Author Topic: Saving any settings in a file, even just a volume adjustment, writes ENCODER tag  (Read 10291 times)

SonicRings

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I've been noticing this issue ever since I started using MusicBee where adjusting the volume of a track would update its date modified value. I didn't know how or why, since the audio data remained the same.

I just now realized that the reason for this change in date is because MusicBee forcibly write an ENCODER tag (in this case with a value of "reference libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917") any time you save the properties of a file.

I don't want it to save or modify any tags if I don't tell it to save or modify any tags.



Doing the above will replicate this behaviour: open a track's properties, then adjust its volume before hitting save.

Below are my settings for Tags (2):

Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 07:10:40 AM by SonicRings

Steven

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Yes thats the expected behaviour when any tags are written. Some people dont like it but its not a bug

SonicRings

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Yes thats the expected behaviour when any tags are written. Some people dont like it but its not a bug

Is there a way to make it not do this? I consider it a bug. I didn't tell it to write the ENCODER tag: it did so on its own. It's not a matter of preference here. When I tell it to adjust volume, I expect no other aspect of the track to be changed. I don't "expect" it to write the ENCODER tag.

And on top of that, I'm not even writing any tags. I'm adjusting the playback volume.

As it stands now, I have to first make a copy of the track, then adjust the volume, and then finally replace the original with the copy I just made.
Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 11:34:07 AM by SonicRings

Bee-liever

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And on top of that, I'm not even writing any tags. I'm adjusting the playback volume.
You do know that by adjusting the playback volume, you are are actually writing a tag.
MusicBee and my library - Making bee-utiful music together

SonicRings

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And on top of that, I'm not even writing any tags. I'm adjusting the playback volume.
You do know that by adjusting the playback volume, you are are actually writing a tag.
Which tag? I tested with adjusting the volume and restoring a backup of the file, and the volume remained adjusted.

phred

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Which tag?
Use the Tag Inspector to see the actual tags.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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SonicRings

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Which tag?
Use the Tag Inspector to see the actual tags.

Here is a screenshot of the tag inspector before making any changes:



And MP3Tag:



Here is a screenshot of the tag inspector after adjusting the volume up by 20%:



And MP3Tag:



What you're looking at is replaygain.

Bee-liever

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And on top of that, I'm not even writing any tags. I'm adjusting the playback volume.
You do know that by adjusting the playback volume, you are are actually writing a tag.
Which tag? I tested with adjusting the volume and restoring a backup of the file, and the volume remained adjusted.
For mp3s it's RAV2 or RAVD (I think), for FLAC it writes to the database as vorbis doesn't really support volume adjustment. Either way it's the equivalent of writing a tag
MusicBee and my library - Making bee-utiful music together

SonicRings

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And on top of that, I'm not even writing any tags. I'm adjusting the playback volume.
You do know that by adjusting the playback volume, you are are actually writing a tag.
Which tag? I tested with adjusting the volume and restoring a backup of the file, and the volume remained adjusted.
For mp3s it's RAV2 or RAVD (I think), for FLAC it writes to the database as vorbis doesn't really support volume adjustment. Either way it's the equivalent of writing a tag

Ah, that makes sense. So it doesn't write any tags to my FLAC files like I said.

phred

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0For mp3s it's RAV2 or RAVD (I think), for FLAC it writes to the database as vorbis doesn't really support volume adjustment. Either way it's the equivalent of writing a tag
My mistake. Volume adjustment is not the same as replay gain. I've been using MB long enough to have known this.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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Posting screenshots is here
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SonicRings

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What happens if you make the file read only and try to adjust the volume?
It removes the read-only attribute and then writes the ENCODER tag anyway.

SonicRings

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Changing the "do not crossfade" checkbox by checking it and setting it to yes/no does not write any tags, nor does it update the file's timestamps. Likewise with the "exclude from playback" checkbox.
It seems that the behaviour I'm experiencing with the volume adjustment setting does not occur with any of the other settings.

ma_t14

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Yes thats the expected behaviour when any tags are written. Some people dont like it but its not a bug

Is there any practical reason for this? I can only assume there's some programmatical quirk, because in practical terms I'm struggling to think of anything

hiccup

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My guess is that it is about MusicBee being consistent in its actions and trying to make data available in an as consistent as possible manner irrespective of the various existing audio formats.
(which is a to be respected effort and accomplishment by itself)

So as Bee-liever pointed out earlier, as soon as you apply volume adjustment, MusicBee performs a write action so that formats such as mp3 will store that info.

The 'Encoder' tag is another tag that is utterly inconsistent between audio (metadata) formats and encoding software.
So MusicBee will make an effort to read/update it and make it available at a save action.

Both of the above make perfect sense to me, and are very useful and sensible for most users and most user cases.

Personally it irritates me quite a bit when people that chose to use an advanced music manager that will obviously need to manage the metadata of files, and as a result might need to update files under some circumstances (without deleting or altering any of the original metadata) complain about metadata being added, or a file timestamp being changed.
I think they should look for other solutions to solve their 'problem'.