14 DAY TRIAL // MPEG1-Audio Layer 3 (translated mp3 for most of us) is the most popular digital audio encoding format. What some of you may not know is that mp3 represents the perfect compromise between quality and quantity, as it is a lossy compression format which reduces a lot the size of the audio data on your hard drive while it still sounds like a faithful reproduction of the original.
Just to give you an idea of how much is lost in mp3 format, reflect on the following: the typically bitrates for mp3 are between 128-320 kb/s (the number of bits of encoded data that are used to represent each second of audio). An uncompressed audio file (stored on a compact disc) is encoded at 1411.2 kb/s. Notice the difference? This means that an uncompressed audio file on a CD covers a wider range of sounds than the mp3. In English it means that the mp3 cuts off and disposes of some pieces of sound we may notice or not.
But these are just figures and to make a long story short it is enough just to say that mp3 suits the needs of most of us.
First time I laid my eyes on this software I thought to myself: OK, this I can also do in my Winamp player or Foobar (tag editing that is). But as I discovered its true potential I realized that Mp3Tag could be a professional tag editor. It soon turned out to be true.
These being said, let's learn a little something about Mp3Tag. First of all, it is a freeware application produced by Florian Heidenreich. As the name shows, Mp3Tag is a tag editor which practically changes or adds metadata to your audio files. What does this mean? It changes the name of the song, artist, it allows you to add some comments, name of the album, etc., the way you want it to appear in your audio player.
Worthy to mention is the fact that it supports all kinds of audio files, not just mp3. With Mp3Tag you can change the tags for .ogg, .aac, .ape, .apl, .asf, .flac, .mp+, .mp1, .mp2, .mp3, .mp4, .m4a, .m4b, .mpc, .ogg, .ofr, .ofs, .spx, .tta, .wma, .wv. audio formats.
The interface is very easy to use and does not require any complicated knowledge about audio files. At first sight it may seem somehow complicated, as it has lots of buttons under the menu bar. But those buttons are just for speeding up your work as they can also be found in the menu bar.
The most important steps of the Mp3Tag are saving tags to file, removing tags from files, case conversion on filenames and tags. The case conversion on filenames and tags is more interesting as it allows applying different actions to more than one file at the same time. For example, if you have an album, you can select all the files and write only once the name of the album and of the artist.
With this option you can also change the format string of the tag: if you want the first word to be the name of the song and not of the artist, or whatever your dangerous mind might think of. It was extremely useful to me in changing the letter case.
A very nice feature of the program is that it supports online freedb database lookups for the selected files. The feature includes the following options: determine ID from the inserted Audio CD, determine from the selected files, enter the ID yourself or determine via web search. But there is a little trick here: you have to go to the Options dialog and configure the freedb server.
You can also use mp3Tag to create playlists automatically, name it and save it to a folder of your choice. The saved file is an .m3u regular format. If you need to entirely or partially rename multiple files, this is the software to do it with.
The Good
Tell me who is not happy when he/she gets his/her hand on a free software, which, in addition, does a great job too? I know I am.
It is easy to use and changes the tags the way you want it, with no mistakes. It has great features other tag editors do not have and it supports lots of audio formats. The freedb is a wonderful feature as it allows you to import tag information from an online database.
The Bad
Too bad it does not have a built-in audio player.
The Truth
You can fully rely on the fact that this program will do a great job for you and it'll make you the proud owner of a clean and ordered music database.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
