How to Tag Audio Files: Metadata for Files, Tags for Song Ideas

To tag audio files properly, you need two separate systems. The first is file-level metadata (title, artist, composer, BPM, key), written inside the file in the format its container expects. The second is a creative tagging system (mood, status, "needs a bridge", "send to producer") that lives outside the file, where you can change it in seconds. Mix the two up and you end up with either a library that breaks when you move it, or a pile of voice memos called "New Recording 214".

This guide covers both. We start with the technical side, because it trips up almost everyone, then move to the part songwriters usually care about more: finding the idea you had on a train three weeks ago.

TL;DR

• File tags (ID3 for MP3 and AIFF, Vorbis comments for FLAC, OGG and Opus) store technical facts such as title, artist, BPM and key inside the audio file itself.
• WAV is the weak link: it has no single tag standard, so metadata often disappears when a file moves between apps. FLAC or AIFF travel better.
• Creative tags (idea status, mood, "verse only", lyric notes) do not belong in file metadata. Keep them in a board or database you can edit freely.
• Tag key and tempo once, at the point you finish a take, and stop your software from silently overwriting your values.
• Keep your tag vocabulary small: a dozen consistent tags beat a hundred clever ones.

Table of Contents

• Two meanings of "tag" in music
• File tags: what is actually inside an audio file
• How to tag key and tempo on your own demos
• The WAV problem
• Idea tags: the part no ID3 field can do
• Our perspective: tag the idea, not just the file
• Sharing tagged demos without the admin
• Putting a tag-based workflow into practice this week
• Common mistakes when tagging audio
• Try it on your own recordings
• FAQ
• Sources

Two meanings of "tag" in music

The word does a lot of work in music, and the confusion causes real organisational mistakes. As one metadata guide for music libraries explains, in the technical sense a tag is metadata embedded in the file. In songwriting and production it can also mean a producer tag (a spoken signature at the start of a beat), a tag-line (a repeated lyrical refrain) or a musical tag (a short repeated ending).

For this article, we use two terms:

• File tags: structured metadata written into the audio file. Machines read them. Players, DJ software and distributors all depend on them.
• Idea tags: your own labels for where a song idea stands and what it is. People read them. They change often.

A file tag says "92 BPM, A minor, composer J. Smith". An idea tag says "chorus is strong, verse needs rewriting, ask Sam about harmonies". Only the first belongs inside a binary file.

File tags: what is actually inside an audio file

Which standard you use depends on the container. According to the Lyrion metadata documentation, MP3 files use ID3v2 (usually version 2.3 or 2.4), while FLAC, OGG and Opus use Vorbis comments. The field names differ between the two: the title is TIT2 in ID3 but TITLE in Vorbis, and tempo is TBPM in ID3 but BPM in Vorbis.

The TBPM, TKEY, BPM and INITIALKEY field names come from a guide to tagging key and BPM for DJ software, which is useful reading even if you never DJ, because producers and collaborators often open your files in the same software.

Why one field per fact matters

A common beginner habit is to cram several values into one field: three co-writers typed into "Artist", or "Am, 92bpm, demo" into the comment box. Metadata writer David Guyton points out that stuffing multiple names into a single text string leads to false search hits and missed matches. The fix is boring and effective: one fact per field, and use the dedicated field for each contributor where the format has one.

Free tag editors for the file-level job

You do not need to pay for file-level tagging. A few types of free tool cover it:

• A batch tag editor such as Mp3tag, which edits ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4 and Vorbis tags across many files at once.
• A cross-platform editor such as Kid3, which handles MP3, Ogg, FLAC, Opus, WAV and AIFF among others.
• An identification-based tagger such as MusicBrainz Picard, which runs on Linux, macOS and Windows and matches tracks against a database. This suits finished, released music far more than your own unreleased demos, which no database will recognise.

That last point is worth pausing on. Automatic tools that look up your track by fingerprint are brilliant for a ripped CD collection. They are no use for a half-written song recorded on a phone, because nobody has catalogued it. For your own ideas, you are the database.

How to tag key and tempo on your own demos

Songwriters often ask how to tag key and tempo, usually because a producer wants to know which of fifteen ideas is in the right range for a singer, or because they want to find all the slow ones in minor keys. The file-level route works like this:

1. Decide the take is worth tagging. Rough voice memos with no clear tempo are better labelled "rubato" in your idea tags than given a false BPM.
2. Work out the key and tempo. Use your DAW's tempo map, a tuner against your guitar, or an analysis tool. Check by ear, since automatic detection is often a half or double off on slow material.
3. Write the values into the right fields. TBPM and TKEY for MP3 and AIFF; BPM and INITIALKEY for FLAC, OGG and Opus.
4. Use one notation and stick to it. Pick "Am" or "A minor" and use it everywhere, or your filters will treat them as different keys.
5. Re-read the tags in any software that already knows the file. This is the step people miss, covered below.

The re-scan trap

Producer and DJ Mike Farina's advice, from the key and BPM tagging guide, is that new files are the easy case. If your software has already scanned a file, it tends to prefer the values it detected itself over the tags you wrote. You need to force it to re-read the file's tags, or it keeps showing its own database values.

The same guide notes that some DJ and DAW software replaces manually entered tags with auto-detected ones on re-analysis. If you want your own values to stick, switch off auto-analysis for key and BPM in the settings. Do this before you tag a whole folder, not after.

The WAV problem

Most songwriters record in WAV, so this matters. The musefs documentation on WAV puts it plainly: WAV has no single native tag standard, so tools write metadata twice, once in a broadly compatible LIST/INFO chunk and once in an embedded id3 chunk. Different apps read different chunks, so tags written by one program can look empty in another.

If metadata has to survive being passed around, the practical answer is to convert demos for distribution. The key and BPM guide above suggests FLAC or AIFF so that fields like key, BPM and composer travel with the file. FLAC is lossless, and according to one format comparison it reconstructs the audio bit for bit at 50 to 70 per cent of the size of WAV. That makes it a sensible format for sending demos without losing quality or tags.

Keep your original WAV recordings as masters. Convert copies for sharing.

Idea tags: the part no ID3 field can do

Here is the honest limit of file tagging. ID3 and Vorbis have no sensible field for "second verse unfinished", "try this in D", or "co-write with Priya, waiting on her lyric". You can abuse the comment field, but the moment you rename, convert or re-export the file, that note may vanish. Worse, you cannot see the state of ten songs at once by looking at ten files in a folder.

This is the gap between file-level tagging and what the gearnews coverage of songwriting tools describes as creative workflow management: project status, lyrics and song ideas. Generic file managers and producer-tag watermarks do not solve it.

A tag system that survives a busy year

A tag-based workflow only works if the tags are few and boring. Here is a structure we would suggest starting with:

A few rules keep it usable:

• Limit yourself to one stage tag per idea. An idea cannot be both "spark" and "demo-ready".
• Tag at capture, refine later. Two quick tags while the idea is fresh is enough. Add detail on a weekly review.
• Write tags for the person you are in six months. "Good one" tells future you nothing.
• Prune once a quarter. Merge near-duplicates such as "sad" and "melancholy" into one.

Our perspective: tag the idea, not just the file

We built Songdrafts because we are songwriters who lost good ideas in a sea of recordings. Our view is that the problem was never a missing ID3 field. It was that a voice memo is a fragment of a song, and a folder of audio files has no concept of a song.

So we treat tags as part of a board rather than a property of a file. In Songdrafts you can filter ideas by key, tempo and tag, keep lyrics next to the recordings, stack versions of the same idea as takes, and merge two fragments when you realise the verse from March belongs with the chorus from June. You can also set up your own workflow stages, so the board matches how you actually finish songs rather than how a software designer thought you would.

We also think file tags and idea tags should stay separate. Keep technical metadata inside the file using the right standard for its format, and keep the changing, human side of the song in a system built for it. Doing both means your audio is portable and your ideas are findable. Songdrafts supports lossless audio import and bulk export, so your recordings are never locked in.

One more point, because it matters to writers who share unreleased work: we do not train AI on what you upload.

— SongDrafts

Sharing tagged demos without the admin

Tagging only pays off if the right person can hear the right take. Emailing a heavy WAV and a separate note about which section to listen to is where good tagging habits tend to fall apart. A better routine:

1. Pick the demo-ready take in the stack.
2. Share it as a link rather than an attachment, so there is only ever one current version.
3. Ask collaborators to comment at exact moments in the track ("harmony here at 1:12") rather than writing paragraphs.
4. If the song is unreleased, protect the link with a password or an expiry date.

Songdrafts links work without your collaborator creating an account, they support timestamped comments, and they can be set to expire or require a password. That is the whole point: the producer clicks, listens and replies.

Putting a tag-based workflow into practice this week

You can do this in an afternoon, with whatever tools you have.

1. Gather everything. Pull voice memos from your phone, DAW bounces and old folders into one place. Do not sort yet.
2. Listen fast. Spend ten seconds on each. Tag stage and feel only.
3. Group duplicates. Several takes of one idea become one idea with versions.
4. Add key and tempo to the keepers. Only to the ones you might work on or send.
5. Name consistently. A pattern such as working title, then date, then version number sorts properly and survives exports.
6. Set a weekly ten-minute review. Promote a few ideas a stage, retire a few.

The ten-second listen is the most important instruction there. People abandon organisation projects because they try to perfect the tags on the first pass.

Common mistakes when tagging audio

• Treating the filename as your database. "Verse idea D minor slow v3 FINAL" runs out of space quickly and breaks when you rename it.
• Tagging WAVs and trusting the result. Test by opening the file in a second app before you rely on it.
• Letting software overwrite your values. Check analysis settings first, as above.
• Using too many tags. If you cannot remember your tag list, nobody else can either.
• Mixing notation. "Am", "A min" and "A minor" will split your filters in three.
• Confusing producer tags with metadata. A spoken signature is audio content. It is not a metadata field, and it does not replace one.

Try it on your own recordings

If your voice memos already feel out of hand, our Songdrafts board is built for exactly this job: tags, key and tempo filters, lyrics alongside takes and demo links in one place. Details of the Founding Membership are on our FAQ page, and there is a money-back guarantee for the first 30 days.

FAQ

Can I tag a voice memo recorded on my phone?

Yes, but the method depends on the file format. Phone memos are often saved as M4A, which has its own tag system, and a tag editor that supports your format can write title and basic fields. For key, tempo and idea status, a board where you tag the recording is quicker than editing each file.

Which audio format keeps tags most reliably?

FLAC and AIFF are the safer lossless choices, because they have clear tag standards (Vorbis comments and ID3 respectively). MP3 with ID3v2 is the most widely understood. WAV is the least reliable, since different apps read different metadata chunks.

Why does my software show a different key or BPM from the one I tagged?

Usually because it has already scanned the file and is showing its own detected values. Force it to re-read the file's tags, and turn off automatic key and BPM analysis if you want your own numbers to stay.

Should I put lyrics and notes in the file's metadata?

You can, but we would not rely on it. Lyrics and notes embedded in a file can be lost when you convert or re-export it, and you cannot search across songs easily. Keep them beside the recording in a system that shows the whole song at once.

How many tags should a songwriter use?

Start with around a dozen across four groups: stage, part, feel and action. Add key and tempo as separate fields rather than tags. If you find yourself inventing a new tag every week, merge and simplify.

Sources

• Getting the most out of metadata in Lyrion
• How to tag key and BPM for Rekordbox, Serato and Traktor
• Multimedia Metadata Deep Dive (datahacker)
• Mp3tag, the universal tag editor
• Kid3 audio tagger
• MusicBrainz Picard on GitHub
• musefs documentation on WAV
• Audio formats explained: MP3 vs WAV vs FLAC vs AAC
• Gearnews on songwriting tools

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