[mccbleue]

Like all digital music players, the music player in your Nokia phone will display information about the track currently being played, such as artist, track title, etc.; and even an image. This information is stored in a small part of the file called the ID3 tag.

Normally, software used for encoding digital music files offers the possibility to look up the data concerning your choice of music from internet-based sources, but there may be circumstances in which you want to edit the information yourself, for example if the music is not from a known record company that exists on the online databases or you have recorded your own music. These tips cover the ways in which Nokia allows you to edit track information.


Nokia Music Manager (PC Suite - www.nokia.com/pcsuite)
The Nokia Music Manager uses the Gracenote service to look up track data. A simple setting enables Music Manager to automatically connect to the service every time you put a music CD into the PC: Options>Settings>General then tick the box marked "Automatically query CD information from Gracenote music recognition service".

If the Gracenote database does not contain the data for the album you are using, you can manually edit the information relating to all track information except the title by selecting the track or group of tracks by ticking the boxes to the left of the filenames, then right-clicking any of the desired tracks and select Edit. It may seem like an unusual omission not to be able to edit the track title, but the Edit function in Music Manager is designed to be used for mass editing, so in this sense the lack of the title in the editing fields does make sense*.

Whilst editing the album data, you can also add an Album Art image by drag/dropping an image from your PC into the "Drag art here" box or by selecting the file icon next to it and searching the local drives for the desired image.

This editing feature can be used not only for CDs before ripping to the PC or phone, but also for any track stored on the PC or connected phone.

Edit: Music Manager is no longer available in PC Suite versions 7.1 and later - these now have an integrated version of the Nokia Music Store application (see below) instead.

*For a screenshot of the editing process, see the attached file editing via pc suite music manager.jpg (1440x900 pixels)


Nokia Music Store (http://music.nokia.com)
You can perform similar editing using the Nokia Music Store application. If a CD is inserted whilst the software is running, it automatically tries to connect to the internet to look up CD information. If no data is found, the error message "Information for this CD is not currently available. Please enter the Artist, Album and Track information for this disc" is displayed.

Unlike Music Manager, you can change the song title, but you cannot make bulk changes - you have to change each track individually. All you need to do is right click each track in turn, select Edit and then enter the title, artist, genre and year. For the album title and album artist, right click the relevant fields to the left of the track listing, select Edit, and type the required information**.

Finally, you can edit the album art by right-clicking the image box and selecting Add album art, then browse your PC for the desired image.

**For a screenshot of the editing process, see the attached file editing via nokia music store.jpg (1440x900 pixels)


Music player in the (S60) phone

Another way to edit the track information is from within the phone's music player. The details provided here relate to S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (the model used was an N96), and is the same as in an S60 3rd FP1 device like the N82, but some versions of the music player may differ slightly.

To edit the track details, locate the desired track in the music player then select Options>Song details>Edit. The fields that you can edit are Song name, Artist, Album, Song number, Year, Genre, Composer,  Comments and Library (the last option refers to a choice between the phone's Music library or Podcasting library). When all required data has been entered, select Done and the screen returns to the track listing display with the changes made to the amended track shown***.

To edit the album art, again locate the track in the music player, then select Options>Album art. You will then see the current image, or the message "no album art selected" as the case may be. Select Options>Change and the phone's Gallery opens. Scroll to the desired image then press Select, and the image will be added to the track and you return to the display of the current album art - select Back to return to the track listings.

***For screenshots of these processes, see the attached file editing via music player.jpg (960x1280 pixels) - apologies for the size of the image, I would have liked to break it down into two sections but I can add only three attachments to this post.

Message Edited by mccbleue on 17-Apr-2009 08:52 PM

Message Edited by mccbleue on 21-Sep-2009 12:12 PM