Removing SoundCloud Vorbis description

Chris Noxz

October 10, 2023

When downloading music from sites like SoundCloud using yt-dlp, you may encounter OGG/Vorbis files that include metadata, such as a description. If you wish to remove this metadata, you can use the vorbiscomment utility in combination with a simple script. Here’s a guide on how to achieve this.

Using yt-dlp

Download Music from SoundCloud:

Use yt-dlp to download the music from SoundCloud. Ensure that the downloaded music is in OGG/Vorbis format. For example:

yt-dlp -x --audio-format vorbis [SoundCloud URL]

Replace [SoundCloud URL] with the actual URL of the SoundCloud track you want to download.

Check Metadata:

Before removing the description, check if the OGG/Vorbis file includes a description. You can use the vorbiscomment utility for this:

vorbiscomment -l [yourfile.ogg]

If you find a "DESCRIPTION" tag in the output, it means that a description is present and can be removed.

Using the Removal Script

You can use the following script to remove the description metadata:

for f in *.ogg; do 
   vorbiscomment -l "$f" | sed '/^[Dd][Ee][Ss][Cc][Rr][Ii][Pp][Tt][Ii][Oo][Nn]=/,/^purl=/{/purl=/!d}' | vorbiscomment -w "$f"; 
   echo "Removed description from $f"; 
done

Here’s how the script works:

  • It iterates through all OGG/Vorbis files in the current directory.
  • The vorbiscomment -l '$f' command lists the metadata tags in the file.
  • The sed command filters out all lines between the "DESCRIPTION" and "purl" tags and deletes them, effectively removing the description.
  • The vorbiscomment -w '$f' command writes the modified metadata back to the file.
  • Finally, it prints a message to confirm the removal of the description from each file.

After running the script, the OGG/Vorbis files will no longer contain the SoundCloud description metadata.

By following these steps, you can successfully remove SoundCloud Vorbis descriptions from OGG/Vorbis files downloaded using yt-dlp. This can be helpful for organizing and managing your music library without the additional metadata.