Artist tagging in FLAC+CUE

[dkagedal]

I have successfully convinced my server to scan a bunch of .cue files that point to .flac files with the audio. The cue files are generated from another source, so I have full control of their contents.

But what I haven't succeeded with is to get the metadata right. I added PERFORMER tags in the cue file both for the album and for the tracks, but squeezecenter tells me that I have tracks like

Track: I Saw Her Standing There
Album: Please Please Me
Artist: No artist, The Beatles

(actually "Ingen artist", since it talks Swedish to me)

So, where does the "no artist" part come from? I haven't found any kind of description of how cue files are scanned.

One guess that I haven't tested yet is that it comes from the fact that my flac files have no metadata (vorbis) tags. But why should it? It can't have individual metadata for the tracks anyway.

And I don't want to have to retag the flac files if I fix the metadata, since they are really read-only archived copies of my CDs. And retagging flac files can be expensive (I know it can be avoided).

[dkagedal]

Now I tried adding artist= and albumartist= to the flac file metadata, and get silliness like this:

Track: Ennui
Album: Sally Can't Dance
Album artist: Lou Reed
Artist: No artist, Lou Reed
Track artist: Lou Reed

So the "no artist" part is still there. Annoying.

And more than annoying, I notice that the last.fm scrobbler uses "no artist" as the artist when scrobbling.

[gharris999]

Here is an example of a cuesheet that SqueezeCenter/Squeezebox Server scans without complaint:

REM DISC_ID 1C55613
REM CDDB_ID f40cfc12
PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
REM COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
TITLE "Cello Unaccompanied Suites - Anner Bylsma, 1979"
REM GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
REM YEAR "1979"
FILE "Cello Unaccompanied Suites - Bylsma, 1979 - D1.flac" WAVE
REM COMMENT "Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750); Unaccompanied Cello Suites; Anner Bylsma, violoncello, Mattio Goffriller, Venice, 1669; "
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900515
    TITLE "Suite No. 1 in G, BWV 1007 - 1 Prélude"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900516
    TITLE "  2 Allemande"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 02:08:10
    INDEX 01 02:12:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900517
    TITLE "  3 Courante"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 06:32:27
    INDEX 01 06:36:17
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900518
    TITLE "  4 Sarabande"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 09:24:17
    INDEX 01 09:28:07
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900519
    TITLE "  5 Menuett I & II"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 11:36:07
    INDEX 01 11:39:72
  TRACK 06 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900520
    TITLE "  6 Gigue"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 15:04:60
    INDEX 01 15:08:50
  TRACK 07 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900521
    TITLE "Suite No. 2 in d, BWV 1008 - 1 Prélude"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 16:55:17
    INDEX 01 16:59:07
  TRACK 08 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900522
    TITLE "  2 Allemande"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 20:03:67
    INDEX 01 20:07:57
  TRACK 09 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900523
    TITLE "  3 Courante"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 23:52:55
    INDEX 01 23:56:45
  TRACK 10 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900524
    TITLE "  4 Sarabande"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 25:56:40
    INDEX 01 26:00:30
  TRACK 11 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900525
    TITLE "  5 Menuett I & II"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 29:12:55
    INDEX 01 29:16:45
  TRACK 12 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900526
    TITLE "  6 Gigue"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 32:23:35
    INDEX 01 32:27:25
  TRACK 13 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900527
    TITLE "Suite No. 3 in C, BWV 1009 - 1 Prélude"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 35:01:40
    INDEX 01 35:05:30
  TRACK 14 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900528
    TITLE "  2 Allemande"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 38:08:10
    INDEX 01 38:12:00
  TRACK 15 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900529
    TITLE "  3 Courante"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 42:38:42
    INDEX 01 42:42:32
  TRACK 16 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900530
    TITLE "  4 Sarabande"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 45:56:45
    INDEX 01 46:00:35
  TRACK 17 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900531
    TITLE "  5 Bouree I & II"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 00 49:00:42
    INDEX 01 49:04:32
  TRACK 18 AUDIO
    ISRC USSM17900532
    TITLE "  6 Gigue"
    PERFORMER "Bach, J S"
    REM     COMPOSER "Bach, J S"
    REM     GENRE "g_German_Baroque"
    REM     YEAR "1979"
    INDEX 00 52:09:57
    INDEX 01 52:13:47

Things you can experiment with in terms making cuesheets more digestible by SC/SBS: pay careful attention to quoting data in tags: some tags require quotes, some must remain unquoted. Also try saving the cuesheets as UTF8. Also keep in mind that a single mal-formed tag in a single cuesheet can "poison" all the rest. I.E., I found that I could tag 30 cuesheets with "Dvořák, A", but a single "Dvorak, A" in one various artists track caused all of them to be renered as "Dvorak, A".

Also keep in mind that Squeezebox Server 7.4.x currently has a nasty bug related to cuesheets: if any of the cuesheet's folder names contain diacritic marks AND if the flac filename contains a diacritic, the artwork won't scan and the flac file will be unplayable.

[dkagedal]

I have really bumped my head against this now. Sure I could get your cue file to work, and I could also get my own to work. But only if I point it to one flac file and not to another.

I removed everything from my library and just added a couple of cue files to test with. I have a cue file describing Lou Reed's Sally Can't Dance, and it appears with the "no artist, Lou Reed" information. But if I simply change the FILE line in the cue file to point to the Transformer flac file (and do a full rescan), it goes away. If I change it back, the problem reappears.

So I figured there must be some kind of junk hiding in the database, but I've been digging through it without finding anything strange.

[gharris999]

Rather than junk hiding in the database, could it be junk tags in your flac? Flacs only 'legally' support vorbis tags. But some idv3 tagging programs will tack ID3v2.x tags onto the flac. Then, you can end up with a conflict between the differing types of tags. I'm not sure if foobar will tell you if you have any spurious ID3 tags in your flac, but you could start there. This scenario potentially explains the odd things that you're seeing.

Robin Bowes shows how to remove ID3 tags from flacs here: http://robinbowes.com/article.php/2005080815102187

If what you have are conflicts between vorbis tags and the cuesheet, you can remove all the vorbis tags with:

metaflac --remove-all --dont-use-padding flacfile.flac

[Philip Meyer]

Yes, Mp3Tag will show if you have any id3 tags. If you right-click on a row in the grid and select Properties, the dialog will show you a list of all the tag versions that are in the file, and which one was read. eg. FLAC (FLAC ID3v2) means that there are FLAC and ID3 tags in the file, and that it read the FLAC tags.

You can also configure Mp3Tag to show this information in the grid, so you can see at a glance what tags are in each file, and what tag format was read.

Right-click on the column heading, and select Customise Columns. Create a new column containing %_tag% as the value and field, and another column containing %_tag_read%.

Mp3Tag only reads one tag version block. A recent change to SBS scanner means in this case it would read ID3v2 tags, and then read FLAC which would overwrite any tags. Personally, I think this is wrong/bad. FLAC files should always have FLAC, and if they do, only read the FLAC tags.

[dkagedal]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that.

No, the flac files don't have any metadata. They have empty comment blocks. The do have embedded cuesheet data (but that doesn't include any tagging information).

This is part of the output of metaflac --list from the working one:

METADATA block #2
type: 5 (CUESHEET)
is last: false
length: 1092
media catalog number: 0000000000000
lead-in: 88200
is CD: true
number of tracks: 12
track[0]
...
METADATA block #3
type: 4 (VORBIS_COMMENT)
is last: false
length: 40
vendor string: reference libFLAC 1.1.2 20050205
comments: 0

and this is from the one that doesn't work:

METADATA block #2
type: 5 (CUESHEET)
is last: false
length: 1020
media catalog number:
lead-in: 88200
is CD: true
number of tracks: 11
track[0]
...
METADATA block #3
type: 4 (VORBIS_COMMENT)
is last: false
length: 40
vendor string: reference libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917
comments: 0

[gharris999]

If this remains a mystery, I still think it would be worth your time to double check to see if there are any ID3 tags in the file. Metaflac won't detect those.

[dkagedal]

I did, and there are no ID3 tags.

[gharris999]

If you are using Windows, I can offer you my fixcue.exe utility. It's what I use to make sure my cuesheets are absolutely consistent. It also will pull genre and comment data from cdplayer.ini into the cuesheet. This ends up saving me from a tremendous amount of hand editing. Using fixcue, I think I only need to hand edit 1 cuesheet in 30...and that's usually just various artist albums with mixed genre.