The Metadata Style Guide
How to Store, Create and Enter Metadata Into MP3s and AIFF Files for
Maximum Impact and Accuracy
Authored by Mark Frieser: CEO Sync Summit/Co-Founder [Link]
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The Purpose and Mission of this Guide
• This guide was created to provide a simple and de nitive way to correctly and consistently
compile, re ne and organize your metadata and enter it into your MP3s and AIFFs.
• Good quality metadata is crucial to your success in sync, and the music industry overall,
making it easier for your music to be found by sync decision makers, AI and search engines,
for you to be paid for your music and to be perceived as a trusted industry professional by
industry peers, music supervisors and executives.
• When your metadata is incorrect or incomplete, most music supervisors will not listen to your
music as they lose con dence in your level of professionalism, and don’t have the time to
gure out your contact info, rights, etc., and, AI and search engines cannot list your music for
playlists, search results and social media discovery purposes.
• This guide will share with you the tools you can use and takes you through the metadata entry
process step-by-step.
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A Word About Music File Management Platforms
• There are many amazing platforms created for management of your MP3s, AIFF Files
and WAVs, like [Link], [Link] and [Link], among others.
• Some like Disco, which we consider the industry standard, have metadata entry tools
many people use.
• While these platforms and their tools are great, we’ve found that if you use them to
directly enter your metadata on their platform, when you move your les to another
platform or send via email or other methods the encoded metadata may become
corrupted or saved incompletely outside their system.
• The method that we are outlining in this guide to enter and store your metadata will
insure your metadata is always consistent, regardless of the platform it’s stored or shared
on, or where it is shared and regardless of the preferred platform of the recipient.
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Getting Started: The Tools You Need
1. Spreadsheet Software: You’ll need this to have a central, locally stored
record of your metadata. A program like Microsoft Excel (preferred) or other
spreadsheet software.
2. Metadata Editing Software: We strongly recommend using Apple Music as it
is free and everyone has access to it. You can also use editors like MP3Tag,
MusicBrainz Picard, TigoTago, TagScanner or Metatogger. For the purposes of
this guide, we’ll use Apple Music.
3. Websites to help you: There are websites to use that help us con rm
elements of metadata if needed like Songview ([Link] and to
help create descriptive tags like Musiio ([Link] Keep these
handy as references.
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Step 1: Gathering Your Metadata
• Make sure you have all the following metadata ready to enter. An
example of correctly lled in metadata is to the right:
• Title, Artist
• Album, Album Artist (if needed)
• Composer(s)
• Grouping (Publishers)
• Genre
• Year Of Release
• Beats Per Minute (BPM)
• Comments Section (contact info, descriptive tags)
• Artwork
• Lyrics
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Step 2: Creating A Metadata Spreadsheet
The best way to store your metadata is with a locally stored spreadsheet.
This way, you can quickly and correctly update changes/issues of your metadata in your MP3s or AIFFs easily and
accurately and recover from any platform-created data errors or omissions.
To get you started, we’ve included a A link to our spreadsheet template for you to use.
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Step 3: Entering Your Metadata Using Apple Music
• For the purposes of this guide, we’ll use Apple Music as the
software for entering our metadata.
• Here are the steps to make sure your MP3 is ready for
metadata entry:
1. Find the MP3 on your hard drive or on your cloud-based
storage platform, then open it in Apple Music.
2. On a Mac, nd the track then click on the “…” on the left of
the track. On a PC, you’ll select the song, then click “Edit”.
3. This will bring you to a drop down menu. You’ll see the
option “Get Info” (Mac) or “Song Info” (PC).
4. Click “Get Info” or “Song Info” and the metadata entry area
will appear as a separate window.
• For your reference, at the right is an example of an open
Apple Music metadata window.
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Step 4: Entering Your Song Title and Artist Info
• This step is simple. Enter all the info you have for
the rst four elds as shown below (and only this
info as detailed):
1. Title: This is the song title. That’s it.
2. Artist: The artist name and featured artist if
relevant.
3. Album: If and only if this track is part of an album,
put the album name here. If there is no album for
this track, leave this eld blank.
4. Album Artist: If and only if this track is part of an
album, list the artist here. It is okay to repeat the
artist name used in the Artist eld here.
• This is the only info that should be in these elds.
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Step 5: Entering Your Composer Info
• The Composer eld should only be lled with the name of
the songwriter(s) as registered with their their Performance
Rights Organization (PRO) and the name of their PRO in
parentheses as shown in the screenshot to the right.
Without this info, we cannot pay royalties:
1. Put the name of the writer’s registered name rst, then
their PRO in parentheses.
2. If there are additional songwriters, you make a space,
then put in the second songwriter with their PRO and so
on until all writers are listed.
3. Do not use commas, colons or any other punctuation
other than what is shown here.
4. Do not click “show composer on all views”
5. There should be no other information here (like
percentages of ownership, one-stop, etc) other than the
writer’s name and PRO info in this exact format.
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Step 6: Entering Your Publisher (Grouping) Info
• The Grouping eld is where you enter your publisher and
the publisher’s PRO. Nothing else should be in this eld.
Here’s how to input it correctly.
1. The name and PRO of the publisher should be
entered in the same order as the writers. Meaning,
the rst publisher should be the publisher for the rst
writer and their PRO, then the next publisher for the next
writer and their PRO, until all publishers are listed. See
the picture on the right for an example.
2. Important: If an writer does not have a publisher, by
default, that writer is self-published. In this case, input
the writer’s name and their PRO as publisher.
3. This information is super important to make sure
publishers are paid out royalties correctly, and we must
have it to sync your music.
4. No other info or punctuation should be in this eld.
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Step 7: Entering Your Genre Info
• Too often people will enter several genres of music
hoping to cover as many angles as possible, but
this approach is awed.
• The correct approach is to pick one standard genre or
like the example to the right, example, a genre with
sub-genre.
• When you enter your music’s genre, you can either use
a genre from the dropdown list provided by Apple
Music or enter a genre that best represents your music.
• Note: Use a general genre that most people will know
and understand (example: Americana versus a term
like Lumbercore)
• This is important to get right because genre is a key
search term for music supervisors, AI and search
engines.
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Step 8: Entering The Year of Release
• The year eld should be lled out with
the year the track was released for sale/
streaming/listening to the general public,
including on physical formats, social
media and/or video/streaming platforms.
• Do not leave this eld blank as its a key
search term, unless the track is
unreleased. Then leave it blank.
• If the track is unreleased, put the word
“unreleased” in the comment section.
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Step 9: Track, Disc Number and Compilation
• Why are these here in 2023? While the importance
of these elds has diminished since the MP3 was
invented in 1991, in some cases, they are still
relevant. Here’s how to deal with them.
[Link] Number: If this track is part of an album or
an EP, enter the track order and the complete
number of track here. If not, leave these elds
blank.
[Link] Number: Ummm, what? Who uses discs
anymore? That said, if you have a track that’s part
of a cd that has multiple discs enter the relevant
numbers here.
[Link]: This is actually a search term, so if
the track is part of a compilation album, then click
this box. Just skip the rating, that’s iTunes speci c.
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Step 10: Entering Your Beats per Minute Info
• There are two basic ways to accurately nd the Beats per Minute
(BPM) of a track:
[Link] from your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) after you’ve
nished recording a track. This is the simplest way. Just get that BPM
and enter it into the BPM section.
[Link] counting the BPM manually. A lot of the time, we don’t have the
BPM of a track, especially for back catalogue tracks. In this case, I’ll
use an online BPM counter. My favorite is [Link]
[Link] - just manually click along with the beat for about a minute
and get an average BPM, then enter it into the BPM eld.
[Link] to remember: When you are entering the BPM, make sure you
enter the average BPM, not the highs and lows of the track’s BPM. You
can put further BPM details in the comments section if needed.
[Link] versus tempo: A nal note is that sometimes, songs with a lower
BPM can be perceived as mid-tempo and songs with a higher BPM can
feel mid-tempo as well. This is due to other elements, like the feeling/
mood of the music, the vocalist’s stylings or the instrumentation. There
is no hard and fast rule for this, but if you feel the track has a different
feel than its BPM, mention the tempo in the comments section as it’s
often a key search term.
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Step 11: The All-Important Comments Section
• The Comments Section is one of the most important parts of your metadata, and it’s divided into four
basic points:
[Link] Information: It seems obvious that this is one of the most important parts of your metadata,
because without it, no one can connect with you or work with you. Despite this, many people leave it out or
incomplete.
[Link] Dif culty: Entering terms like one-stop and easy clear are super important for you to include, as
this lets music supervisors and other relevant people know the relative dif culty of licensing the track. Also, if
there are any samples in the track, this must be noted. Samples are not necessarily a deal-breaker, but we
must know up front if there are samples of other artists’ music in a track assist in the clearance process.
[Link] of Talent, instrumentation: You should include terms that describe the main vocal and
instrumental elements of the song. Terms like “female vocals”, “sax solo”, etc. should be entered as relevant.
[Link] of Feel, Mood and Vibe: This is where you put information about the general feel and mood
of the track like “swelling”, “anthemic”, “building”, RIYL (Recommended If You Like) similar artists, etc.
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Step 11, Continued:
Comments Section Organization
• With a 255 character limit in the comments section of an MP3, you need to add as
much relevant information as possible, and put it in an order from most important to
less important.
• Note: Some le management systems allow you to enter more characters than the
standard 255, which may seem like a good thing, but when your MP3 leaves their
system, any characters beyond the 255 limit are lost.
• That’s why you need to make sure the 255 characters are used in the most ef cient
way possible, which means no punctuation (like commas) but rather spaces between
each term.
• The right order of your comments section metadata is: contact info, clearance info,
song elements, descriptive tagging.
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Step 11 A: Contact And Clearance Info
• The rst thing you need to list in the comments section is your contact
information. It’s best practice to put both your phone number and
email so there are two direct ways to contact you. That’s all. No
company or contact name, just ways to contact you.
• Next, put in whether the track is “One-Stop” or “Easy Clear”. This is
one of the most important things a music supervisor needs to know, and
one of the main search terms they look for when researching music. Here’s
some info on how to know if your track is “One-Stop” or “Easy Clear”:
• If the track is “One-Stop”, this tells us you are the only person/
company they need to talk to license and clear both the publishing and
master rights of the song.
• If the song is “Easy Clear”, this tells us that though you do not control
all the rights of the track, you are in contact with the other rights holders
and can easily con rm and clear a potential license of the track within
12-72 hours.
• If the track is neither “One-Stop” or “Easy Clear”, leave this info out.
• Again if you have samples in the song, that’s not necessarily a deal breaker,
but you need to note this in the comments section to alert the decision
maker.
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Step 11 B: Song Elements and Tempo
• Next, you should enter some of the main
song elements like: Is there a female vocal?
Enter that here. Is there a sax solo? Enter it
here. Is there a chorus? Enter it here. You get
the idea.
• Now enter the tempo. How does this song feel
in terms of its vocals, instrumentation and
force? And as was said earlier, BPM is not
always a good guide for tempo, but a starting
point. Use your best judgement.
• Be creative, but be concise and accurate. And
don’t overload these sections because you’ll
need the characters for the descriptive
tagging.
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Step 11 C: Descriptive Tagging: How, What and Why?
• Now we get to the last part of the metadata in the comments section,
descriptive tagging.
• Remember, every thing you enter into your metadata is a potential search
term that someone looking to license your music could use to nd your
music, so use terms that are not too arcane and are terms that people
would use in the music industry and in real life.
• Here’s an example with a few key parameters as shown on the right.
• Feeling. Use terms to describe the music based on common search terms,
like dance, electronic, dreamy, anthemic. Think about your music, then think
of some basic terms. And it you’re really stuck, phone a friend or try using
an AI-based tool to give you some inspiration, like [Link]
• Sub-genre, language, RIYL. This is where you can use genre-based
terms like “j-pop”, Japanese, and RIYL, which means “Recommended If
You Like”, along with the names of any known artists with a similar sound to
the artist. All of these are good search terms that people use when looking
for music.
• Note: Descriptive tagging should be revised and re ned on an ongoing
basis, but if you follow the above basic points you will have a solid set of
useful, relevant descriptive tags.
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Step 12: Artwork: Branding and Expression
• Artwork is important. It is branding. It is
expression.
• To add artwork, click the “Artwork” tab.
• Then click the “Add Artwork” button and
upload or cut and past your artwork.
• Make your artwork expressive and add some
simple text with the name of the track and
artist name.
• If you are a sync agent, consider using your
company’s logo and name as the
standardized artwork for all your tracks.
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Step 13: Lyrics: Your Secret Metadata Weapon
• Including the lyrics is important because every word of your
lyrics is a potential search term for music supervisors, AI,
search engines and anyone or anything else looking for music.
• We also need lyrics to ensure they have the emotive quality
needed, and to know what the basic lyrical themes and tones
are, as well as if there are any explicit themes or words.
• To enter your lyrics into your metadata, click the “Custom
Lyrics” button, then cut and paste your lyrics into the eld
that appears.
• Note 1: Is the song originally in a different language than
English? If so, you need to include the original lyrics below the
English language lyrics.
• Note 2: The only thing that should be here is lyrics and any
relevant copyright information after the lyrics at the end.
• Next, let’s we save this MP3 with our metadata.
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Step 14: Saving And Sending Your Metadata
• Now that your metadata is entered
completely and correctly, click the “OK”
button to save it.
• With your metadata entered correctly and
organized properly, your MP3s are ready
for sharing or uploading to any platform,
and the most important parts of your
metadata will always be available to
anyone receiving your music.
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Contact Information and Thanks
• This guide takes you through the essential metadata needed to embed in your MP3s for
sync.
• There are many other levels and complexity of metadata beyond sync, and entry into
MP3s and AIFFS.
• If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into metadata, or require consulting
services, please contact us at info@[Link]. We provide consultation services to
people and companies to help make your metadata as accurate and effective as possible.
• We also offer events and courses with industry experts and music supervisors, check
out [Link] for more info.
• And a big thank you to our entire community and a special thanks to Music Supervisor
Patricia Carrera and Music Producer/Songwriter Michele Vice-Maslin and to you!
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