Add Track Information to .WAV Files?
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Thread: Add Track Information to .WAV Files?

  1. #1
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    Question Add Track Information to .WAV Files?

    Is there any way to add text, track info, or meta-data to .WAV files?

    I have downloaded several Audio Test Tones to test my speakers.

    I've renamed the files to reflect the tone that is playing. For example -

    1_20.wav (for track 1 - 20hz)
    2_25.wav (for track 2 - 25hz)
    3_31-5.wav (for track 3 - 31.5hz)
    etc...

    But when I burn them to an audio CD, it changes all the filenames to a generic track1.wav
    track2.wav
    track3.wav
    etc...

    Is there anyway to make my TV or CD Player display information describing what is on the track?

    I know this is easy enough with MP3 files. You can add a 'Title' that seems to be internal to the file and unrelated to the actual filename.

    Obviously I need the frequency identified, so I know what test tone is playing. When I am playing a 20hz tone, I would like the screen to say 20hz.

    Any ideas, is this possible with wave files.

    Steve/boyblue

  2. #2
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    I use cooledit, and there's an info table in options with fields for artist title and much more, there's also a 'save non-audio information' checkbox on saving. So I presume this is what you want, although I don't have a CD player with a tag display so I can't test if this info is carried through to a .cda

  3. #3
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    CDA always defaults to track1 - however many is on the cd when burned.

    Make a data CD/DVD and the information stays with the music..

  4. #4
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    When you are creating the audio cd check if your software can create ( and your burner write ) CDTEXT.



    I know the image above shows mp3s, but i don't have any wav files handy to show an image off.

    You can in most software edit the track and artist info for each track anyway.
    Last edited by General Winters; August 6th, 2009 at 06:56 PM.
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  5. #5
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    I'm finding that my Roxio Creator DE can change the names but it doesn't seem to be reflected back to the original files.

    That is, I can change the name/title in the Burn to 'Track01_20hz', but that seems to only apply to the burn process. Those edits don't appear back in the original files.

    Of course, the files are in .WAV format as already indicated.

    For MP3 files, I simply select the file in my Windows file manager, and select properties, and I can edit it.

    But when I try to do the same for .WAV files, all the text fields are grayed out.

    I guess I can save the revised file list as a 'Job' or 'Project' in my Roxio Creator program, but I would sooner modify the files themselves.

    Will CoolEdit allow me to do this?

    As to the 'Track01' vs 'Track01_20hz', I don't care so much about the actual file or track name, as long as the screen Title displays the frequency.

    On one CD the spectrum between 20hz and 20,000hz is divided into 31 parts (1/3rd octave), and in the other set of files, it is divided into 63 part (1/6th octave). That's a lot of files to keep track of.

    I do have a printed track list, but it is a pain to keep referring back to it, especially if I am taking measurements. It would be better if it was simply displayed on the screen.

    For the record, I use my DVD player as a CD transport and use the DACs in my new TV to do the actual decoding from Digital to Analog. It works pretty well, certainly and noticeably better than the DACs in the DVD player. Though it means I have to have the TV on to play a CD.

    Thanks for the advice so far.

    Steve/boyblue
    Last edited by boyblue; August 6th, 2009 at 08:20 PM.

  6. #6
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    Windows explorer will always show a cd as having track01, track02 etc, no matter the audio cd has cdtext embedded in it or not, unless you have found some program or other to alter that.

    The cdtext will only show in a player that can read cdtext, if the cd/dvd drive can read cdtext, and obviously only if the audio cd was actually burnt by a burner that can burn cdtext and by a program that can burn cdtext and if you actually turned that feature on and either entered the text required or (for an mp3) where the cdtext was automatically entered by the program reading the mp3 tags.

    I am not sure just renaming a wav file will automatically update the cdtext entries in any burner.

    See the pic below, on the left is how windows explorer sees my (self burnt) cd, and on the right, how windows media player ( with the cdtext addon ) reads and shows the cdtext automatically in the playlist.



    Could you verify what exactly are you playing the cds on, as you mention using a dvd player?

    IF you are just playing the files via a dvd, then obviously burning the wav files as a data cd would work, as most dvd standalones will play wav files and obviously will show the file name as the title on the tv, and depending on the dvd player may actually show the title name on the front display as well.
    Last edited by General Winters; August 6th, 2009 at 09:52 PM.
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    There is no such thing as overkill. 'Open fire' and 'is it dead?' are the only sane options when threatened.

  7. #7
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    Thanks for the response, but perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The files are a series of individual files. I can rename the files to anything I want. Though of course the filename is lost, and changed to the generic 'track01', 'track02' when I burn them as an audio CD.

    So, it is when I try to burn them on to CD that the track names or filenames change. But now I really don't care what the track/file name is, it is the 'title' I want to change. It is the Metadata or whatever it is called that I would like to edit.

    Again, these files are on my hard drive as 31 or 63 independent individual .WAV files.

    I would like to add Titles to those individual wave files, so I can copy them or burn them or whatever, and the titles indicating the frequency will be there.

    I think there is also some confusion over what it is I want to change, I keep using terms like track name, but when I say that I mean filename. I can change the filename to anything, but that doesn't change the 'TITLE' text inside the file.

    It is this 'Title' text that I want to change.

    I was looking at my 1/3rd Octave 31 file group, and it turns out they do have 'Titles'. When I play that CD, which I burned myself from hard drive files, I do see the 'metadata' or 'title'. So, for now it is only the 1/6th octave 63 file group that needs to be changed.

    Again, it seems that I can do this in the Burn process using Roxio Creator, though I haven't actually tried it, but I would like to change it permanently in the files on my hard drive.

    The files are not commercial files, they are files released into the public domain by audio/computer experts for people's personal use. So, there are no MP3 tags, other than the text I enter in to the 'Title' area.

    Again, adding or changing the 'Title' is simple for MP3, I can do that in Window File Explorer. But I can't seem to find a way to do it for the .WAV files, even though I know it can be done.

    Since I am playing the files burned from my hard drive onto an audio CD through my TV via a HDMI DVD player, I can see any metadata that the files or tracks contain.

    I think I may be creating confusion by not using the proper terms, but hopefully you can still understand what I am trying to do.

    Thanks for the help.

    Steve/bluewizard
    Last edited by boyblue; August 7th, 2009 at 02:45 AM.

  8. #8
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    Now things have gotten really strange.

    After investigating, I decided what I need is an Audio File TAG Editor.

    If first tried Tag&Rename 3.5.1 -

    Looks like a nice program. So I went in and added titles to all 63 files. But when I closed Tag&Rename, and opened Roxio Creator, none of the changes I made were there.

    So, I thought Tag&Rename was only a trial version, maybe it is not actually changing the files. The 'sample' program just allows you to work the interface to see if you like it,

    So, I downloaded Stamp ID3 Tag Editor v2.03 which is a free program.

    This time rather than changing all 63 files, I just edited the first 6 or so. Then loaded those files into Roxio Creator, again, no changes, even though the time/date stamp reflected that the file had been changed just seconds before.

    So, I thought, well maybe Roxio is not showing titles. There is no column labeled 'Title' but their is one for Performer and Composer. So I went back to Stamp program, and copied the Title to both the Composer and Performer fields. The Stamp program has a [Stamp] button to finalize the changes, to essentially write the new file. I made sure I pressed the [Stamp] button for each of the files I change. Again, the file dates reflected that they had been change.

    Then I opened those files for a burn in Roxio Creator, but neither Title, Preformer, or Composer fields had changed.

    If I bring up those files in Tag&Rename, the file list shows the changes as I originally made them. But if I bring up the files in Roxio or Stamp, the changes are not there.

    If I change files, close Stamp, then reopen it and load the same files, some show changes and some don't. But none of the changes show in Roxio.

    Very confusing.

    Out of curiosity, I loaded one of the files that Stamp implies it has changed, into Audacity to view the ID3 Tags, and it doesn't show any.

    I change the ID3v1 Tags in one of the files using Audacity, and still no change.

    What am I missing here?

    Also, I had a Roxio Project stored where I thought I renamed all the file Titles, but when I burned the CD, there were no Titles or other Tags, so that was a bust as well.

    Again, what am I missing?


    Steve/bluewizard
    Last edited by boyblue; August 7th, 2009 at 06:57 PM.

  9. #9
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    Read the last two posts at http://www.digital-inn.de/exact-audi...using-eac.html

    It seems that many programs do not read wav tags if added and many that do add tags add them to various different parts of the wav thus either breaking the format or causing them to be ignored by programs that actually do try to add or read tags.

    In other words, stamp may add the tag at the being, another program in the middle, another at the end, and each may not recognize or see tags generated by another program.

    Even if you did add tags, Roxio may not read them, or may be looking for them in another section of the file.

    According to wikipedia ( yes i know who actually trusts wikipedia..) when you convert to an audio cd the wav file is stripped of headers before being laid down as the red book audio standard.

    Anyway I thought you wanted to play the file info on a cdplayer and read the track name as it plays ?

    Many standalone cd players will read the cd text to show you artist name, album title etc, but this is stored either in the lead-in of the disk or in the subchannels.

    In other words, many stand alone cd players will read and display cd text, i do not know of any that will read tags you have attempted to insert into the original wav file or even if those tags will be there once the wav file is stripped down and converted to an audio cd.

    You could I suppose burn an Audio DVD, which is basically a video dvd, where each track is a song, the one i use Apollo Audio DVD Creator, allows you to set the audio as lpcm, which is lossless audio and is generally the format used in wav files and of course audio cds.

    It displays the track titles on screen while playing, so a wav file called 1_20.wav will display as 1_20 on screen.

  10. #10
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    Very confusing but thanks for the help.

    Once again, we are down to conflicting terminology. That is the difference between a TAG and CDTEXT. Isn't CDTEXT simply made up of a series of TAGs?

    Again, I know it is an annoying problem, and I do appreciate those taking the time to help.

    Again, I have two sets of .WAV files.

    The 31 file 1/3rd octave test tones, do have TAGS or CD Text in them.

    They have filenames like 01_20.WAV, 02_25.WAV, and 03_31-5. WAV.

    Then these files play and when I load them into any program, I see track titles of 01_20, 02_25, 03_31-5, so I know this TAG info or CDText can be added.

    But when I try to do it with the 1/6th octave files, the TAGs never seem to stick. I've used three difference programs to change these TAGs and none of them have worked.

    It doesn't seem like it should be that hard.

    I'll check out the link you provided and see if they can lend any insight into how I might do this.

    Thanks again for responding.

    Steve/boyblue

  11. #11
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    Normally a media player on your computer will show the actual file name of a wav file as the track name.

    So if the wav is called 02_25.WAV then it will show in the program as 02_25

    I found a shareware editor called Awave Audio that will embed tags and it seems to work for wavs ok, at least in programs such as kantaris, xmplay, winamp, mediaplayer classic etc where the file name is ignored and the tags displayed.

    Wmp ignores the tags and shows the file name however.

    Notice the file is called file by awave.wav but the media players show the tagged information.



    As shareware it basically will only convert the first 60s of a file, and will not batch convert, so if the files you have are short that may be fine for you.

    Since its a converter, i just added the tags by adding a wav file to the program and then right clicking it and selecting View meta data, and told it to convert from a wav to wav in a new folder, and the new wavs contained the tags.

    However, I doubt it matters what tags a wav has, as soon as you convert it to an audio cd, I believe the cd will show the files as track01.cda, track02.cda etc ( at least in windows ) and if the cd player has a file display that can show artist name, album title etc it will show track1, track2 etc unless you have burnt the file with cd text.

    You could try a test I suppose, just to make sure, but cd players are supposed to read cd text information from info added to the lead in or the subchannel information on the cd, not as far as i know from the files themselves.

    I did find however that my burning program i use for audio cds, Nero, does in fact automatically fill in the cd text labels with the tags pulled from the wav file, roxio may or may not do the same.

    Awave Audio, http://www.fmjsoft.com/

    Also see this editor, http://www.bsiusa.com/software/info_...nfo_editor.php

    Could not test as its not supposed to play friendly with Vista.

    Note there is an extension to the wav file format called BWF, that usually uses the .wav extension ( or sometimes .bwf ) and it allows meta data to officially be included in wav files, so its possible those wav files you say have tags are bwf wav files, or perhaps just normal wav files with tags in the header.

    http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/publi...user_guide.php

    Luckily Awave can export to that format and can tell you if the file is a normal wav file or a bwf.

    Last edited by General Winters; August 8th, 2009 at 05:15 AM.

  12. #12
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    Thanks I'll give that a try.

    It is not critical that I add these tags, but again these are audio test tones that I burn to CD to test my stereo speakers.

    With out the frequency displayed on the screen, I have to keep referring to my printed track list, which is annoying.

    Also, as I said, my 31 file series of test tones, does have this information imbedded. It seem my original file name in the form of 01_20.wav becomes the displayed Track Title. It is very convenient.

    Thanks again.

    Steve/boyblue

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