iTunes Match explicit/clean music switch

Kstr79 can you please tell us what tagger you used and just explain how to add the ITUNESADVISORY field to a file. The majority of my songs are LAME mp3s ripped with EAC. So I wonder if this field can be added to mp3 files. It's easy enough to convert them real quick to AAC if need be. I'm really hoping this is a solution because I have just been keeping all my explicit music to the side in the mean time.

Michael, baed on knowing this involves adding a field, I did a little searching. Wonder if he's using one of these:

http://gwhiz.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/itunes-producer-under-the-hood/

http://www.feedforall.com/itune-tutorial-tags.htm

Apparently there's a way to get to the app.

http://www.macgeekery.com/hacks/software/how_to_easily_snag_a_copy_of_itunes_pro ducer

Mp3tag. It's free and pretty robust. To convert your mp3s, change your import settings to AAC 256 Constant bit rate(best for matching) and select them all, right click on them and select 'Create AAC Version'. Now adding the tag will work correctly and sings will match much more straightforward. Let me know if you guys have questions.

Michael, I saw a youtube video where someone used the program you mentioned, subler, to add the tag. There was an clean/explicit under "other settings" Is that what you tried that didn't work?

Btw, I still have not had an explicit version changed to a clean version - I'd like to say I've been lucky but I do have a lot of songs that are clearly Explicit, and I do have a large library (over 8,000 songs Matched and I don't think I'm even halfway done yet). So I would have expected to have found at least one problem so far.

I don't want to have the problem, don't get me wrong. But with all the comments here I would have expected to have had the problem by now. I just don't get it. 😟

I have a theory why you don't have the problem, yet others do and it has to do with your interest in preserving sound quality, regardless of source. I think it may be your workflow, apps you use, perhaps the file formats.

It is possible that people who are ripping from CDs are doing it in a way that strips out the explicit tag? I say this thinking of how I used to have trouble with the album title getting stripped out when I'd move from Audacity to iTunes. When I stopped exporting AACs from Audacity, started using AIFF all the way through the work flow, seems like the album title stuck.

Just a thought.

Good points! One thing I don't do is use iTunes CD ripping program. I've used EAC, Rubripper and a host of others in the oid days. Maybe that's a factor in all this.

It would be ironic, yet perhaps positive, if the problem turns out to be that people ripping using iTunes are having the explicit tag stripped out. After all, by now the iTunes engineering team knows about the problem, and pushing out an update that preserves the tag shouldn't be that difficult.

I just had to add that one of the "problems" in "problem solving" when it's somebody else who is having the problem is that sometimes you have to do things you would never do, not do things you would normally do unconsciously. It ain't easy bein' me, but it's even harder for me to be someone else.

Ok I just downloaded Mp3tag. This definetly is a robust program, but I'm navigating my way through it. When it comes to adding the the ITUNESADVISORY field, I'm kinda clueless at the moment. Here is what I have done so far. I highlighted the track and clicked the extended tag button. Now I think I click the add field button. So do I just type ITUNESADVISORY as the field name and then add 1 for the value. Hopefully I'm on the right track. I'm currently just messing around with a mp3 file because I don't have a aac on my work computer. But I will do it with a aac when I get home. What is your success rate using this technique. Because if this is the only work around at the moment, I'll do it.

Hello all,

I tried using a tagging program and it did not work. I believe iTunes match uses a similar system as apps such as sound hound in that it matches songs based on their sound waves. Otherwise we could edit tag data completely and get a different song.

~Willy

I actually used the command line tool "atomicparlsey" to try to do the reverse (take a working song and force it to a clean Matched version) but so far no success in doing that. Granted, it's not a great test since I'm actually trying to the do the opposite.

I did try to use Subler at one point, Jim, and was not successful in adding the "explicit" tag to an audio file. Although I don't claim that I did it correctly. So there may be another way.

JiminMissouri wrote:

It is possible that people who are ripping from CDs are doing it in a way that strips out the explicit tag? I say this thinking of how I used to have trouble with the album title getting stripped out when I'd move from Audacity to iTunes. When I stopped exporting AACs from Audacity, started using AIFF all the way through the work flow, seems like the album title stuck.

Just a thought.

I have to disagree with this idea. Since CD's don't have metadata embedded in them how can something that isn't there in the first place get stripped?

JiminMissouri wrote:

Michael, I saw a youtube video where someone used the program you mentioned, subler, to add the tag. There was an clean/explicit under "other settings" Is that what you tried that didn't work?

I am such a big dummy....

I just knew adding the "explicit" tag would not be easy that I was so busy looking for the complex solution. Subler does work to add the "explicit" tag to a file. I even added the tag to a purchased track.

This is a Mac OS X only app, so it won't work for that other OS.

To use it, just open the application and use it to open an audio file. Click the "other settings" tab and set the Content Rating to "explicit." Save the file, then go to that file in iTunes and Get Info. The "explicit" tag will be there.

Now if we can find someone to test this.