# Seeking music labeling software **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968 "2010-04-13T17:49:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elninost0rm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ed655f/32.png) [@elninost0rm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elninost0rm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/1 "2010-04-13T17:49:32Z")
Hi Dopers, Pretty simple question, but I can’t figure out how to phrase it on Google and the like. When playing music from my Droid, I’d prefer that it was all neatly categorized by title/song/artist/etc. Most of the titles that I have conform to this code already, but there are many that aren’t really organized properly. Is there software out there that loads up, say, a list of MP3’s from the folder of your choice and lets you manually edit each so they have the proper internal labels (title, artist, album, etc.) Thanks! EDIT: Software that would do this automatically (ie: listening to it through some sort of online recognition) would be super if possible. EDIT2: All music was obtained legally before I run into any doubters. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/2 "2010-04-13T17:59:52Z")
Tag and rename is what I use to manually edit the tags. I haven’t had much luck with automatically tagging music. [http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm](http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm) ---
**Author:** ![elninost0rm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ed655f/32.png) [@elninost0rm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elninost0rm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/3 "2010-04-13T18:02:51Z")
Looks like a solid solution. Thanks. Still open to any automatic ideas if anyone knows of any. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/4 "2010-04-13T18:06:48Z")
Years ago, I used [MusicBrainz](http://musicbrainz.org/)with some success. It’s supposed to pick out an audio “fingerprint” from the music itself, and uses that to pull track information from a user-submitted database. When I used it, it was pretty reliable for more popular and mainstream music, and often put forward a decent guess for my more obscure stuff. I imagine it’s only improved in recent years, as more users add music to the database and weed out bad entries. ---
**Author:** ![elninost0rm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ed655f/32.png) [@elninost0rm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elninost0rm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/5 "2010-04-13T18:07:44Z")
Checking it out now. Hopefully it supports more than one track at a time. That would take eons! ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/6 "2010-04-13T18:13:42Z")
[Musicbrainz Picard](http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardTagger) is the best I’ve used. It’s as automated as these things get, using a vast database of track names and titles, but also “fingerprints” of the content of your music files. I’ve used it to tag many thousands of files painlessly - I’d estimate the percentage of files it couldn’t recognise as about 1%. Edited: Beaten! But I’ll confirm that it now gets pretty much everything - even stuff from less than mainstream sources. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/7 "2010-04-13T18:14:47Z")
> [@elninost0rm](#): > > Checking it out now. Hopefully it supports more than one track at a time. That would take eons! Oh definitely. When I used it, I actually had the opposite problem – I had it look up tags for my entire music collection at once. It then presented its best guesses, which you can review and edit any that are wrong. I got about half way through that process when I clicked the “confirm changes” button, so a sizeable chunk of my collection has bad tags. Still haven’t fixed that, really… ---
**Author:** ![elninost0rm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ed655f/32.png) [@elninost0rm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elninost0rm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/8 "2010-04-13T18:17:18Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > Oh definitely. When I used it, I actually had the opposite problem – I had it look up tags for my entire music collection at once. It then presented its best guesses, which you can review and edit any that are wrong. I got about half way through that process when I clicked the “confirm changes” button, so a sizeable chunk of my collection has bad tags. Still haven’t fixed that, really… Yeah I can imagine. I’m looking for it to sweep my entire collection and fix any it does incorrectly by hand. Picard seems to be the key to success. @Baron: Going to use it when I get home from work for sure. I figured that this would be a problem for many people and it sounds like a good solution. There is another piece of software on their site called “Magic MP3 Tagger,” but it costs to register (not opposed to it), but if the free Picard program is just as good.. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/9 "2010-04-13T18:19:09Z")
> [@elninost0rm](#): > > Checking it out now. Hopefully it supports more than one track at a time. That would take eons! It works on a directory level - the limitation is really down to screen estate. I tend to do 3 or 4 albums at a time. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/10 "2010-04-13T18:19:19Z")
Musicbrainz Picard is pretty good, but I only have a 60% or so success rate considering how much indie and unsigned stuff I listen to. If anyone know of a better one for more obscure music tastes, I’m all ears. ---
**Author:** ![elninost0rm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ed655f/32.png) [@elninost0rm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elninost0rm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/11 "2010-04-13T18:21:17Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > It works on a directory level - the limitation is really down to screen estate. I tend to do 3 or 4 albums at a time. That’s what I wanted to ask you: I listen to music like this: hear something on the radio (no clue who even sings it), like it, get it. As such, most of my collection is haphazard at best and has no real rhyme or reason. I noticed that Picard has you drag and drop ALBUMS to be converted. Would it work with a folder called “Music” composed of a wide-array of artists/genres/etc? Magic MP3 Tagger on that site seems to boast that as one of its key features, but obviously I’d like to avoid purchasing if it at all possible. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/12 "2010-04-13T18:24:04Z")
> [@elninost0rm](#): > > There is another piece of software on their site called “Magic MP3 Tagger,” but it costs to register (not opposed to it), but if the free Picard program is just as good.. The Picard program is the main product and is open source and free for non-commercial use. The Magic thing is just some affiliate product. Use Picard. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/13 "2010-04-13T18:37:05Z")
> [@elninost0rm](#): > > As such, most of my collection is haphazard at best and has no real rhyme or reason. I noticed that Picard has you drag and drop ALBUMS to be converted. Would it work with a folder called “Music” composed of a wide-array of artists/genres/etc? It’s really drag and drop _folders_ rather than albums, so yes it’ll do it’s best with your stuff. Best to let it have a bash on matches based on whatever metadata your files already have and the actual file names. If that doesn’t work use the scan option. Unsigned bands as stated upthread are less likely to work, as are things like DJ mixes, but if you do tag them yourself please consider using the Submit option to help out the next person with the same files. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/14 "2010-04-13T18:40:37Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Musicbrainz Picard is pretty good, but I only have a 60% or so success rate considering how much indie and unsigned stuff I listen to. If anyone know of a better one for more obscure music tastes, I’m all ears. I’ve had some success with DJ mixes and other dance music type stuff (that Picard couldn’t get) using the Auto-tag function in the more recent releases of Winamp. They seem to use different databases. Maybe worth a go for your needs? ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/15 "2010-04-13T18:53:52Z")
Use Picard, but also do this: [http://tiptoes.hobby-site.com/mbz/lastfm/lastfmplus.html](http://tiptoes.hobby-site.com/mbz/lastfm/lastfmplus.html) I just finished rerunning 13000 MP3s through Picard with the Mood and Occasion tags, and it’s awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/16 "2010-04-13T19:04:44Z")
> [@elninost0rm](#): > > When playing music from my Droid, I’d prefer that it was all neatly categorized by title/song/artist/etc. Most of the titles that I have conform to this code already, but there are many that aren’t really organized properly. > > Is there software out there that loads up, say, a list of MP3’s from the folder of your choice and lets you manually edit each so they have the proper internal labels (title, artist, album, etc.) > > Thanks! Every piece of software that plays mp3s on your computer will allow you to manually edit mp3 tags. iTunes, Windows Media Player, Yahoo Jukebox, etc… everything. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/17 "2010-04-13T19:23:36Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Every piece of software that plays mp3s on your computer will allow you to manually edit mp3 tags. > > iTunes, Windows Media Player, Yahoo Jukebox, etc… everything. This is true. However, I find that it is really tedious to use the tag editors contained in the players. Tag and rename is just really easier to use. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/18 "2010-04-13T20:11:14Z")
MediaMonkey is pretty good at tag determination and file renaming/organising, if the files have been named with enough suitable information (track number, album and artist info) to start with. You may find that combining Picard with MediaMonkey gives a pretty good result. Simon ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/19 "2010-04-13T20:25:58Z")
I use something called, I think, the Godfather, for cleaning up MP3 tags. No auto-lookup matching, but you can, say, tell it to take every file in the directory, put the file name into the ‘song name’ tag, and ‘Air Supply’s Greatest Hits’ into the ‘album’ tag, or whatever other kind of batch thing you want. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968/20 "2010-04-14T05:49:51Z")
> [@J\_Cubed](#): > > Use Picard, but also do this: > [http://tiptoes.hobby-site.com/mbz/lastfm/lastfmplus.html](http://tiptoes.hobby-site.com/mbz/lastfm/lastfmplus.html) > > I just finished rerunning 13000 MP3s through Picard with the Mood and Occasion tags, and it’s awesome. b Eh. I’d like to find a plugin that searches the itunes mp3 sales website instead of Lastfm for matches because I have decent success finding songs musicbrainz doesn’t by googling “[bandname] itunes.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-music-labeling-software/535968.md?page=2)