Thoughts on tagging OTR MP3 files
Collectors of Old Time Radio shows in MP3 format have different ways of managing their files. The usual convention for naming MP3 files by the OTR community is to use a filename that includes the show title, date (year-month-day) and episode title. In my mind, this method has several limitations if you have a large collection of shows and makes it difficult to browse shows on a portable mp3 player or a media-management device, such as the Playstation 3.
I use iTunes to manage my MP3 library and have found it more useful in many ways to take a different approach with filenames and use the MP3 tags for information about the show. So, for what it's worth, here's my method of naming and tagging OTR MP3 files for use in iTunes and on portable media players or in software such as Windows Media Center. (Note that I use iTunes for tagging my mp3 files, but you could use pretty much an modern mp3 management software to do the same thing.)
First off, understand that you can edit the MP3 tags in iTunes itself - just click on the song name, artist or album and enter the info you want. What's interesting is that, in the default settings, you can have iTunes "manage your music library". What this means is that iTunes automatically changes the name of the MP3 file based on the Song Name tag; in addition, it automatically creates folders based on the Artist tag and, within those, folders based on the Album tag.
So, in it's simplest form, my MP3 tags look like this:
- Song Name: 1934-03-04 116 Duel in the Graveyard
- Artist: Jack Benny Show
- Album: Jack Benny Show (The Chevrolet Show)
- Amos N' Andy (CBS Sitcom)
- Amos N' Andy (NBC Serial)
- Amos N' Andy (Syndicated Serial)
- Amos N' Andy (Commercial Recordings)
- Jack Benny Show (The Grape Nuts Program)
- Jack Benny Show (The Jello Program)
- The Goon Show (Series 04)
Version: 20230822