One of the things I learned at the 2024 Taxi Road Rally was just how important song metadata is. Scott Barker and Rabina Ritchie Barker, who own and operate TrackStage, ran a session on metadata that was a great primer. I went and did my own research after that. I also appreciate that it was not a sales pitchy session at all, even though they have something highly relevant and useful to pitch. TrackStage manages song metadata, although it does a lot more than that as well. But I am also not pitching TrackStage, I am just thankful that they shared their expertise in the session.
Introduction
Song metadata is defined by the ID3 specification, or more precisely, by ID3V2. This specification defines how metadata is included in data frames within the song file itself, but before the part where the audio data for the song is stored. This ensures that metadata, album art, and so forth is able to load at the beginning of the play of the file, as in for streaming services. There is also a set of genres defined for ID3 writ large.
There are generally three song formats we are dealing with here: mp3, AIFF, and WAV. We will really focus on mp3 and AIFF, since those are the most applicable for the music business. For our purposes here, the biggest difference between an mp3 and an AIFF file is that the mp3 is compressed and will not have the full audio resolution. This is fine for pitching something, but you probably want to deliver on AIFF, which is full quality. They both handle song metadata well. Here’s a quick summary.
| Item | mp3 | AIFF | WAV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audio quality | Medium | High | High |
| Compressed? | Yes | No | No |
| ID3 Fields Support | Yes | Yes | Well, some of them |
| Timecode | No | No | Yes |
| Support issues | Apple Music doesn’t support metadata on wav files |
Clearance versus Copyright
As we get into the critical metadata fields, note that this is bigly about rights ownership and clearance information. This is not about your copyright. This is about ownership. These are two different things. The copyright is for chasing money and protecting yourself, not for getting paid. Rights ownership and clearance information are for getting paid. This is all part of treating your music as a business. Rabina and Scott highly recommended keeping an eye on Bobby Borg (@bobbyborgmusicbusiness) as he writes about all kinds of business and legal issues relating to musicians and has published several well-received books.
Also note there is other, non-critical metadata like genre, mood, and other keyword tags. I can’t cover them all here, so I’ll stick to the critical ones.
| Critical Metadata | Where/How to Use |
|---|---|
| Contact Information | Use the comment field for emails and websites if you need it. |
| Track Title | Use title case. If there is a featured artist, only add them in parenthesis to the title, such as: Track Title of My Great Song (feat. Artist-Name) |
| Artist | Artist (whoever is performing the song, but only put featured artists in the title field in parentheses) |
| Composer | If for distribution, use the composer’s first name and last name with commas With sync, the composer field is for royalties. First and last name followed by ownership % plus PRO information, and then PRO registration number ( Name % (PRO PRO#) i.e. Jane Bloggs 100% (ASCAP XXXXXX) Every name must be spelled correctly, where correctly means exactly the way it’s listed with the PRO. I.e., if ASCAP says “Joe EL Bloggs,” you have to use that exact string. |
| Grouping | Grouping field—if not sync, just getting deals for songs; don’t worry about it. For sync, this is the field that outlines who owns the master recording and publishing rights, not the copyright. Note that other sources may recommend this to be in the comments field in a different format. This format is actually a homegrown specification on top of a homegrown specification for ID3, so there will be lots of idiosyncracies like this. Make sure to do your own research and find out what is required with those that you are pitching to. Sole Owner (One-Stop) If you are the sole owner of the work and recording and publishing, you are One-Stop (200%) * You have the absolute right to negotiate a sync license. No other parties need to sign off. No risk to supervisors that a cowriter doesn’t want to sign off. That can be a significant advantage. * Put “One-Stop” in the grouping field if this is the case Multiple Owners (fractional) This is the format recommended by TrackStage: Master recording owner (% controlled M) (PRO and PRO#) / Publisher information (% controlled S) (PRO and PRO#) Jane Bloggs (100% M) (ASCAP 87654321) / Joe Biggs (100% S) (BMI 12345678) * All percentages must add to exactly 100%. You can’t have 33/33/33; you’d need to have 33/33/34. * Separate by slash |
How to Tag?
The easiest way to tag, at least on a Mac, is to open the file in Apple Music and do a “get info.” The dialog box that comes up allows you to edit the values of the metadata. You can also use a public domain tool like Mp3tag for tagging mp3s. TrackStage has a pretty rich feature for setting metadata and even handles situations like stems and variations. Let me say more about that.
Most of these solutions, like Mp3tag or syncmusictag, are really just for tagging a single file. You may have to produce many files to submit the final audio for a project. You may have to submit several different arrangements (with/without vocals, with/without percussion, etc.). You will also have stems for most of the instruments and voice groupings. You may also have short spots, like 30 seconds. All of those will have virtually, but not quite, identical metadata content. TrackStage is the only solution that manages metadata for all of that in a reasonably elegant way. The other ones are all manual. SyncMusicTag allows you to dump a comma-separated file for the metadata you select so that it’s recorded, but you have to get that into the file with some other editor. Also, it’s really for genres, sub-genres, keywords, and moods, not all the other critical metadata. Mp3tag is a solid tool that has batch editing and database integration, but it’s got a much steeper learning curve. You can also do some of this through your DAW, but it won’t cover everything for sync for sure.
If you use Logic Pro, like me, you’ll be stymied by the fact that it only writes ID3 metadata for MP3 files. Even though it has the metadata, it won’t write it to AIFF or WAV files, so you are pretty much stuck using something else. I’m not sure if it’s even worth putting much metadata into LogicPro, because then you’ll have to keep it in sync with at least two other use cases:
- You’ll need to use something else to tag your AIFF and WAV files, so it should have the same values as whatever you put in Logic Pro
- Logic Pro doesn’t support other important tags, like album art and lyrics, so you’ll have to add these later, even to mp3s
Sharing platforms, like SoundCloud and Disco, will add metadata. They may not always handle it correctly, though, so you have to be careful and check your work. Regardless of what method you choose, the best course of action is to set all your metadata before the files ever leave your control.