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Q. Now that I'm here, what the heck is an ID3v1 tag?
A. An ID3v1 tag is used in .mp3 files to hold basic information about the song. A very handy, though limited, tool.
Q. Where do I find the ID3v1 tag?
A. The ID3v1 tag is attached to the very end of just about every .mp3.
Q. Where does the ID3v1 tag start?
A. Find the letters "TAG" close to the end of the file, all of the information in the file after that point is the ID3v1 tag.
Q. What information does an ID3v1 tag hold?
A. In order that you'll find them:
Title, Artist, Album, Year, Comment, Track Number, and Genre.
Q. What, basically, does an ID3v1 tag look like?
A. Something like the stuff between quotes:
"TAGSomeTitle Rain DevHood 2003This article rocks! !{"
Q. Okay, looks pretty, but why all the spaces?
A. Each field (except for year, track number, and genre) have a fixed length of 30 characters. That's why ID3v1 is so limited. Year is fixed at 4 characters.
Q. What's with the "!{"?
A. That's how the track number and genre are stored in ID3v1 tags.
Q. Okay, how do I use that to figure out what the track number and genre are?
A1. The track number is simple. You find the ASCII value of that character, and that's the track number. In the example, the character used is "!", the ASCII value of that is 33, so the track number is 33.
A2. I'm not exactly sure, some of the ASCII characters for different genres are the same (in the winamp list, anyway), go find a more detailed tutorial on this, you could always come up with your own scheme. I'm not even sure if there's a standard.
Q. So, what else do I need to know to decipher an ID3v1 tag?
A. That's all you need, so far as I know.
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