Metadata

Introduction


A simple guide on Metadata. What you should look for and how you can find it. Metadata is basically the song's information which could be the artist (creator of the song) and (title) and the source (where it came from) etc. You put this information in the "General" tab in "Song Setup"

Here's an image of how the "General" Tab looks like :



This is where you put all the song information into!


Starting Off

First, You need to know some basic information of the song. Of course, you find a song somewhere (ex.Youtube soundcloud) and you obtain the mp3 from the site. More than likely, you already know what song you want to map or you've stumbled upon a song when searching. In such case where you've stumbled upon a song, look around the site for some basic information on the song. NOBODY can figure out the song title / map title exactly when listening . However, when you are lucky and do guess what the song is it won't hurt to look up the song information to make sure.

For example, let's say I find this really cool anime opening I would like to map in youtube.



Take that information and above and put it into google! BUT, if you happen to find the song information in the video. YOU can use it! (but make sure you check the official site to see if it uses (TV Size) etc.

Searching

Now that you've searched in Google, a list of results should pop up! You can use Reference sites to help you find the official website. From there try to find the Japanese Romanticized version of the name of the anime. PUT that inside the search box (If you are Japanese and already know it, just type it in) Once there you should be able to find the official website! (you can add official website to your search) to narrow it down.

The video has the artist : sweet ARMS , use that for the artist.

In this case, the Japanese name for Date a Live II is デート・ア・ライブⅡ , put that in google, the first result that shows up should be it , which is
http://date-a-live-anime.com/

Look around and you should find it

http://date-a-live-anime.com/book/cd03.html



The title is : 01. Trust in you (TV Size)

You can use ANY source, as long as its Official.

List of Official Sources




if you search around those sites, you should be able to get all of the song information (including use of TV size )


List of Reference Sites


Use official sources and you should be fine.


Good luck guys!

Ba ba bada~ Yeah yeah~

Because Tari made such an awesome guide. I thought I'd go through how I would find my information if I was completely clueless about Japanese.
This is mostly for those pesky Japanese TV sizes everyone has trouble with, but this applies for almost every song out there.

First I figure out what the song is, or what anime it came from. Simple enough. It should be located as Tari showed somewhere in the title. If it's all in Japanese and you can't figure anything out, then start copy pasting a few things in Google until you can figure it out. Usually you will find a link to Wikipedia/MAL/VGMDB/Official Anime site even.

Alright. Let's do my new favorite song. 四月は君の嘘's OP Hikaru nara. But all I know is the anime title is Your Lie in April or Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso.

So let's find the official website or song.
Via Title in VGMDB -> Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso VGMDB in google.
http://vgmdb.net/product/2948
Via Song in VGMDB -> Hikaru nara VGMDB in google.
http://vgmdb.net/album/47760

This also works for Wikipedia and MAL

Official sites on these can be found:
VGMDB: http://puu.sh/c6wax.png (Top right of the Show's page, not the songs)
Wikipedia: http://puu.sh/c6wbI.png (Bottom)
MAL: http://puu.sh/c6wcV.png (Bottom)
A simple google search of the show in Japanese will also work. (Usually shown alongside the english/romanized title) Ex Wikipedia: http://puu.sh/c6wjO.png

So you've accessed one of the main three reference sites.. If you don't know how to find the title of the song. It can simply be found on any of the sites above. MAL is probably one of the easiest ones to find the titles for. After that it's time to find the exact spelling and any additional labels that might need to be added.


So now you're on the anime website. EVERYTHING IS IN JAPANESE! Help! ouendan! I'm so lost!
http://www.kimiuso.jp/

well look at the screenshot below:
Luckily for us you can see MUSIC on the right side. Easy!
So it's all in Japanese and you can't understand, but there is still a trick!
Highlight over all the Japanese links, and look at the url (on chrome, it shows it in the bottom left as you hover over). If you find one that says "Music" "Goods" or "Discography" or something similar, then you're in luck.
Clicky click... So now it shows MORE JAPANESE... ;_;

http://www.kimiuso.jp/music/
Don't give up. It's pretty simple from here on. Chances are there will be tabs that lead you into your song. A good way to figure this out is to use the Song name from one of the reference sites.. Like MAL... Looking back... Get used to looking for the word "CD" after the first music/goods click.

oh. well that was easy to find the Japanese title of the song. *copy*
Control+F is your friend on these pages. Lookie here, we found it already.
http://www.kimiuso.jp/music/01.html
Control+F again, and let's search for 光るならagain.

There! TV Size!
Copy paste title: 光るなら-TV size- and we officially have our title!
Artist is simple enough, it was on the previous page "Goose house" For further verification. use google again to search for Goose House's official website and make sure it's stylized correctly.
Chances are the CD itself won't have the (TV Size) on it. You would then look for the OST. A good way is by catalogue number (see below)

There are two other ways to verify. Artist website and publisher website. This method being for the Publisher website.
Back on VGMDB. Looking at the album
http://vgmdb.net/album/47761

We want the publisher's website now. Try clicking on the link. We soon learn that this gr8 company's parent is Sony Music. That makes it easier to help find stuff.
Back at the above vgmdb link for the limited edition CD+DVD (as we learned from the official site it will be on there.)
See this number?
It's the catalog number. Or basically one of the easiest ways to find this CD directly when searching online. "SRCL-8641~2" Meaning this is both SRCL-8641 and SRCL-8642 because it's a CD + DVD. not just one disc and then adding the company name. You can also use VGMDB/wikipedia to help directly link you to the website.
Google time!
https://www.google.ca/webhp#q=SRCL-8641~2+sony+music
First website is from http://www.sonymusicshop.jp.. Legit enough right? We learned from the publisher part this CD comes from Sony as the parent.
SO MUCH JAPANESE AGAIN. HELP!
Control+F is your friend again. http://puu.sh/c6xhl.jpg

http://www.sonymusicshop.jp/m/item/item ... L000008641
wait... what? no track listing. Well if this was your first search, then you can move onto the other two options. The previous one on the source (anime) website, or the Artists website themselves.

How to find artist website.
Well first off, type out their name in google. If it's a Japanese name, you can easily find it via wikipedia/MAL/Generasia/VGMDB again. Easiest is through wikiepedia.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=goose%20 ... edia&rct=j
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_hous ... 3.E3.82.AF (websites are on the bottom again. Just look for the one that would mostly resemble a real website address. In this case: http://goosehouse.jp/

This website is pretty much all in English for the navigation so it is pretty simple.
http://goosehouse.jp/discography/
(as of writing this, the album isn't on it, but it's on their news page. Found here: http://goosehouse.jp/news/ )
We found another track listing!

So now we have two official listings. One from the anime site, and one from the artist site.

光るなら-TV size-
光るなら -TV size-

.......... Conflicts. RIP It's over. We're done. I quit.

Not really. At this point it really won't matter. Overall we'd probably use the one with the space unless more sources use the one without it. After a bit of searching, it is currently tied at 1 a piece.. Look at a previously ranked map, and copy them if they use one of the above. It honestly doesn't matter too much at this point.

-----

So now we have
Artist: Goose house
Romanized Artist: Goose house
Title: 光るなら -TV size-
Romanized Title: Hikaru nara -TV size-
wait.. how do we know what the romanized title is? Chances are it could be hidden tucked away on the CD Case, or on the website, or in the video itself. Most likely, you won't find it. In this case you should follow the standard romanizing rules. Chances are you won't have an idea. In this case you can probably trust a reference site. A good rule of thumb is to keep all particles lower-cased. If an official romanization alters the title in their own ways, just copy and paste like you did for the title above.
Don't forget to follow this rule as well:

Songs with Japanese titles must use the Modified Hepburn method of romanisation in the "Romanised Title" field. As a non-unicode field, long vowels such as "おう" and "うう" should be romanised into "ou" and "uu" to avoid macrons. Loan words should be expressed using romanisation from the original language.

So Basically, you've searched through the Source site (in this case Anime), the Artist's site, and the publisher's site.

Another thing you can do is sign up for free at VGMDB, and look at the scans of the CD for further help. These can be used if all else fails for the title / source. These can usually be found on the right side of the page if they are available. Make sure you sign up to VGMDB!


For the source. It's pretty simple. One of the easiest ways is to google search for the japanese website.
I know the show is called Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, but I should be using the Japanese source for it.

Google -> Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso -> http://puu.sh/c6wjO.png -> Re-google 四月は君の嘘

Copy the title in the box because it's from the official website, as shown above.


Source found. Add the romanized source to the tags and you're set.

You don't really need to know Japanese since there is usually a lot of ways around it. Lots of the tricks used above will help if you're clueless. Chances are if you can't figure out the first method, then you can try one of the other two.

1. Search for Reference Site
2. Get link to official site
3. Find track listing
4. Copy + Paste = Win!

I'll fix / add stuff later. For now I hope between Tari's method, and my method, that you won't have much trouble later on.

Good night~

I made some corrections to the guide, there were some typos/ grammar errors.