Music Tag 2.11

Overview

A common problem with audio files is that they are missing information like artist, title, album, genre, etc. and sometimes you have no idea which song is playing, although it’s in your own library. Music Tag is here to put an end to this problem by analyzing your tracks with its advanced digital fingerprinting technology and filling in (or correcting) their tags from a huge database. In addition, it can download missing cover arts.

Installation

Run the installer, follow a small number of steps and then wait for the installation to finish. That’s it, no advanced settings other than the typical ones. If you’re worried that the program will install malicious software in your computer, then check out our virus reports to see for yourself that it’s absolutely clean.

Music Tag works under Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 (both 32 and 64-bit versions are supported). Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (or above) must exist in your system otherwise the software won’t be able to be installed.

Interface

Running the application will open a window with its contents structured in a simple and neat way. Below the toolbar are a few buttons for browsing for files/folders you want to import and tag, which are added to a list on the left side of the window. Selecting a song from the imported ones will display its tags in the main area, including title, artist, album, genre and others. Next to the tags is a preview of the artwork.

To download missing tags and artwork click on the “Download Missing Info” button from the top right corner. If more than one matches are found you can browse them from a bar that will appear at the top.

Pros

The following tags are supported: Title, Artist, Album, Genre, Year, Track Number, Disc Number, Composer and Comments. All of the available tags for a track will be downloaded and filled in automatically with the click of a button; and if you don’t like something in them, you can edit the tag fields automatically. Apart from the tags, missing artwork will be downloaded too if it’s found in the database (if not then don’t worry- you can manually load an artwork from a file).

The method of identifying tracks is by using the acoustic fingerprint of each one and comparing it with the fingerprints of millions of other tracks included in an online database (unfortunately no further details are provided regarding that database). And with such a large database, it’s normal for some songs to have a similar fingerprint; in this case you can navigate between the results by using the left/right arrows.

You can also import songs directly from iTunes and edit their tags (locate them in your iTunes library and then drag & drop them in Music Tag).

When you’re done, clicking on “Save Changes” will save all changes to the track.

Cons

There is no scrollbar to scroll down the window. You have to resize it if you want to view all the contents in the window.

Alternatives

Here are some nice alternatives with more or less the same functionality: TuneUp (paid), MusicBrainz Picard (free), Media Tagger (free), Jaikoz (paid) and TheGodFather (free). Winamp (free/paid) has a nice auto-tagging tool as well.

Conclusion

Import, Scan, Save, done. This is basic idea behind the program’s functionality, and it couldn’t be simpler.