DesignWise Films and Video Production

If you plan to publish original MP3s or if you simply want to organize your own music collection, you will need to learn how to edit an ID3 tag.

Debra Hadraba

Debra Hadraba’s enhanced CD will provide an MP3 version of the single, “Be Brave, Have Heart,” along with the Braveheart music video, a photo collection and an e-book. Since it is an original recording, never published before, the MP3 version had no metadata to identify the title or the artist.

In 1996 Eric Kemp came up with an MP3 enhancement that added a 128-byte chunk of data to the audio file, one that included tagging information. The standard, known as ID3v1, quickly became the de facto means of storing metadata in MP3s.

ID3 has evolved to provide streaming information and even a 32×32 pixel ‘file icon’ (PNG only) image, as well as the original collection of data that includes: title, artist, album, track number, genre, comment and other information about the file structure.

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There are all sorts of free and for-purchase MP3 tag editors available online. Here are two choices that are both top-rated and free…

Mp3tag is a free, simple and comprehensive tool that will permit you to edit the metadata of your MP3s. It supports all of the common audio formats: ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, iTunes MP4, WMA, Vorbis Comments and APE Tags.

NCH Software offers Stamp ID3, a free tag editor as a way to entice you to consider a lot of other useful tools they sell.

While these free tag editors are nice to begin with, they are somewhat limited. They do not edit the tags on Wav files, the ones that inform the CD player of artist and title on standard music disc. Tag&Rename from SoftPointer is well worth the $29.95 it costs, because it not only has greater in-depth tagging capabilities and covers every type of audio tag, but it can automate many of the processes simultaneously over a batch of files.

This film is included on an enhanced single-song CD along with a collection of photos and an e-book by Debra as a means of introducing the forthcoming 7-song CD. It can be ordered online at her Website, HonorYourTruth.com for just the cost of shipping and handling.

This is the final release version of our first music video working together…

It has some flaws, but it represents a whole lot of learning, experimenting, hard work and fun. There will be more to follow and we will continue to grow and test the limits of what we can do with sound and light.

The CD is being pressed by CopyCatsMedia.com also in Minneapolis. Contact Adam Wachter if you want a project quote. Phone: 612.236.9109 (direct) or toll-free: 888-698-8008.
adam.wachter@copycatsmedia.com

I am working on a music video to be included as part of an enhanced CD single to be released by Debra Hadraba, a singer/songwriter from St. Paul, MN. She is one of the founding members of the Braveheart Women Global Community and will be appearing at BraveHearts Rise! an Oct 2 – 3 Conference in Los Angeles with the likes of Dr. Maya Angelou, Mariel Hemingway and founder Ellie Drake among others.

She wrote the song, “Be Brave, Have Heart” in 2008 and worked on the studio recording, perfecting it for almost a year, We shot the video in several takes, carrying a Sony laptop PC with speakers as our portable sound source, struggling with the setting sun and trying not to get blowing sand in the keyboard. The zany outtakes might reveal Debra tumbling over a sand dune at Baileys Harbor Beach as I encouraged her to run away from the camera to close a scene… a mini-disaster.

Debra is amazing to work with, having little shyness to act out and embody her songs. You can see more of her zany and yet, thoughtful side at Honor Your Truth, Debra Hadraba’s YouTube Channel.

We discovered a photographic goldmine of imagery and would like to thank everyone at the heart street art pool on Flickr who was kind enough to permit downloads of their heart graffiti photographs.

I am learning to build an enhanced audio CD rather than a DVD, so that Debra’s music can be played on a typical car stereo or portable CD player and the same disc can provide video, pdfs, photos and other extra content when opened in a computer. This method requires including an autorun.inf file to open the extra content on the CD.

I have been struggling with a few issues about lag time between the audio and video tracks, and am most familiar with rendering H.264 for online movies. I only notice the lag when when playing a local copy… a lag that disappears when I post it online. I tried rendering a Quicktime movie for the CD but that wasn’t acceptable either. After talking with Dave at Studio-120 in Minneapolis, I learned that the most dependable and universal format for enhanced CDs is FLV or Flash video. So, I finalized the film as an AVI at 1,116,408 KB and he can pull the FLV from that.

And here’s a note from our sponsor… Amazon’s having a 50% off sale on some classic DVDs and I want a copy of Outlaw Josey Wales for only 6 bucks and change… don’t look!

DesignWise Film Studios recently completed a 10-minute introductory video on Door County’s Midsummer’s Music Festival featuring Jim Berkenstock, explaining some of the workings of his unique chamber music concert ensemble. They celebrate their 20-year anniversary in 2010 – performing from mid June through Labor Day weekend at diverse venues throughout northeastern Wisconsin.

A director’s cut was screened for an audience of approximately 50 people at the organization’s annual honors dinner on August 25, 2009. After an enthusiastic response, suggestions on improving the audio on some of the outdoor sequences by reducing the natural background sounds were applied, resulting in the current working copy posted above. I am now developing a DVD with interactive menuing for final  delivery.