Labeling music files in media pool

I'm bringing in a bunch of music files (mp3 or m4a files) for temp score on a project and I'd like to keep track of the artist names for each song. Currently Resolve (I'm still using 14) assigns the filename as the Display Name, but there's no equivalent to the "Artist" field in iTunes (much less Album or any of the other music-specific metadata). I've considered a few possible solutions:

1. make sub-bins for each artist and sort the files into them on import
2. use one of the existing fields ("Scene", "Description", "Comments", etc) to stand in as an "Artist" field
3. make a keyword for each artist (except I won't be using the artist keywords outside of this context)

Before I pick one of those to go with, has anyone else dealt with this and come up with a clever solution, or run into any less-obvious problems with one of these options? Bins seem like the least labor-intensive, but are a bit clumsy for files where I only have one song from that artist and would get lost if the file moves for some reason.

A feature request for Resolve would be some kind of automatic handling of music metadata, to save users the trouble of manually tagging all of their music with artist names.

A feature request for Resolve would be some kind of automatic handling of music metadata, to save users the trouble of manually tagging all of their music with artist names.

One trick with that is BWF audio files, MP3, and FLAC (not supported as far as I know) all use different kinds of metadata. There are heavy-duty 3rd-party sound library programs like SoundMiner and BaseHead that can specifically populate metadata based on file names, but it's an involved process.

http://store.soundminer.com/
https://www.baseheadinc.com/

Even Pro Tools -- which has been around for 25 years -- can't quite do what you're asking for. It is possible to hire an assistant to go in and manually enter all the metadata for indexing purposes, but it would take a lot of time if you have a lot of files. I just checked and I have somewhere north of 2,500,000 sound effects files on an 8TB drive, and even getting the metadata right on those was tough. For a lot of those, I used SoundMiner to organize the files as they were being ripped.

A lot of the major production music libraries (Killer Tracks, BMG, Megatrax) do provide embedded metadata with the BWF files, but I dunno what they do with MP3s.

Currently Resolve (I'm still using 14) assigns the filename as the Display Name, but there's no equivalent to the "Artist" field in iTunes (much less Album or any of the other music-specific metadata).

Unfortunately, Resolve 15 currently almost completely ignores RIFF INFO_List tags and all metadata embedded within the bext chunk of Broadcast Wave files, including all metadata within the M4a container (i.e. Atoms and XMP), MP3's ID3 tags and FLAC's metadata block data.

When Resolve does recognise certain embedded metadata, it assigns the wrong field
(e.g. Originator metadata is assigned to Camera Number, Sound Roll # is populated with the File Name)

Even so, all source media is still heavily populated and embedded with metadata regardless of format prior to import in to the Media Pool, as it is a core component of production, post and archival workflows, even if Resolve doesn't currently support many of these metadata-centric workflows (in part due to a lack of abundant audio production/post and music score production related metadata fields, and non-standards compliant usage of that embedded metadata).

I've considered a few possible solutions:

1. make sub-bins for each artist and sort the files into them on import...Bins seem like the least labor-intensive

One issue with this approach is that the Media Pool's search is not global, so you need to either select all Bins before entering a search term, or search within each Bin individually.

However, this is still the process followed here.

Each Composer is assigned a dedicated Bin, each Bin assigned a specific colour, each Audio Clip associated with that Composer is assigned an identical colour designation within the Bin, as well as the Timeline (i.e. Teal, Navy and Blue, which is the colour designation of all Music within the Timeline - Green tags are always Dialogue, Orange always Foley, etc.)

This is supplemented by Music specific Smart Bins based on Usage (i.e. Used and Unused Music source media). This allows quick tracking of used musical score elements and incidental music and exporting that usage as a .csv file via the Export Metadata from Media Pool or Selected Clips commands, with the Audio Notes field used for Composer designation.

One trick with that is BWF audio files, MP3, and FLAC (not supported as far as I know) all use different kinds of metadata. There are heavy-duty 3rd-party sound library programs like SoundMiner and BaseHead that can specifically populate metadata based on file names, but it's an involved process.

http://store.soundminer.com/
https://www.baseheadinc.com/

Thanks, I'll check those out. Yeah, I do recognize that it's a tricky problem to tackle, due to the absence of standard formats. Good point about Pro Tools.

I've considered a few possible solutions:

1. make sub-bins for each artist and sort the files into them on import...Bins seem like the least labor-intensive

One issue with this approach is that the Media Pool's search is not global, so you need to either select all Bins before entering a search term, or search within each Bin individually.

However, this is still the process followed here.

Each Composer is assigned a dedicated Bin, each Bin assigned a specific colour, each Audio Clip associated with that Composer is assigned an identical colour designation within the Bin, as well as the Timeline (i.e. Teal, Navy and Blue, which is the colour designation of all Music within the Timeline - Green tags are always Dialogue, Orange always Foley, etc.)

This is supplemented by Music specific Smart Bins based on Usage (i.e. Used and Unused Music source media). This allows quick tracking of used musical score elements and incidental music and exporting that usage as a .csv file via the Export Metadata from Media Pool or Selected Clips commands, with the Audio Notes field used for Composer designation.

Yeah, the absence of a global search has bitten me in the ass before, that's an excellent point.

I like that color scheme, and the Smart Bins for tracking usage. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks, I'll check those out. Yeah, I do recognize that it's a tricky problem to tackle, due to the absence of standard formats. Good point about Pro Tools.

SoundMiner is a fairly miraculous program, though it's really only designed for Pro Tools.

I think that's a very valid suggestion to have Resolve/Fairlight list the embedded metadata in a BWF file, and I'm fairly certain that Pro Tools will do that.