Subject:saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Posted by: Daniel Peterson

Date:5/13/2009 2:05:24 PM

I am using Sound Forge 8.0, build 53.. Whenever I throw an mp3 into Sound Forge and edit something and then save the file, all of the mp3 tag info gets thrown out and is replaced by random letters, some of them cyrillic... Such as this: "ÿþW".

I would like to be able to edit mp3s and not lose all my tag info.. Is this corrected in 9.0 or even subsequent versions of 8.0...

Thanks!

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: Daniel Peterson

Date:5/22/2009 7:54:51 PM

Nice, after all this time not one response from Sony... So I have to pay $30 to call in and find out about the giant glich in their own software?

I think the customer service of Sony sucks ass.

Also, no response from my email inquirty, which is somewhat understandable.. But nobdoy even visits their own website forum?

I have been using Sound Forge since 98.. Will resconsider an upgrade based on this.

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:5/22/2009 9:45:36 PM

Why do you assume it is a problem with the software?

Perhaps the tags in your files were written using a different character encoding than Sound Forge recognizes.

The ID3 spec for mp3 tags calls for ISO 8859-1 encoding, and if the tags in your files were written using UTF-8, Cyrillic character output is a distinct possibility. This exact issue is faced with web (especially script-generated) content all of the time. There is even a name for this in web development parlance. It is called "Mojibake."

So, rather than blame the software, why don't you upload one of your legal MP3s that has this issue somewhere and let us take a look at it? The results might be enlightening.

That being said, this is the first time I've heard of this issue, and I've been around here for some time. One simple fix might be to resave your metadata using Tag Scanner before you open in Sound Forge.

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: ForumAdmin

Date:5/26/2009 8:38:58 AM

Certain MP3 encoders write their meta-data in multi-byte characters using the current code page of the system. This is non-standard, but Windows Media Player occasionally displays it correctly.

Legal character sets for ID 3 are ISO8859-1, UTF-16, and UTF-8 (ID3 v2.4 and higher). You also have to have the encoding byte set correctly, which may well be corrupt in this case.

If you wish to provide a specific file and the encoder it was produced with, we can isolate the problem.

J.

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:5/26/2009 10:05:15 AM

Thanks for the clarification!

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: Daniel Peterson

Date:5/26/2009 7:01:51 PM

Thanks guys, these are great insites..

Here is an example of the files:

Before editing: http://www.discofriend.com/MP300.mp3

After editing: http://www.discofriend.com/MP301.mp3

Thanks!,
Daniel

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:5/26/2009 8:19:20 PM

Wow, even the English filename opens in Cyrillic in Sound Forge.

What program are you using to create / tag the files?

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: Daniel Peterson

Date:5/27/2009 10:40:48 AM

I was using tag and rename...

http://www.softpointer.com/tr_screenshots.htm

Subject:RE: saving mp3s after editng & losing tag info

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:5/27/2009 11:35:28 AM

Try changing these options and see if they make a difference . . .
[url]http://www.softpointer.com/tr_help/02.13_Notes_about_Unicode_support.htm

Also, apologies for my initial skepticism. I was guessing you were downloading .mp3 files from a Russian fileshare server.