DescentBB

I've been using foobar2000 to convert my .wav files to .mp3 for my car audio system. I've been noticing that once the conversion is done (the .mp3 files are being put into the same directories as the .wav files) most of the .wav files that formerly had no descriptions or attributes, like album titles or artist names, now show that information in Windows Explorer. Most of my .wav files came from an older computer that didn't do any authoring, so most of my .wav files have no attributes or descriptions. Some came from old LP's and they're all just raw files with song file names. I was pleasantly surprised to find that foobar was adding all that information to the already existing .wav files when it converted them to .mp3. Nice!

But here's my question. There are a couple of songs sprinkled here and there that those attributes were NOT added to the .wav files after conversion and what's irritating is that I can't figure out the rhyme or reason why that's happening. It seems random. All this is being done in admin mode with no read-only files by the way. And in Win 7, you can't change or add that information in the file properties screen. Ideas?

I wouldn't be surprised if explorer is duplicating the info from your mp3s . if you move the wav files to another folder, you'd probably see the information go away.

fb2k as a rule doesn't modify files without explicit action from the user.

He's probably right. In the process of the MP3 files being made (complete with the info foobar fills in), the Windows OS updates some special hidden files in that folder (usually called desktop.ini, thumbs.db, and photothumb.db if any images are in the folder) to reflect that additional data. Move your wav files somewhere else, the data may not follow.

Hmmmm, I'll try moving the wav file out of the the mp3's location and see if that's the case.

Yeah, you're right TechPro, the data doesn't follow. But what's curious is why a couple of songs here and there don't get the information added when the conversion occurs. There are no differences like associated pictures, authoring or anything else with those particular files either.

tunnelcat wrote:Yeah, you're right TechPro, the data doesn't follow. But what's curious is why a couple of songs here and there don't get the information added when the conversion occurs. There are no differences like associated pictures, authoring or anything else with those particular files either.

Laziness on the part of explorer's programmers.

Typical.

Noticed something new. When I open WMP, the original .wav files that foobar converted can no longer be edited within WMP anymore and what's worse, I've lost all the authoring and data I originally, painstakingly put there when I ripped the CD's in WMP in the first place. Each file I convert is losing the information, even though it shows up in in Explorer and foobar.

EDIT: OK, after some more poking around, what I can't edit are the individual songs within my WMP playlists. I CAN edit individual songs in other areas, like in albums or artists, but those changes are NOT being made inside the playlists. I guess I would have to recreate my playlists to get the information to show up in WMP, once I get done with all my conversions. What a pain in the *$$!

the saner option would be to stop using wmp.

Yeah, I know. It's so creaky, I might just go ahead switch to foobar and CDex for all my digital music work and wipe out everything in WMP. I really don't like WMP's library structure anyway. Too easy to corrupt the file structure. It's just that it's going to be a lot of work to do that.