# mp3, song titles & CDDB
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 21, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993 "2003-03-21T03:34:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/1 "2003-03-21T03:34:25Z")
I have a lot of mp3s which I ripped from audio CDs back when I didn’t have an internet connection. Thus, the files are arranged by album and by artist, but have names like Track 1, Audiotrack 1 etc.
I’d like to change these albums into their proper song titles, but it would take a while to lookup the titles and rename each individual file. Likewise, it would take to long (and be a waste) to burn them onto CDs only to be ripped again with actual titles. Any suggestions? Perhaps there is a program which accesses the CDDB database, only with files on a computer and not discs in your drive.
Any ideas are appreciated.
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### Author:  [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/2 "2003-03-21T05:54:20Z")
[:dubious:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=171268)
(click)
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/3 "2003-03-21T06:06:36Z")
CDDB lookup usually uses track lengths of the entire disk to figure out which CD you have, so it won’t work on an individual MP3 file. You could try MusicMatch Jukebox - apparently it can search the CDDB using bits of the filename as keyword. However this isn’t very reliable so it requires a lot of corrections, and I don’t know if it even looks at folder names.
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### Author:  [@Sqube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sqube)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/4 "2003-03-21T07:21:49Z")
I don’t know about MusicMatch, but you can definitely use Dr. Tag. While I haven’t used the program extensively and it is shareware, it certainly looks like a program with potential.
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=171268](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=171268)
^ That’s the link.
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### Author:  [@Sqube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sqube)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/5 "2003-03-21T07:25:02Z")
I’m sorry, by “That’s the link”, I meant that the link for Dr. Tag could be found within that post. Ignore all vitriolic moderator commentary ;).
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### Author:  [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/6 "2003-03-21T15:30:20Z")
Thanks for the suggestions. Let me just reiterate something:
Its not that I want to find titles for and individual mp3 as **scr4** suggests, but rather that I have entire albums that I’d like to look up. Its just that they happen to be in mp3 format on my harddrive rather than on a CD.
My first thought was perhaps to set up a virtual drive and put an albums worth of songs there and possibly trick CDDB into thinking that it is a disc. I haven’t pursued this, though.
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### Author:  [@mallocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mallocks)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/7 "2003-03-21T15:32:35Z")
if you can’t find the tags and still have the original CDs you can just write the tracks yourself.
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### Author:  [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/8 "2003-03-21T15:36:55Z")
Thanks **mallocks** , but I did specifically mention in the OP that that would take too long. Yes I do have the original CDs.
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### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/9 "2003-03-21T15:44:16Z")
[Tag & Rename](http://www.allformp3.com/mp3_management/tag.htm) looks like it should do it. From the features: “CDDB1 support: get tag information for full MP3 albums in seconds via the Internet using [freedb.org](http://freedb.org).”
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### Author:  [@mallocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mallocks)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/10 "2003-03-21T15:49:11Z")
aargh. I meant tags, not tracks.
sorry
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### Author:  [@mallocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mallocks)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-song-titles-cddb/162993/11 "2003-03-21T15:51:12Z")
and I was just saying that you could do that it you can’t find the tracks for a particular album, obviously it would be better if you could have them tagged automatically.