Global renaming of ID3 tags

[pz1]

My music collection contains many records of music of the same composer or artist. I dowloaded most of the tags from freedb.org. The problem I face is that spelling of names is quite different. I would like to harmonize that.

I am looking for a tool that could do a global replace of tags in my music directories. For example change all occurences of 'JS Bach' into 'Bach JS'.

Many tools suggest this function in their description, but the ones I tried did not work as I expected. If anybody out there has experience with a tool that could do this I would appreciate to have a pointer to it.

[HtV]

In use Abander Tagcontrol. It has a search and replace function, that should do it.
I also use Media Monkey, it let's you select all files you want/need and change the appropriate field to what you want. Mediamonkey is free.
I had some trouble selecting different blocks od songs but I found out that with the good combination of the ctrl-shift and alt keys you can do it.
Good luck.

[pz1]

The Abander Tagcontrol indeed does the job. Seems to be well worth spending a modest shareware fee on this product.
EDIT: Done quite a bit in the meantime. For some of the necessary edits a more powerfull editor with Regular Expression support would be nice.
Thanks!

[HtV]

For some of the necessary edits a more powerfull editor with Regular Expression support would be nice.
Thanks!

What exactly do you want to do, if I may ask.

[pz1]

What exactly do you want to do, if I may ask.

I am using the Words replacement tool for it now.
I would like to do a number of different things that I normally do with TextPipe (http://www.datamystic.com/textpipe.html) for example:
1) Strip the bit before and including the '- ' in a title string e.g. "H. de Courson & Y. le Berre - Bergeuse de Grainne pour Diarmait"
2) If an entry holds the name 'Bach' only, that should be replaced with 'Bach, J.S.' I would like to recognise it as the complete entry, to avoid entries that already are in the desired form to become 'Bach, J.S., J.S.'

[HtV]

I see what you mean.
The first issue I don't know how to tackle.
The second one: afaik know not very easy in Abander but it can very well be done in MediaMonkey.
It has a advanced search tool. You can search for certain words in a certain field (or all fields), you get a list of all songs that this applies to. Then you can very easily change a field-entry for all those songs.
In your case: search for "bach" in the artist field then put "Bach J.S." in the artist field.

[groover km]

FWIW, I use Media Monkey solely for editing tags. It does everything that HtV says, plus the tags are formatted correctly and read accurately in MP10, GBPVR, and iTunes.

[pz1]

...
It has a advanced search tool. You can search for certain words in a certain field (or all fields), you get a list of all songs that this applies to. Then you can very easily change a field-entry for all those songs.
In your case: search for "bach" in the artist field then put "Bach J.S." in the artist field.

I have tried the freeware version. As far as I understood there only a few tag fields that you can select. I could not find the 'Composer' tag there. Also in the columnar overview there is no option to select 'Composer' unfortunately. Mr Bach was a composer

[HtV]

Mr Bach was a composer

What, you mean that the cd I bought with mr. Bach playing his organ was a fraud?:mad:

[HtV]

I have tried the freeware version. As far as I understood there only a few tag fields that you can select. I could not find the 'Composer' tag there.

Yes, you're right I hadn't realised that.

I had a look at the Godfather, you might want to check it out, it has a nice filter possibility, it doesn't seem very intuitive but if you are used to something like textpipe that shouldn't be a problem.
http://mahopa.de/tgf/
Good luck again.