m4a genre weirdness

[Trev_L]

Hi. I'm using version 15.3 on windows 7 x64

When I convert (or rip) files as aac/alac, I have a problem where my Fiio X3 DAP won't read the genre correctly. For example a metal genre will show as new age (it seems like the tags are off by 1 according to the id3 genre list). Now if I take those files and use Musicbee to rewrite the genre tag, my X3 will read it properly. I'm not really sure what's to blame here. Fiio was informed about the genre bug, and has supposedly fixed it. I'm not entirely sure what Musicbee is doing to make the tags be read correctly, but I personally wouldn't consider that a bug. For what it's worth mp3tag doesn't work either.

I have dbpoweramp set to the default for writing m4a tags, and haven't changed any setting in Musicbee either.

If anybody has any suggestions, I'd like to hear 'em. I can also provide an "original tag" and "fixed tag" file if that would help.

Cheers

[mville]

Re: m4a genre weirdness

If you rip/convert to flac and/or mp3 does the same thing happen on the Fiio X3 DAP?

[Trev_L]

Re: m4a genre weirdness

Every other format works fine, just aac/alac. Personally, I prefer using aac over mp3 - it does sound better to my ears, but I've pretty much abandoned alac when I switched from itunes to musicbee (still have a bunch of files in alac though)

[mville]

Re: m4a genre weirdness

Every other format works fine, just aac/alac. Personally, I prefer using aac over mp3 - it does sound better to my ears, but I've pretty much abandoned alac when I switched from itunes to musicbee (still have a bunch of files in alac though)

The conversion to aac or mp3 depends on the quality settings for the encoder, set on rip/conversion.

You could try different (higher quality) settings in the lame encoder to create mp3 files of better audio quality (although you may get higher bit rates).

However, I am aware this does not answer the aac genre issue you are experiencing.

[Trev_L]

Re: m4a genre weirdness

Just wanted to bump this post to see if anybody can help out. I do still have the two files available to see what the difference in tags are if anybody is interested

[Spoon]

Re: m4a genre weirdness

If you drop the files in iTunes, does it read the genre correctly?

[Trev_L]

Re: m4a genre weirdness

I've ditched itunes altogether when I found MusicBee. From what I remember Foobar2000 will show the genres properly. I think the only thing that has given me a problem is my X3. Now that I've found MusicBee tags will read correctly, I've been scratching my head as to why dbpoweramp doesn't work. I've posted the same questions on the MB forums, but gotten no response.

A little more info. When my x3 does show the m4a genres incorrectly, they are off by one according to the id3 genre list ("jazz" displays as "metal", "alternative" as "ska". I've also read that the standard itunes m4a genre tags are supposed to be one greater than id3. Still not sure why one program is doing this correctly while another isn't.
I've also tried changing the tagging options in dbpoweramp without any success.

[Trev_L]

Re: m4a genre weirdness

Bumped in case anybody wants to look into further.

Also wanted to ask another question about the aac codec. My X3 will add a small click between gapless tracks. I was reading that there is a setting in the command line to choose how gapless is tagged :
-G, --gapless-mode <n>
Encoder delay signaling for gapless playback
0 iTunSMPB (default)
1 ISO standard (edts + sgpd)
2 Both

Is there a way to set this in dbpoweramp? Didn't see anything in the codec options. What about the afterburner option?