to play them). I'm not sure if they were invalid before the update to 2.0b3. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the switch of decoders? Also, is there a list of what ID3v2 tag elements aren't supported? I think the invalid files all have album art tagged on them, which may be confusing the player.

tfabrisMy question: When you register tag studio, does it work completely without adware...

Tony,

Once I registered, there was no *apparent* sign of adware activity. FWIW, I just copied over that dummy CD_CLINT.dll and MP3 Tag Studio fires up without problem. I may, though, download Ad Aware too see what other unsuspected problems I have ('Course this system is a pretty recent install...that keeps locking up...for reasons that I can't divine...maybe it was that DLL!!)

There is a known bug in 2.0 emplode, where tags with extra-long comment fields will mess up the synch, although I think your problem is different because it's happening on the player itself.

You could be correct in stating that the album-art data is making the files look invalid to the decoder. Stick enough junk in a file and the decoder might choke on it.

First, use MP3Trim to examine the file and see if it gives it a clean bill of health. If not, clean it up (re-save it in MP3Trim) and send it to the player again. (edit: Note, make sure to replace the tune by right-clicking and selecting replace tune, otherwise you'll have two copies of the file on the player.)

NOTE: Make sure to keep a copy of the "bad" version of the file. If it's a valid file but the new decoder chokes on it, the empeg guys will want a look at it.

svferris: This might be a stupid question, but I assume that when you say you're cleaning up all the MP3s using the software, that you'll need to upload them all again to the player.

Irrespective of any undiscovered new V2 editing capabilities, this is what I'm doing (One of the bonuses of having a "spare" -- start with a clean slate). I have a 90GB RAID-1 Linux box that is my repository (I rip with grip/LAME/cdparanoia on that box) and I point Tag Studio on my Win2K machine at the mp3 directory on that box. The long term goal is to have them both organized in the same way, so that when I rip something new, I fix all tags right then and there, put it in the right place to begin with, then move it to the same spot on the Empeg/s.

Here is another app that I've found to work quite nicely: ID3-TagIt for editing tags. Click on the little British flag for the english version. It does not appear to have any ad/spyware built in.

Happy Editing.

. I tracked it down to a program called "CD_Load.exe",
So that's where that thing came from thank you so much it's been causing me problems but I didn't know where it came from or what it was for.

So I did some testing with the files and it seems to be the album art screwing up the player. I took one MP3 that wouldn't play, simply removed the art and reuploaded. It then proceeded to work fine.

Should I report this? And to who?

Should I report this? And to who?

If you still have a copy of the file, report it to [email protected] and ask them if they want a copy of the bad file.

Oops...slight addendum...

It seems that some of my MP3s that were also tagged with album art are working ok. So, perhaps the ones that are failing were just bigger than what the player is willing to accept?

Is there a program (MP3Trim?) that can tell me how big the actual tag is within an MP3 file?

I am sure that MP3TagStudio is a great piece of software, but I have serious issues with supporting someone who would have the nerve to implement such aggressive Adware to the point were you have to hack your own machine to get it to work right. Seems like the Adware doesn't care if you installed the program and ran it only once or use it every day. Doesn't someone on this board work for MusicMatch? Maybe they can suggest some of the Mp3TagSudio features to be put into MusicMatch (and fix that Trip-Hop bug). (another "feature" is that with MusicMatch, you can't edit the "Comments" field).

Anyone have a link to Mp3Trim?

BTW: Being a longtime fan of Winamp, I have finally almost given up on it. I can update tags with it all day, but the changes are not reflected in emplode after I upload.

Anyone have a link to Mp3Trim?

It's in the FAQ. There's also this wonderful thing called a search engine you might want to investigate, I hear they're really useful...

Maybe they can suggest some of the Mp3TagSudio features to be put into MusicMatch (and fix that Trip-Hop bug).

I work for MusicMatch...and you don't even know how much I begged them to implement MP3TagStudio-type tagging in the most recent version. We just released it (7.0) yesterday. There were significant improvements to the tagging, but they didn't implement some of the features I wanted because it was "too advanced" for most of our users. It's too bad. They actually suggested I use MP3TagStudio (it was before I'd heard of the program).

What's this Trip-Hop bug?

Re-browsing through the entire FAQ (as wonderful as it is) probably isn't the most efficient way to find a link that "may" be there. Anyway, I did use the search fuction and found it thanks. You might also want to look into the "url" mark-up tags when refering to sites. They are really useful too..

Re: MusicMatch. I mentioned it in one of the "Empeg Reviews" threads, but basically, there is no "Trip-Hop" tag...only a "Trip-Top" tag which is probably a typo?

Heh, I always wondered that myself. I just assumed "Trip-Top" was some weird subgenre I hadn't heard of.

It doesn't really matter too much, since you can write in your own genres into the drop-down box anyways. I just write in Trip-Hop. But, I'll enter it as a bug anyways. Thanks.

You might also want to look into the "url" mark-up tags when refering to sites. They are really useful too..

Touche'.

Hehe, sorry Tony, you've definately been a great help anytime that I've ran into any trouble or had any questions. AND I'd say you (and Hugo of course) were the major factors in getting me to buy an empeg, so I thank you. And I have to admit that the second I hit the "Continue" button, I said to myself, "why don't you just do a search Brad?"

SVFerris:

In reply to:

---

Even record files offline, and get Tag information automatically next time you're online!

---

- That's great! My notebook is ripping CD's almost 24 hours a day, but I can't be connected all the time!

Hey, the Trip Top thing is fixed in the 7.0 version...hadn't even noticed.

That's great! My notebook is ripping CD's almost 24 hours a day, but I can't be connected all the time!

Yeah, I think we require people to be connected to the internet too much. A lot of customers actually think we're adware, but we don't do anything of the sort.

But definitely check out the new tagging stuff. It does cool things like if you have a track called:

01 - Santana - Oye Como Va

You can either extract that data out into the tag fields (Track#, Artist, Album), or you can have our database look it up and find the full ID3 tag data. Really good for tagging "Napster" tracks.

Ok, do I sound like a commercial or what...

You can either extract that data out into the tag fields (Track#, Artist, Album), or you can have our database look it up and find the full ID3 tag data. Really good for tagging "Napster" tracks.

Interesting feature. How well does it work?

Reason I ask is that when I do my own rips, the CDDB is sometimes wrong and that's when I need the fixed data. Are you saying you have a database that's more complete than the CDDB?

Sometimes I have to look up track details from compilation albums. For instance, if I buy a Greatest Hits, I want each song to be tagged with its proper original album instead of "greatest hits". Does the database handle that, too? And how does it tell the difference between say, a live track and a studio track?

See, I've been looking up this stuff by hand at allmusic.com all this time and wondering if there isn't a better way...

Tony, I know what you mean. I've spent hours at cdnow.com looking up the same information. Does it enter the correct artist name for compilations rather than "Various Artists"?

Is CDNow's database any easier to use than the one at allmusic.com in this respect?

Ok, here's an example...

I took six songs by Moxy Fruvous (great Canadian band). They were completely untagged. The filenames had the only info. They're named like the following:

Moxy Fruvous - Spiderman

When I do the lookup on them through MusicMatch, I get the attached screen. It grabs the top 5 matches from our database and automatically selects the best one. You can see that it mis-guessed on #2, but you can fix that by selecting the correct one.

When you're done, you say OK, and it applys all the track tag info to the tracks. There's also a command that can rename the files using the track info.

As for the data, it's our own database. We created it based on data from AMG (All Music Guide), which we use for our MusicMatch Guide.

I just installed 7.0 (I had to do it manually because "Update Software" didn't work), and love it! Also, I had never been to AllMusic.com and it is MUCH better for what I was doing than cdnow.com! Thanks guys!