music metadata

Question

Level 1

6 points

music metadata

I have an issue with iTunes (Music) not updating the metadata correctly of the music file.

For example I can edit the genre of the track in the music app and it reads correctly and will sort correctly, work with smart playlists etc, however if you go to the actual file in finder the metadata hasn't been updated.

This only comes to light if a 3rd party app uses the library where it see the actual metadata held in the file rather what is show in Music, can't see any pattern to why some tracks update and some dont

I'm on M1, Monterey 12.6

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Oct 8, 2022 02:21 AM

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Answer 1

Superfastsax Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 8, 2022 08:06 AM in response to turingtest2

Hi, please see the example below, I maybe using wrong terminology, but this track is is Music with the Genre "Soul/Funk" as you can see in the second screenshot, but the file in finder has it as "Pop"

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Answer 2

Superfastsax Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 8, 2022 07:32 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for the advice, sadly this didn't work for me. Some tracks will update the genre and some won't. Also found that sometimes playing the track seems to "push" the amended genre from Music back to the file location. Issues are with both MP3 and wav files.

This doesn't seem to be an iCloud issue rather that the change made in Music isn't getting written back to the file, rather than changing and then changing back again

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Oct 8, 2022 07:53 AM in response to Superfastsax

Tracks in .wav format don't normally hold any metadata. If they do neither iTunes nor Music is equipped to read or update details. With multiple tags an MP3 may have two sets of data, one of which could be updated my Music and stick, while another is left unchanged and displayed by Finder. Having identified a particular track where Music and Finder disagree on the genre did you try the process of repeatedly removing the tag and then reinstating it as ID3v2.3?

tt2

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Answer 4

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Oct 8, 2022 08:42 AM in response to Superfastsax

Conventionally .wav tracks don't have tags. Clearly it is possible to attach one to a .wav file, but as far as I am aware neither iTunes nor Music knows the data is there or is able to read or write it. You could convert, losslessly, to Apple Lossless to generate a file with a tag that will edit and should update in Finder when you make changes in Music.

As a matter of interest can you edit the Musical genre via Finder > Properties?

tt2

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Answer 5

Superfastsax Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 8, 2022 09:02 AM in response to turingtest2

Hi, no can't change in Finder, same issue happens with MP3 tracks too, as far as I can work out the genre that's held in the Music Library file , Music Library.musiclibrary, is taken from the file rather than what is shown in Music App. Just found a mp3 track and converting the tags does fix the issue, well what it seems to do is over write the genre from the file back to Music and then allows you to update in Music back to the file.

The only drama would be remember what the original genre was supposed to be so it would be a case of one at a time as I have 20,000 tracks in the library. Still doesn't solve my wav issue

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Answer 6

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Oct 8, 2022 09:24 AM in response to Superfastsax

Converting tags to none several times, then converting to ID3V3.2 should preserve everything except embedded album artwork, which you would typically want to re-embed. There are scripts to save artwork and/or re-embed it at https://dougscripts.com/.

tt2

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