Including source file in metadata

MusicBrainz Picard
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I’d like to include in a music file’s metadata, the source file and folder that it was encoded from. For example, I create flacs on a per track basis from .wav files that are created by EAC when I rip the CD. Two questions

  1. what tag to use? Comments is probably the default, but if I can avoid it, I’d prefer to leave it for other things
  2. what tools to use? Currently, I use cuetools to encode in batch mode. Currently, it can’t set the value of its comments tag/variable.

Thanks

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I use EAC to rip and cuetools to encode but use a different workflow so I may be wrong in what I am saying for your process. EAC tag support appears to revolve around the tags that “cue sheets” support regardless of how you are using it. EAC fills the COMMENT field with the version of EAC you are using (eg. “ExactAudioCopy v1.6”). Years back cuetools had scripting support (not sure how good or supported), it does not appear to have it any longer. Cuetools will use MB (or other meta sources) to fill the tags it supports. I use a bash script to change the COMMENT field before using cuetools to encode and then all the encoded files get the comment tag I need. I then process the encoded files with picard so that I can do a final tagging and upload fingerprints.

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sounds similar to mine, which is an artefact of history. I rip to single wav files and then split it with cuetools to encode. Used to use cueproc, but cuetools has more extras such as built-in recursion. What’s yours?

yes, it ignores what you type in the comment field before ripping

Maybe I need to modify your bash script to meet my needs. Please can you share it?

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I started using EAC in the 1990’s so my process is “historical” but has evolved. I am pretty anal about data so I keep everything. I have bash and perl scripts that process the EAC log files and the cuetool logs for creating reports. I am and always will be a “album” person not a song person, so my process takes this into account.

My process is multi-step, before I even rip I make sure there is a correct MB entry for my “release”, and if not I create one. This is an important step for me because I will encode the MB release Id into the comment field of the cue sheet latter.

I rip with EAC to wave+cue. I do some manual post processing on the cue sheet if needed for my process.

I run a bash script (using ed) to edit the COMMENT field to an unsupported REM name then add the release MBID to the new COMMENT line.

I use cuetools to encode using the cue sheet for metadata (not other source). I now have the release MBID in the comment tag.

I drop the encoded MP3 files into the Picard left window, select all files and run a single line script to create a release tag from the comment tag ($set(musicbrainz_albumid,%comment%)), run save, remove the saved files. I then drop the saved files back on Picard’s left window which now reads the release MBID and automatically recognizes them and fills in the tags. I do not have to do lookup any longer.

Not sure the bash script will help but I will PM you the details, it is pretty basic.

3 Likes
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Thanks. A helpful overview of your workflow.

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Thanks for your PM. Tried to respond. Email inbox is full.