Super Tagging

An article by Don Quixote    4 Comments

It appears that despite buying the best model Pilot that Honda has to offer, there simply is no good way to get my MP3s pumping over my speakers.

It has a 6 disc CD changer – but nope, doesn’t play MP3s. It has a DVD player, but nope it doesn’t play MP3s. Now the crazy thing is that if I had gotten the LX model I could have gotten an 8 disc changer, and a MP3/DVD player. Granted I would have to give up the heated leather seats and the moon roof, but hey, I got has got to have is music.

So I tried some options. Tried playing an MP3 disc in the changer anyway just to see if it would read it. Nope. So I thought I would get creative. I’ll create an Audio DVD and run that through the DVD player. Nada. So finally I created an audio only DVD and that seemed to work. Problem is that I don’t want to take the time to have to create one every time I want to play some new MP3s in the Pilot (plus blank DVDs aren’t as cheap as CDs).

Well Honda tries to solve this problem by making what they are calling a “Music Link” available for you to get installed so you can plug an iPod directly into your stereo and control it with your steering wheel controls. Here’s the kicker, it works in LX & EX models, but not the EX-L (Leather). Bastards.

Thankfully the Pilot has some rear AV inputs that allow for your to run something through the AUX controls. No ideal, but hey, looks like we’ll have to start somewhere.

And that somewhere is organizing my MP3 / Music collection. Understand that while I cannot sing I note to save my life, I love music. With well over 400 CDs floating around the den and gigs & gigs of MP3s sitting scattered throughout my computer you can imagine what a mess I am facing.

I began this process about two weeks ago (actually longer than that because I did some initial tests and playing around when Michelle got hers). I found out right from the start that working within iTunes for any MP3 that wasn’t purchased through their store is a pain in the ass to try and clean up. Forget batch editing or super tagging. Just doesn’t work. Then to make matters really exciting, iTunes does not refresh for any file that is changed outside the program.

So I dumped that right away and switched over to Musicmatch Jukebox 10 (from musicmatch.com). Now the first draw back to using Musicmatch for your iPod is that it doesn’t support it, only iTunes does. But that’s no biggy, let Musicmatch do all your grunt work and then dump it into iTunes once its all finished.

Some of the nice features about Musicmatch is that it is constantly monitoring your watch folders for changes and updates. So say you delete a file, update it in some other fashion or even just drop new music in there it takes care of updating itself (and it doesn’t add the same file a dozen times). But the REAL reason I switched to Musicmatch is Supper Tagging.

Supper Tagging is the ability to select as many tracks as you want from your list and update the ID3 tag with the correct CD cover, title, track number, etc. It does this a couple of ways. First it looks at existing ID3 information and tries to match that up with its database. Secondly it looks at the file name and tries to see if it can discern any info from that. Once its all done it presents you with what it thinks is the most likely option. If that’s it, bingo, your done and it updates the tag, adds all the missing info and gives you a cover to go with it. If not, then you click the more button and it gives you, well, more options.

While the system isn’t perfect and doesn’t always find the right tag (it might give you a different CD – like NOW 6! instead of the original), or it might not find it at all, but it does take care of 90% of it the first time. You always have the option of manually tagging the file yourself and adding your own CD art work so you’re taken care of then. The nice thing is that you can then apply that information across a group of tacks (which is a pain trying to do it with iTunes).

All in all though, I am making progress. With 47.6 gigs successfully tagged, I am well on my way to be done.

However, it does lead me to an interesting question for other music taggers out there. When dealing with a compilation CD or a soundtrack, do you tag the artist as the person who actually performed the song (say Soggy Bottom Boys) or do you tag it as O Brother Where Art Thou? (featuring the Soggy Bottom Boys) so that you can listen to the CD as a whole rather than just creating a play list for it?