To tag or not to tag? That is the question. With new labels emerging at an alarming rate and more new promos being sent out each day, DJs are having a hard time keeping on top of the music.
it’s 100% important to have the correct data tags with any promo. There is nothing more frustrating than spending hours going through hundreds of promo’s, downloading so many, then being expected to remember who or what a promo is when you go to go through your new music. You can’t give credit to a track, if you don’t know what the heck it is or who made it – Gemma Furbank
I am really pissed when I have to re-tag promos with the important information (Artist, track name, genre). Placid
In all honesty if it comes with no tags, no artist, no title…. how does anyone expect to get credit for it? Jim Hansen
I think anyone who seeks to be recognized professionally should have a minimal notion about this business, and I think the producers (especially those who are early career) end up not respecting their own work, after all it is a global culture, you have to keep in mind that there are millions of artists just like you are trying the same, and being organized is essential in this ‘global electronic universe’ Richie Hawtin.
Someone that understands the problem all too well is head honcho of Lowbit Records, Erik Pettersson aka Sonic Union. Being the genius computer programmer that he is, Erik decided create an easy to use software tool that could help eliminate the problem for artists, labels and DJs, once and for all!
Erik, firstly – it’s really cool of you to come up with a solution. Why did you decide to do it?
As a label owner and manager, creating MP3’s of a release for promos, previews and Soundcloud edits was such a tedious job so I wanted to create something to help my workflow and speed up monotonous tasks. I was using one program to edit a preview section, one program to encode wave to mp3 and another program to tag ID3 tags!! It was doing my head in. So one day I just decided to write my own application to do all this for me as simply and quickly as possible!
Why is tagging so important?
Without proper tagging it’s hard or even impossible to find tracks in a vast collection of music. Looking back to days if vinyl I used to make connections with a certain track and its sleeve and I still do that today with an MP3.
So what does your software do?
It will create high quality, low quality and user selected preview section MP3’s from a release and automatically embed ID3v2 tags and artwork. You can do all steps or select which step to do. The user can also select a region of a track to use for a Soundcloud MP3 and also specify a fade-in and fade-out time. New in version 1.5 you can now listen to the preview section in the tool including fades! Now there’s no excuse not to tag!!!
How can people get it?
You can get it for free at http://lowbitrecords.com/lowbit-records-mp3-converter at the moment there is only a Windows version, but with some donations I hope to make an OSX version soon.
Cool stuff – and is there a way people can get it without the Lowbit branding?
I will make a customised version for anyone who makes a donation.
How can people contact you?
For help / requests / bug reports etc: info@sonicunionmusic.com
We also found a really cool programme called Mp3tag – which you can use to easily tag all your existing mp3 library, if you haven’t already done so.
Did we miss something? Something you need to add? Has this app changed your life? Leave your feedback/suggestions in the comments below and let us know. Thank you please.
