Having issues with aliasTags and CUSTOM tags

[edj]

Hello all. I use MediaMonkey's ability to create Custom tags. One example is that I use Custom 4 to give an (alphabetic) ranking for my own top ten for the year.

Mediamonkey writes the tags differently to the files for FLAC and MP3.

For FLAC files it defines the tag simply as "Custom4", so I can use aliasTag with the setting "Custom4:Top Tracks" and it works perfectly.

I can't get it to work with MP3s though. According to MP3Editor the tag is "COMMENT SONGS-DB_CUSTOM4" (without the "" but WITH the space). According to notepad the tag is "XXXSongs-DB_Custom4".

I have tried all of the following with "xxx:Top Tracks" but none work. In all I have tried:

COMMENT SONGS-DB_CUSTOM4
"COMMENT SONGS-DB_CUSTOM4"
SONGS-DB_CUSTOM4
DB_CUSTOM4

XXXSongs-DB_Custom4
Songs-DB_Custom4
DB_Custom4

Any ideas please?! It's driving me nuts... thanks

Edit: I don't know if this could be useful or note, but it's the relevant snippet from one of the MP3s when opening with notepad:

Code:

ØÖ¢ªÙ¸ÇÒíÇÄf¤f×ÿÙTPE1      EmperorTALB          Begin EPTPE2      EmperorTIT2      Begin ft. Georgia YatesTIT1      OnlineTPUB          CriticalTRCK      1TYER      2013TDRC      2013POPM     no@email ÿ    COMM   y   XXX  00000000 00000210 00000A16 0000000000F2C25A 00000000 00DC1AF1 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000TCON      Drum & BassTBPM      87COMM      XXXSongs-DB_Custom1 13.05COMM      XXXSongs-DB_Custom2 CRIT070COMM      XXXSongs-DB_Custom3 gCOMM      XXXSongs-DB_Custom4 e

[simoncn]

It's a bit hard to work out exactly what's in the file from the Notepad output but it seems to me that this is an ID3v2 COMM (Comment) frame with a language value 'XXX', a descriptor 'Songs-DB_Custom4' and comment text 'e'.

I am sorry to say that MinimServer cannot read an ID3v2 COMM frame with this format. Comments in ID3v2 are normally encoded with an empty descriptor and MinimServer reads such a comment as a COMMENT tag.

[edj]

Hi Simon, thank you for the explanation. Given that I simply won't stop using Mediamonkey, it sounds like I'm buggered unless:

a. I convert everything to FLAC
b. Mediamonkey change how they set custom tags in MP3 files (to for eg how they do it in FLAC files)

Do you agree? I can't really see another way around the issue...

[simoncn]

Please upload one of these files to my FTP server so that I can investigate further. I will PM you the server details.

[edj]

Apologies Simon I missed this, have just sent you a PM (and uploaded some tracks).

[edj]

Hi Simon, did you manage to have a look at this? Thanks - Ed.

[simoncn]

Apologies for the long delay in responding. Mp3tag maps these COMM frames to

COMMENT SONGS-DB_CUSTOM1=13.02
COMMENT SONGS-DB_CUSTOM4=c

I will try some other tagging programs to see what they do.

[simoncn]

I have decided to go with the MP3tag naming convention, which is also used by foobar2000. If you want to map this tag to a simpler name, you can use the aliasTags property to do this. For example, to map this tag to CUSTOM4 for both FLAC and MP3 files, you can set aliasTags to

COMMENT SONGS-DB_CUSTOM4:CUSTOM4

This change will be in the next MinimServer update.

[edj]

Simon this is great news, thank you very much. Appreciate it hugely.