Renaming and moving .lrc files using the same pattern used for songs?

[Casual_Tea]

@poster

All these filetypes naturally have no tags and only some columns (like a column for the filename) will show anything.

I expected as much. They don't show up under "Path" or "Filename" for me either tho.

[poster]

Maybe there is something wrong with your confugration file.
You can test it if you close Mp3Tag and rename the mp3tag.cfg-file in your %appdata%\Mp3Tag-folder so that Mp3Tag has to create a new cfg-file if you start it again. Later you can rename it back.

[Casual_Tea]

@poster

Maybe there is something wrong with your confugration file.

edit:
I thought so at first but that was not it.
Turns out that dragging and dropping the contents of a folder (the .lrc, .flac and .jpg files) into mp3-tag leads to it only displaying the songs (the same goes for opening the files in mp3-tag through the context-menu).
Dragging the folder itself into mp3-tag on the other hand leads to .lrc + .jpg files also showing up.
Is that expected behaviour?

[Casual_Tea]

@ohrenkino

You could embed the external lyrics in a field like UNSYNCEDLYRICS or LYRICS.

I prefer using .lrc files which I can easily edit in notepad++ so that is sadly not really an option for me.

@ohrenkino

Also, you could include the lrc-files as files that are also displayed in the files list and treat them there just like the audio files - if you modify the _FILENAME directly.

I just tried that. For the example of:
01 Court And Spark (2022 Remaster).flac
01 Court And Spark (2022 Remaster).lrc

I can use Action -> Replace with regular expression
Field: _FILENAME
Regular expression: \s(\d{4}\sremaster).lrc
Replace matches with: .lrc

And it yields
01 Court And Spark.lrc
as expected.

But that means that I have to redo the same steps that I use on the songs themselves on the lyrics separately. Depending on how complex the operation is that I use on the songs (for example if I split a multi CD album that was numbered from 1-70 into individual disks), that might be more time consuming than manually copying the names of the songs and pasting them to the .lrc files later on.

Is there no way to test if filename.flac == filename.lrc and if that's the case to link the .lrc file with the corresponding .flac file and to treat both exactly the same except for the extension in respect of renaming and moving?

[ohrenkino]

It works for CDG files.
[2020-11-22] NEW: CDG files are now renamed with corresponding FLAC files.

Enable Support For Karaoke Files in Convert: Tag Filename

I would like to start by thanking you for the great product you have developed. As a result of using mp3tag, I have a much more enjoyable experience while listening to music. However, I do have a blind spot as it pertains to my karaoke files. Let me explain, given a Karaoke file pair kfile.mp3 and kfile.cdg, I can manipulate the tags of the mp3 file as needed, but when it comes time to rename the file through Convert/Tag - Filename, mp3tag is only capable of renaming the mp3 file. Ask #1 …

If you look at other threads in the forum that deal with lyrics in flac files then it always circles around embedding the lyrics.
And that works.
So it is up to your workflow to either keep the external files and loose the link occasionally or embed the data and get the full support in MP3tag.

[ohrenkino]

@Casual_Tea

But that means that I have to redo the same steps that I use on the songs themselves on the lyrics separately.

If you shorten that to
Action -> Replace with regular expression
Field: _FILENAME
Regular expression: \s(\d{4}\sremaster)
Replace matches with:
The it takes any filename and removes the string described by the pattern.

[poster]

@Casual_Tea

Dragging the folder itself into mp3-tag on the other hand leads to .lrc + .jpg files also showing up.
Is that expected behaviour?

I noticed this some years ago and so I expect this behaviour.
I don't know if this behaviour is intential, but I have no problem with it and take it as it is.

I did not take it in account for your problem because you wrote folder and not files:

@Casual_Tea

I've added " *.lrc;" to the "Restrict incoming files to:" list and dragged a folder containing both .lrc and .flac files into mp3-tag.

[Casual_Tea]

@ohrenkino

It works for CDG files.

Thanks for the info. So the logic is already there.

@ohrenkino

If you look at other threads in the forum that deal with lyrics in flac files then it always circles around embedding the lyrics.

I know that I could avoid the problem by embedding the lyrics but so far everything else in my workflow creates, reads from and writes to .lrc files instead of the LYRICS tag. I'd rather not have some semi-automatic lyrics plugin mess with my metadata. If it creates garbage lyrics I can search for .lrc, sort by creation time and simply delete the .lrc files. I like having them separate.

[Casual_Tea]

@poster

because you wrote folder

I noticed that as well. My bad for being inaccurate. Since I never added other files to the allowed list I never noticed a difference between dragging in the contents of a folder vs. the folder itself prior to yesterday.

[Casual_Tea]

@ohrenkino

The it takes any filename and removes the string described by the pattern.

Sure, but I still have to do it twice. Once for the metadata and once for the .lrc filename. I included the .lrc extension in my regular expression because there's no need to change the filename of the flac files. My tag-action removes that part of the title from the tag and once I run them through Convert -> Tag - Filename they end up with the correct new filename anyways.

[ohrenkino]

@Casual_Tea

I included the .lrc extension in my regular expression because there's no need to change the filename of the flac files

If the regular expression does not find a match, it returns the input string.
If you modify your data with an action group you could call that modification with just a single step.

On a more philosophical side:
Separating data that really belongs together into several files proves to be a volatile step in the long run.
The forum is full of threads where pictures that have "always" been there, suddenly disappeared - because they were not embedded but files in the file system. And when the audio files got moved to different locations, the picture files usually stayed in the original place.
The same would apply to other files like e.g. the lyrics files.
The superior move for the covers is to embed them.
And I would think that the same applies to lyrics as well.
You can filter for files with lyrics,
you can sort by modification date.
And you don't have to leave MP3tag to delete the lyrics in a file when the lyrics are embedded in field.
OK. You know now the options that are currently available. It is up to you to adopt them or partially use them or cling to the customary workflow if you see too many obstacles for you.

[Casual_Tea]

@ohrenkino

The superior move for the covers is to embed them.

Well I don't do that either. I like having high resolution artwork, often multiple MB per image and multiple images per album (cover, back, booklet etc.). My collection has 709.585 tracks currently. If I embedded the high resolution art into each song that would mean wasting literally hundreds of GBs of space (I know because I removed all the embedded artwork when I had around 250.000 songs and saved like 150GB with that step). I am extremely careful with my folder structure and ensure that all files that belong together, stay together.
I haven't had a major loss or misplacement of files in the >15 years I've been doing this. I'm well aware of the pros and cons of embedding files vs. keeping them separately.

My question was merely if it is possible to link flac + lrc if the filename is the same and to treat both equally in terms of moving/renaming which would make my workflow easier. I wasn't looking for information on how to embed them or whether or not it should be done. Which doesn't mean that I don't appreciate you sharing your knowledge.

As you pointed out that ought to be possible since it's already implemented for CDG files, but I guess only the dev can really answer my question.

[Casual_Tea]

@ohrenkino

If you modify your data with an action group you could call that modification with just a single step.

That's true, but only as long as what I'm trying to accomplish only modifies the filename based on what's already in the filename. If I split a multi disc album that was numbered from 1-70 the new filename will rely on the new tracknumber metadata of the song, which I can't use in an action that works on the .lrc since that file has no metadata.

[poster]

@Casual_Tea

That's true, but only as long as what I'm trying to accomplish only modifies the filename based on what's already in the filename. If I split a multi disc album that was numbered from 1-70 the new filename will rely on the new tracknumber metadata of the song, which I can't use in an action that works on the .lrc since that file has no metadata.

It does not help you in this special case but you are not restricted to the content of the filename with non music files. There are other information tags like %_directory% or %_parent_directory%, which ie. would help if you have a folder-structure like me (%albumartist\%album%\). In fact I use these placeholders to rename downloaded booklet-pdfs with cryptical name to my naming scheme with an action of the type Format Value for _FILENAME and the format string:
%_parent_directory% - %directory% - Booklet.pdf

There are even more options. So you could import the LRC-file with an action of the type "Import Textfile" to i.e. UNSYNCEDLYRICS and later export it to LRC again using the placeholders of your flac-file for the naming scheme.

Then there would be another very crazy method for which the idiom "from behind with the fist through the eye" would be used in Germany, namely by C&P of the entire tags:
Rename all LRC files to MP3, arrange these MP3 files in MP3Tag in the same order as the corresponding FLAC files, mark the FLAC files, press CTRL-C, mark the MP3 files, press CTRL-V. Your LRC files now have tags, which you can of course use to name the files. Then delete all tags in the MP3s and rename them back to LRC.

@Casual_Tea

As you pointed out that ought to be possible since it's already implemented for CDG files, but I guess only the dev can really answer my question.

You could suggest this as an additional feature.
As long as there is no such feature I would adjust my workflow and use the already implimented feature to handle CDG-Files, rename the lrc-files to the extension cdg, i.e. with the DOS-command rename *.lrc *.cdg and later rename it back to lrc.

[Casual_Tea]

Thanks for the ideas.

@poster

There are other information tags like %_directory% or %_parent_directory%, which ie. would help if you have a folder-structure like me (%albumartist\%album%\)

We share the same folder structure. I'm using Voidtools Everything to find all the various .cue, .log, .pdf etc. files within my WIP music folder and then throw them into Advanced Renamer where I use DirName:2 - DirName:1 for .log files for example.

@poster

%_parent_directory% - %directory% - Booklet.pdf

So pretty much exactly this. Never thought of using mp3-tag for this as I didn't know it could handle non-music files. I'll have to see if my current workflow is faster or if switching to letting mp3-tag handle those filenames makes sense for me.

@poster

There are even more options. So you could import the LRC-file with an action of the type "Import Textfile" to i.e. UNSYNCEDLYRICS and later export it to LRC again using the placeholders of your flac-file for the naming scheme.

I considered that as well but that's probably not much faster than copying and pasting the few .lrc files per album (not all tracks have synced lyrics) by hand. I'll check it out and report back.

@poster

"from behind with the fist through the eye"

"Von hinten mit der Faust durchs Auge?" I'm German as well.

@poster

Rename all LRC files to MP3, arrange these MP3 files in MP3Tag in the same order as the corresponding FLAC files, mark the FLAC files, press CTRL-C, mark the MP3 files, press CTRL-V.

That's a funny idea but even more work.

@poster

You could suggest this as an additional feature.
As long as there is no such feature I would adjust my workflow and use the already implimented feature to handle CDG-Files, rename the lrc-files to the extension cdg, i.e. with the DOS-command rename *.lrc *.cdg and later rename it back to lrc.

I can't believe I did not think of that. I just tried it using PowerRename to quickly rename .lrc to .cdg and it worked like a charm. It's still 2 steps more than I'd like (renaming to cdg and back to lrc) but otherwise this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!
edit:
Even if this won't be added as a feature I can just use Voidtools Everything to search for all .lrc files in my WIP music folder, rename them to .cdg, finish the tags etc. in mp3-tag and once all is said and done and sits snugly in its new folders with the correct names I'll search for all .cdg files and rename them back to .lrc. 2 steps total is a substantial improvement for me. Thanks again!

@poster

You could suggest this as an additional feature.

In a new post?

[poster]

@Casual_Tea

@poster

There are even more options. So you could import the LRC-file with an action of the type "Import Textfile" to i.e. UNSYNCEDLYRICS and later export it to LRC again using the placeholders of your flac-file for the naming scheme.

I considered that as well but that's probably not much faster than copying and pasting the few .lrc files per album (not all tracks have synced lyrics) by hand. I'll check it out and report back.

This may be if you do it album per album. But you could do the import for all your files in one go, later filter for %unsyncedyrics% PRESENT and export the lrc-files. And you can export them again and again if there are only made to the filenames.
Even if I want to depend on lrc-files I would keep the UNSYNCEDLYRICS-tagfield filled. Some redundancy can help sometimes and you can really neglect the extra-space for some text-bytes in contrast to high-resolution covers.

@Casual_Tea

@poster

You could suggest this as an additional feature.

In a new post?

That can't hurt. Florian usually reads along, but it makes things easier for him on the administrative side if there is a separate thread, e.g. in the German "Vorschläge" section.

[Casual_Tea]

@poster

That can't hurt.

Done.
https://community.mp3tag.de/t/lrc-dateien-zusammen-mit-songs-umbenennen-verschieben/59189

@poster

But you could do the import for all your files in one go, later filter for %unsyncedyrics% PRESENT and export the lrc-files.

Good idea. Sadly part of my workflow is scrubbing both the lyrics tag and unsynched lyrics tag. I only trust one source for synced lyrics which saves the lyrics as separate .lrc files and I prefer to search for lyrics within MusicBee with my custom list of providers instead of displaying whatever someone else stored in the files. The only lyrics I store in .lrc files are trusted synced lyrics or lyrics I saved/synced myself.

Thanks for all your input tho. I learned some new nifty tricks.

[poster]

@Casual_Tea

The only lyrics I store in .lrc files are trusted synced lyrics or lyrics I saved/synced myself.

That does not change. My suggestion is only to import your own lyrics files.

[Casual_Tea]

@poster

My suggestion is only to import your own lyrics files.

I know you mean well but I like to avoid the added complexity of redundancy when it comes to tags. My entire workflow does not touch (other than scrubbing) the lyrics tags and works on .lrc files instead. I'm not worried about losing those as my music resides on raid Z2 pools (2 hdds per pool can fail without data loss) in my TrueNAS server with monthly scrubs (entire content is read out and compared to the checksums), daily snapshots of the last month and 2 separate backups. I'm happy with only having the lyrics stored in .lrc files.