Metadatics and XLD

If you have XLD have you tried to use this to rip rather than iTunes and rip directly to WAV and AIFF?

I use Metadatics but have never tried to use WAV as a format.  I rip to FLAC and Apple Lossless (FLAC for the main music library on the NAS and Apple Lossless for the iTunes library).  I can edit metadata on downloaded FLAC files in Metadatics and these have always appeared fine after using XLD to convert the FLAC to Apple Lossless.

How are you looking at the metadata in the WAV files after conversion?

Also worth emailing the developer mark@markvapps.com with questions like this, I have found him very helpful with questions I had in the early days.

I have successfully used XLD to rip and convert across flac, aac, alac and aiff. As above, I'd recommend trying to rip directly to your chosen format with XLD and import to iTunes as the final step.

WAV tagging is non-standardised so it is possible to lose tags on converting to this format. That said, XLD does include options for wav tagging e.g. INFO or id3 chunks but again, but you need to ensure the player then recognises the tagging format used.

If XLD does not recognise the tags, you will get a conversion output that includes "unknown artist"/"unknown artist"/"unknown title", for example. Is this what is happening?

If the conversion output looks ok, it might be a problem with re-importing to iTunes? I've seen some discussion regarding difficulties with WAV files and iTunes 11 that, thankfully, I don't have to dig around.

You could also test convert to e.g. flac and use the Tag app (at sbooth.org, there's an older, free and flac-only version) to inspect the tags post-conversion and outside of iTunes and Metadatics.

-Mark

I am not at all confident that iTunes, ripping to an Apple proprietary format, does so in a universal way that XLD recognizes.  I just don't know.  But I'd use XLD to rip; definitely. 

Thanks all for your comments. Let me try to clarify and comment on some of the suggestions.

For ripping, I've taken the advice and did a sample rip with XLD, into AIFF. Same issue - metadatics can read the metadata, but after any changes are saved, XLD no longer reads them... 

On conversion: I have all my rips in AIFF, which to a certain extent does accept tags. At least, XLD reads the tags from iTunes-imported AIFF files. XLD is usually able to transfer most of the metadata to a WAV.

So, if I have used Metadatics to change some of the tags of an AIFF file, XLD no longer reads the tags (resulting in blank fields / unknown...). First converting by XLD and using Metadatics probably works, but it beats me what is happening here and I'd like to know whether I am heading for trouble. I intend do start some overnight batch conversion runs 

EJ

Can you post up some screenshots, to show the output?

Why are you converting the AIFF files to WAV, why not just keep in the AIFF format?

Here's an example of the metadata of an AIFF file as XLD sees it - before and after editing the metadata with metadatics.

EJ

I have been ripping to FLAC using XLD and then editing with Metadics. I'll have to see what happens when I reopen those files with XLD.

Edit: when I reopen my FLAC files in XLD after editing with Metadatics they look fine.

FWIW: I have been beta testing a version of Metadics with regex support for batch editing tracks. This will take this app to the next level in usefulness, at least for those of us with classical music.

That is bizarre, like all the tags have been removed.  If you add one of these "amended" AIFF's to iTunes does it see any metadata?  There is functionality in Metadatics to strip metadata from files, you haven't got a dodgy option ticked somewhere that is removing the tags?

I have many times converted files using XLD after editing all the tags in Metadatics and the tags all show up fine but I only ever rip to FLAC.

You should pop a question with your screenshots to the metadatics developer.

Just to let you know that the XLD update of July 20th seems to have resolved this issue.

EJ