I’ve rendered some files using the “24-bit WAV tracks” render preset. The files rendered but have no meta data in them when I open them in the Meta app. I’m guessing there a box I have to tick somewhere to have meta data written into files? I’m using @Justin_Perkins Wavelab preferences.
Thanks for any help.
More info is needed in order to really help. The Metadata Preset and Render Preset I use relies upon a combination info being added as CD-Text and Marker Names, as well as making sure you’re actually rendering “CD Tracks” rather than “Selected Clips”.
If you can provide more info and provide screen shots of the Render Ribbon Tab, CD Tab, and Markers Tab, it might allow me to help you.
Everything seems to look OK so far. The last thing to find out is if you have the right metadata preset loaded, or metadata settings manually loaded:
That was it! Thanks so much!
The wav files now have meta data. The fields in the CD text are not the same as the fields in your meta data preset. If I understand correctly that’s partly to fix the problem with special characters in CD text which is great. But its not showing all the fields the CD text gives you access to but also includes fields not available in the CD text dialog box. How can I input into meta fields not in the CD text dialog and get things which are missing like composer into the meta? Thanks.
No problem. I guess one easy thing to overlook is that for mastering single songs and EPs/albums, I always create the montage from a montage template, so the Metadata Preset is already pre-loaded and I don’t have to think about it. My metadata setting for singles and EPs/albums is slightly different but the concept is the same and either way, I don’t have to load the Metadata Preset because it’s part of the montage preset.
I do have my Metadata Preset and montage Render Preset set up in such a way that the resulting file names are based off of CD-Text since CD-Text has a simpler character set, and this helps avoid potential issues with file names containing special characters that some downstream systems don’t like. In other words, it keeps the file name simple.
However, by using the Marker Name as the metadata source for the song title, it allows song titles with special characters in the name to retain the exact name in the metadata.
You can build on my preset to push Songwriter or Composer info from CD-Text into the Composer section of the ID3v2 metadata if you follow the logic of the exiting fields such performer/artist name etc.
Thanks this is all very useful info. To make things quick I’d like to input all necessary things into the CD Text Editor dialog (because you can copy across to multiple songs). So I tried to put the “Message” field in the CD Text editor into the “Engineer” field in the Meta editor. However the result was that the data I put into that field in the CD Text editor ended up in a field called “Arranger” when I checked it in my meta tag reader. Basically I’d like to have the engineering credit in there in a way that it’s easy for people to find it, so I assumed the “Engineer” field but it doesn’t seem like it’s the right one to use? Any suggestions on this? Thanks.
I don’t know that apps like Meta are going to display any RIFF metadata, so I would stick to ID3v2. That said, I don’t know how many PEOPLE are going to see ID3v2 metadata beyond the basic stuff like artist name, song title, album title, etc.
If you load the rendered WAV back into WaveLab and check the metadata in the Audio Editor, do you see the Engineer field filled in where you tried to do it?
I used to put Mastered by Justin Perkins in the “Involved People” section of the ID3v2 metadata but I stopped doing that since I often share my metadata settings with others (and WaveLabHelp.com) and it wasn’t worth the hassle of removing and adding it all the time when sharing with others so I stopped putting it there.
Thank for this info on the different tag types. I guess there’s no ideal way to give yourself mastering credits in the meta data?
No. There is no “mastering engineer” field. Wherever you put it, the odds of anybody seeing it are pretty slim as well.
Social Media and Bandcamp are the most visible place for mastering credits these days 
DistroKid is the one of the few digital distributor for independent bands/artists that has a place to enter extensive credits. Qobuz, TIDAL, and Amazon are the only major streaming services I know of that can display extensive credits. Spotify has producer credits but that’s about it.
On top of that, I don’t know of any. digital distributors that read any of the metadata that we can embed in the master WAV files.
So other than future-proofing and being through, your quest may be for nothing practical at this time.
