Commercial MP3s and other digital music files provide a wealth of information about the songs in addition to the audio-playback itself. This metadata makes it easy to display the track name, artist, album, and other facts about the songs in your playback device or program.
When you use an application such as the free Audacity audio-editing utility to convert music from LPs, cassettes, or another analog source, the only metadata accompanying the tracks is whatever information you provide when you create the digital file. There's the rub.
In July 2011 I described how to use Audacity to convert LPs and audio cassettes to digital. A follow-up post from last September explained how Audacity helps ensure that contiguous tracks always play in the correct sequence.
Over the years I've used Audacity to convert about 2,000 songs from analog LPs and cassettes to MP3s and other digital formats. Most of the cassettes were recorded manually (as opposed to being store-bought) and date back to the 1970s and 1980s.
Alas, my friends and I weren't always thorough when we made the tapes. Many lacked any information about the tracks or artists ot... [Read more]
by Dennis O'Reilly via CNET How To
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