Undoubtedly, each user who stores huge music collections on his computer very often organizes them for more comfortable use. Many people install special organizing programs for this, but sometimes they may not fully satisfy the requirements for such collections. Well, if it was only a matter of sorting the files into folders on the hard drive or organizing them in the playlist of the installed software player. And what if the name of the track or artist is displayed in the form of incomprehensible characters or a set of characters? What to do when you want to save all the files as a randomly edited playlist or even export a list of tracks for printing? How to add a picture for an album cover? For such purposes, you can use the most interesting and unique of its kind program Mp3tag. How to use this application, and then we'll see. But first, let's briefly dwell on what it can do, and briefly consider installing the program in a Windows environment.
What is the Mp3tag program, and why is it needed?
Most users, based on the name of this application, apparently, can immediately conclude on its main purpose. Indeed, this program was originally created so that users can edit ID3 tags of all versions, which are brief information about the artist, the name of the song, its number in the album or in the playlist, year of recording, technical characteristics of audio, which would be sewn directly into the sound file. However, the described utility is also a player at the same time (an audio to MP3 converter, unfortunately, is not provided), and, if you like, a kind of tool that allows you to get the necessary data from databases located on the Internet.
Key Features
If we talk about the basic tools that are available in this application, absolutely everything cannot be described physically. However, among the most significant features that may be needed in the process of reorganizing their own music collections to any user, the following can be singled out separately:
- full control over the contents of ID3v1, v2, VMA, APEv2 and MP4 tags with Unicode support;
- support for editing built-in and adding your own covers for albums;
- the ability to download texts of compositions with saving them to a text file;
- fast renaming of audio files based on information from tags;
- export tags to HTML, XML, CSV and RTF formats;
- import information from online databases, including freedb;
- viewing information about audio parameters;
- Create playlists in the standard M3U format, etc.
Brief information on installing the program
Now briefly dwell on the main points of installing the Mp3tag application in Russian. You can download on the Internet two main versions. One is completely free and suits most ordinary users, the second (Pro) is designed for experienced users and has slightly more advanced features, but after installation you will need to activate the application by purchasing a special key.
The process of installing the free version does not involve anything particularly complicated (you can only additionally choose a portable installation or add application commands to the Explorer context menu).
For the Pro version, everything looks even simpler. You need to go through a number of standard steps, accept the agreement and wait for the installation process to complete.
How to use the Mp3tag Pro program and the free version of the application: initial basics
So, the program is installed. Now is the time to see how to use Mp3tag in practice. The interface of both programs is similar.
However, if we talk about how to use Mp3tag as a free utility, you will first need to change the folder with the music files, which will be installed by default. In the second application, directories with audio files will be shown immediately.
Then everything is simple! Select the desired track, in the corresponding menus, change the necessary information fields, including even the name of the most edited track, its tempo (BPM), serial number in the album or in the future playlist. Apparently, no one will have problems with this.
But an interesting feature of both applications can be called playing the selected song or several tracks directly in the program, although you can also configure the use of an external player if desired.
In addition, for a clearer ordering, there is a built-in “Assignment Number Wizard”.
To simplify the work with tags, it is also sometimes advisable to use special autocomplete tools.
How to work in Mp3tag with additional tools?
In each of the programs, you can import the necessary data from databases located on remote servers on the Internet. To do this, just select the desired item from the menu presented on the main panel or click the corresponding button.
Speaking about how to use the Mp3tag professional version, it is worth noting that among the quick access buttons for editing tools are buttons for loading lyrics (lyrics) and covers, which greatly simplifies the implementation of such procedures.
Through the file menu, a list with files (after editing information fields or without it) can be saved as a playlist, which subsequently easily opens in any software player known today. In the case of using the assignment of numbers, the tracks will be played exactly in the order in which they were presented in one of the installed programs.
Finally, you can save the complete list of tags using the export function for this, after which you simply select the preferred output file format and specify where to save it.
Summary
How to use Mp3tag seems to be a little clear. It remains to say a few words about the overall impression of both utilities, based on numerous user reviews on the Internet. Yes, indeed, both programs look solid. Despite the fact that the Pro version is paid and more advanced, the average user does not need it, in general. Naturally, many are pleased with the possibility of using applications as the most common software player, but the main drawback is absolutely everyone who used this software in practice, called the lack of an audio to MP3 converter. Add it, then the programs would not have a price!