Transcoding wav to flac

[sandalholme]

I am in the process of converting wav files to flac to save space. Will the tags created for the wav files be automatically retained by the flac files or will I have to re-tag?

[simoncn]

It depends on how you are doing the conversion and what kind of tags (ID3 or LIST/INFO) you have in the WAV files. Which conversion program are you using?

[sandalholme]

Thanks for the reply. I'm using dbPoweramp. The tags will have come from various sources, including iTunes - hopefully ignored - and a couple of freebie Mac tagging s/w I experimented with, plus Audacity for my own recordings. Relevant (maybe) history: I struggled with Minim and also tried Plex. So I tagged a lot of files - wav (mainly) and flac in Plex. (Used Artist for composer and either artist or genre for Album as most is classical) Followed the Plex instructions for backing up and lost the whole library. (Tried to restore: a few files looked fine, but most have come back as Unknown Artist Unknown Album) Can't face starting again and would prefer to use Minim. Have yet to see how good or bad the Minim library looks at the moment. Before getting to grips with configuring Minim properly I needed to check whether the wav files I want to convert to flac should be converted before tagging for Minim. Of course the music files are still there but my guess is that the tags are all over the place. I guess I need to finish converting first to be on the safe side. Any recommendations for tagging with a Mac would be very helpful.

[simoncn]

For tagging with a Mac, use Metadatics.

Converting from WAV to FLAC using dBpoweramp will preserve any tags in your WAV files.

I suggest you try converting and retagging a few files first and establish a tagging scheme that you are happy with and works well with MinimServer. After that, you can convert your whole library and tag it using the same tagging scheme.

For best results with MinimServer, you should tag the artist as Artist, the genre as Genre, the composer as Composer and the album as Album.

[sandalholme]

Many thanks for the help. Have acquired Metadatics and have tagged a few trial versions of the 3 types of file - needing different ways of browsing - I have. So far, so good, although I may adjust the tagging for one type of file where I need to browse for instrument as a primary search as well as the usual composer, artist etc. As you have written elswhere, Simon, individuals' needs differ. At present I have to step through a few levels to get to a work/track but I think I can live with that. Meanwhile I press on with saving a few more gigabytes of storage ........

[Pepsican]

(03-03-2017 10:19)sandalholme Wrote:  Many thanks for the help. Have acquired Metadatics and have tagged a few trial versions of the 3 types of file - needing different ways of browsing - I have. So far, so good, although I may adjust the tagging for one type of file where I need to browse for instrument as a primary search as well as the usual composer, artist etc. As you have written elswhere, Simon, individuals' needs differ. At present I have to step through a few levels to get to a work/track but I think I can live with that. Meanwhile I press on with saving a few more gigabytes of storage ........

Note that the Batch Converter in DBPowerAmp allows you to map tags as well as create new tags and fill them.

[paultaylor]

(02-03-2017 10:40)simoncn Wrote:  Converting from WAV to FLAC using dBpoweramp will preserve any tags in your WAV files.

Its worth noting that unless something has changed recently this isn't entirely true, whilst DbPoweramp converts most existing tags it doesnt convert all of them and doesnt convert some properly.

For example it ignores the following fields:

- The UFID frame (Unique File Id, i.e MusicBrainz Recording Id)
- The IPLS frame (Involved people list)

It replaces the existing value of TMED (Media) field with its own value.

And for ID3 many values are stored in a TXXX frames, consisting of a name and a value. The trouble is that DbPoweramp naively keeps the name as it is, but for some fields it is expected the name changes depending on what tagging format they are being used with. For example all MusicBrainz enabled taggers use the standard defined by MusicBrainz Picard to use MusicBrainz Album Id when using ID3 (as in Wav) but when tagging a Flac file they use MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID, but if converting from Wav to Flac DbPoweramp BatchConverter just creates a field called MusicBrainz Album Id which is not recognized by any MusicBrainz compatible tagger as it expects MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID for flac files. With hindsight it would have been better if MusicBrainz had kept the same value for all tagging formats, but unfortunatey that is not the case.

But this mapping problem can be fixed by using DBPoweramp ID Tag Processing option but I dont know of any way to preserve data in the UFID or IPLS fields.

[Pepsican]

(06-03-2017 09:58)paultaylor Wrote:  

(02-03-2017 10:40)simoncn Wrote:  Converting from WAV to FLAC using dBpoweramp will preserve any tags in your WAV files.

Its worth noting that unless something has changed recently this isn't entirely true, whilst DbPoweramp converts most existing tags it doesnt convert all of them and doesnt convert some properly.

For example it ignores the following fields:

- The UFID frame (Unique File Id, i.e MusicBrainz Recording Id)
- The IPLS frame (Involved people list)

It replaces the existing value of TMED (Media) field with its own value.

And for ID3 many values are stored in a TXXX frames, consisting of a name and a value. The trouble is that DbPoweramp naively keeps the name as it is, but for some fields it is expected the name changes depending on what tagging format they are being used with. For example all MusicBrainz enabled taggers use the standard defined by MusicBrainz Picard to use MusicBrainz Album Id when using ID3 (as in Wav) but when tagging a Flac file they use MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID, but if converting from Wav to Flac DbPoweramp BatchConverter just creates a field called MusicBrainz Album Id which is not recognized by any MusicBrainz compatible tagger as it expects MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID for flac files. With hindsight it would have been better if MusicBrainz had kept the same value for all tagging formats, but unfortunatey that is not the case.

But this mapping problem can be fixed by using DBPoweramp ID Tag Processing option but I dont know of any way to preserve data in the UFID or IPLS fields.

Have you tried creating new TAGs and then mapping UFID and IPLS into them?

[paultaylor]

(07-03-2017 08:14)Pepsican Wrote:  Have you tried creating new TAGs and then mapping UFID and IPLS into them?

As far as I can see in ID Tag Processing you can map a field to another field (i.e Album Artist to Artist) but UFID and IPLS are not in the list. Or you can Add a new field and set the same text value for each song. But there is no way to get the data out of UFID or IPLS since DBPoweramp just ignores these fields.

[Pepsican]

(07-03-2017 09:16)paultaylor Wrote:  

(07-03-2017 08:14)Pepsican Wrote:  Have you tried creating new TAGs and then mapping UFID and IPLS into them?

As far as I can see in ID Tag Processing you can map a field to another field (i.e Album Artist to Artist) but UFID and IPLS are not in the list. Or you can Add a new field and set the same text value for each song. But there is no way to get the data out of UFID or IPLS since DBPoweramp just ignores these fields.

My misunderstanding. I thought you meant the target did not have the field. But if you don't see them in the source, then any mapping would become somewhat problematic indeed. Perhaps request this for the next release of DBPowerAmp?