Odd behavior with the description tag for MP3 files

Mac
1

I was able to figure out how to fix the issue by using a field mapping in Mp3tag, but I'm still unsure whether the underlying problem is something that needs a more dedicated fix in Mp3tag or Swinsian.

The story:

I recently switched from Windows to Mac, and I think I have settled on using Swinsian as my music player, as it seems pretty robust and can handle my large FLAC and MP3 collection. However, there are certain differences in navigating through my library compared to what I was used to with foobar2000 on windows. For finding things by album artist, things were fine with Swinsian. However, other things like soundtracks or sets of compilations were not as straightforward without the folder navigation I was previously accustomed to in foobar.

In looking at the possible fields that could be used for sorting in the browser columns in Swinsian, I found that I could populate the description tag with info to easily pull up related releases. So, I decided to go through my files and clear out any unnecessary information in existing description tags, or move that information to other tag fields. And I began populating the description tag with what a release was a soundtrack of. Everything seemed to be working as I expected until I discovered one soundtrack of MP3s that would not display the description tag in Swinsian.

In looking through my library in Swinsian for any other MP3 files that were showing description information, I found that there were some. However, I found that the information displayed in Swinsian as the description was from subtitle tag when looking at it in Mp3tag. After digging around in the documentation for id3 and vorbis tags, I found that unlike vorbis tags, where the subtitle and description are two distinct tags, the subtitle and description tags apparently use the TIT3 frame with id3 tags.

On to the fix:

I managed to fix this by going into the field mappings in Mp3tag, and set up one for id3v2, with a source of 'SUBTITLE' and target of 'DESCRIPTION'.

I'm still not sure if I'm reading the tag documentation correctly, or maybe this is simply an inherent problem with id3 tag standards. Maybe this is something wrong with how Mp3tag is writing the tag, or how Swinsian is reading the tag (without the fix in Mp3tag's field mappings). Is my fix just a band-aid over a bigger problem?

2

Please do not mix the label with the tag field name.
DESCRIPTION should only be a flac field which is used for COMMENT (as flac fields are all Vorbis Comments).
All other tag formats would take DESCRIPTION as a user-defined field - and there are not many players around that can deal with user-defined fields.
SUBTITLE on the other hand is a valid standard ID3 field and therefore probably displayed by players that follow the ID3 standard.

I would remove the mapping and then copy the data from DESCRIPTION back to SUBTITLE

3

I'm not sure what you mean by copying the data I previously entered into the description back to subtitle. If I remove the field mapping, what I previously entered in those MP3 files as the description now appears as the subtitle in Mp3tag. All the mapping is doing is redirecting what I enter for the description field to the subtitle field for MP3 files. By using the mapping, I am avoiding the creation of a user-defined description field that Swinsian won't recognize. And instead it is putting that info into the subtitle field that Swinsian displays as the description.

Maybe I'm not adequately describing what is happening. Once I have some time, maybe I'll take some screenshots to better illustrate the issue.

4

I find the mapping superfluous as it maps a standard field (SUBTITLE) in the files to a user-defined field (DESCRIPTION) in MP3tag.
I would use the standard field throughout esp. as apparently the player reads the standard field.
If you like the label "Description" better, you can still label the column and the tag panel element accordingly - but the contents should always show SUBTITLE

5

Well, yeah... I guess it is superfluous. I was just a little worried as your first response made it sound like my use of the field mapping was going to lead to some other serious problem.

The more I think about it, I suppose this is just an issue of Swinsian displaying the subtitle field from id3 tags as the description. And the wiki page that I found that displayed what the equivalent fields across different tagging formats (with TIT3 frame being referenced for id3 for both the fields) just led to my confusion.