Recording Year / Release Year

[soundtrackgeek]

I have been using Helium Music Manager for many years now, but I'm not happy with the "new" Helium so I'm looking into MusicBee which seems to have everything and more. One of the things I'm missing though is a "release year" tag. I'm not up to speed with MP3 ID tags, but perhaps it isn't in the official standard and the Helium tag is just something they made for their application?

I could solve this with custom tags, but the problem I'm having is that to import my already tagged 100.000+ tracks that I have on Helium with separate recording/release year, it would take way to long to do this individually on 10.000+ albums.

So, is there any solution, or do I have to stick with Helium for the time being?

[boroda]

you don't need to import custom tags manually. you need to setup 2 custom tags stored in files (not in database only, you will need to know which ids helium uses for them), then select all tracks, right-click them, send to>rescan files.

[psychoadept]

You should be able to find out what helium had named those fields using the Tag Inspector. Also look up Custom Tags on the wiki.

It sounds like "release year" is what we normally just call year, and "recording year" would correspond to "original year".  Once you have the custom tags set up, boroda74's Additional Tagging and Reporting Tools plugin can help you move then to a different field, if you want

[soundtrackgeek]

You should be able to find out what helium had named those fields using the Tag Inspector. Also look up Custom Tags on the wiki.

It sounds like "release year" is what we normally just call year, and "recording year" would correspond to "original year".  Once you have the custom tags set up, boroda74's Additional Tagging and Reporting Tools plugin can help you move then to a different field, if you want

Nice! We're one step closer. I see that Helium has used something called "Episode Date" with tag code TDRL, but I couldnt find it in the Custom Tags on wiki. What's my next step to be able to use that tag in MusicBee?

[frankz]

TDRL is an id3 V2.4 tag for Release Time.  You need to use that version of id3 to use TDRL.  

I don't know how that would translate to usage in MB, but it sounds like 2.4 isn't very well supported in anything (Windows only started reading it natively with the Creators Update for example).  You'd probably be better off in the long run figuring out how to get those values into more universal tags like TDAT (Date) and TORY (Original Year).

[soundtrackgeek]

TDRL is an id3 V2.4 tag for Release Time.  You need to use that version of id3 to use TDRL. 

I don't know how that would translate to usage in MB, but it sounds like 2.4 isn't very well supported in anything (Windows only started reading it natively with the Creators Update for example).  You'd probably be better off in the long run figuring out how to get those values into more universal tags like TDAT (Date) and TORY (Original Year).

I used ID3 v2.4 (compatible mode) when writing tags. The tag scanner in MusicBee can read it, so I'm thinking there might be some solution within MusicBee I can use. To further complicate things, I see that Recording Year tag I used in Helium isn't writting in Original Year, but in the Year tag that MusicBee use. Is your solution to move all Year tags to Original Year, and then Release Time to Year?

[frankz]

Is your solution to move all Year tags to Original Year, and then Release Time to Year?

Personally, if it was me, that's probably what I would do.  If I'm changing permanently from one player to another and I'm not using the tags for other purposes (a portable player needs them, etc), it makes sense to configure my tags in a way that makes that new player display information the way I want it to out of the box.

Not saying this is the right solution for you.  You may want to go the Edit->Edit Preferences->Tags(1)->Define New Tags route and enter TDRL and configure and then display it.  Just saying, if it's me, the less I need to rig things up to get them work the better.  That way, if I lose my settings or my drive and have to reconfigure in the future, there's less I did to have to remember and recreate.  YMMV.

That said, any permanent change is a destructive move and must be considered from all angles before being executed.

[psychoadept]

Check that TDRL is not already available in the list of custom tags. I don't think you could define it as a new tag since it's not TXXX. But I'm pretty sure it's available.

[Bee-liever]

@ soundtrackgeek
The problem is Helium is using the ID3v2.4 tags as per the specification while MB is using them as per the majority consensus 'real life' use.
(see: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Tag_Mapping)

ID3v2.4 lumped TYER - Year, TDAT - Date, TIME - Time and TRDA - Recording dates into the one new tag TDRC - Recording time, forgetting that everyone was already using TYER/TDAT as the release value.
So then the now unused new TDRL tag was quickly adopted as the release time for podcast episodes.

When I moved to 2.4 tagging, I had to create a custom tag to move my old TRDA values into.

[soundtrackgeek]

Thanks everyone.

I decided to create a custom tag called Release Year and save to music file as Release Time. That made all the Release Year tags I had from Helium pop up. It's not perfect but it's working.