Random change of genre

[klausmaus]

Hi. So I use MusicBee on the desktop and Poweramp on the Android, and Poweramp keeps changing the genre of some albums. When I check the tags in MusicBee they all look fine. Is it the ID Tag Version that's the problem?

 

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, klausmaus said:

Hi. So I use MusicBee on the desktop and Poweramp on the Android, and Poweramp keeps changing the genre of some albums. When I check the tags in MusicBee they all look fine. Is it the ID Tag Version that's the problem?

Poweramp can't just change any tag, it actually doesn't do much tag editing even when desired.

Perhaps your file has different tag types layered together, like APE and ID3? Or your file may have multiple Genre tags embedded... yes this is possible but most media players can only process one. Or even you have separators included then it is possible that PA has applied these by design.

Your best bet is to use a third party tagging software to confirm. Try mp3tag or Tagscanner that other users have had good results with. If this isn't the case, perhaps you could share some details of the specific track, and show the genre that is in the file and how it looks in PA.

[andrewilley]

As @MotleyG said, Poweramp does not change Genre tags in your audio files. The only way it can do that is if you manually open the Info/Tags screen for a song and then click on the Edit button and then click on Save.

Info/Tags will tell you what Genre details have been scanned in from the audio file though, so perhaps you could post a screenshot of that information if you think it is wrong, and why? Most likely thing that comes to mind is that you have multiple genre tags in your files, but a screenshot should help diagnose that. You could also temporarily upload a sample audio file for us to have a look at. 

Andre

[klausmaus]

This one for example. Looks fine in MusicBee

10 Between Me, You & Liberation.mp3

[klausmaus]

Tried TagScanner and it gives me the same Tags as Music Bee - both track number and genre. I can't post screenshot, because apparently the above file exceeded my limits, but it looks the same in tagscanner. 

[MotleyG]

There are many issues with the audio file. The tag data that Poweramp is able to see and display are the id3v1 tags, the id3v2 info is broken. But there are other stream errors and such, you may need to download a fresh copy or rip again if possible. Use mp3diags to check the integrity.

[andrewilley]

Agreed, that tagging looks very non-standard. Genre is thus being picked up from the ID3v1 portion of the tags, which use a hard-coded list of Genre names each defined by a single number, you can't invent your own:

ID3v1:
  + [BinaryData directory, 128 bytes]
  [....]
  | Genre = 12
  | - Tag 0x007f (1 bytes, int8u[1]):
  |   9992a7: 0c                                              [.]

The ID3 spec lists 79 possibilities for Genre, such as:

    11 Oldies
    12 Other
    13 Pop

12 (Other) is presumably being used in ID3v1 as the term you wanted to use is not in the list (full list can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3 ).
 

The more sophisticated ID3 v2.3 system is also present in the file, but with some strange formatting such as null (zero) bytes at the start of every entry:

ID3v2.3.0:
  + [ID3v2_3 directory, 862208 bytes]
  | ID3_CM1 = ..-*>  TEAM ESCAPE  <*-..
  | - Tag 'CM1' (26 bytes):
  |     0014: 00 2e 2e 2d 2a 3e 20 20 54 45 41 4d 20 45 53 43 [...-*>  TEAM ESC]
  |     0024: 41 50 45 20 20 3c 2a 2d 2e 2e                   [APE  <*-..]
  | Album = Electric Circus
  | - Tag 'TALB' (16 bytes):
  |     0038: 00 45 6c 65 63 74 72 69 63 20 43 69 72 63 75 73 [.Electric Circus]
  | Artist = Common/CeeLo Green
  | - Tag 'TPE1' (19 bytes):
  |     0052: 00 43 6f 6d 6d 6f 6e 00 43 65 65 4c 6f 20 47 72 [.Common.CeeLo Gr]
  |     0062: 65 65 6e                                        [een]
  | Genre = Rap Classic
  | - Tag 'TCON' (12 bytes):
  |     006f: 00 52 61 70 20 43 6c 61 73 73 69 63             [.Rap Classic]
  | Title = Between Me, You & Liberation
  | - Tag 'TIT2' (29 bytes):
  |     0085: 00 42 65 74 77 65 65 6e 20 4d 65 2c 20 59 6f 75 [.Between Me, You]
  |     0095: 20 26 20 4c 69 62 65 72 61 74 69 6f 6e          [ & Liberation]
  | Track = 10/14
  | - Tag 'TRCK' (6 bytes):
  |     00ac: 00 31 30 2f 31 34                               [.10/14]
  | Year = 2002
  | - Tag 'TYER' (5 bytes):
  |     00bc: 00 32 30 30 32                                  [.2002]
  | Band = Common
  | - Tag 'TPE2' (7 bytes):
  |     00cb: 00 43 6f 6d 6d 6f 6e                            [.Common]
  | Publisher = MCA Records
  | - Tag 'TPUB' (12 bytes):
  |     00dc: 00 4d 43 41 20 52 65 63 6f 72 64 73             [.MCA Records]

The ID3 tag 'CM1' is non-standard too, which makes me suspect that this file came from - shall we say - a non-standard source?

Simplest answer might be to load the files that don't work into a batch tag editor, and simply re-save them with no changes, which might re-create the damaged v2.3 tags correctly? Or just download the file again from another, more standard, source.

Andre

[klausmaus]

Can you guys help me understand? the analysis says no tags in the ID3V2.3 tag found, but in the screenshot from MusicBee, it reads out genre from the ID3V2.3?

[MotleyG]

12 minutes ago, klausmaus said:

Can you guys help me understand? the analysis says no tags in the ID3V2.3 tag found, but in the screenshot from MusicBee, it reads out genre from the ID3V2.3?

Error 2 from mp3diags shows an invalid frame. Usually this is when improper mastering or file corruption exists. Best to get a new copy or recipe in these cases.

[andrewilley]

47 minutes ago, klausmaus said:

Can you guys help me understand? the analysis says no tags in the ID3V2.3 tag found, but in the screenshot from MusicBee, it reads out genre from the ID3V2.3?

Look at the data dump that I posted, there is a null (zero) byte at the start of each tag which I'm sure shouldn't be there. Not seen in before in any of my own files anyway, null bytes should only be used as multi-entry separators, they have no ASCII symbolic equivalent (hence the deep tag view shows a dot as the text version). The data can be read by a tag editor, but it's not quite correct.

Andre

[klausmaus]

thank you