Tag a lot of MP3s, but only the Genre

I have a relatively large music database that is absolutely perfectly organized -- except for the genres. I need a program that updates the tags for all those MP3s, but only the correct genre. Any other information needs to remain as it is.

Does anybody know a program that could easily do that? Windows, OS X, Linux, doesn't matter.

I have already tried the following:

Mp3Tag: Does not seem to do this automatically for many files, only for a search query like an album
MusicBrainz Picard: Will probably re-organize my entire library?
MediaMonkey: Does that sort of thing only for albums and the search is horrible

To sum up, I want to do that all automatically, i.e. just select all my files and let the program do the rest for me.

slhck

Posted 2010-11-20T22:13:39.597

Reputation: 182 472

2So to clarify, you're looking for something that will do this automatically? This would mean fetching genre data based on the song/album from another source, such as file-name, folder structure or online. Could you clarify this in your question? – Jamie Schembri – 2010-11-20T22:57:50.873

How do you expect the program to figure out the genre? Do you have a particular online database in mind? If you're looking for such a database, WebApps.SE would be a better place to ask.

– Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' – 2010-11-20T23:52:56.680

Well Musicbrainz seems to have the DB, but not an app for tagging :( – slhck – 2010-11-21T00:25:09.830

Answers

MusicBrainz Picard tagger (http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardDownload) will look up many metadata fields fields for you. I'm not sure if there is a built-in way to get it to only apply the genre field and ignore the others. If there is not a way to do this yet, you might try creating a plugin or see if someone else from the community is interested in creating a plugin that does what you want. (http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardQt/Plugins).

Nick Martin

Posted 2010-11-20T22:13:39.597

Reputation: 191

Thanks for the hint. It's in Python, so I should be able to write one myself, probably. – slhck – 2010-11-24T20:44:06.507

I am using Amarok under Linux - select the necessary songs, press "edit track detail" if edit only genre field, it keeps the other fields unchanged. AFAIK you can install Amarok in Windows too

jet

Posted 2010-11-20T22:13:39.597

Reputation: 2 675

Thanks, I know Amarok. The functionality you describe is available in any other MP3 tagging tool I know, too. However, I want to do that automatically - just select all my files and let the program run and tag. – slhck – 2010-11-20T23:10:05.577

Media Monkey helps. It automatically IDs MP3 as best as it can and then tags them.

surfasb

Posted 2010-11-20T22:13:39.597

Reputation: 21 453

I said that I already tested MediaMonkey and it doesn't work the way I want. – slhck – 2011-04-10T09:20:19.403