Several questions

[sculen]

It's in the tags themselves

Examples:
The album Re::Mixed by the New Mastersounds gets changed to Re;;Mixed
The album Winterland Live 12/31/77 gets changed to 12-31-77

Not a huge deal. Don't mind the / to - on the dates, but would be nice if it kept the :

[garym]

It's in the tags themselves

Examples:
The album Re::Mixed by the New Mastersounds gets changed to Re;;Mixed
The album Winterland Live 12/31/77 gets changed to 12-31-77

Not a huge deal. Don't mind the / to - on the dates, but would be nice if it kept the :

Very odd. You enter the ":" and dbpa changes it to ";" in the tag itself. I just checked and I have plenty of files with ":" in the tag. And you see that when looking at the tags after the fact INSIDE THE DBPA PROGRAM (rather than in some other program). Or if in another program, which one is it?

[sculen]

I see it after ripping ... photo of the file in my Re::Mixed example

[garym]

Those are file names not tags.

[sculen]

Understand. But while the tag is Re::Mixed, the end result is Re;;Mixed

[schmidj]

That's because it is illegal to have colons as part of a file name, also slashes (as they are used as a delimiter to separate directories/folders). One of the reasons for using tags inside the audio files is that those characters aren't illegal in tags. To make life simpler for you, dBpoweramp translates the illegal characters to something close in the filename, (but not in the tag, which has whatever you entered. The alternate would be to have Windows or IOS simply not save the file because of the illegal characters. Somewhere in the settings for dBpoweramp there is a table of what it sees as illegal characters and what it substitutes. For instance, the question mark ? is an illegal filename character, and when creating filenames dBpoweramp substitutes the Spanish upside down question mark in the filename.

Take one of the above files and open it in a tag editor such as the one in dBpoweramp or mp3tag and look at the tag itself, not the filename. You'll see it has the slashes in the date, the colons in the other entry as you typed them. This is one of the major reasons to use tags, not filenames in searching for tracks (as most players do).

It would probably be worth your while to Google "Illegal Filename Characters" for the whole list. It depends on the operating system, but most programs that create filenames internally, like dBpoweramp, block characters for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and the Apple phone system, Otherwise if you saved the files on, let us say, your Mac and then tried to copy them to your android phone or (Linux) file server, many files would not copy because of the illegal characters in that operating system.

This has nothing to do with dBpoweramp per say, but the basics of how each of the different operating system works.

[sculen]

Got it. Understand

Begs the next question

Once the ripping is done and all the CDs are now files, how in the heck do you search using tags at that point? Aren't I now done with dBpoweramp when I'm playing the music? Aren't I playing from files?

[sculen]

Nevermind garym and schmidj. I now see that when playing, it shows up as Re::Mixed. I'm learning. Thanks

[schmidj]

Most modern music library search systems index many of the tags and reference the entries to the filenames of the files which contain them. For instance, if you are using Foobar2000 it will index the tags for all your music (you have to tell Foobar's options where to find the folder containing your music) either when you put new music files into the folder/directory or manually when you tell it to rebuild the library. That library isn't that different than the old card catalog that used to be in the lobby of your library where you could look up a subject, title or author and the card would tell you where to find the book(s) you want on the shelves. On your computer or phone it is now usually an SQL relational database.

When you want to find some music to play you will search the database of tags for the artist, or Genre, or title, or probably the contents of any tag you saved, and display the information for each matching track You click on the one(s) you want in your player and the software goes back to the database and looks up where to find the file, i.e. the correct drive/directory(s) and filename and feeds that to the player to read the file and play the track. You never need to know the filename to play the track as long as the tag entry is (reasonably) accurate.

Many players do have the ability to search for tracks by file and directory names, but that is an awkward, PITA way to find what you want to play.

And remember that the naming string in dBpa that so many people agonize over doesn't do anything to the tags, it just creates filenames, usually from information in the tags you entered before ripping the CD to provide a hopefully simple but logical and foolproof directory of all your music.

As far as most players are concerned, the actual filename is immaterial. Many of the radio automation systems which I've worked with, which store audio files similar to your music files simply use a six to nine digit unique number for each track. Unless you are troubleshooting the library, you never pay any attention to the filename, only the tags.

It does often make sense to have a directory/filename system that is human readable, not just a long number, in the event that you screw up and "lose" a file due to let us say a tag entry or correction mishap, or if you need to delete a file because of corruption, a duplicate entry or just because you never want to hear that horrid song again. Then you'll be using the "Finder" or "file Explorer" or whatever your operating system calls it to find the file and then delete it. But when it comes to using your player to search for and play tracks, you should do that with the tags, not the filenames.

I know it is difficult for people who have not worked with tags and tag metadata to get their heads around this at first because it is different than what they have done with things like document editors like Word, but it is a much more convenient system, as long as you entered the tags correctly when you saved the files (or corrected/added them later).

Incidentally, most photography and video editing library systems use similar tags, you'll run into them if you save music videos along with your audio files.

Spend some time playing with this. I'd suggest looking at your music files (a bunch of them) in mp3tag which as a default will display the filenames as well as many of the most common tags and the artwork, and will tell you what standard your tags are saved in. If you understand what you are seeing displayed in mp3tag you will have a much better sense of how it all works. Don't expect for it to all make sense on day one. You can ask questions here and we'll attempt to educate you (as we were all educated ) as long as you have an open mind.

I do have the advantage of a long career in both audio and IT. I took a graduate course in relational databases back in the 1990s and used a Microsoft program called Access, a relational database, to catalog all my thousands of media holdings, not just my audio files, but all my phonograph records, DVDs and CDs. I had to decide how I wanted to be able to search and display it which determined what data I needed to enter, what you now call tags.

And that evolved from a project circa 1984 at the ABC Radio Network where I worked to develop an automation system for their new facilities. The data entry and display "front end" was run on a PC (yes, 1984, CPM then DOS) using a purchased relational database file system package and an also purchased screen display/entry system (character based, no Windows then). I (we, but it was my project) hired a programmer far brighter than I to actually configure the software and write the interface programs. My two tasks were first to get the eventual users (clerical people in the Radio Network) to explain to me what they needed to do and how they did it by hand, second to explain that to the guy I hired to write the software, third to try to "break" the software (easy at first, but the programmer learned to block most of the most common data entry errors as time went on), and then to teach the Radio Network people to run it.

That system, with many updates, both hardware and software, remained in use until the early 2000s. I moved on to many other projects but the guy I hired to write the software was contracted directly by the Radio Network to maintain and upgrade the system for the entire time until it was replaced. It was one of the most interesting (and educational for me) projects I worked on in my 36 years at ABC.

Most of the others trying to help you here have similar backgrounds and may have better answers than I to some of your questions. All of us except for Spoon and Peter (who write the dBpoweramp software) are volunteers just trying to help others avoid some of the mistakes we made when first involved.

[garym]

Got it. Understand

Begs the next question

Once the ripping is done and all the CDs are now files, how in the heck do you search using tags at that point? Aren't I now done with dBpoweramp when I'm playing the music? Aren't I playing from files?

schmidj has provided his usual excellent information. three quick things.

1. Yes. you were confusing file/folder names with tag fields. Yes, in my windows machine, the filenames/foldernames replace : with ; and / with -. This has to do with windows (or mac I assume does the same thing). Certain characters are not allowed in file names. dbpoweramp takes care of this automatically.

2. Correct, once you've ripped your files you are done with dbpoweramp. Then it is up to your music server/player to deal with browsing, searching, playing your music. Most modern digital players will use your tags for browsing and searching. (However, for some odd reason, automobile manufacturers sometimes still put systems in cars, even in 2025, that allow one to play digital music (connected with USB etc.) but will only read filenames and not tags.)

You will want to take some of your ripped files and load them on your server/player to make sure you like how your specific server/player is using your files, their tags, etc.

mp3tag is found at:

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html

3. It will help us with future questions if you can tell us exactly how you are playing your music files. What software/hardware are you saving the files on and what are you using to actually play and listen to the files. There are a million options here, so without you telling us, we're just guessing.

[sculen]

Starting to feel like a semi-seasoned CD ripper now after that education. Thanks!!
Do you know if the check box for Compilations is really that important. I would never sort or group anything by "Compilations" and most of these are already Best Of or Greatest Hits albums, and I'll know that by the album title.
Also, for Composer, I leave it blank (except when I get to my classical CDs, in which case it will be great)

[garym]

COMPILATION tag is important for me and my servers/players rely on this tag. However, I don't use this tag for "best of" or "greatest hits" of a single artist. For me a compilation is an album that has multiple ARTISTS. For example, "Greatest Hits of 1965" etc. On my music server/players, if I do NOT use a COMPILATION tag (or set ALBUMARTIST tag to "Various Artists") then my server/player would break that single album into 20 different albums if there were 20 different ARTISTS on this single album. And that is NOT a good outcome for me. Thus the use of COMPILATION tag. The COMPILATION tag should either have a value of "1" or it should be blank. Some people put a "0" in this tag field for non-compilations, but this approach *can* cause issues. Better to leave it blank for non-compilations.

I'm not that serious about getting COMPOSERS in the tag. If dbpa finds the info and it seems correct, I leave it. But I don't go out of my way to add it and leave it blank.

[sculen]

I have the same issue. But why not just set Album Artist to Various Artist and then just leave the compliation box blank?
Also, where do you put the aritsts for the various tracks - I type them into each track after the song title

[GBrown]

I have the same issue. But why not just set Album Artist to Various Artist and then just leave the compliation box blank?
Also, where do you put the aritsts for the various tracks - I type them into each track after the song title

Different applications view the compilation flag as the indicator for mixed artist albums. It is typically either set to "1" or is cleared. Any other value will yield mixed results.

The Artist field is used in all cases for each track, regardless of the Albumartist for an album. In many cases you will find Albumartist and Artist matches for most albums. But there are cases without being a compilation when this isn't the case such as a duet or guest appearance.

Tag fields are only text values and take
up virtually no data space compared to the audio data. While some don't like to put duplicate data in their files, I personally prefer to make sure all details are included for consistency.

[garym]

I have the same issue. But why not just set Album Artist to Various Artist and then just leave the compliation box blank?
Also, where do you put the aritsts for the various tracks - I type them into each track after the song title

Put ALBUMARTIST in the 'album artist' field and but ARTIST for each track in the 'artist' field. See pictures