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MP3 Tags Explained
Drew's MP3 Tag Manager
& Computer Search Tutorial
DAK's new MP3 Tag Manager and Computer Search program allow you to utilize the newest MP3 data enhancements plus gives you a simple, convenient and fast way to search your computer for BOTH the MP3 and Wav files that you might have misplaced. Plus you can then easily identify where the files are and navigate to them.

Note: Many of us who convert LPs and cassettes to MP3 and wave occasionally save a file to the wrong folder or forget where we've saved it. Now your music will never be lost again.

For the MP3 files, now you can see all the data that's part of the files and even load, copy and save the album pictures that often accompany new downloads and MP3 files that you buy. Many of the emerging MP3 players now can show these pictures. So it's good to be able to edit them, or even export them so you can use them for CD album covers and more.

Below we'll explore much of what you can do with the new DAK MP3 Tag Manager. And what's really important is that you'll find lots of new things that if you're like me, you simply didn't even know existed or were possible.

OK, let's get started.


Quick Index Of Abilities
Mouse over the buttons and click to visit each section.
Arrow 1.) Add a file or several files to the Manager for editing.

Arrow 2.) Add a folder of files to the Manager.

Arrow 3.) Search your computer for audio files.

Arrow 4.) Edit MP3 tags.

Arrow 5.) Remove a file from the Tag Manager. This simply removes the file from the Manager with no effect on the original file.

Arrow 6.) Delete a file from your hard disk Permanently.
IMPORTANT PERMANENT DELETION NOTE - This is a very useful tool as you can find files on your computer that you no longer want and actually delete them from your computer. BUT THIS IS A PERMANENT deletion, not just from this program but from your hard drive. Only use it for files/tracks you are sure you no longer want.

Arrow 7.) You can clear all files from the Tag Manager with this button. This is simply a way to clear the Manager so you can reload other files to work on.

Arrow 8.) Prints a list to your Notepad of all files in the Tag Manager

Quick Index
Major Tutorial Sections
How do I SEARCH my hard drives for MP3 & Wave Files?
How do I print lists of what I find?
How do I add Files?
How do I add Folders?
How do I edit the MP3 Tags?
How do I add or copy pictures to the Tags?
How do I find Album Images on the Internet?
The DAK MP3 Tag Manager Main Screen
 
This is the main interface. I just wanted to put it here so you could see what it looked like. In the action section you'll see I've loaded the tracks from a CD I ripped to MP3 of my favorite Group the Limeliters. The album is called Harmony, and below I'll show you how to use the MP3 Tag manager with one of these tracks.

Arrow 1.) Just click on this track and then double click the track and the Edit Tag Dialog box will open.

Arrow 2.) Once you've highlighted a track, you can edit the MP3 tags by clicking this button, just like double clicking the track line itself.
SEARCH - Where Did My Files Go?
Search is BIG. I've wanted to have this for a long, long time. WHY? Well personally I have so many tracks recorded on my computer I tend to forget where I've put some of them. Now I can search my entire C: drive with one click and find EITHER all my MP3 or my Wave files. Oh, and we will alphabetize them as we search so that you won't have to paw through all the tracks to find what you want. OK, here's how to use Search.

Arrow 1.) Click Search to access the Options Screen.

Arrow 2.) Choose which drive you want to search. It can be a 2nd hard drive or a CD ROM drive too.

Arrow 3.) Choose if you want to search ONLY for MP3 files.

Arrow 4.) Choose if you want to search ONLY for WAV files.

Arrow 5.) Click Search.

That's all you need to do. The Manager will now scour your hard drive for every single MP3 or Wave file for you.
SEARCH - Viola, I've Found Them.
 
On this computer that I'm using to create the screen shots for this tutorial I have 1179 MP3 files. Not too many compared to my music computers. But still a lot more than I'd ever want to look for manually.

Arrow 1s.) This is where you'll see how many files the program has found. You'll see this number increase as the program is running

Arrow 2.) When the program is finished, this action box will fill with all the tracks that have been found.

OK, now you've found the tracks. What can you do? Scroll down for the 2 important answers.

Note: Many of us who convert our LPs and cassettes to MP3 and wave occasionally save a file to the wrong folder or forget where we've saved it. Now your music will never be lost again.


SEARCH - THE TRICK - Where They Are - Where They All Are.
OK this is one of my favorite tricks and you probably already know it. But if not, this is a good trick to know when you use Windows Search as well. So where are those files?

Arrow 1.) OK, so the Tag Manager has found the file(s) you want. But you don't want to copy them. You want to find them. OK to the left, you'll see the track name as we've already discussed above.

But this is important. To the right is the actual path where you will find the track on your computer. Think of it as a cookie crumb trial for you to find your tracks. Read on.

Arrow 2.) So here's the path to the file. First Go to the C Drive and look for a folder called Documents and Settings
C:\Documents and Settings\Drew Alan Kaplan\Desktop\Harmony MP3 2\THE TRACK

Arrow 3.) Then Look For Drew Alan Kaplan (Of course yours will probably be your name).
C:\Documents and Settings\Drew Alan Kaplan\Desktop\Harmony MP3 2\THE TRACK

Arrow 4.) Then look for the 'Desktop' Folder. Yes like everything else in Windows, your desktop is just a folder.
C:\Documents and Settings\Drew Alan Kaplan\Desktop\Harmony MP3 2\THE TRACK

Arrow 5.) Then look for the folder Harmony MP3 2
C:\Documents and Settings\Drew Alan Kaplan\Desktop\Harmony MP3 2\THE TRACK
And you'll find the file you want in that folder.

So if you're not a big Windows user, how will you ever find the track?
No problem. Go to your C: Drive. You get there through My Computer.
Then Scroll down till you see Documents and Settings. It's one of the folders.
Then Scroll down within Documents and Settings till you see Drew Alan Kaplan or in your case probably your name.
That's it. That's how you follow a path to find any file at any time on your computer.

BIG Tip 2. You might not have thought of this, but usually there are going to be other tracks in the same place that are lost too. So once you are in the right folder by following the path you'll find all the tracks that you probably recorded when you get to your previously lost track. Neat.
PRINT The List - SAVE The List To File
Once you have a list in the MP3 Tag Monitor, you can print it. Or, you can save the file to keep a permanent searchable file of all your tracks.

Arrow 1.) Click Print to launch the Windows Notepad with all the listed files.

Arrow 2.) Once the files are in Notepad, you can Simply Click File/Print to print them out. Or, you can use File/Save to save the list to your hard drive.

Tip. Here's what I do. I copy the Notepad list to my word processor (Word) and keep it there where it's really easy to search. Then I always know what I've got. I've never been able to find this kind of organizational print function in windows. This is a big time saver and real convenience for me. I think it will be for you too.
Loading A File/Files Into the Manager
OK let's go back and do some MP3 Tag Editing and Reading. Here's how to load individual or groups of files into the Manager:

Arrow 1. Click the Add File(s) Button.

Arrows 2. Here I've selected 3 files to load. You can load multiple files like this by holding down the Control Key while you click on the files you want to load. This is a Windows function for loading random files from a folder. You can also hold down shift and load multiple files that are next to each other.

Then just click Open and they will be opened in the Manager.

Loading A Folder Into The Manager
 
Like Files, you can load whole folders of files. Here's how.

Arrow 1.) Click the Add Folder Button.

Arrow 2.) Navigate to the Folder that has the files and then click OK.

You can open files from more than one folder by repeating this process.

OK, Let's Edit Those MP3 Tags
 
Now that you've loaded the files, you can edit any of them. Remember, you can't add tags to WAV files; it's not in their spec. This is strictly for MP3 Files.

Arrow 1.) Choose the file for which you want to edit the tags. You can double click it to enter the Edit Mode.

Arrow 2.) If you didn't double click the track, just click the Edit button to enter the Edit Mode.
EDIT TAGS - ID3v1 - The Basic Tags
 
Arrow 1.) These are the ID3v1 standard tags that you'll find on most MP3 files. You can read them here to learn about the track and you can edit any of them to say whatever you like.

Remember, many MP3 players will scroll the title tag and artist tag, so it's good to put something here you want to see to identify the track in a way that's good for you. You aren't confined to using the descriptions that are here. You can use anything you like. For example if you want the type of music in the Artist tag, it's up to you.

Arrow 2.) Click save if you've made any changes.

NOTE: These changes are made to the actual file on your hard disk.
EDIT TAGS - ID3v2 - The Pictures & Type 2 Tags
 

You Can Print The Album Covers Or Other Pictures?
The ID3v2 Tag is a newer tag that some players will read and some don't. So for the next year or two you might as well add the tag 2 info, but know that not everyone will be able to see it and its compatibility will vary. But that's not bad and parts of it like the pictures are becoming very popular.

Caution. Some players and programs will hang on pictures, so try them out before you commit to adding pictures to all your files.

Arrow 1.) If you don't have a graphic loaded already, this is where you load it. Use a 200x200 pixel or 300x300 pixel JPEG for best results. The standard doesn't seem to be set yet and I added a 2000 pixel wide image and though the program took it, it wouldn't play in my MP3 players. So stick to the 200-300 pixel size.

Arrow 2.) This is very neat. When you load an MP3 file that you've downloaded and you find that it has a picture, just click the Save Graphic button to copy it to a file on your desktop. Then you can use it to print CD album covers or more. It's easy. It's fast and now you have it.

Arrow 3.) This is the 200 pixel picture that's loaded for this track. You can change it and put anything you like. Most times it will be the album, but you can put a picture of anything or anyone you want, even you, your child or your dog or cat in your MP3 files.

Arrow 4.) You can actually store all the lyrics of the song within the file. Just go on the web and look up the lyrics (they tend to be easy to find). Then paste them here.

The Picture. Here's the Picture for this album, Harmony. It's neat to be able to use the album picture for making CD covers and jewel box inserts.


Frames & Other Info.
 
Frames are the way the info is stored in the MP3 file. You really don't need to know anything about this page, except that you can look here to see the list of all that's in the file.

Arrow 1.) The Frames Tab.

Arrow 2.) The content of the frames.
The MP3 Basic Info (Usually)
 
Here's where you can usually look to know how the MP3 file is encoded. Note: not all files actually carry the info to display here even though they are properly encoded. This is an extra tag.

Arrow 1.) The Bitrate.

Arrow 2.) The Max Frequency of the encoding.

Arrow 3.) The Duration of the track in seconds.

Bonus - Finding Pictures - Google Search Images

What if you could find the actual album pictures for many albums by going to one place and asking? Well, Google has done it again. They have compiled over 2 billion pictures and they've done much more. Not only do they have most of the album pictures that I've looked for, they also often even connect me to the artist's web page.

Wow, talk about 1 stop service. Google is the best. Note: Not all images are copyright free. I have permission to use the Limeliter pictures because they are friends of mine. But like anything else, your mileage may vary, so don't abuse copyrights. That said, look how easy it is to do.

Arrow 1.) Go to Google and Click on the Images Search Link.

Arrow 2.) Type in the Artist and maybe the Album name.

Hit Search Images and let Google do its thing.
Bonus - Finding Pictures - Found The Image
 
OK, now you've found it. Take a look around and find the picture that you want.

Arrow 1.) Here's the Harmony Picture. I'll just Click it.

Bonus - Finding Pictures - Often Lots More Info Too.
 
Wow, check this out. Not only did good old Google take me to the page with the picture, but I'm actually on the page of the Limeliter site. You'll love being able to easily find your favorite artists' sites from now on. Not all of them have sites of course, but you can count on Google to do the best job of finding them if they do.

Arrow 1.) Here's where I click to enlarge the picture that I want.

Arrow 2.) This is the area of the Limeliters' site and you can go visit all their pages from here.
Downloading The Picture (If it's Legal)
 
OK, so if you've decided that your use is OK, then here's how to download the picture to your computer of the album cover you want, or any image from the Internet.

Arrow 1.) First just choose the picture that you want.

Arrow 2.) Then Right click on the picture. You'll get this Menu. Choose Save Picture As and then it will let you save it to your desktop. That's all there is to getting pictures that you see from almost any page on the Internet, even this one. :)

 
A few last things that I want to mention.

Now you know how to search and find all the files on your computer. It's easy and it's fast. And now no MP3 or Wave Track will ever be lost on your computer again. Plus don't forget it's an easy way to find the path to the songs and files that you want that might be in the same folder as the track you are looking for.

And of course now you can read, edit and save the MP3 tags and even pictures with your MP3 files. You'll have a new level of control over your music. Customize it just the way you want it. It's fast and easy.

And remember, whatever you put into the tags is what you'll see when you play the MP3 file in an MP3 player. So this is control that you really do want and I'll bet like me, you'll appreciate having from now on.


Tutorial Review Please.
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