Auto-Tagging Overview
DISCO’s auto-tagging AI can instantly tag tens of thousands of tracks with industry standard, descriptive information. The DISCO AI also powers our Similarity Search and Instant Instrumentals features.
In this article, you'll learn:
- Auto-tagging basics
- How to auto-tag your tracks
- How to edit tags
- How the auto-tagging quota and subscription work
- How to remove auto-tags from tracks
Auto-tag your tracks
DISCO’s auto-tagging schema integrates the most commonly used tags by thousands of top-tier music professionals.
There are a few nuances to be aware of before you get started using auto-tagging:
- Tracks can be sent to the auto-tagger manually, or automatically as they upload.
- Once tracks have been auto-tagged, they are permanently connected to the AI system.
- Identical audio is instantly recognized (i.e., duplicate tracks do not count toward your Discovery Suite quota).
- The auto-tagger will automatically update your tracks with new and improved tags.
- The auto-tagger will never remove manually added tags.
- The auto-tagger will never re-add manually removed tags.
- Lyrical theme tags are only added if lyrics are present in the track metadata Lyrics field (the AI analyzes the text).
1. Drag and drop
- Send audio to the AI for analysis by dragging tracks (or whole playlists) into the auto-tagged tracks area in the sidebar.
- The AI listens to the tracks and adds tags - this takes anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.
- The drag and drop method works best when your Discovery Suite track quota is lower than your base plan track quota, allowing you to choose exactly which tracks get tagged.
Removing tracks or playlists from the auto-tagged tracks area does NOT remove the auto-tags, or break the connection to the AI, or stop the track from counting toward the auto-tagged tracks quota.
2. Tag during upload
- Contact the Support Team to set up your account so that tracks get tagged as they upload.
- This eliminates the need to manually drag tracks into the auto-tagged tracks area.
- The Support Team can also help you set up auto back-tagging if your Discovery Suite track quota matches your base plan track quota.\
- Note that these auto-tagged tracks will not appear in the Auto-tagged tracks area.
3. Tag Inbox tracks
- Contact Support to set up auto-tagging on tracks as they arrive in your inboxes.
- This option is best for Music Supervisors and radio stations who receive lesser-known music.
Since there are multiple ways that tracks can be auto-tagged, the auto-tagged tracks area does not necessarily contain all the tracks that are auto-tagged in your account.
Editing tags
DISCO provides the option to remove auto-generated tags one at a time. This feedback serves as training data to improve both the AI model and auto-tagging.
- Select a track to view the tags in the next column
- Remove a tag by clicking the “X” next to the tag name.
Adding a new custom track tag will not train the AI to recognize that sound.
- It takes thousands of examples from many users to build a large enough dataset to accurately teach the AI how to categorize, and thus tag, a new sound.
Removing Auto-tags
Removing Auto-tags is not a simple process.
As mentioned earlier, dropping tracks or playlists onto the Auto-tagged tracks area sends tracks to the AI for analysis, creating a connection that adds the auto-tags (and updates them as the model improves).
It might seem logical that removing tracks from the Auto-tagged tracks area will remove the auto-tags, and reduce the auto-tagging quota used...this is NOT the case.
Removing tracks from the Auto-tagged tracks area does not remove the auto-tags on the tracks, and does not reduce your auto-tagged tracks quota.
To remove auto-tags from a track and stop that track from counting toward your Auto-tagging quota you can:
A) Delete the auto-tagged track via its track menu, which will delete it from your DISCO completely (not ideal if you want to keep the track).
B) Ask DISCO Support for a spreadsheet of all your auto-tagged tracks. You can mark tracks to have auto-tags removed when the support team re-ingests the spreadsheet.
C) Cancel the Discovery Suite and all auto-tags will be removed.
- Manually added track tags remain if the Discovery Suite is canceled.
Auto-tagging quota
The Discovery Suite is an add-on subscription package that includes both DISCO Catalogs and auto-tagging. The Discovery suite has a track quota that is shared between Auto-tagging and Catalogs.
A Discovery Suite quota of 5000 tracks means that up to 5000 tracks can be auto-tagged, and up to 5000 different tracks could be included on Catalogs (in most cases, it makes sense for the tracks on a Catalog to be auto-tagged to maximize the search functionality).
- Click on the Auto-tagged tracks area in the sidebar to view how much of your auto-tagging quota is being used:
- Once a track is tagged, its corresponding audio is recognized and will be re-tagged accordingly if uploaded again.
- All auto-tags are removed from tracks if you cancel the Discovery Suite add-on.
Increasing Auto-tagging quota
Upgrade the Discovery Suite quota in your Billing & Subscription settings:
- You can also free up space for new tracks to be auto-tagged by deleting any unwanted auto-tagged tracks:
Read our full Discovery Suite FAQ.
Wrap-up
Save time and ensure that your music has uniform, industry standard creative tags by auto-tagging with DISCO's AI.