[lug] audio questions

[Hugh Brown]

> general questions.
> 
> 
> assuming you have a bunch (a crapload) of MP3 files already on disk, can 
> tools like amrok be used in "bash script" mode to mass id3 (re)tag the 
> existing file collection to speed up the ops?  i'm thinking if the files 
> were organized in artist and album directories and the file names were 
> equivalent to track names, this could be scripted to put the info in 
> there.  does amrok make this easy?
> 
> same goes for tagging existing mp3s by categories (artist, album, genre) 
> so that i can organize the music without having to rely on directory 
> structures?
> 
> how do the media libraries implement the mp3 file categorizing?  do they 
> use a separate metadata db proprietary to each media lib to store the 
> category tags and use a file pointer field or do the cat tags get 
> inserted into the mp3 itself?
> 
> what about other id3 taggers and media lib tools other than amrok?  if 
> someone out there uses something else please chime in on the same 
> questions asked above?
> 
> fwiw, my current mp3 collection is on a windows box but i'd happily move 
> it to linux if i can bash script process the files when and if needed.


the amarok gui makes retagging easy, it also has a "Script Manager" but 
I've never explored what it does/how it works.

for a command line oriented approach, I've used ogginfo, tagmp3, perl 
with the MP3::Info module, and metaflac to retrieve existing tags.

If the tags aren't there, those tools can also be used to put them there.

amarok does have a metadata db which supports sqlite3, mysql, and 
postgresql.  It writes the standard tags to the files themselves, but 
rating/ranking/last time played/etc. are stored in the db.

kid3 makes tagging a large directory of one-hit-wonders pretty easy for 
me.  it supports id3v1, id3v2, ogg and flac.

Hugh