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Recommended Tagging Tools

Good metadata starts with good tools. This guide covers the most reliable applications for tagging your music collection, with tips for preparing files that work well in BitDek.

Quick Recommendations

Section titled “Quick Recommendations”
Use CaseToolPlatform
Automatic taggingMusicBrainz PicardWindows, Mac, Linux
Manual controlMp3tagWindows, Mac
Bulk operationsMp3tagWindows, Mac

MusicBrainz Picard

Section titled “MusicBrainz Picard”

Website: picard.musicbrainz.org Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux Cost: Free, open source

MusicBrainz Picard is the gold standard for automatic tagging. It identifies your music using audio fingerprints and applies metadata from the MusicBrainz database.

Strengths

Section titled “Strengths”
  • Audio fingerprinting - Identifies tracks even without existing tags
  • Huge database - MusicBrainz has excellent coverage, especially for albums
  • Album grouping - Automatically groups tracks into albums
  • Cover art - Downloads artwork from multiple sources
  • Scripting - Customize tag formatting with scripts

Best For

Section titled “Best For”
  • Tagging large collections quickly
  • Fixing mislabeled or inconsistent tags
  • Adding missing album artist fields
  • Downloading consistent artwork

BitDek Tips

Section titled “BitDek Tips”
  1. Enable “Use standardized track naming” for consistent tags
  2. In Options > Metadata, enable “Write album artist”
  3. In Options > Genres, configure genre sources
  4. After tagging, verify compilations have “Various Artists” as album artist

Workflow

Section titled “Workflow”
  1. Load files into Picard
  2. Click “Cluster” to group by folder
  3. Click “Lookup” to search MusicBrainz
  4. Review matches (green = confident, yellow = check manually)
  5. Drag matched albums to right panel
  6. Click “Save” to write tags

Mp3tag

Section titled “Mp3tag”

Website: mp3tag.de (Windows) | mp3tag.app (Mac) Platforms: Windows, macOS Cost: Free (Windows), Paid with free trial (Mac)

Mp3tag offers the most control over your tags. It’s the go-to for manual editing, batch operations, and complex tag manipulations.

Strengths

Section titled “Strengths”
  • Full field access - Edit any tag field in any format
  • Batch editing - Change hundreds of files at once
  • Actions - Create reusable tag modification scripts
  • Web sources - Pull metadata from Discogs, MusicBrainz, others
  • Conversion - Generate tags from filenames and vice versa

Best For

Section titled “Best For”
  • Precise manual editing
  • Batch cleanup operations
  • Power users who need full control
  • Complex renaming and organizing

BitDek Tips

Section titled “BitDek Tips”
  1. Use Actions to standardize genre names across your collection
  2. Create an Action to set Album Artist = Artist for non-compilations
  3. Use “Convert > Filename - Tag” to extract info from well-named files
  4. The “Various Artists” album artist can be batch-applied to compilation folders

Key Features

Section titled “Key Features”

Tag Panel: Quick access to common fields. Click a field to edit across selected tracks.

Extended Tags: Access all fields, including classical Work/Movement fields and custom fields.

Actions: Automate repetitive tasks:

  • Replace text in fields
  • Case conversion
  • Remove unwanted characters
  • Format standardization

Quick Comparison

Section titled “Quick Comparison”
FeaturePicardMp3tag
Auto-identify tracksExcellentVia plugins
Manual editingBasicExcellent
Batch operationsGoodExcellent
Classical fieldsGoodExcellent
Mac nativeYesYes
CostFreeFree (Win) / Paid (Mac)

Other Tools Worth Knowing

Section titled “Other Tools Worth Knowing”

foobar2000 (Windows)

Section titled “foobar2000 (Windows)”

Music player with excellent tagging capabilities. The Masstagger component handles batch operations well. Free.

Roon (Cross-platform)

Section titled “Roon (Cross-platform)”

Primarily a music server/player but includes sophisticated metadata management. Subscription-based. Overkill for tagging alone.

MediaMonkey (Windows)

Section titled “MediaMonkey (Windows)”

Full-featured media manager with auto-tagging. Good for users who want library management beyond just tagging. Free with paid upgrade.

iTunes/Apple Music (Mac/Windows)

Section titled “iTunes/Apple Music (Mac/Windows)”

Can edit basic tags. Limited compared to dedicated taggers. Works for quick single-file edits.

Preparing Files for BitDek

Section titled “Preparing Files for BitDek”

Essential Tags

Section titled “Essential Tags”

Before importing into BitDek, ensure these fields are set:

  • Title - Track name
  • Album - Album name
  • Album Artist - Set explicitly (don’t rely on detection)
  • Track Number - For proper ordering
  • Artwork - Embedded or folder-based
Section titled “Recommended Tags”

These improve your BitDek experience:

  • Artist - Track performer
  • Disc Number - For multi-disc albums
  • Year - Release date
  • Genre - At least primary genre
  • Compilation flag - For Various Artists albums

Classical Music Tags

Section titled “Classical Music Tags”

For classical collections:

  • Work - The composition
  • Movement Name - This movement’s name
  • Movement Number - Position in work
  • Movement Total - Total movements

Pre-Import Checklist

Section titled “Pre-Import Checklist”

Before importing a batch of files:

  • Album artist set on all tracks
  • Compilations marked with compilation flag OR album artist = “Various Artists”
  • Track numbers present and consistent
  • Genre names standardized (no “Rock” vs “ROCK” vs “rock” variations)
  • Artwork present (embedded or folder cover.jpg)
  • Classical fields populated (if applicable)

Common Cleanup Tasks

Section titled “Common Cleanup Tasks”

Standardize genre names:

Mp3tag Action: Replace "Hip Hop" with "Hip-Hop"

Set album artist to artist (non-compilations):

Mp3tag Action: Format value "ALBUMARTIST" to "%artist%"

Extract track info from filename:

Pattern: %track% - %title%
Matches: "01 - Song Name.flac"

Remove leading zeros from track display: Not needed. BitDek handles “01” and “1” identically.

Workflow Recommendations

Section titled “Workflow Recommendations”

New Collection Setup

Section titled “New Collection Setup”
  1. Run entire collection through Picard for baseline tagging
  2. Review Picard’s uncertain matches manually
  3. Use Mp3tag to fix specific issues
  4. Spot-check before importing to BitDek

Maintaining an Existing Collection

Section titled “Maintaining an Existing Collection”
  1. Import new albums through Picard
  2. Use batch tagger for quick fixes
  3. Re-import to BitDek after tag changes

Fixing Problems After Import

Section titled “Fixing Problems After Import”

If you notice issues in BitDek:

  1. Identify problem tracks
  2. Fix tags in your tagging tool
  3. Delete problem tracks from BitDek
  4. Re-import corrected files

BitDek reads metadata at import time. Changes to source files require re-import to appear.

Resources

Section titled “Resources”

MusicBrainz Database

Section titled “MusicBrainz Database”

musicbrainz.org - Community-maintained music database. Create an account to contribute corrections.

Discogs Database

Section titled “Discogs Database”

discogs.com - Excellent for vinyl/CD releases. Some taggers can pull from Discogs.

TheAudioDB

Section titled “TheAudioDB”

theaudiodb.com - BitDek uses this for artist artwork. Good metadata reference.

Tag Format References

Section titled “Tag Format References”