Saving/Loading tag sets

dsch04 · October 5, 2009, 7:19pm

Hi,

I'm investigating how best to tag a load of classical music and wondered if it would be possible to add the capability to save blocks of tags and apply them to a different set of files.

Let me give you an example...

Suppose I have tagged a set of 4 files that are the movements of a Beethoven symphony. The tags in the first file might look like this:

ALBUM: Beethoven: Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op.67
ARTIST: Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra;David Zinman (conductor)
COMPOSER: Ludwig van Beethoven
COMPUSER_SHORT: Beethoven
OPUS: Op.67
TITLE: i. Allegro con brio
TRACK: 01
WORK: Symphony No.5 in C minor

ALBUM is generated programmatically from COMPOSER_SHORT, WORK, & OPUS

The other three files are similar, but with different titles, and track nos.

Now, suppose I want to tag another performance of the same symphony. This will be tagged exactly the same but with different artists.

What I'd like to do is to apply a subset of the tags in the first set of files to the second set of files, ie:

ALBUM, COMPOSER, COMPOSER_SHORT, OPUS, WORK

I don't want to overwrite any other existing, e.g REPLAYGAIN_* .

My ideal work flow would be:

tag first set of files in Mp3tag
Select those files & right-click
Select "Save tag set..."
Choose the list of tags to save by checking/unchecking boxes in a list, preferably with the option to save different groups of tags for export, so I might choose a previously saved set named "Classical composer & work"
Give this tag set a name, eg. "Beethoven: Symphony No.5"
Press "Save" to save the tags
Open the new set of files in Mp3tag
Select those files and right-click
Select "Load tag set..."
Choose from a list of saved tag sets, optionally filtering on the named tag groups, and with some sort of search facility, ie. I could type "Beethoven" to see all tag sets with a name containing "Beethoven"
Select the tag set named "Beethoven: Symphony No.5"
Press "Apply" to apply the saved tags to the selected files

Does all this make sense?

Would this sort of thing be something you would be willing to consider adding?

Thanks,

R.

Florian · October 13, 2009, 12:26pm

I don't think that this is likely to be added to a future release. Much of it can already be done by selecting multiple files and enter/save the common information to these files.

dsch04 · October 24, 2009, 10:54am

That's a shame - something like this would be very popular with classical music fans.

How do I "enter/save the common information" ? ie. which feature of mp3tag do I need to read about?

R.

Florian · October 24, 2009, 10:58am

Just select all files which should have the common information, enter it and save your changes.

Kind regards,
Florian

dsch04 · October 24, 2009, 11:47am

Florian,

I know how to do that, but it's rather missing the point of the issue I raised.

Suppose I have two versions of Beethoven Symphony No.9. They will be tagged the same except for the performer information (orchestra, conductor, possibly soloists if I was being fussy).

I want to be able to tag one set, then copy the tags (except the performer tags) to the second set to avoid re-entering them.

I don't see a way to do that in mp3tag at the moment.

R.

Florian · October 24, 2009, 11:51am

I see. Maybe you can use Mp3tag's Export feature to export the relevant information to a text file and use Converter > Text file - Tag to import that information to the other files?

What do you think?

dsch04 · October 24, 2009, 12:05pm

That sounds interesting.

I presume I'd have to define a particular export file format, and then define a format string that matches the export file format?

R.

Florian · October 24, 2009, 12:08pm

Exactly! A good start is the txt_taglist export configuration, which you can duplicate and use your specific field names to create the output.

Please note, that all information have to be written in one line.

Kind regards,
Florian

dsch04 · February 11, 2025, 11:32pm

So, here we are, 15 years on, and I'm still looking for an optimal way to do this, so I search and find my old thread!

I'm using the Text File - Tag conversion option and it is so very nearly perfectly workable. The problem is that it takes too many clicks to select a file containing the tags I want to apply. I'll try and show this in the following screen shots.

We start with a CD of Beethoven Symponies - Nos. 6 & 2. There is some tagging, but I want to standardise, and have created text files containing Work;Title;Composer;ComposerSort for various works so the tags can be the same across the various different recordings of the Symphonies I have.

I hit ⌘-4 and bring up the Text file to Tag dialog:

You can see that the last file that was read is in my "Tags" directory, but it's Symphony No. 7, rather than Symphony No. 6.

However, when I click "Select" to choose a different file, I get taken to the directory containing the FLAC files:

I have to click a few times to navigate to the correct directory and select the file containing the tags for Symphony No. 6.

When I click import, the tags are all applied perfectly:

In summary, it would really improve my tagging workflow if the "Select" dialog box for choosing the text file from which to import tags opened in the same directory that it previously used.

Is this something you would consider "fixing" or changing?

Many thanks,

R.