tone is a cross platform audio tagger and metadata editor to dump and modify metadata for a wide variety of formats, including mp3, m4b, flac and more. It has no dependencies and can be downloaded as single binary for Windows, macOS, Linux and other common platforms.
The code is written in pure C# and utilizes the awesome atldotnet library to provide full support for a wide variety of audio and metadata formats.
The main purpose of tone is to tag m4b audio books for myself. It is planned as a successor to [m4b-tool].
dumpmetadata of audio files- different metadata formats (e.g.
chptfmtnative,ffmetadata, etc.) - file information (bitrate, channels, duration, etc.)
- support for filterable
jsonoutput (similar tojq) - extensive list of supported tags (default fields like album or *artist as well as custom fields, covers, chapters, etc.)
- different metadata formats (e.g.
tagaudio files with different kinds of metadata- different file formats (e.g.
mp3,m4b, andflac) - extensive list of supported tags (default fields like album or *artist as well as custom fields, covers, chapters, etc.)
- filename to tags via
--path-pattern(see below) - custom javascript taggers via
--scriptand--script-tagger-parameter
- different file formats (e.g.
-
splitlarge audio files into multiple smaller files (e.g. by chapters) usingffmpeg,fdkaacand CliWrap -
mergemultiple smaller audio files into large ones auto generating chapters using silence detection withffmpeg,fdkaacand CliWrap - write unit tests and more detailed documentation
If you are using any of my projects and find them helpful, please consider donating to support me. I plan to use the money to support other open source projects or charitable purposes. Thank you!
# show help
tone dump --help
# show all tags for single file (input.mp3)
tone dump input.mp3
# show title and artiest tag recursively for all files in directory with extension m4b in FFMETADATA format
tone dump audio-directory/ --include-extension m4b --format ffmetadata --include-property title --include-property artist
# show album only via json format and JSONPath query
tone dump "input.mp3" --format json --query "$.meta.album"
# show audio stream information via JSONPath query
tone dump "input.mp3" --format json --query "$.audio"
# show help
tone tag --help
# change title tag
tone tag input.mp3 --meta-title "a title"
# change a custom field, auto-import covers nearby and show debug info on error (--dry-run simulation)
tone tag --debug --auto-import=covers --meta-additional-field "©st3=testing" input.m4b --dry-run
# recursively set tags genre, artist, series, part and title by path pattern (--dry-run simulation)
tone tag --auto-import=covers --auto-import=chapters --path-pattern="audiobooks/%g/%a/%s/%p - %n.m4b" --path-pattern="audiobooks/%g/%a/%z/%n.m4b" audiobooks/ --dry-run
# write your own custom JavaScript tagger and call this function with parameters to modify metadata on your own
tone tag "harry-potter-1.m4b" --taggers="musicbrainz" --script="musicbrainz.js" --script-tagger-parameter="e2310769-2e68-462f-b54f-25ac8e3f1a21"tone is a terminal application and deployed as monolithic binary with no dependencies.
This means, that downloading a single file from the releases page.
# linux-arm
wget https://github.com/sandreas/tone/releases/download/v0.1.4/tone-0.1.4-linux-arm.tar.gz
# linux-arm64
wget https://github.com/sandreas/tone/releases/download/v0.1.4/tone-0.1.4-linux-arm64.tar.gz
# linux-x64
wget https://github.com/sandreas/tone/releases/download/v0.1.4/tone-0.1.4-linux-x64.tar.gz
# macos (m1) - not working atm, see issue #6
wget https://github.com/sandreas/tone/releases/download/v0.1.4/tone-0.1.4-osx-arm64.tar.gz
# macos (intel)
wget https://github.com/sandreas/tone/releases/download/v0.1.4/tone-0.1.4-osx-x64.tar.gz
# untar
tar xzf tone-*.tar.gz
# install to your $PATH
sudo mv tone*/tone /usr/local/bin/
# test if tone is usable
tone --help# download for windows (powershell)
iwr -outf tone-0.1.4-win-x64.zip https://github.com/sandreas/tone/releases/download/v0.1.4/tone-0.1.4-win-x64.zip
# extract tone
Expand-Archive -LiteralPath tone-0.1.4-win-x64.zip -DestinationPath .
# test if tone is usable
.\tone --help
# open directory in windows explorer to manually put tone in your %PATH%, e.g. C:\Windows
start .Since tone is a monolith, it is probably not necessary to run it via docker, but since it is convenient to have a possibility to copy tone in your own image, I published an official variant on dockerhub. Since it is a multiarch image, you can use it on arm6, arm7, aarch64, and x64 images.
docker pull sandreas/tone:v0.1.4Or to use tone in your custom Dockerfile:
# Dockerfile
FROM sandreas/tone:v0.1.4 as tone
# ...
COPY --from=tone /usr/local/bin/tone /usr/local/bin/tone already supports some common input and output formats for metadata, as well as a tone specific one (ToneJson). Moreover tone also uses some reserved metadata fields to overcome issues when storing specific information.
The namespace ----:com.pilabor.tone as well as the following fields are reserved for tone in mp4 / m4a / m4b based file formats:
----:com.pilabor.tone:AUDIBLE_ASIN: Since there is no official field for storing the audible ASIN,toneMAY use this custom field to store this piece information----:com.pilabor.tone:PART: Since the movement index is often used for a part of a series but only supports integers (e.g.1) it cannot store some series part names (e.g.2.1or roman numbers likeIV)tonesupports--meta-partparameter being a fallback for storing non integer values while coincidentally storing--meta-movementonly if it is an integer value- Therefore it is always recommended to use the
--meta-partparameter instead of--meta-movementto set the part number of a series
The ToneJson format is specific for tone, can contain all supported metadata (including binary images) and looks similar to this example...
Example
{
"audio": {
"bitrate": 320,
"format": "MPEG Audio (Layer III)",
"formatShort": "MPEG",
"sampleRate": 44100.0,
"duration": 255920.0,
"channels": {
"count": 2,
"description": "Joint Stereo"
},
"frames": {
"offset": 20749,
"length": 10236864
},
"metaFormat": [
"id3V24"
]
},
"meta": {
"album": "Back in Black",
"albumArtist": "AC/DC",
"artist": "AC/DC",
"discNumber": 1,
"discTotal": 1,
"encodedBy": "LAME 3.99.5",
"genre": "Hard Rock",
"itunesCompilation": "no",
"publisher": "Atlantic",
"recordingDate": "1986-01-01T00:00:00",
"sortArtist": "AC/DC",
"title": "Back in Black",
"trackNumber": 6,
"trackTotal": 10,
"embeddedPictures": [
{
"type": 2,
"code": 3,
"mimetype": "image/jpeg",
"data": "/9j/4AAQSkZJRgA...9k="
}
],
"additionalFields": {
"grP1": "5",
"tmed": "CD",
"tlan": "eng",
"tipl": "arranger",
"tdor": "1980-07-25",
"script": "Latn",
"artist Credit": "AC/DC",
"albumartistsort": "AC/DC",
"catalognumber": "16018-2",
"album Artist Credit": "AC/DC",
"musicBrainz Album Type": "album",
"replaygaiN_ALBUM_GAIN": "-8.43 dB",
"replaygaiN_ALBUM_PEAK": "1.064363",
"replaygaiN_TRACK_GAIN": "-8.38 dB",
"replaygaiN_TRACK_PEAK": "1.051585",
"musicBrainz Album Status": "Official",
"musicBrainz Album Release Country": "DE",
"acoustid Id": "8b379144-9a9d-4fc1-897a-a7c0771f8ebb",
"musicBrainz Album Id": "fdabb997-b984-4097-bd3b-89fafd5e2e75",
"ufid": "http://musicbrainz.org\u0000ef71afb6-5e51-41df-999b-9e7c7306063a",
"musicBrainz Artist Id": "66c662b6-6e2f-4930-8610-912e24c63ed1",
"musicBrainz Album Artist Id": "66c662b6-6e2f-4930-8610-912e24c63ed1",
"musicBrainz Release Group Id": "d3bc1a64-7561-3787-b680-0003aa50f8f1",
"musicBrainz Release Track Id": "cf05ab29-27c7-47ed-9450-9f4de676cded",
"acoustid Fingerprint": "AQADtE...oIIYgRUChBhABIEeWAA0AQR4hSDg",
"iTunNORM": " 00001AE7 00001AE7 00004340 00004340 00000000 00000000 0000869A 0000869A 00000000 00000000"
}
},
"file": {
"size": 10257613,
"created": "2019-06-12T18:50:37.5527895+02:00",
"modified": "2019-06-12T18:50:37.5527895+02:00",
"accessed": "2023-02-14T09:21:29.2261032+01:00",
"path": "music/album/AC_DC/Back in Black",
"name": "06 - Back in Black.mp3"
}
}
The ChptFmtNative format was initially used in mp4v2, but never fully specified. However, there is a loose spec here.
Example
## artist: Cœur de pirate
## album: Blonde
##
## total-duration: 00:38:37.034
##
00:00:00.000 Lève les voiles
00:01:12.709 Adieu
00:03:40.346 Danse et danse
00:06:50.775 Golden Baby
00:09:57.772 Ava
00:13:14.657 Loin d'ici
00:15:58.494 Les amours dévouées
00:18:26.443 Place de la république
00:22:37.664 Cap diamant
00:25:20.925 Verseau
00:29:14.722 Saint-Laurent
00:32:29.519 La petite mort
00:36:19.140 Hôtel amour
The ffmetadata format was designed for ffmpeg, a versatile media encoder and it is specified here.
Example
;FFMETADATA1
title=Back in Black
artist=AC/DC
track=6/10
album=Back in Black
disc=1/1
date=1986
genre=Hard Rock
TBPM=0
compilation=0
TMED=CD
language=eng
album_artist=AC/DC
artist-sort=AC/DC
publisher=Atlantic
TIPL=arranger
TDOR=1980-07-25
encoded_by=LAME 3.99.5
Script=Latn
Artist Credit=AC/DC
ALBUMARTISTSORT=AC/DC
CATALOGNUMBER=16018-2
The features of tone are divided by commands. You can dump information or tag a file and so on. To do so, run
tone <command> <parameters>Example:
tone dump "my-audio-file.mp3"
global options
There are some global options, that can be used to change the behaviour of the file iterator. These options apply for all commands:
--order-by: Sort files by attribute (defaults topath, available options arepath,size,filename,extension,created,modified,accessed, combine via,, descending via!), examples:--order-by="!created"- sort by create date descending--order-by="extension,created"- sort by extension, then by created--order-by="size,!extension,modified"- sort by size, then extension descending, then by modification date
--limit: Limit results- one value (e.g.
--limit=10) - top10results - two values with comma (e.g.
--limit=10,20) - offset10fetch20results
- one value (e.g.
--include-extensions: Filter for these extensions--debug: Enable debug mode (for development or issue reporting)--force: Try to force action (e.g. overwrite existing files, etc.)
The dump command can be used to show metadata for a wide variety of audio files. You can either specify a single file or a directory,
which will be traversed recursively. Several output --format options are supported. By default a terminal user interface library is used,
but it is also possible to use json or ffmetadata.
tone dump --help
USAGE:
tone dump [input] [OPTIONS]
EXAMPLES:
tone dump --help
tone dump input.mp3
tone dump audio-directory/ --include-extension m4b --format ffmetadata --include-property title --include-property artist
ARGUMENTS:
[input] Input files or folders
OPTIONS:
-h, --help Prints help information
--debug
--force
--include-extension
--order-by
--limit
--include-property
--format
--query The tag command can be used to modify audio metadata. Besides using predefined parameters like --meta-album it is also possible to
add or modify custom fields via --meta-additional-field, e.g. --meta-additional-field "©st3=testing" as well as pictures or chapters.
The --taggers option allows you to specify a custom set or a different order of internal taggers (NOT input formats), which are gonna be applied. In most cases
changing the order of the taggers does not make a huge difference, but fully understanding this option
requires a bit of technical knowledge. Lets go through a use case to see what you can do with it.
Note: Internal taggers are applied in a sane order by default and not meant for beginners. Most of the time you don't need to change the order and this usually is for very specific experts use cases. So if you don't fully understand this option, just leave it as is.
Use case: re-tag sorttitle / sortalbum
The following taggers are relevant for this use case:
remove- Removes metadata fields or sets it to an empty valuem4bfillup- Fills up missing or relevant special fields for audio books (e.g.sorttitle/sortalbum)*- Represents all remaining taggers, that are not already provided by name
Usually, the remove tagger is applied at last. If you provide --meta-remove-property=sorttitle, this ensures an existing value will really be
removed after all taggers have been applied. The m4bfillup tagger will automatically generate sorttitle / sortalbum from movementname,
movement and title / album if AND ONLY IF the current value is empty.
So if you change the movementname (e.g. Harray Potter to Harry Potter because of a typo), sorttitle / sortalbum will not be updated,
because these fields already have a value. If you remove the sorttitle / sortalbum, it will not be auto-updated but only removed,
since remove is applied after m4bfillup.
This can be solved by reordering the taggers:
- First apply
removetagger to removesorttitle/sortalbumcompletely - Then apply
m4bfillupto rebuildsorttitle/sortalbum
tone tag harry-potter-1.m4b --taggers="remove,m4bfillup" --meta-movement-name="Harry Potter" --meta-remove-property="sortalbum" --meta-remove-property="sorttitle"As you see, most of the time, you only care about one special tagger to be applied first or last. This is why tone has an option to add all
remaining taggers to the list using a *:
tone tag harry-potter-1.m4b --taggers="remove,*" --meta-movement-name="Harry Potter" --meta-remove-property="sortalbum" --meta-remove-property="sorttitle"The following taggers are available at the moment (names can be applied case insensitive):
ToneJson- sets metadata values fromtone.jsonfileMetadata- sets metadata values from input parameters--meta-...Cover- sets cover from cover filesPathPattern- sets metadata values from path patternChptFmtNative- sets chapters fromchapters.txtfileEquate- equates 2 or more metadata fields from--meta-equateM4BFillUp- auto fillalbum,title,iTunesMediaTypefrom existing fields if possiblePrependMovementToDescription- prependsmovementto all description fields, if setRemove- removes metadata values from input parameter--meta-remove-propertyand--meta-remove-additional-fieldScriptTagger- your personal custom JavaScript taggers (see below)
tone tag --help
USAGE:
tone tag [input] [OPTIONS]
EXAMPLES:
tone tag --help
tone tag input.mp3 --meta-title "a title"
tone tag --debug --auto-import=covers --meta-additional-field ©st3=testing input.m4b --dry-run
tone tag --auto-import=covers --auto-import=chapters --path-pattern="audiobooks/%g/%a/%s/%p - %n.m4b" --path-pattern="audiobooks/%g/%a/%z/%n.m4b" audiobooks/ --dry-run
tone tag input.mp3 --script musicbrainz.js --script-tagger-parameter e2310769-2e68-462f-b54f-25ac8e3f1a21
ARGUMENTS:
[input] Input files or folders
OPTIONS:
-h, --help Prints help information
--debug
--force
--include-extension
--order-by
--limit
-y, --assume-yes
--dry-run
--taggers
--script
--script-tagger-parameter
--prepend-movement-to-description
--meta-artist
--meta-album
--meta-album-artist
--meta-bpm
--meta-chapters-table-description
--meta-comment
--meta-composer
--meta-conductor
--meta-copyright
--meta-description
--meta-disc-number
--meta-disc-total
--meta-encoded-by
--meta-encoder-settings
--meta-encoding-tool
--meta-genre
--meta-group
--meta-itunes-compilation
--meta-itunes-media-type
--meta-itunes-play-gap
--meta-long-description
--meta-part
--meta-movement
--meta-movement-name
--meta-narrator
--meta-original-album
--meta-original-artist
--meta-popularity
--meta-publisher
--meta-publishing-date
--meta-purchase-date
--meta-recording-date
--meta-sort-album
--meta-sort-album-artist
--meta-sort-artist
--meta-sort-composer
--meta-sort-title
--meta-subtitle
--meta-title
--meta-track-number
--meta-track-total
--meta-additional-field
--auto-import
--meta-chapters-file
--meta-cover-file
--meta-tone-json-file
-p, --path-pattern
--path-pattern-extension
--meta-equate
--meta-remove-additional-field
--meta-remove-propertyIt is possible to use the tag subcommand with multiple --path-pattern arguments to read metadata from path names. Please note:
- If multiple path patterns are present, the first matching one is preferred
- Path patterns can be applied recursively for a whole directory tree as well as for single files
- It is recommended use the
--dry-runflag to see a diff before changing anything- there is an issue with flags like
--dry-run, that they sometimes not work depending on the position - sometimes shifting them around helps
- there is an issue with flags like
- Path pattern matching is based on grok.net, so all metadata properties could be read from a path name and there are a lot of things yet to be documented
- For now it is recommended to use the short hands below
short hands
All short hands are configured to match non-slash (/) or part numbers ([0-9-.IVXLCDM]+).
%a-Artist%A-SortArtist%c-Comment%C-Copyright%d-Description%D-LongDescription%g-Genre%m-Album%M-SortAlbum%n-Title%N-SortTitle%p-Part(only matching part numbers)%s-MovementName%t-AlbumArtist%w-Composer%y-ReleaseDate%z-IgnoreDummy%Z-IgnoreDummy(only matching part numbers)
With tone v0.0.4 it is possible to use scripted taggers. Long story short: You can now use JavaScript
to hook into the tagging mechanism and write your own extensions for tone.
Note: script support is limited to a specific subset of JavaScript and does not support every feature that is supported in modern browsers. If you would like to know more, take a look at jint
Lets say you would like to consume an external API to set some tags, in our example we use http://musicbrainz.org to tag the audiobook Harry Potter and the Philosopher�s Stone :
// musicbrainz.js
function musicbrainz(metadata, parameters) {
// e2310769-2e68-462f-b54f-25ac8e3f1a21
var id = parameters.length > 0 ? parameters[0] : null;
if(id === null) {
console.log("Please provide a valid musicbrainz release id to use this tagger");
return;
}
var url = "http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release/" + id + "?inc=recordings&fmt=json";
console.log("fetching url:", url);
// User-Agent header is required for musicbrainz to provide a response
var json = tone.Fetch(url, {
headers: {
'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4'
}
});
// you could also read a text file in the base path of the audio file
// json = tone.ReadTextFile(metadata.BasePath + "/musicbrainz.json");
var result = JSON.parse(json);
metadata.Title = result.title;
console.log("new title:", result.title);
if('barcode' in result) {
metadata.AdditionalFields["ISBN"] = result.barcode;
console.log("new barcode:", result.barcode);
}
}
// register your function name as tagger
tone.RegisterTagger("musicbrainz");Now you can use the --script parameter to load your custom JavaScript and furthermore
the --script-tagger-parameter to provide the parameters array used in the tagger function.
If you would like to prevent the default tone taggers to be applied, you can also limit the
them to your scripted one via --taggers=musicbrainz.
tone tag "harry-potter-1.m4b" --taggers="musicbrainz" --script="musicbrainz.js" --script-tagger-parameter="e2310769-2e68-462f-b54f-25ac8e3f1a21"To get an overview of fields, that can be accessed or modified via the metadata object, you should take a look at the IMetadata interface. Not all of them are primitive types, but there are API at least some helper methods to overcome this problem (more are planned):
| Method | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
tone.RegisterTagger(string functionName):void |
Registers a custom tagger function with functionName |
- |
tone.Fetch(string url [, object? options]):string |
Fetches remote url contents using options inspired by original fetch API |
Only a small subset of options is implemented (mainly method, body and headers) |
tone.Download(string url, string destinationPath [, object options]):bool |
Downloads a remote <url> to <destinationFile> using options inspired by original fetch API |
Returns true on success, false on errorDirectories will be created recursively Files are not overwritten by default |
tone.ReadTextFile(string path):string |
Reads a text file completely as string | - |
tone.WriteTextFile(string path, string content):void |
Writes text to a file (create file if not exists, overwrite contents) | - |
tone.AppendTextFile(string path, string content):void |
Appends text to a file (create file if not exists, append contents) | - |
tone.LimitByteLength(string message, int maxLength):string |
Limites text to byte length (not char length) | - |
tone.CreateDateTime(string dateString):DateTime |
Creates a DateTime value from string |
e.g. for metadata.PublishingDate |
tone.CreateTimeSpan(number milliseconds):TimeSpan |
Creates a TimeSpan value from string |
e.g. for metadata.TotalDuration |
tone.CreatePicture(string path):PictureInfo |
Creates a PictureInfo value from a path (refer to Download) |
for metadata.EmbeddedPictures |
tone.CreateChapter(string title, number startMs, number lengthMs [, PictureInfo picture, string subtitle, string uniqueID]):ChapterInfo |
Creates a ChapterInfo |
for metadata.Chapters |
The following issues are known, part of an external library and already reported:
- flag options (e.g.
--dry-run) cannot be followed by arguments (e.g.tone tag --meta-album="album" --dry-run input.mp3) (spectre.console 825)- workaround: append flag options at the end (
tone tag --meta-album="album" input.mp3 --dry-run)
- workaround: append flag options at the end (
--meta-*options cannot be set to empty values (spectre.console 842)- workaround: use
--meta-remove-propertyinstead
- workaround: use
- Value starting with
-is mistreated as extra option (e.g.--meta-description "-5 degrees") (spectre.console 890)- workaround: use
--meta-description="-5 degrees"instead (with=)
- workaround: use
- Invalid handling of parameter values starting with double quotes ("), e.g.
--meta-description'"quoted" value'(spectre.console 891) - Invalid handling of
--meta-recording-date="2022-07-05"(atldotnet 155)