Given the variety of digital audio files that exist, for this post we’ll just look at two of the most widely used formats: WAV and MP3. And if you modify information about a recording while you are in one of these applications, you just modify database information the information contained in the recording itself will not be affected. These systems do not embed metadata into the individual audio files. These applications may display the title, artist and other information about the recording but all of that information comes from the database.

I mentioned the way some applications manage your sound collection with a database of information about the music it stores. At the end of this post I’ll present a few experiments you can use to test audio files with embedded descriptions. But if you are aware of the potential issues, you can keep your text intact inside their host audio files. Audio files can also lose those descriptions as the files get copied, transferred from device to device or processed with different apps or software. Or rather, embedded information generally travels with the file.

Embedded information travels with the file. It is also a good practice if you intend to keep the file for a long time and want the file to be self-documenting and give you information about itself. If you want the file to display information you have to add it in yourself.Īdding a description is easy to do. That’s because the descriptive information is missing there’s nothing to display.

If you create your own digital recording – such as an interview or a band recording – and play the audio file on an audio-enabled device, the player might display only the name of the file and nothing more. This blog is about embedding, how song information can be inserted into a special section of that audio file and become part of the file. Sometimes that happens because the player has an associated database, sometime that happens because the information is embedded in the file. As you play a digital music file on an audio-enabled device such as a computer or smart phone, the audio player displays information about the song.

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