Can incorrect MP3-content information be corrected?

[Al Eisner]

A number of the recent "big boxes" available for download in MP3 format
from Amazon have misinformation as to the content of the tracks. (In
the case of the Big Mozart Box, the information in Amazon Cloud is
incorrect, even though the track list at the main Amazon site is now
correct). Is there any way to download these files to an Apple device
with correct information?

If I download to my Windows machine, I can edit the file information
so that the files are described correctly. But as viewed by iTunes
(and hence as downloaded) the content information is still incorrect.
(I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by that.) So, is there any
way to correct the information within iTunes, so that when downloaded
to a mobile device (for example) the contents would be correctly
described?

Yet another tech-stupid question from this source. :)

Thanks.
--

Al Eisner

[O]

In article
<alpine.LRH.2.00.1...@iris02.slac.stanford.edu>, Al

Right click on a track and choose "Get Info." Click on the "Info" tab
that will allow you to edit all the information.

-Owen

[Alan Cooper]

O <ow...@denofinequityx.com> wrote in
news:170520132115383244%ow...@denofinequityx.com:

That'll work, but you might be better off with a faster and more
flexible tag editor. I use a nice freeware program called mp3tag:
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/.

AC

[Al Eisner]

Thanks very much to both of you. I'll try one or both of these methods.
Alan: does mp3tag work at the Windows file level, or does it work through
iTunes?

Now, then, another stupid question. Since, even for a big box, the download
to an iPod Touch was very fast, I'd like to delete what I downloaded, edit
the tags on my comuuter, and re-download. But so far I haven't found any
simple way to delete an album, only one "song" at a time (which I've o only
succeeded in via iTunes linked to my device, but that's not a problem in'
itself). What am I missing here?

[Currently in a good mood: listening to the Smetana Qt. playing
Dvorak Op 105. I'll leave the above work for tomorrow.]
--

Al Eisner

[Steve de Mena]

MP3TAG works at the WIndows level.

Delete the files out of iTunes (but don't delete the physical files)
Re-sync your iPod Touch. This will delete the files off the iPod.
Fix the tags with MP3TAG, and then re-add the files to the library.
Resync your iPod Touch

Was this a 99 cent set from Amazon? If so, and you think they've fixed
the tags, you might just buy it again and save the time of fixing the
tags.

BTW I have not used MP3TAG but have used "Tag & Rename" for probably
over 10 years now (it came out in 1999 and I started ripping in 2000)
and enthusiastically endorse it. I rip all my CDs on Windows machines,
clean up tags with this app, and then add them to my Mac OS X iTunes
Library.

http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

Steve

>
> Now, then, another stupid question. Since, even for a big box, the
> download
> to an iPod Touch was very fast, I'd like to delete what I downloaded,
> edit
> the tags on my comuuter, and re-download. But so far I haven't found any
> simple way to delete an album, only one "song" at a time (which I've o
> only
> succeeded in via iTunes linked to my device, but that's not a problem in'
> itself). What am I missing here?
>
> [Currently in a good mood: listening to the Smetana Qt. playing
> Dvorak Op 105. I'll leave the above work for tomorrow.]

Steve

[Al Eisner]

Thanks for the response.

> MP3TAG works at the WIndows level.
>
> Delete the files out of iTunes (but don't delete the physical files)
> Re-sync your iPod Touch. This will delete the files off the iPod.
> Fix the tags with MP3TAG, and then re-add the files to the library.

I'm not sure how to do that. They are under my Music area of files, and they
somehow appeared automatically under iTunes. Oddly, however, one of those
sets which was in iTunes yesterday isn't there today. (I know it was there
yesterday, because I used iTunes to download it to my iPod.)

> Resync your iPod Touch

For (good) reasons which I (nevertheless) won't explain, I have files
on my iPod which are not in iTunes in the computer I was using for this. \
So I don't generally use synch.

Of course, I could import all of those into that iTunes, synch, and then
remvoe selectively from iTunes after synching, if your procedure is
the only way to get albums deleted form my iPod.

> Was this a 99 cent set from Amazon? If so, and you think they've fixed the
> tags, you might just buy it again and save the time of fixing the tags.

In one case the descriptions at Amazon are still wrong. (In another case
they are corrected.) And of course some prices are now $1.99. :)

> BTW I have not used MP3TAG but have used "Tag & Rename" for probably over 10
> years now (it came out in 1999 and I started ripping in 2000) and
> enthusiastically endorse it. I rip all my CDs on Windows machines, clean up
> tags with this app, and then add them to my Mac OS X iTunes Library.
>
> http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

An embarassment of riches from rmcr!

> Steve
>
>>
>> Now, then, another stupid question. Since, even for a big box, the
>> download
>> to an iPod Touch was very fast, I'd like to delete what I downloaded,
>> edit
>> the tags on my comuuter, and re-download. But so far I haven't found any
>> simple way to delete an album, only one "song" at a time (which I've o
>> only
>> succeeded in via iTunes linked to my device, but that's not a problem in'
>> itself). What am I missing here?
>>
>> [Currently in a good mood: listening to the Smetana Qt. playing
>> Dvorak Op 105. I'll leave the above work for tomorrow.]

--

Al Eisner

[Al Eisner]

On Sat, 18 May 2013, Al Eisner wrote:

> On Sat, 18 May 2013, Steve de Mena wrote:
>
>> MP3TAG works at the WIndows level.
>>
>> Delete the files out of iTunes (but don't delete the physical files)
>> Re-sync your iPod Touch. This will delete the files off the iPod.
>> Fix the tags with MP3TAG, and then re-add the files to the library.
>
> I'm not sure how to do that. They are under my Music area of files, and they
> somehow appeared automatically under iTunes. Oddly, however, one of those
> sets which was in iTunes yesterday isn't there today. (I know it was there
> yesterday, because I used iTunes to download it to my iPod.)

Ah, I found the add-files method. There was a mystery icon in my iTunes
window which brought back all the commands. I've enabled the menu bar
several times, but it keeps disappearing on me. And I still have no idea
why that one large box disappeard from iTunes in the past day....

San Mateo Co., CA

[Alan Cooper]

Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote in
news:alpine.LRH.2.00.1...@iris03.slac.stanford.edu:

>>>
>>> Now, then, another stupid question. Since, even for a big box, the
>>> download
>>> to an iPod Touch was very fast, I'd like to delete what I
>>> downloaded, edit
>>> the tags on my comuuter, and re-download. But so far I haven't
>>> found any simple way to delete an album, only one "song" at a time
>>> (which I've o only
>>> succeeded in via iTunes linked to my device, but that's not a
>>> problem in' itself). What am I missing here?
>>>
>>> [Currently in a good mood: listening to the Smetana Qt. playing
>>> Dvorak Op 105. I'll leave the above work for tomorrow.]

Dvorak op. 105 is one of my all-time favorite pieces, and the Smetana SQ
recording is superb. Do you know the early Guarneri (on one of their two
debut LPs for RCA, in fact)? It's a memento of their glory days, and for
me it's a reminder of one of the greatest live quartet recitals I've been
privileged to attend.

I defer to Steve in technical matters, but since I lack his expertise, I
might be able to give you simpler advice. I agree with you when it comes
to not syncing your ipod with itunes. Better to retain full control for
yourself: you decide when to put stuff on and take it off. When I
download those big boxes from Amazon, I don't plug in my ipod. The
"songs" appear automatically in itunes but actually are stored in folders
within a subfolder of the Windows Music folder called "Amazon MP3." You
can easily delete them from itunes without deleting them from your
computer; itunes prompts you for that.

After you've adjusted the mp3 tags as you like using a Windows-based
program, you can reload them into itunes, or else just plug in your ipod
and drag the files you want from Windows Explorer directly into the ipod
window of itunes. YMMV, of course, but that's the system that works best
for me.

AC

[Al Eisner]

On Sat, 18 May 2013, Alan Cooper wrote:

> Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote in
> news:alpine.LRH.2.00.1...@iris03.slac.stanford.edu:
>
>>>>
>>>> Now, then, another stupid question. Since, even for a big box, the
>>>> download
>>>> to an iPod Touch was very fast, I'd like to delete what I
>>>> downloaded, edit
>>>> the tags on my comuuter, and re-download. But so far I haven't
>>>> found any simple way to delete an album, only one "song" at a time
>>>> (which I've o only
>>>> succeeded in via iTunes linked to my device, but that's not a
>>>> problem in' itself). What am I missing here?
>>>>
>>>> [Currently in a good mood: listening to the Smetana Qt. playing
>>>> Dvorak Op 105. I'll leave the above work for tomorrow.]
>
> Dvorak op. 105 is one of my all-time favorite pieces, and the Smetana SQ
> recording is superb. Do you know the early Guarneri (on one of their two
> debut LPs for RCA, in fact)? It's a memento of their glory days, and for
> me it's a reminder of one of the greatest live quartet recitals I've been
> privileged to attend.

No, I'm not familiar with that performance. Did it make it to CD?
(The Smetana Qt. I have is on one of their two Testament Dvorak/Janacek
CD's, two of my very favorite chamber CDs. The "American" on the
other CD is my favoirte performance of that too, not that I've heard
nearly as many as you probably have.)

> I defer to Steve in technical matters, but since I lack his expertise, I
> might be able to give you simpler advice. I agree with you when it comes
> to not syncing your ipod with itunes. Better to retain full control for
> yourself: you decide when to put stuff on and take it off. When I
> download those big boxes from Amazon, I don't plug in my ipod. The
> "songs" appear automatically in itunes but actually are stored in folders
> within a subfolder of the Windows Music folder called "Amazon MP3." You
> can easily delete them from itunes without deleting them from your
> computer; itunes prompts you for that.

Yes, that's exactly what I see. And I now see how to add or remove files
from the iTunes library, although I'm baffled why one of the large boxes
which iTunes showed yesterday disappeared.

> After you've adjusted the mp3 tags as you like using a Windows-based
> program, you can reload them into itunes, or else just plug in your ipod
> and drag the files you want from Windows Explorer directly into the ipod
> window of itunes. YMMV, of course, but that's the system that works best
> for me.
>
> AC

My impression, from past experience, however, is that if I don't first
delete the wrongly-tagged box from my iPod before doing the above, I wind
up with two copies on my iPod. Am I wrong about that? If I'm correct,
I do have to figure out a delete method. iTunes ought to have a way to
do that without synching, but I haven't found it yet. And, I agree,
Steve is usually pretty authoritative about this stuff. If only I had
asked about the tags earlier!

Thanks.
--

Al Eisner

[Alan Cooper]

Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote in
news:alpine.LRH.2.00.1...@iris03.slac.stanford.edu:

> On Sat, 18 May 2013, Alan Cooper wrote:
>
>> Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote in
>> news:alpine.LRH.2.00.1...@iris03.slac.stanford.edu:

>> After you've adjusted the mp3 tags as you like using a Windows-based
>> program, you can reload them into itunes, or else just plug in your
>> ipod and drag the files you want from Windows Explorer directly into
>> the ipod window of itunes. YMMV, of course, but that's the system
>> that works best for me.
>>
>> AC
>
> My impression, from past experience, however, is that if I don't first
> delete the wrongly-tagged box from my iPod before doing the above, I
> wind up with two copies on my iPod. Am I wrong about that? If I'm
> correct, I do have to figure out a delete method. iTunes ought to
> have a way to do that without synching, but I haven't found it yet.
> And, I agree, Steve is usually pretty authoritative about this stuff.
> If only I had asked about the tags earlier!

I understand that you don't want to have two copies of the same files on
your ipod. In the ipod window of itunes, highlight the files that you
intend to replace, hit Del, and confirm the deletion when prompted.
After you've fixed the tags using mp3tag or the program that Steve
recommended, drag the corrected files from your Windows folder back into

the ipod window of itunes.

AC

[Al Eisner]

I'll give it a try (probably not for a day or so). Previously I had only
found a way to delete one file at a time, which was quite slow. Thanks.
--

Al Eisner

[Kip Williams]

I just upgraded my iTunes the other day. New mini player seems to be the
main change. There's also a new view option or two.

Anyway, let us say you want to get rid of a bunch of files from iTunes.

There's a trick that allows you to check or uncheck every file in a
folder: you click on the check mark with the command (or control) key
pressed, and they all turn on (or off). Ah, but you don't want to delete
every file you have, presumably. So then what?

My workaround is to make a temp folder, either by making one and
dragging selected files into it or by selecting a bunch of files and
having it make a new folder from the selection. Now you can select and
delete all the files in the folder.

Does this make sense? Using it saves me time. Explaining it sounds kind
of dopey. I blame my political opponents.


Kip W

[O]

In article <S63mt.37234$pU6....@newsfe10.iad>, Kip Williams

On a Mac, you can select multiple things as follows:

1) click on one item to select it
2) hold down the Command key
3) click other items while the command key is down


Once the files you want are selected, you can delete them en masse, or
you can get info on them and it will allow you to change the info on
all the selected files.

-Owen

[Alan Cooper]

O <ow...@denofinequityx.com> wrote in
news:190520131046517800%ow...@denofinequityx.com:

Works similarly in the Windows version of itunes, except using the Ctrl
and Shift keys. From http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/select-
multiple-files-or-folders:

To select a consecutive group of files or folders, click the first item,
press and hold down the Shift key, and then click the last item.

To select non-consecutive files or folders, press and hold down the Ctrl
key, and then click each item that you want to select.

As O noted, you can right-click and "Get info" for multiple files, or hit
Del to delete them en masse. In either case the program will ask you to
confirm that it's what you want to do.

AC

[Al Eisner]

Just to come full circle on this (since I started it): the key information
for me was (provided by Alan) that I could delete files from my iPod using
the "Delete" key. The group selection using the Ctrl key is quite
standard. (I hadn't heard of the Shift key method, but I couldn't
get it to work.) So this solved my file-removal problem.

One apparently cannot use the multiple-file selection for changing the
file Info -- iTunes warns that you will be entering the same information
for all files.

I found that much of my editing the file information at the Windows level
actually worked -- however, I had to delete and re-add the folder to
iTunes to get this to work. A portion of it for some reason hadn't
"taken" (even at the Windows folder level), so this I edited using
Owen's first suggestion, of GetInfo file by file. But it wasn't a great
deal of work. I considered purchasing the tool Steve de Mena suggested,
but felt it wasn't yet worth it given the small amount I needed to
do. (I don't anticipate a great deal of this sort of thing.) As for
"mp3tag", by work computer blocked the installation script, while
on my home computer I got a warning that it could be dangerous -- so
I decided to hold off on that.

Anyway, thanks to all those I named (and those I didn't name) for the
assistance. (And also for AC's earlier post summarizing some mistakes
in the Big Mozart Box tags.)
--

Al Eisner

[Kip Williams]

Al Eisner wrote, On 5/20/13 7:14 PM:

> One apparently cannot use the multiple-file selection for changing the
> file Info -- iTunes warns that you will be entering the same information
> for all files.

So go ahead and do that where appropriate. It gets worried when I change
information across what it sees as different albums, but I still do it.


Kip W

[Steve de Mena]

On 5/20/13 4:14 PM, Al Eisner wrote:

> One apparently cannot use the multiple-file selection for changing the
> file Info -- iTunes warns that you will be entering the same information
> for all files.

Yes you can. You'll get the warning, it's just a safety net there to
warn you you could be doing something you don't want to. Just make
sure that what you are changing you truly want to be on every track
you selected. So, if it's an all Beethoven CD than seeing that
warning after entering "Beethoven" in the Composer field is natural.
However if you put "1" into the track field and saw that warning you
would want to cancel as you wouldn't want the track number to be "1"
for multiple track.

The shift-select has been around for 10 years on Windows and OS X.
Open a excel spreadsheet and highlight one row, let's say row 10. Go
to row 20 and Shift-click it and it should highlight rows 10 *THROUGH* 20.

Same in iTunes if your in Song display and tracks are displayed in
rows, like an Excel spreadsheet.

Selecting Consecutive Songs

1Click the first song of the group you want. Your selection should
turn blue.
2Hold down Shift. Shift allows you to select a group of consecutive
files, so that you don't have to click each one individually.
3Click the last song of the group you want. Make sure you're still
holding down Shift when you click on the last song. The entire group,
from first song to last, should be highlighted in blue.

Selecting Non-Consecutive Songs

1Click the first song you want. Your selection should turn blue.
2Hold down Ctrl (PC) or Command (Mac). This key should be located
right next to your Spacebar. Either one will work.
3Click on the next song you want. Make sure you're still holding down
Ctrl or Command. Don't let go of it until you're done selecting all
the songs you want.
4Continue clicking other songs. You can scroll up or down within
iTunes to find other songs without losing your selection.
You can let go of Ctrl or Command without losing your selection. Just
make sure you press down on it again before clicking another song.
Otherwise, you'll lose the whole lot.
If you tend to have trouble with this process, it's probably safer to
just keep holding down Ctrl or Command.

Steve

[Alan Cooper]

Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> wrote in
news:xLidne3VMKc2pwbM...@giganews.com:

> On 5/20/13 4:14 PM, Al Eisner wrote:
>
>> One apparently cannot use the multiple-file selection for changing
>> the file Info -- iTunes warns that you will be entering the same
>> information for all files.
>
> Yes you can. You'll get the warning, it's just a safety net there to
> warn you you could be doing something you don't want to. Just make
> sure that what you are changing you truly want to be on every track
> you selected. So, if it's an all Beethoven CD than seeing that
> warning after entering "Beethoven" in the Composer field is natural.
> However if you put "1" into the track field and saw that warning you
> would want to cancel as you wouldn't want the track number to be "1"
> for multiple track.

Right. It's a useful feature for making global changes as opposed to
altering a single track. Rename an entire album, for example. Add a
field as Steve suggests. Or something I do a lot, namely add an image
such as a jpeg of an album cover or a photo of the artist to a batch of
files.

AC

[Al Eisner]

I've haven't been on Usenet for the past week or so, but will give a
belated answer to the above: Yes, it works perfectly! For some reason,
when I tried this previously it didn't work. Evidently pilot error,
perhaps due to excessive haste. (And, anyway, I easily accomplished
what I needed to do with the Ctrl key.)

> To select non-consecutive files or folders, press and hold down the Ctrl
> key, and then click each item that you want to select.
>
> As O noted, you can right-click and "Get info" for multiple files, or hit
> Del to delete them en masse. In either case the program will ask you to
> confirm that it's what you want to do.
>
> AC

Thanks again.
--

Al Eisner