Accessing & Clearing the RGAD Tag Frame

[Iggy64]

Several years ago, I tagged a few thousand tracks using MediaMonkey. Unintentionally, I somehow added ReplayGain data to the tags, in the TXXX and RGAD frames. I discovered this only recently, when I was cleaning up some tags and viewing them using a program called mp3Diags. I was surprised to find values in these frames, since I did not intentionally request it, nor do I use ReplayGain.

As I am still in the process of cleaning up my tags, I would like to clear all the TXXX and RGAD frames. Taking care of TXXX was easy to do in Mp3tag. But Mp3tag does not show me the RGAD frame. mp3Diags does show me the RGAD frame, but it does not appear capable of doing a batch delete. So I have been frustrated.

Since MediaMonkey appears to still support the RGAD frame (according to the library tag mapping), I'm hoping to use MediaMonkey to batch clear all the RGAD frames. However, I am evidently too casual a user to figure it out. Can some one suggest a simple step-by-step process for how to:

1) Load up several folders' worth of tracks
2) Batch clear the RGAD field/frame in all the selected tracks

Thanks!

[MMuser2011]

You can clear the RGAD frames with Mp3tag too.
The process is: Mark the tracks with RGAD frames, press CTRL-X (Cut -> to clipboard!) and followed by CTRL-V (Paste -> from clipboard)
The most important setting:
Tools -> Options -> Tags -> Mpeg -> REMOVE ID3v2

This one doesn't clear all the other frames and tags. It just cut ALL ID3v2 tags to the clipboard and write back the OFFICIAL one. RGAD is not an official frame. (Older) ReplayGain is a tool writing such frames.

[Iggy64]

Thanks, MMuser!!

I hope you are right. I look forward to trying out your suggestion this evening. If it works, a week of frustration will be finished.

I'm surprised to hear that RGAD is an obsolete frame. Originally, I had looked here:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... Properties

and seen that RGAD was a valid mapping in MM. However, this wiki page may be out of date?

But after your suggestion, I found this:

http://help.mp3tag.de/main_tags.html

which no longer shows RGAD.

I'll certainly try your suggestion (when I get home) and will report back on my results.

Many thanks for so kindly sharing your expertise.

[MMuser2011]

Additionally, you can have a look here: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... tion#ID3v2

The ID3v2 tag is divided into frames. The preferred means of storing ReplayGain metadata is use of TXXX key/value pair frames. Two other legacy schemes for storing ReplayGain metadata exist: RGAD and RVA2...
New scanners may write these older formats in addition to the newer (TXXX) ones if they wish to remain backwards compatible with older players.

[Iggy64]

I thank you again.

In my case, both the TXXX and RGAD frames had been written. (As already noted, I did not do this intentionally, so I was unaware of it until just recently). The added information you have just provided really helps me understand the situation better.

I use mp3Gain to level my tracks, since they came from a wide variety of sources and therefore a large range of amplitudes. I chose mp3Gain because it works very effectively for me, and it is reversible. It's "undo" information is stored in an APE v2 tag. (Of course, you probably know all that.)

Anyway, I have no need for the ReplayGain data in RGAD, I don't know how it got in there, and I look forward to using your suggested method for cleaning up all my tags.

[MMuser2011]

Thank you for you reply.

As always and for every tag cleaning task:
Please test the above process first on some backuped tracks. Just to be 200% sure.

[Iggy64]

Absolutely!

I have set up a special folder on my hard drive with COPIES of the corrupted tags. I have been practicing various repairs on them during this past week. Once I have implemented your cure for the RGAD frame, my testing will be complete.

I have also made another fresh backup of my entire music collection to a fresh hard drive, just in case anything goes wrong when I begin repairing the tags on my working collection.

You are right. You cannot be too careful!

Again, thanks for your kind help.