Folk-Rock not Folk/Rock

[olleholleh]

I have a problem with the mp3, idtag, Genre, Folk-Rock which is a Genre convention that WinAmp added.
I use another program to edit my tags and the Genre drop box gives me Folk-Rock.
When I import the mp3 into WinAmp and view file info the IDv2 tag shows Folk-Rock but the IDv1 tag shows Folk/Rock. Why is this so and can it be changed to Folk-Rock for consistency?
Thanks

[MrSinatra]

the data can be divergent, and so the best thing to do is strip tags.

i strip id3v1 tags, and only use id3v2.3 ones.

www.mp3tag.de/en

[DJ Egg]

I'll change it to Folk-Rock for the next release, so you won't need to do anything :-)

[MrSinatra]

egg, r u serious? if so, seems odd. previous users might be like "huh?" and other software might do it the current way... i don't even know what software he's using.

i would like the ability to manually edit an ini file however, that would allow me to organize/edit the genre tags the way i want... is that possible?

[DJ Egg]

Yes, I'm serious.
Folk-Rock is the genre.
Folk/Rock is like somewhere inbetween two genres... and was probably a typo originally, or something

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by DJ Egg

Yes, I'm serious.
Folk-Rock is the genre.
Folk/Rock is like somewhere inbetween two genres... and was probably a typo originally, or something

ok, np... is there an official list somewhere for genres? a standard?

also, what about my request?

[olleholleh]

Thank you DJ Egg.
MrSinatra this is the most official page I can find
http://www.id3.org/id3v2-00 scroll to the bottom of the page
"The following genres are Winamp extensions"
"81.Folk-Rock"
I can see the problem with changing the "Folk/Rock" genre.
An example is that all of the genres I have in my collection are only taken from the ID3 drop down box so as to maintain correct spelling and a uniformity across all of my music.
I don't have Nu-Metal I just use Metal and that creates a very tidy list of genres and it's easy to select music for whatever mood I'm in
I'd assume that a lot of people would work this way and therefore have quite a lot of Folk/Rock in their collections and if it were to suddenly change to folk-rock we have a mess.
This is a truly perplexing dilemma.

[MrSinatra]

yeah, but once people catch on they can just update old tags to the newer implementation. better to go with whats documented. you and egg are doing the right thing imo.

in any case, i maintain my own text file for genres, and i always use one of the following:

Classic Rock
Rock & Roll
Rock n Roots
Rock
Hard Rock
Alt Rock
Southern Rock
Grunge
Psychedelic Rock
Progressive Rock
Metal
Punk
New Wave

Industrial
Techno
Goth

Funk
Disco
R&B
Blues
Jazz

Rap
Reggae

Singer Songwriter
Guitar God
Symphonic

Adult Pop
Pop
Showtunes
Swing
Easy Listening

Celtic
Classical

Country
Bluegrass
Folk

Comedy
Radio Show
Television
Christmas
Halloween

but i would really like the ability to customize the list winamp uses via an ini file or similar.

[DrO]

the v1 handling of the folk-rock or folk/rock thing is just a look-up of a string against the genre id so it could just be set to show gumpfh if someone wanted to which doesn't affect the genre shown.

if it was with an id3v2 genre then yes it would be an issue but then since you can enter anything you want in to the genre field for id3v2 tags in Winamp, etc then the concerns raised could be valid. however when you can customise what is entered already then as long as the two pre-filled sets of strings are showing as the same then that's all that matters - which is what has now been done for the next release so id3v1 and id3v2 will appear the same in the tag editor.

-daz

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by DrO

the v1 handling of the folk-rock or folk/rock thing is just a look-up of a string against the genre id so it could just be set to show gumpfh if someone wanted to which doesn't affect the genre shown.

i don't use id3v1, but i didn't realize genres in v1 were hardcoded, which i think is what you are saying.

Originally Posted by DrO

if it was with an id3v2 genre then yes it would be an issue but then since you can enter anything you want in to the genre field for id3v2 tags in Winamp, etc then the concerns raised could be valid. however when you can customise what is entered already then as long as the two pre-filled sets of strings are showing as the same then that's all that matters - which is what has now been done for the next release so id3v1 and id3v2 will appear the same in the tag editor.

-daz

i think maybe you were drinking at the time?

i'm not sure i follow this part, other than to say you all are just going to make v1 = v2's list, and that users can manually put what they want in v2 fields, both which i knew.

but are you also saying you will take up my request? ie. allow the v2 list to be customized via ini file?

[DrO]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

i didn't realize genres in v1 were hardcoded, which i think is what you are saying.

correct, id3v1 which is what was asked to be changed is just a number from 0 to 127 which the player can then display whatever string they want for the genre i.e. following the general list people have adopted.

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

but are you also saying you will take up my request? ie. allow the v2 list to be customized via ini file?

i'm not going to, you'd need to find someone with dev access that a) thinks it's useful (i don't when you can just enter whatever is wanted) and b) has the time.

-daz

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by DrO

i'm not going to, you'd need to find someone with dev access that a) thinks it's useful (i don't when you can just enter whatever is wanted) and b) has the time.

-daz

i know i can enter it. but thats the manual way which requires i open my txt file and copy and paste, etc... the list i posted above i'd like to make available to myself via drop down list, and in the order i want, with my terms at the top of the list, and so on. much more convenient!

its ok to say you don't want to do it or wouldn't use it, but imo its not valid to say it isn't useful just b/c it isn't useful personally.

just saying, no hard feelings of course.

[DrO]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

its ok to say you don't want to do it or wouldn't use it, but imo its not valid to say it isn't useful just b/c it isn't useful personally.

my point is that it's not my place to make fundamental changes like that especially if i'd have to do it in my freetime if i wanted to do so, hence why i'm not going to do it.

-daz

[MrSinatra]

i understand, certainly are more important things to address. still, i think my request is valid, and hope it is officially noted for future consideration.

[MrSinatra]

ugh... i really wish i had the ability to edit the default genres list. the ones it comes with, whatever their source, are incredible stupid, both in whats there and what isn't.

fixing up my tags, really missing the feature.

[Aminifu]

Hi MrSinatra,

I agree that the default (per spec) ID3 genres are not the 'best' choices at times (too many times). I also agree with DrO that this is not a bug. It seems the only option is to try to get a 3rd party dev to provide a plug-in to allow for customizing the WA default list. If you decide to make this request I will support it.

In the meantime, I think there is a way to partially change the WA default list. What I have in mind would be incomplete due to technical limitations. PM me for the details, if you want to discuss it.

Manually 'correcting' genre tags IS a hassle. I try to 'fix' those I disagree with as I come across them during my vetting process, but some slip through when the particular tag editor I'm using uses a different 'default' list. It's always an irritation when I happen upon a genre tag that's 'wrong', when playing a song in WA.

[ryerman]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

...Manually 'correcting' genre tags IS a hassle. I try to 'fix' those I disagree with as I come across them during my vetting process, but some slip through when the particular tag editor I'm using uses a different 'default' list....

This is one reason why I don't use Winamp for tagging.
Mp3tag allows users to customize the 'default' list for genres.

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by ryerman

This is one reason why I don't use Winamp for tagging.
Mp3tag allows users to customize the 'default' list for genres.

Hi,

Does MP3Tag allow customizing both the ID3v1 and ID3v2 genres lists? I still use both tag versions because I have an old mobile MP3 player that still works great but only supports ID3v1 tags. Sometimes the ID3v1 genre text does not match the ID3v2 genre text for the same genre code, so I have to find the ID3v1 code for the ID3v2 text I want to use.

The ID3v1 tag saves the code for the genre and not the text string. So it seems the text string changes due to the look-up list a particular player is using. What I need is a way to make the WA ID3v1 look-up list match my mobile player's look-up list.

Mr Sinatra is looking for a way to change the ID3v2 genre text strings WA uses. This would be useful, but I'm more interested in a way to sync the same ID3v1 and ID3v2 text strings to the same ID3 codes. A WA plug-in that allows customizing the default WA genres list would help us both.

[MrSinatra]

in general, i find winamp to be great for tagging, fun and easy to use, (esp since a lot of my tag bugs have been fixed!) although i know mp3tag is a better solution; its just that i spend my time in winamp, and would rather just do it in there.

i do not use id3v1. i think those are "fixed" for some reason that i vaguely recall DrO explaining to me once.

but id3v2 allows you to use whatever value u want for a genre tag. so what i want to do, is change the default list in the dropdown box that view info (alt+3) gives you. this MUST be possible, since winamp itself provides the list in any given install.

i am just curious as to how to do it? what file does winamp reference to provide that list? can a user edit it?

[Aminifu]

I see the genre text strings in the "lame_enc.dll" file in the WA plugins folder. Not positive this is what WA uses, but it is likely.

It is possible to change these text strings with a hex file editor. But the replacement strings must be the same length as the original strings to prevent breaking addressing within the file.

[MrSinatra]

interesting, but how do you see it and how would one edit it?

[DrO]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

i think those are "fixed" for some reason that i vaguely recall DrO explaining to me once.
...
what file does winamp reference to provide that list? can a user edit it?

they both follow the same setup in that what is shown for the genre name in the list is hard-coded internally in winamp.exe and i'm pretty certain Aminifu's possible way of doing it is going to be via hex-editing winamp.exe.

[edit]
the two posts above weren't there when i started typing this. Winamp doesn't use LAME's tag writing.
[/edit]

my comment about v1 genres is that the due to how v1 genres were designed, they use a value from 0-255 and that is the other aspect which is hard-coded. yes genres can be added (and that does still happen every now and then) but it's somewhat limited to just genres in that range.

with v2 genres as we all know you can effectively set whatever you want. so yes the default list probably does suck but if that's what there is in coordination with the v1 genres (as it is mainly based on), the whole design on the Winamp side from my understanding was to provide the v1 type genre list and then if you want to do it with something else then that's all you need to enter.

-daz

[Aminifu]

You can view text strings in any file with a text editor like Wordpad or Notepad++, but you need a hex editor to change anything. You also need some programming knowledge to keep from breaking stuff.

[Aminifu]

Ok (per DrO's post above), the genre text strings are also in Winamp.exe and are what WA uses. I surely DON'T recommend hacking that.

[MrSinatra]

the default list does suck. for people like me, who have turned off v1 tags in the in_mp3 plugin, it would be nice to allow us to customize the drop down list.

going in with a hex editor on winamp.exe and changing text strings is frankly not worth it to me, since i would need to do that with every new winamp release. what i would prefer, is for winamp to not hardcode that list in winamp.exe, but instead to reference it in one of the ini config files, and then i could just copy and paste my list into that one with every new release, which i'd be willing to do.

i'm not asking for this to become a pref in winamp, since it seems it could cause problems with v1 handling/agreement, etc; i am however asking for this to be exposed in winamp, so a power user, like me, can make adjustments, the way they apparently can in say mp3tag.

[ryerman]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

Does MP3Tag allow customizing both the ID3v1 and ID3v2 genres lists?...

Yes, in a way, but there is only 1 list. Customization is accomplished by adding to the list (via the Options dialogue) and choosing whether or not to "Show only user defined genres" The original, default list contains the string equivalents of the numerical codes that Mp3tag supports as values for the ID3v1 genre field. If you create another genre name it will simply be another item on the list. When selected, the string value will be written to the ID3v2 field only, unless the string exactly matches a default item. Then the numerical code may also be written to the ID3v1 field.

Originally Posted by Aminifu

...Mr Sinatra is looking for a way to change the ID3v2 genre text strings WA uses...

This is where Mp3tag could be very useful. I have a plugin that allows me to send selected files to Mp3tag from the Media Library or Playlist Editor where I could take advantage of my customized genre list. But I never tag that way. Sometimes it's nice to have an application that does many things and sometimes its nice to use specialty apps for specific chores. My method is to first tag with Mp3tag and then catalogue, search and play with Winamp.

Originally Posted by Aminifu

...I'm more interested in a way to sync the same ID3v1 and ID3v2 text strings to the same ID3 codes...

Let me give an example to see if I understand what you want to do:
The genre "Bebob" has code 85. Your mobile player displays Bebob. You can't change that but you prefer "Be-bop". You want to select "Be-bop" from Winamp's genre menu and write 85 to the v1 genre field and "Be-bop" to the v2 genre field. Now the mobile player displays Bebob (better than nothing) and Winamp can display "Be-bop".

[Aminifu]

Hi ryerman,

Thanx for explaining how Mp3tag handles customization. I need to find some time to read the documentation.

When I need to edit most of the tags in a song I use TagScanner, Mp3tag, or Mp3 Tag Studio. I need to standardize on one of them, but I find each more useful than the others for certain tagging chores. Mp3 Tag Studio is particularly useful for editing stuff (flags) that are not saved in a tag. Anyway, I use them to mostly automate the process (pulling info from internet sources) but I often disagree with the genre provided. It's not so much that the provided genre is wrong. It's most often more exact than I need it to be.

When I need to edit 1 or 2 tags in a song I use the tag editor in Winamp. I usually edit the v2 tags and copy them to the v1 tags. Sometimes the v2 genre tag is changed when copied to v1. For example, "slow jam" is changed to "slow rock", clearly not close to the same thing. This is the kind of sync problem I was referring to. I can live with the kind of change in your example, such as "hip-hop" to "hip hop".

So it would be useful to be able to edit the default list of genres and not just add new strings to the end of it. While time consuming, being able to 'fix' this stuff manually is better than nothing.