Powershell editing mp3 infos

Question

I'm searching for a way to edit mp3 files info (like artist, album, etc) in a PowerShell script.

I found a way to get the info I need on the .mp3 files, but not how to modify them.

$songs = Get-ChildItem $dir -Filter *.mp3;
$shell = new-object -com shell.application;

Foreach ($song in $songs) {
    $shellfolder = $shell.namespace($dir);
    $shellfile = $shellfolder.parsename($song);

    $title = $shell.namespace($dir).getdetailsof($shellfile,21);
}

With getDetailsOf (with 21) I'm able to get the song Title, but no setDetailsOf exists, so I don't know how I can modify the song title for another one.

Answer 1

If you're like me and prefer not to use a library, here's a pretty simple ID3v1 function I wrote that may serve your needs:

    #Set the specified ID3v1 properties of a file by writing the last 128 bytes
    Function Set-ID3v1( #All parameters except path are optional, they will not change if not specified. 
      [string]$path, #Full path to the file to be updated - wildcards not supported because [] are so stinky and it's only supposed to work on one file at a time. 
      [string]$Title = "`0", #a string containing only 0 indicates a parameter not specified. 
      [string]$Artist  = "`0",
      [string]$Album = "`0",
      [string]$Year = "`0",
      [string]$Comment = "`0",
      [int]$Track = -1,
      [int]$Genre = -1, 
      [bool]$BackDate=$true){#Preserve modification date, but add a minute to indicate it's newer than duplicates
        $CurrentModified = (Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $path).LastWriteTime #use literalpath here to get only one file, even if it has []
        Try{
            $enc = [System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII #Probably wrong, but works occasionally. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9857727/text-encoding-in-id3v2-3-tags
            $currentID3Bytes = New-Object byte[] (128)
            $strm = New-Object System.IO.FileStream ($path,[System.IO.FileMode]::Open,[System.IO.FileAccess]::ReadWrite,[System.IO.FileShare]::None)
            $strm.Seek(-128,'End') | Out-Null #Basic ID3v1 info is 128 bytes from EOF
            $strm.Read($currentID3Bytes,0,$currentID3Bytes.Length) | Out-Null
            Write-Host "$path `nCurrentID3: $($enc.GetString($currentID3Bytes))"
            $strm.Seek(-128,'End') | Out-Null #Basic ID3v1 info is 128 bytes from EOF
            If($enc.GetString($currentID3Bytes[0..2]) -ne  'TAG'){
                Write-Warning "No existing ID3v1 found - adding to end of file"
                $strm.Seek(0,'End') 
                $currentID3Bytes = $enc.GetBytes(('TAG' + (' ' * (30 + 30 + 30 + 4 + 30)))) #Add a blank tag to the end of the file
                $currentID3Bytes += 255 #empty Genre
                $strm.Write($currentID3Bytes,0,$currentID3Bytes.length)
                $strm.Flush()
                $Strm.Close()
                $strm = New-Object System.IO.FileStream ($path,[System.IO.FileMode]::Open,[System.IO.FileAccess]::Write,[System.IO.FileShare]::None)
                $strm.Seek(-128,'End') 
            } 
            $strm.Seek(3,'Current') | Out-Null #skip over 'TAG' to get to the good stuff
            If($Title -eq "`0"){ $strm.Seek(30,'Current') | Out-Null} #Skip over
             Else{ $strm.Write($enc.GetBytes($Title.PadRight(30,' ').Substring(0,30)),0,30)  } #if specified, write 30 space-padded bytes to the stream
            If($Artist -eq "`0"){ $strm.Seek(30,'Current') | Out-Null} 
             Else {$strm.Write($enc.GetBytes($Artist.PadRight(30,' ').Substring(0,30)),0,30) }
            If($Album -eq "`0"){ $strm.Seek(30,'Current') | Out-Null} 
             Else{$strm.Write($enc.GetBytes($Album.PadRight(30,' ').Substring(0,30)),0,30)  }
            If($Year -eq "`0"){ $strm.Seek(4,'Current') | Out-Null} 
             Else {$strm.Write($enc.GetBytes($Year.PadRight(4,' ').Substring(0,4)),0,4) }
            If(($Track -ne -1) -or ($currentID3Bytes[125] -eq 0)) {$CommentMaxLen = 28}Else{$CommentMaxLen = 30} #If a Track is specified or present in the file, Comment is 28 chars
            If($Comment -eq "`0"){ $strm.Seek($CommentMaxLen,'Current') | Out-Null} 
             Else {$strm.Write($enc.GetBytes($Comment.PadRight($CommentMaxLen,' ').Substring(0,$CommentMaxLen)),0,$CommentMaxLen)  }
            If($Track -eq -1 ){$strm.Seek(2,'Current') | Out-Null}
             Else{$strm.Write(@(0,$Track),0,2)} #Track, if present, is preceded by a 0-byte to form the last two bytes of Comment
            If($Genre -ne -1){$strm.Write($Genre,0,1) | Out-Null} 
        }Catch{
            Write-Error $_.Exception.Message
        }Finally{
            If($strm){
                $strm.Flush()
                $strm.Close()
            }
        }
        If($BackDate){(Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $path).LastWriteTime = $CurrentModified.AddMinutes(1)}
    }

You call it with the full path to the MP3 file and any ID3V1 attributes you want to change:

    Set-ID3v1 -path "c:\users\me\Desktop\Test.mp3" -Year 1996 -Title "This is a test" 

Basically it writes the last 128 bytes of the file with Title, Artist, etc. I might add support for ID3v2.3 which is much more flexible, but less compatible with older devices and software. Check GitHub for the latest version.