OK, quick survey, everybody. What would you rather see in the ID3 Album Tag in my mp3 file?
a) What I currently do; put the artists or a subject of the show in the Album.
b) “Coverville” (so that all tracks in your mp3 player stay together)
And if you chose b, does it matter to you if I include some of the artist names or a subject in the ID3 tags anywhere? Would you rather see that in the comments field?
Thanks – just post a comment to this entry and I’ll tally up the votes…
Postscript: People voted more for choice B than A, so I changed it for tonight’s and future shows. But for those who prefer A (and are on a Mac), I’ve developed an AppleScript that will quickly set the ID3 properties of the Coverville mp3 file to the former format. Download it here. Once you’ve downloaded it, copy it to your ~\Library\iTunes\Scripts folder, and it will be available in iTunes.
I vote “b”, as that’s close to what I currently do. I copy the info in the Album field to the track name as “Coverville X: “, and set the Album field to “Coverville, Volume “, where the volume refers to the CD on which the track is archived.
Long time listener, first time caller.
B please
a)
It’s much better, especially for us iPod users, to be able to see the description while the song is playing.
If you end up choosing b), at least put the description in the song name field so that it scrolls across the iPod screen.
My vote’s for “b”
also, what do people think about setting the genre to “podcast”?
I vote for option (b). I like to keep all the shows together.
I’d prefer ‘b’. What about writing the subject of the show in the ‘title’-Tag?
I prefer A, because “coverville” as an artist makes more sense to me. Then again I only have a basic MP3 player so I’m biased.
Perhaps if you swap the artist and album fields, would that still scroll the details on an iPod? Putting them in the comments field wouldn’t suit me as I use Windows Media Player when I’m at my computer and it doesn’t support that.
b)
Put the artists names in the title or comments.
(a) please. All Coverville show stay together on my iRiver because Coverville has its own folder.
I’d probably go with b) with the episode no and artists in the title, and Coverville as artist.
You could then always group your podcasts by month or something by using the album tag – i.e. Coverville 2005/04 – I think that would work quite well!! 🙂
(B) please. 🙂 Feel free to add data to the end of the tag.
Tracknumber = Current Show number
Album = Coverville (sortable, unsortable otherwise)
Title: #NN at the start (so you can sort on this too!), whatevery you like afterwards,
Artists into the comment field would be fine with me.
B
-Julio Ohep
Caracas, Venezuela
“B” – I like keeping all the MP3 files under one roof.
“A” I group my podcasts on my ipod using smartlists, and I use the album tag as “Coverville” to generate the list. I second using genre as “podcast.” I have my podcatcher, Doppler, change the genre to “podcast.” It makes it easier to seperate podcasts from my music and audible files.
I’m for ‘B’
Artists and track info probably fit best in the comments field in your podcasting context.
Keep on rockin’ Brian!
btw, any decent Neil Young covers out there?
===”A” PLEASE===
“Smartlist” feature of iTunes makes the group of “Coverville” very easyly. I appreciate knowing the contents in Album tag.
How about making the Genre Coverville instead of podcast?
Then stick with A.
I vote B, with provisos the same as Clint at the top.
I vote for B
I’m ok with A, cos I can find the shows under the Artist tag ‘Coverville’.
And can I take this opportunity to thank you for such a cool podcast. I find there are solid gems in every show.
I know it’s a bit nitpicky (and I use an iPod shuffle, so I don’t care about how the show looks on the display ’cause I don’t have one), but here’s what I usually do:
Title: “Title of Show: Brief Description”
Artist: “Name of Podcaster”
Album: “Date in YYYY-MM-DD form”
I find that after organizing my podcasts in this way, all of them show up in my iTunes organized by date, which helps me find the newest episodes easily. You don’t have to adopt my organizing style; I know it’s a bit obsessive-compulsive, but just thought you’d like to know.
a! and yeah, the genre should be Podcast.
I do set the genre to “Podcast”. And as a double-measure, most podding clients can also do the same if other, less-considerate podcasters forget ;).
OK. So here’s what I’m thinking starting with tonight’s show:
Song title: Coverville_yymmdd
Artist: Brian Ibbott
Album: Coverville
Track: show number
Genre: Podcast
Comments: URL and Show title/’featured’ artists
The results were about 2 to 1 in favor of the album being constant. And it doesn’t make sense for me to have Album and Artists the same, so I’ll follow some of the other podcasters out there and put my own name in the Artist field. I wish I could do something to appease everybody. But this should work for a lot of the people who selected “a” but use a smart list to group their podcasts.
If you use an AppleScript to set the ID3 tags of mp3s that aren’t set up the way you prefer, please feel free to share them on this entry so that others can use them.
Thanks for all your feedback, and your continued support of the show!
A) A) A) A) ….please
(a) Keep things as they are!
What you have is perfectly sensible as is, especially as now you set track numbers and have easy-to-sort-by-date show names!
I hope that’s what you mean, anyway!
A, please.
There are other ways to group Coverville shows.
Hey Brian —
What you’ve been doing works for me — just get the other podcasters to conform to the same standard!
You rock,
Ron
I chose B!
The iPod sorts “albums” under artist, so if the artist is “Coverville” and the album is the date in YYYYMMDD format, I can always find the latest Coverville i’ve downloaded. In your current format, I have to hope I remember something about the description in order to find it on my iPod, or I’m sunk.
Option A, as before. Keep Coverville as artist. Use the album for some description that can scroll on the iPod. Use the track as the show number. Use the comments for the same kind of detail you put in the show notes.