Q: Is there a way to identify tracks on my iPod that currently have no tag information? Somehow, some of my favorite music on my iPod is completely without identifying information, making it very hard to navigate to and organize, and impossible to expand upon.
– David
A: We admit: when we need to recover information for a mystery track, we still find ourselves typing snippets of the lyrics into Google.
It usually works fairly well, although not for more obscure (or certainly instrumental!) tracks.
However, a new method is arising: waveform recognition or “frequency fingerprinting.” New software like ID3Man can check the actual audio characteristics of untagged songs against a database of approximately 3 million existing songs, to determine what’s playing.
In our testing, it actually worked for the majority of our test CD-ripped (not live or obscure) tracks, so give it a shot! The company offers 25 free identifications to start with, after which you begin to pay various prices.
.
