ID3 tags in .wav files?

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Jonas · #1 Post by **Jonas** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:24 am

Hi guys!

I've been reading your excellent threads on ripping software, file formats, dj software, tagging etc, since I'm planning to enter the laptop deejaying bunch, giving up on lugging cd's around.

From your information I've drawn the following conclusions:

Software to rip from CD: EAC (it's free, and it gets rave reviews)
Format to rip to: .wav (it's lossless, and now that hard drive space has become very cheap, I don't see why I shouldn't go with lossless)
Software to dj with: WinAmp (it's free, and has served me well for .mp3 purposes at home)

So, now, I see only one problem:

With .mp3 there is ID3 (v1 and v2) that enables me to store metadata about bpm in the comment field, information on recording year, album etc.

With .wav there seems to be no such metadata possibilities. Does that mean that I need to store all that information in the actual file name? (Meaning I will have very long file names since I like to store a lot of information.)

I know that I can edit data about the .wav file in WinAmp, but that will store only in WinAmp and not in the actual file, so if I for example move the file to another computer or load it into other playback software, the information won't stay with the file.

Thankful for help. Suggestions on other possibilities welcome.

/Jonas

LazyP · #2 Post by **LazyP** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:51 am

Then use the FLAC format. It's a lossless format with support for Metadata (artist, genre, song etc.)

Jonas · #3 Post by **Jonas** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 11:17 am

I have considered FLAC, but since it compresses the file size with 30-60% compared to .wav (according to some people's accounts in various threads), I don't see how the FLAC format can be completely lossless. Am I far out here?

Is FLAC as good as .wav, meaning also that if I were to burn an audio cd with the FLAC files (meaning I have to convert back to .wav again, since that is the format on audio cd's, right?), it would come out as good as if burning directly from .wav files?

Sorry, don't know much about all these file formats, that's why I'm asking you computer guys.

/Jonas

CafeSavoy · #4 Post by **CafeSavoy** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 11:42 am

Jonas wrote:I have considered FLAC, but since it compresses the file size with 30-60% compared to .wav (according to some people's accounts in various threads), I don't see how the FLAC format can be completely lossless. Am I far out here?

Is FLAC as good as .wav, meaning also that if I were to burn an audio cd with the FLAC files (meaning I have to convert back to .wav again, since that is the format on audio cd's, right?), it would come out as good as if burning directly from .wav files?

Sorry, don't know much about all these file formats, that's why I'm asking you computer guys.

/Jonas

You can burn directly from the flac format. I know nero will burn flac. And winamp will play flac.

Cyrano de Maniac · #5 Post by **Cyrano de Maniac** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 11:59 am

Jonas wrote:I have considered FLAC, but since it compresses the file size with 30-60% compared to .wav (according to some people's accounts in various threads), I don't see how the FLAC format can be completely lossless. Am I far out here?

Yep.

FLAC is indeed lossless. The audio samples will be bit-for-bit identical if you convert back to WAV. What you are overlooking is that there is redundant information in the audio which can be eliminated, but can also be restored.

As a simple example: Say that I have a picture that's 100% green, of a size of 10 by 10 pixels. I can either enumerate to you 100 times that there is a green pixel (i.e. "green, green, green, ... green"), or tell you there are 100 green pixels (i.e. "100 green"). Either way gives you exactly the same results, but one method takes a lot less time/space to communicate. That's because there's redundant information in the object to be restored.

So, go with FLAC. It appears to meet all your requirements, including embedding metadata.

Brent

Jonas · #6 Post by **Jonas** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:54 am

Patrik, Rayned and Brent, thanks once again for your advice on using flac, ensuring (theoretically) lossless compression. I just might opt for that possibility.

Still, does anyone know anything about my initial question:

Is there way of tagging metadata onto .wav files?

If yes, what are the names of those programs, and are they any good, and is there any playback software that support those tags, like WinAmp or the like?

If no, is that because it's not possible to tag .wav files, or something else?

Should I just give up on .wav and jump onto the flac bandwagon, since it's supposedly lossless although the files are compressed?

(I just might need a "flac for dummies" runthrough before I dare back up my whole music collection with that file format, so I don't do any bad mistakes, like using the "wrong" flac encoder or, "wrong" settings etc)

/Jonas

Toon Town Dave · #7 Post by **Toon Town Dave** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:01 am

You still seem unconvinced about lossless compression. Digital audio is just data. Just like you can compress other data files using zip compression on Windows to compress a program or data file, the same sort of algorithm can be used to compress an audio stream. In the photo world, a compressed TIFF files is the same idea. It re-constitutes bit for bit.

The reason lossy compression is more common is it tosses out a lot of information resulting in much smaller files. Media (photos, audio and video) tends to be much larger. Given storage is still fairly expensive for huge amounts of data and bandwidth to transfer data over a network is still minimal, the much smaller formats are still desireable.

lipi · #8 Post by **lipi** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 9:16 pm

Jonas wrote:Is there way of tagging metadata onto .wav files?

not that i know of, but folks at hydrogenaudio may know better.

If no, is that because it's not possible to tag .wav files, or something else?

it's certainly theoretically possible. in a klunky way: i can simply define my own file format, say, "ocean" (geddit? wave? ocean? oh, ne'ermind) that is a plain text header + a wave file. i can then write my own player that reads the plain text (metadata) header, displays the metadata in a window, and opens the wave payload in an open source wave player backend.

it's not really worth the trouble, though.

Should I just give up on .wav and jump onto the flac bandwagon, since it's supposedly lossless although the files are compressed?

yes. (says the man who has all his stuff in alac.) if you're really freakin' out about this whole losless-or-not thing, check the hydrogenaudio fora. there's a currently active thread on how you can tell whether a codec is really losless or not.

Jonas · #9 Post by **Jonas** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:40 am

Thanks Dave and Alex, for the last pushes to get me into lossless compression, and the heads up on the hydrogenaudio forum. Those guys are a bit over my head with their programming talk and computer abbreviations though.

--------------

Random example:

"I get the following warning message on a 192/24/2 wave file created with wvunpack 4.2. Might not be a problem with flac, but thought I should mention it anyway.

options: --lax -P 8192 -b 4608 -m -l 8 -q 0 -r 3,3
02 The Carter Family.wav: WARNING: legacy WAVE file has format type 1 but bits-per-sample=24"

---------------------

Well, it looks like I'll be going down the EAC, FLAC and WinAmp road when I get the cash to buy a laptop.

I might even do iTunes + ALAC if I get a MacBook, since for a computer dummie like me, the user interface on iTunes for making ALAC files might be a little easier than using "frontends" like EAC with "extensions" like FLAC, and hundreds of settings to choose from. I just might screw something up, and I don't want that.

As I've understood it after reading the threads in this forum on lossless, ALAC is as good as FLAC (its either lossless or it's not, right?), and the DRM part about ALAC is not a problem as long as I'm just ripping my own cd's?

Well, future will tell what solution I'll choose, and I'm sure going to keep on reading your laptop deejaying advice in this forum. I'll let you know my choice once it's been made, might take a while to decide

/Jonas

GemZombie · #10 Post by **GemZombie** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 6:09 am

lipi wrote:
If no, is that because it's not possible to tag .wav files, or something else?
it's certainly theoretically possible. in a klunky way: i can simply define my own file format, say, "ocean" (geddit? wave? ocean? oh, ne'ermind) that is a plain text header + a wave file. i can then write my own player that reads the plain text (metadata) header, displays the metadata in a window, and opens the wave payload in an open source wave player backend.

Another solution: Put the metadata in a file of the same name as the .wav file, and then make a winamp plugin or a plugin for whatever your favorite player is to read/write the metadata.

Also, Windows does support some metadata for files at the file system level. I haven't really used it, but theoretically it would be possible to tap into that a bit.

Toon Town Dave · #11 Post by **Toon Town Dave** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:41 pm

It looks like there is a way to encapsulate a note inside a .wav header. I don't of anything that commonly reads or writes it and it is just an unformatted string so it wouldn't be a useful as ID3.

Detailed (technical) description of a wav header:
http://www.sonicspot.com/guide/wavefiles.html

I wrote proof of concept VoIP eavesdropping software a few years ago. IIRC, all I needed to specify in the .wav header for the saved file was the size and format (8bit PCM in my case). Jonas, it sounds like you are trying to encode 24 bit audio with a tool that assumes 16bit. Try different transcoding software.

lipi · #12 Post by **lipi** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 6:52 pm

Jonas wrote: As I've understood it after reading the threads in this forum on lossless, ALAC is as good as FLAC (its either lossless or it's not, right?), and the DRM part about ALAC is not a problem as long as I'm just ripping my own cd's?

yup, pretty much.

Jonas · #13 Post by **Jonas** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:12 am

So, I've been playing around with iTunes 7 on my PC, ripping to ALAC from some of my CD's to try it out, and I'm very pleased with what I've experienced so far, thinking I might switch to the iTunes + ALAC setup (both for archiving my CD's and for deejaying).

One thing that I'm a bit worried about though:

When I import mp3:s into iTunes, SOME of the tracks seem to still have the ID3 information I have manually written into them through WinAmp, that is, in iTunes I can still see the bpm info I typed into the "comment" box, and changes made in "artist" and "year" are there (very often CDDB states the release year of the CD and not the recording year of the track, which is what I'm interested in).

Still A LOT of the tracks seem to have “lost” the information, and iTunes seems to have reverted back to/written over with the original info (that it automatically finds on CDDB?).

(YES, I did save the information chages to the actual ID3 file, so that it's not just within WinAmp.)

Have you experienced this? If so, do you know of a way around it? I would like to avoid having to manually type in all of the information once again.

If you know a way around it, maybe you also know of an easy way (maybe within iTunes?) to copy the information from the "comment" box to the "bpm" box for all of my files, now that there is such a specific field I could use?

/Jonas