Tutorials

How to easily edit your metadata with MusicBrainz Picard

In the radio world, we know that the metadata of your music files is extremely important. It’s what gives you information such as: song name, artist, year, genre, BPM etc…which can, in turn, help you better organise your music library.

Have you ever had to manually enter the correct metadata for an MP3 file? MusicBrainz Picard is a free and open-source software application that can do the job for you!

How does MusicBrainz Picard work?

The software identifies audio files by comparing either their metadata or their acoustic fingerprints with records in the database. When Picard identifies an audio file, it can add new information to it, such as the recording artist, the album title, the record label, the date of release etc…

Download MusicBrainz Picard here!

Get your metadata with MusicBrainz

Once you have downloaded MusicBrainz, click on add file or add folder to upload your MP3 file(s).Next, we’re going to click on the Cluster button so that MusicBrainz attempts to group the tracks together into albums. The results will vary depending on the tracks being examined and the available database information from MusicBrainz.

We’re now going to click on Lookup button (which can be found next to the Cluster button). This feature will examine the tracks and we will start seeing the results of metadata database queries show up. We can see that the three tracks added to MusicBrainz have been located in the album:

If you have any unknown tracks, click on the Scan button to identify them. The tracks are identified using the AcoustID audio fingerprint which are then compared to the database. This is done by combining the sound of the track with the known metadata, length and other contextual clues.

It's important to inspect the results to see if you agree with the changes (MusicBrainz is great, however it can also make mistakes!) If a track suggestion looks wrong to you, you can remove it by clicking on the remove button.

Here we can see the newly added information appear in green! The green bar next to each track tells us that MusicBrainz found the best match.

If you agree with the changes that are being suggested, right-click on the album and click on Save.

You’re now ready to upload your newly identified tracks to your Radio Manager!

Our Top Tips:

Find an organisation that works best for you. For example, you may want to work by artist in alphabetical order. You can then work through each album by that artist.
Always make a backup of your music library before editing. You can delete this backup later on, but it’s better to be safe than sorry!
Don’t forget to check the results found by MusicBrainz before saving them, as the software can get things wrong!
If your MP3 files are not found when clicking on the “Lookup” button, try clicking on “Lookup in browser” for more options.
If you have any questions, we invite you to take a look at the MusicBrainz FAQ directly!