Our Ford Edge has no CD player no AUX input. We have maybe 50 audiobooks on CD’s that I want to copy to USB flash drives in order to listen to them on road trips.
I do not want to catalog nor store these AB’s for posterity; they will be pretty much listen to once and done.
This being the case, what is the absolute minimum or simple ID tagging that I can apply to ABs that are “Unknown Title” and/or “Unknown Author” so that they will be playable thru my Ford’s SYNC 4 system? Information displayed can be as simple as Book #14; Disc 5 track 1 or something of the sort, or I can merge all the tracks on a given disc and copy as 1 track……… I just don’t want to have to type 20 to 40 characters per line paying attention to absolute uniformity ( same capitalization, spaces, dashes, brackets, etc..) on several lines per Track on every Disc….
Now, if I DO combine all tracks on a Disc into 1 track, do the ID tags on ALL tracks need to be in a consistent format?
I know that I will have to deal with those AB’s that have some or all ID tags assigned to them already, but that is another issue…
AB’s simply copied to MP3 players play fine with NO ID tag editing, but there is no simple way to connect thru the SYNC 4 system; connecting via USB cable causes them to read like any other flash drive, and again no AUX input. Using a 3.5mm audio out to USB cable does not work. The only way I have found is to play thru the FM radio using an FM module connected to the MP3 player’s audio out jack. That entails some less than desirable wiring of devices….
AFAIK it is good to fill the fields for ALBUMARTIST, ALBUM, ARTIST, TITLE and TRACK.
Except TITLE and TRACK all the other fields can be set in 1 go for 1 album / audiobook at a time with the help of the corresponding fields in the tag panel.
The Track number can be set with the autonumbering wizard Ctrl-K so that you do not have to type in each number.
The TITLE can also be set semi-automatically if it should be more or less the same as the album plus e.g. the track number.
Or, if you CD rippng program has set decent file names or added tags already, then you could re-use the data from there.
See also this thread on other problems with Ford Sync:
Some of the answer must come from Ford or from other Ford users. For some reason Ford is blocking me from its SYNC 4 help pages.
The good news is that you yourself can experiment. Tag a few audio files with the info that matters most to you, load them onto a USB drive, and see what your player shows. It may take several tries to find the right mix of data.
I don't understand what you mean or why this is a problem. I found many references on the Web to using USB drives with SYNC 4.
The MP3 player will play tracks thru the audio output in perfect order, regardless of ID tag continuity, but not when consented via USB data cable to the SYNC4. Connecting via USP renders the same scrambled order as with a flash drive…..if ID tags are not in perfect agreement, tracks/discs play out of order…
You can use Mp3tag to edit the tags as suggested by @Ohrenkino, but since every book and every chapter will need different tag values, you won't be able to automate the editing very much except when using the track numbering wizard for the track numbers. But you will be able to use Copy and Paste as needed in the tag panel.
I have modified 2 CD’s from 1 audio book so far, I might be getting it…… This CD had ID tags but were not consistent. The 2 discs that I have done so far play properly in the car…
What I had not realized is that changes made to a track in MP3tag are live updates…..the track files were not imported in order to be modified, and then require exporting back to the actual file. That’s pretty cool !!
Now I will need to move on to CD’s that are shown as “Unknown Author” and “Unknown Title” I will have to start from scratch and hope that I can use the format of the discs that I have already managed in order to achieve success.
The filename has nothing to do with the embedded metadata in the tag fields.
It would be best to fill the field TITLE.
You should see a corresponding field in the tag panel.
If you do not know what the title really is (e.g. a chapter headline), then you could copy the data from ALBUM to TITLE and add the data from TRACK so that you get e.g. "The neverending story 01" as data in TITLE with
Convert>Tag-Tag for (field) TITLE
Format string: %album% $num(%track%,2)
(which assumes that you already have data in the field TRACK.
If ther is no data in TRACK, use the autonumbering wizard first.
When $ and # and % are thrown into the mix, I get lost in a hurry.
The book I just did was title: Blithe Images - Unabridged artist: Nora Roberts read by Julia Whelan in 2010 it has 5 Discs (and so, 5 albums)
My typical title would be: Blithe Images - [Disc i] ~ Track 01
I copied that format from another AB which already had most of the metadata.But I did not know the proper way to insert that into the Convert operation, and had to do a lot of cut abd pasting, and manipulating track and album #’s
If you would be so kind, please demonstrate what the Format string would be for the TITLE and File Name…In my younger days I would have eaten this stuff up. But, like trying to learn a CAD program, so much of it just bounces off………….. Thanks!
I am afraid that "I think" is not good enough - for the converter every character matters.
So could you show us a screenshot of the extended tags dialogue Alt-T of a single file?
Please also clearify what the leading and trailing "01" in the example filename mean?
That is the IDtag or metadata from the original CD.
That is the format which is already there. That is why I emulated it… If that lead 01 is not necessary I will eliminate the track numbers in the lead position.
Thank you for the screenshot.
I see that you have not yet filled the field ALBUMARTIST - but there is data in ARTIST for (apparently) the author and the one who reads it out loud.
Wouldn't the author be a good ALBUMARTIST and the sort of performer (reader) the ARTIST?
You could use the existing data in an action to distribute it to fields. Use an action of the type "Guess value"
Source format: %artist%
Guessing pattern: %albumartist% / read by %artist%
If you want to modify the filename, there is Convert>Tag-Filename and as you have already got the disc number in the ALBUM data, a filename like
Format string: %album%_%albumartist%_$num(%track%,2)_%title%
(see the preview if that is OK)
would be nice - although currently the title does not give any real informaton so that could be left out so that this would be enough for the filename:
Format string: %album%_%albumartist%_$num(%track%,2)
If you want to get data from existing filenames (e.g. the filename is only "Track 01" but the folder has the AB name and other information, then you would retrieve that form the foldername without the need to type it all in:
Convert>Filename-Tag
Format string: %artist% - %album%\%track% %dummy%
(but here a real folder name would be necessary to help with defining the matching format string)
