69. Examine and Modify Song Information TagsBEFORE YOU BEGIN 33 Find and Play Music SEE ALSO 9 Import a Music CD into iTunes 14 Submit CD Track Names to the Gracenote Database Song information tags, or info tags (also known as ID3 tags for MP3 files), are the heart and soul of iTunes. They're what give it the ability to organize your music in a richer and more meaningful way than simply by scrolling through folders looking for particular filenames. The info tags formulate the basis for the database queries that underlie every listing of song files, whether you're viewing an album or artist listing, a playlist , a Smart Playlist , or even just the Browse lists in the Library view. As discussed in detail in 61 Organizing Your Songs , keeping your songs' info tags organized properly is a big part of what makes iTunes enjoyable to use. The more neatly you have your info tags specified in all your files, the easier it is to navigate iTunes and quickly and easily find the music you want to listen to. iTunes provides several ways to edit your songs' info tags. You can modify certain textual info fields in place within the iTunes' song listing. Other tags, however, must be edited using the Info window, which shows you all possible info tags that can be set. The Info window can also be used to modify the info tags of large groups of song files all at once. Finally, iTunes gives you the ability to update the version and internal format of the ID3 tags in certain selected MP3 files, which corrects for limitations on field length and encoding format that can cause problems in MP3 files encoded with older software. 69. Examine and Modify Song Information Tags NOTE Info tags can be set for any files in the iTunes Library . However, only certain file formats ( specifically , MP3, AAC , and Apple Lossless) have the structural ability to store the info tag information inside the files themselves , in the headers (textual data at the beginning of a binary data file). Even these formats don't store the Date Added, Last Played , or My Rating fields, or certain other information such as preamp settings. For all other formats, the info tags are stored exclusively in the iTunes Library database itself, and the information is lost if the iTunes Library becomes unusable. See 97 Restore Your Music Library Database from a Backup Copy for more details on precautions you can take to protect your library's info tags.
TIP You can find out what ID3 tag version is used in any MP3 file by selecting it and choosing File, Get Info ; on the Summary tab, the ID3 Tag information field reports the song's tag version. Select an MP3 file whose info tags are giving you problems; choose Advanced, Convert ID3 Tags menu (or right-click the song and choose Convert ID3 Tags from the context menu). A dialog box appears, giving you several options for how to convert the ID3 tags. Choose a version number (the higher the better) from the ID3 tag version drop-down menu to upgrade the ID3 tags to a more modern format. (You might have to convert the tags to a version number smaller than the highest one available under certain circumstances, such as if you want to open the files in an application that doesn't support the most recent tag version.) If the song's info tags contain non-Western characters that appear in the song listing area as question marks or unreadable symbols, select the Translate text characters check box and choose a conversion operation from the three options presented: ASCII to ISO Latin-1 or its reverse operation, or the reversal of an incorrect Unicode text encoding. Click OK to convert the info tags. You should now be able to set the fields to values with arbitrary lengths or character sets. |