# FLAC tag order
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [February 7, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838 "2010-02-07T06:55:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@damole](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/damole)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838/1 "2010-02-07T06:55:28Z")
Hi
I like many am having problems with 'Album Artist'.
The biggest problem is that I have a Cowon Audio i7, a great player except for how it reads FLAC tags. If I have the tag 'Album Artist' or 'AlbumArtist' then the Album is displayed as "ARTIST=album artist" or "RTIST=album artist". This I've discovered after reading something on the MediaMonkey forums must be because the player reads 'Album' from the tag and assumes the next character is an '=' and following that is the album text. As it reads the tags sequentially, this replaces the previous correctly read Album tag. I tested this by adding a new tag that starts with the word Album, everything 1 character after this is displayed as the album.
Most on the various Cowon forums suggest removing any kind of Album Artist tag but this then would create problem in my various players where I don't want to see an entry for every artist on a compilation album.
What determines the order that mp3tag writes the fields in the tag section? Does Extended Tags display the tag info exactly as it is read from the file?
--damole
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2010, 8:25am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838/2 "2010-02-07T08:25:07Z")
> [@damole](#):
>
> Hi
>
> I like many am having problems with 'Album Artist'.
>
> --damole
i think there is a discussion in the forum:
[/t/8874/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/8874/1)
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### Author:  [@damole](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/damole)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2010, 9:24am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838/3 "2010-02-07T09:24:09Z")
I think that discussion seems to be about being able to configure tag writing to be conditional upon which audio format (codec/extension) is being written.
My problem is that for one particular player of mine I need the tags written in a specific physical order for that player to display tag info correctly. I understand that this is a bug in the Cowon firmware and I have raised a support ticket with Cowon which assuming they accept as a bug would still probably mean a new firmware release will be a long way off
---
### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838/4 "2010-02-07T19:00:30Z")
Unfortunately, there is no way of influencing tag field writing order in Mp3tag.
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### Author:  [@JJ\_Johnson](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/JJ_Johnson)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2010, 7:48am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838/5 "2010-02-08T07:48:15Z")
> [@damole](#):
>
> I think that discussion seems to be about being able to configure tag writing to be conditional upon which audio format (codec/extension) is being written.
>
> My problem is that for one particular player of mine I need the tags written in a specific physical order for that player to display tag info correctly. I understand that this is a bug in the Cowon firmware and I have raised a support ticket with Cowon which assuming they accept as a bug would still probably mean a new firmware release will be a long way off
Here's a roundabout way that may work for you. If you delete a field, save the file, then add the field back, it will be written after all of the other fields. So let's say you wanted to be sure ALBUMARTIST came last:
#1: Run this action group, which moves the ALBUMARTIST field to a temporary field:
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **TEMPALBUMARTIST**
_Format string:_ **%albumartist%**
_Action type:_ **Remove fields**
_Fields to remove:_ **ALBUMARTIST**
#2. Run this action group, which moves the temporary field back to ALBUMARTIST.
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **ALBUMARTIST**
_Format string:_ **%tempalbumartist%**
_Action type:_ **Remove fields**
_Fields to remove:_ **TEMPALBUMARTIST**
In a couple of quick tests that I just ran this moves ALBUMARTIST after everything except DATE and TRACKNUMBER. Probably because those two field names are mapped. The above must be done in two steps. You can't just run the second action group following the first by placing them in order and checking them both in the Action Groups dialog. The file(s) must be saved after the first action group is run.
Mp3tag appears to write _new_ fields in exactly the order that you create them in your action groups. If you really wanted to work at it, I think you could order any set of fields by moving them to temporary fields, saving the files, then writing them out using 'Format value' actions in the order that you desire. For example, extending the above to write ALBUM, ALBUMARTIST and TITLE, in that order, you'd do the following. It's still just two action groups:
#1:
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **TEMPALBUM**
_Format string:_ **%album%**
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **TEMPALBUMARTIST**
_Format string:_ **%albumartist%**
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **TEMPTITLE**
_Format string:_ **%title%**
_Action type:_ **Remove fields**
_Fields to remove:_ **ABUM;ALBUMARTIST;TITLE**
#2.
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **ALBUM**
_Format string:_ **%tempalbum%**
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **ALBUMARTIST**
_Format string:_ **%tempalbumartist%**
_Action type:_ **Format value**
_Field:_ **TITLE**
_Format string:_ **%temptitle%**
_Action type:_ **Remove fields**
_Fields to remove:_ **TEMPALBUM;TEMPALBUMARTIST;TEMPTITLE**
```auto
You'll need a hex file editor to view the tags, or use metaflac.exe:
metaflac --list --block-type=VORBIS_COMMENT "Some File.flac"
```
---
### Author:  [@JJ\_Johnson](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/JJ_Johnson)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2010, 8:05am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838/6 "2010-02-08T08:05:48Z")
Using the two action groups from the second example above to order only the ALBUM, ALBUMARTIST, and TITLE fields, the order ends up looking like this:
```
METADATA block #2
type: 4 (VORBIS_COMMENT)
is last: false
length: 178
vendor string: reference libFLAC 1.1.4 20070213
comments: 7
comment[0]: ARTIST=Lou Donaldson
comment[1]: GENRE=Jazz
comment[2]: ALBUM=Blues Walk
comment[3]: ALBUMARTIST=Lou Donaldson
comment[4]: TITLE=Blues Walk
comment[5]: DATE=1958
comment[6]: TRACKNUMBER=1
```
---
### Author:  [@damole](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/damole)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/flac-tag-order/9838/7 "2010-02-08T16:09:45Z")
Great idea, it works like a charm.
I'm still hoping for a fix from Cowon at some point and maybe they can fix the multiple ARTIST tag bug at the same time, currently they just show the last tag in the file.
Thanks
damole