How in the Tech

Fine Tune your MP3 Collection

By Adam Myers ⋅ September 11, 2008 ⋅ Tags: Multimedia

Starting with version 8 of iTunes, Apple has included a feature they dub Genius. When a song is playing in iTunes or your iPod click on the Genius button. iTunes will then pick a selection of tracks from your library that our similar in nature to the current track. This sounds useful and interesting enough, but it relies on your music collection to be in a nice organized and well tagged order. If you have a large collection of music, and really at this point who doesn’t, you’ve probably just thrown all your content at iTunes without first scrutinizing the quality of the tagging or even the mp3 itself.

MP3 Check is a free tool that may be of use for you if you are in the above situation. Point the program at your music directory and allow it to scan the contents. It is lightning fast, usually just milliseconds per song. MP3 Check identifies undefined ID3v1/ID3v2 tags, bit rates outside of your defined range, insufficient sample rates, channel modes, volume gain, and non-ordinary mp3. The unfortunate drawback to the application is it’s inability to actually correct the problems. However, this is overcome by the ability to configure MP3 Check to call the specific tools necessary directly. You may configure an ID3 tagger, bit rate/sample rate tool, and volume gain adjuster. I actually prefer this method because it allows me to use specific tools I’m familiar with in mass – something sometimes lacking in those programs directly.