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MPEG Audio Tag ID3v1

The TAG is used to describe the MPEG Audio file. It contains information about artist, title, album, publishing year and genre. There is some extra space for comments. It is exactly 128 bytes long and is located at very end of the audio data. You can get it by reading the last 128 bytes of the MPEG audio file.

AAABBBBB BBBBBBBB BBBBBBBB BBBBBBBB
BCCCCCCC CCCCCCCC CCCCCCCC CCCCCCCD
DDDDDDDD DDDDDDDD DDDDDDDD DDDDDEEE
EFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFG

Sign Length
(bytes)		 Position
(bytes)		 Description
A 3 (0-2) Tag identification. Must contain TAG if tag exists and is correct.
B 30 (3-32) Title
C 30 (33-62) Artist
D 30 (63-92) Album
E 4 (93-96) Year
F 30 (97-126) Comment
G 1 (127) Genre

The specification asks for all fields to be padded with null character (ASCII 0). However, not all applications respect this (an example is WinAmp which pads fields with <space>, ASCII 32).

There is a small change proposed in ID3v1.1 structure. The last byte of the Comment field may be used to specify the track number of a song in an album. It should contain a null character (ASCII 0) if the information is unknown.

Genre is a numeric field which may have one of the following values:

0 Blues 20 Alternative 40 AlternRock 60 Top 40
1 Classic Rock 21 Ska 41 Bass 61 Christian Rap
2 Country 22 Death Metal 42 Soul 62 Pop/Funk
3 Dance 23 Pranks 43 Punk 63 Jungle
4 Disco 24 Soundtrack 44 Space 64 Native American
5 Funk 25 Euro-Techno 45 Meditative 65 Cabaret
6 Grunge 26 Ambient 46 Instrumental Pop 66 New Wave
7 Hip-Hop 27 Trip-Hop 47 Instrumental Rock 67 Psychadelic
8 Jazz 28 Vocal 48 Ethnic 68 Rave
9 Metal 29 Jazz+Funk 49 Gothic 69 Showtunes
10 New Age 30 Fusion 50 Darkwave 70 Trailer
11 Oldies 31 Trance 51 Techno-Industrial 71 Lo-Fi
12 Other 32 Classical 52 Electronic 72 Tribal
13 Pop 33 Instrumental 53 Pop-Folk 73 Acid Punk
14 R&B 34 Acid 54 Eurodance 74 Acid Jazz
15 Rap 35 House 55 Dream 75 Polka
16 Reggae 36 Game 56 Southern Rock 76 Retro
17 Rock 37 Sound Clip 57 Comedy 77 Musical
18 Techno 38 Gospel 58 Cult 78 Rock & Roll
19 Industrial 39 Noise 59 Gangsta 79 Hard Rock

WinAmp expanded this table with next codes:
80 Folk 92 Progressive Rock 104 Chamber Music 116 Ballad
81 Folk-Rock 93 Psychedelic Rock 105 Sonata 117 Poweer Ballad
82 National Folk 94 Symphonic Rock 106 Symphony 118 Rhytmic Soul
83 Swing 95 Slow Rock 107 Booty Brass 119 Freestyle
84 Fast Fusion 96 Big Band 108 Primus 120 Duet
85 Bebob 97 Chorus 109 Porn Groove 121 Punk Rock
86 Latin 98 Easy Listening 110 Satire 122 Drum Solo
87 Revival 99 Acoustic 111 Slow Jam 123 A Capela
88 Celtic 100 Humour 112 Club 124 Euro-House
89 Bluegrass 101 Speech 113 Tango 125 Dance Hall
90 Avantgarde 102 Chanson 114 Samba    
91 Gothic Rock 103 Opera 115 Folklore    
Any other value should be considered as Unknown

 

MPEG Audio Tag ID3v2

This is new proposed TAG format which is different than ID3v1 and ID3v1.1. Complete tech specs for it may be found at http://www.id3.org/.




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