How do you save audio track metadata in a Montage?

WaveLab
1

I’m still learning the work flow and getting familiar with all the options and I was trying to add metadata tags to each of the 9 individual tracks in my Montage but when I added the ID3 tag using the Metadata tab, it appears to have tagged the whole montage.

I want to tag the audio on each track individually with song data, artist name and etc.

Can this be done in a Montage? I can’t seem to find a way to do it and I’ve searched the documentation for Metadata. It provides a lot of information but nothing on how to tag individual audio of each track.

2

You need to use variables. While this is a more advanced usage, it is also very powerful. You will then need to use the “Render Titles” option to generate audio files with the desired metadata. Below is a section from the manual, and you can find many threads on this topic in this forum and possibly elsewhere.

3

Don’t think of it as “adding the metadata to the montage”.

Think of it as adding info to various places within the montage that will get embedded as metadata when you render the files. As PG mentioned, you have to render “Titles” rather than “Clips” or “Selected Clips” because most of this info is associated with “Album Tracks” and not files.

Basically, it’s a combination of CD-Text, Marker Names, and some info that is automatically there such as track number/track total.

There are many ways to do it but I personally use the Title Marker Names to populate the song title metadata. Why you ask? Because the CD-Text name can’t contain special characters but Album Track Splice Markers (and other markers) can contain special characters like accents, etc. so I use that to push to the song title field of the metadata.

I use the basic CD-Text name (without special characters) to create the file name (along with an automatically added numeric prefix such as 01, 02, etc.) because special characters in file names can be problematic downstream.

There is also the topic of ISRC. There are two main places that it can be added, and there is a preset that lets you do both.

So again, it can take some time to set up your preferred method for populating the metadata fields on rendered WAV, AIFF, mp3, AAC, and other files but the good news is that once you do it one time, you can save your preferred preset and have that preset already loaded when you make a new montage from a template.

In other words, the metadata embedding becomes “automatic” in my opinion if you do these things:

  1. Understand how it works and create a metadata preset to your liking
  2. Populate each new montage with the correct info, assuming you’ve made a montage from a montage template that has the metadata preset already loaded.

The last step is to make sure your render presets contain the correct setting to populate the metadata.

It’s slightly complicated at first, and then basically automatic once you have it set up.

I did a livestream about it a few years ago that is mostly all still relevant:

A few small details may have changed.

My metadata preset to populate the basic info can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gb2778vn2i35n8hnzpr97/Metadata-Presets.zip?rlkey=kx602ue0qvt868nlyv05gwl64&dl=1

I admit that it’s not simple, but it’s incredibly powerful and easy once you have it set up.

With this approach, you just enter the info one time, and whatever format you render, the info is always there and exists on every version/revision so you don’t have to repeat any work.

2 Likes
4

Just with ISRCs … for reasons that I won’t go into, I recently had cause to check that an IRSC had been embedded properly by checking it using BWF MetaEdit.

Interestingly, although it could recognize that an aXML chunk was present it did NOT display the ISRC that was embedded by WL. In other words, to it the standard was not met.

On the other hand, it did see the ISRC when Sonoris ISRC Editor embedded it.

Maybe I am doing something ‘wrong’ and if so please draw my attention to that … or maybe BWF MetaEditor has a read bug or I m not using it correctly … but for the time being anyway it has caused me to stop using WL to embed ISRCs.

Correct Entry WL

Sonosis Metadata in WL 12
Sonosis Metadata in WL 12888×263 6.05 KB

BWF Report WL 12
BWF Report WL 121314×345 27.4 KB

BWF Report Sonoris
BWF Report Sonoris995×513 45.9 KB

BWF Core Report WL 12
BWF Core Report Sonoris
About BWF MetaEdit

5

Please send me such a file so that I check the difference.

6

I will do this … the file in the example is a ‘major’ artist in this country and as yet unreleased so I can’t send that.

I will do another example as soon as possible. Leave it with me.

1 Like
7

Thanks, @Justin_Perkins for sharing your audio montage presets.
Is there a way to use this for the audio editor too? Unfortunately, when I select the presets, I only get the @CdTrackTitle@ etc. displayed.

Thanks for your hint in advance.

Jonas

8

I don’t know to be honest, as I never render files from the Audio Editor. Also, there is no place to enter things like CD-Text in the Audio Editor so from that regard, you may need or want to add this info before rendering and find a setting that retains the metadata you’ve entered when rendering.

Whether it’s mastering a single song or a full album, I’m always in the Audio Montage.

1 Like
9

Thanks for the quick answer, from now on I’ll probably do the same.

Greetings
Jonas

10

You can use variables with the audio editor, but only those that make sense. Since the CD track / album system is only for the audio montage, the related variables can’t be used.

11

I’ll consult the manual.
The link above should be correct?

Thanks @PG1

12

PG Is it possible for me to send you a link by PM.

I cannot really make these tracks ‘public’ for obvious reasons.

13

Please do

14

PM Sent

15

Thank you for the files you prepared for me; they were helpful. I’ll respond here.

Both WaveLab and Sonoris store the ISRC in the aXML chunk in exactly the same way. The difference is that Sonoris also sets the RIFF ISRC tag and, independently, creates BWF data (optional).

You can simply update your metadata WaveLab preset, if you want to see that ISRC in the BWF application. In version 12.0.40, I will update the preset for completeness.

1 Like
16

Hi PG

Thank you so much for that explanation which makes perfect sense.