Search for [TITLE-TEXT] then write to Genre

General Discussion
1

I have a bunch of songs that have notes like "[Acapella]" in the title. I want to make an action that will scan for this in the title of the song and when it finds a song like this, overwrites the Genre field with "Acapella".

So it needs to find files like this "SONG TITLE [Acapella] - HD" and then over write the Genre with "Acapella"

Thanks for any help you can give!

2

If all genres are inside square brackets the you can use an action of the type "Guess values" and the guessing pattern
%title% [%genre%] - HD

If the square brackets are a problem, use
%title% '['%genre%']' - HD

No, there is no generator that looks up a list of genres. You would have to be sure that the information that you want is inside the square brackets.

3

Filter files with TITLE containing text enclosed in square brackets ...

TITLE MATCHES "[.+]"
... or ...
TITLE MATCHES "[Acapella]"

Copy text enclosed in square brackets from TITLE to GENRE ...

Action "Format value"
... or ...
Converter "Tag - Tag"

Field: GENRE
Formatstring: $regexp(%TITLE%,'^.[(.+)].$','$1')
... or ...
Formatstring: $regexp(%TITLE%,'^.[(Acapella)].$','$1')

Remove text enclosed in square brackets from TITLE ...

Action "Format value"
... or ...
Converter "Tag - Tag"

Field: TITLE
Formatstring: $trim($regexp(%TITLE%,'\s*[.+]\s*',' '))
... or ...
Formatstring: $trim($regexp(%TITLE%,'\s*[Acapella]\s*',' '))

DD.20140228.0919.CET
4

If you want to set the GENRE tag-field within both tag-types ID3v1 and ID3v2 at once, then you have to use the proper GENRE name, from the list of defined names for ID3v1, and which will be encoded into one-byte-number within the ID3v1 tag.
Be aware of that Mp3tag uses the correct spelling "A Cappella".

DD.20140228.1447.CET

5

Thanks for the replies! I will try some of these tonight/weekend and get back. Love seeing the different approaches, helps me learn. Honestly I am having a hard time learning MP3Tag for some reason. Normally pretty good with stuff like this.

Thanks again! You guys are awesome here, so glad I found this place!

6

I don't fully understand why this is yet, I am pretty new to automating tasks like this, etc. I am use to doing this all manually in iTunes and not dealing with Tag formats and their limitations. I appreciate the warning and will keep this in mind.

7

So I like both of these, but there is an issue. It does take "[Acapella]" and move that, without brackets to the Genre field just like I want. But on all the other songs it copies the whole song title and replaces the Genre field. Is there a way to fix that? Or is the only way to make a filter and only select Acapella tracks?

8

In case of there is no match, then the function $regexp returns the unchanged source string.

To circumvent this result you can choose one from the alternatives:

  • Set a filter which does a pre-selection of possible matches.

  • Write the result of the formatstring into a temporary helper tag-field as the first step;
    in the second step check the temporary helper tag-field, whether it has the same content as the source string, then decide what to do:
    Let the GENRE tag-field as is or copy the content form the helper tag-field to the GENRE tag-field.
    In the third step remove the helper tag-field.

  • Use an extended version of the given formatstring, which includes the check:

Action "Format value" ... or ... Convert "Tag - Tag" Field: GENRE Formatstring: $if($eql($regexp(%TITLE%,'^.*\[(Acapella)\].*$','$1'),%TITLE%),%GENRE%, $regexp(%TITLE%,'^.*\[(Acapella)\].*$','$1')) ... or ... Formatstring: $if($neql(%TITLE%,$regexp(%TITLE%,'^.*\[(Acapella)\].*$','$1')), $regexp(%TITLE%,'^.*\[(Acapella)\].*$','$1'),%GENRE%)

DD.20140301.0855.CET

9

You have a pretty incredible grasp of this software. Thank you for your help. That seems to fix the issue. I would love to understand how, but that is a pretty crazy string.

Thank you again for the help!