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Fun With Tags!


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I think the standard tag fields defined in most all formats - album, artist, name, etc. - are just insufficient for classical tagging. They be fine for pop, jazz, etc., but not classical. So, having a superset of those, like JRiver does, is necessary. Even then, we have found it necessary to add custom additional fields, the one - Composition - in our case is most critical.

 

I have another custom field, Classical, with values of blank or No, which I have filled in. That simplifies viewing just my classical albums or just my non-classical, or both, via standard views I have created in JRiver. The Genre field has too many different values as we have used it in either classical or non-classical to be efficient in looking at different main segments of the library. Mostly, classical recordings as distributed just have the value Classical for Genre. That is useless, so we override that with Symphony, Concerto, Ballet, Opera, Rock, Jazz, Folk, etc., etc.

 

 

But, JRiver already has Conductor and Orchestra as separate tag fields in answer to the OP's concern. We fill those in. There are others in JRiver, too, such as Publisher = record label. Of course, you must fill those in yourself because they are not in the media files themselves as distributed. Once edited to your liking, all those fields, including any custom fields, can be rewritten back into the media file.

 

I have tried Tag&Rename, but not MP3Tag. Does MP3Tag support custom additional fields or even Conductor, Orchestra, Publisher, etc. It did not appear to when I looked at it. Tag&Rename does not, limiting its use severely for me.

 

Navigating JRiver for tagging may be a bit clumsy at first, but you get used to it and efficient with it. I especially like the way it will give you a pull down list of all values already entered for that field in your library after you type a few characters. So, while tagging Composer, typing Bee gives me the correct spelling of Beethoven, Ludwig van, identical to and consistent with the rest of my library. It fills it in correctly with a mouse click, or allows me to type something completely new, if appropriate. Ditto for other tag fields. That saves much typing and ensures much greater consistency across the library. And, of course, filling in multiple or all tracks on an album with the same tag value is simple. Just highlight them while tagging.

 

GAHHHH, you're right. I must have been really tired when I was looking at this the other day. Now I feel extra stupid, but thank you anyway.

No electron left behind.

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I have tried Tag&Rename, but not MP3Tag. Does MP3Tag support custom additional fields or even Conductor, Orchestra, Publisher, etc. It did not appear to when I looked at it. Tag&Rename does not, limiting its use severely for me.

MP3Tag does support custom fields, but I must admit, that's never been of concern to me. If I know the name of a piece and the performer, that's generally enough to get to it quickly and start listening to it. To that end, I have done away with the concept of the album almost completely, at least for pieces with multiple movements. I treat each multi-movement work as a separate album and the individual movements as the tracks. I always start with the composer, so: Mozart Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major KV453 would be the name of an "album" and the tracks would be: I Allegro, II Andante/ Cadenza Mozart and III Allegretto. and the Artist would be: Geza Anda/ Camerata Academica des Salzburger Mozarteums.

I've used that system for some time, but it has proven fortuitous now that I am using the Plex app on my phone to control a Chromecast Audio. As I browse down the albums on the phone, everything by Mozart is together and within that, all his piano concertos, symphonies etc are also grouped. For single movement pieces I create an album like, say, Chopin Nocturnes.

It's quick and dirty, but effective.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

- Einstein

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My methods are similar to Fitzcaraldo215's. I find JRiver to be a superior tool for tagging music files.

 

There is a fundamental divide in how you tag classical music. If you limit yourself to the LCD set of tags: genre, artist, album and track name, you will have to make awkward compromses in placing Composer, Work, Performer and movement in the tags. You wil be focused on how to work around the limitations of the tag set.

 

If you don't want to settle for those compromises, you first need to find the right tools. Then you need to figure out how you will use them. That includes deciding what you will place in each tag and how you will deal with situations like compilation albums with multiple composers and/or performers. You also need to think out how you will represent names (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 1756-d.1791 or just Mozart). Then you need to develop the work flow to get the information into the right place with the right spelling.

 

Ripping CDs is a lot of work. Tagging them as you want it done seems like a burden but for me most classical CDs take about 1 minute to get the tags right. The reward for doing it the way you want is a collection you can effortlessly browse for years to come.

 

Here's the JRiver view that I use most often for browsing classical music.

 

major_composers_view.jpg

 

Other people's choices will be different from mine but if you make the effort to get your collection organized they way you want it, the result can be very satisfying for you.

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I've so far limited my active tagging to the iTunes set of tags, i.e.

 

- Artist: the several artists on the particular track, separated by a semicolon (hoping that A+ or some other system will be eventually able to split them if needed": e.g. Janine Jansen; Antonio Pappano; Orchestra della Santa Cecilia

- Album artist: the artist that are common to all tracks of the album. Given that there are two different orchestras here, I only use Janine Jansen; Antonio Pappano.

- Composer: Full name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but with the additional sort by field that iTunes recognized to sort them by last name. I hope A+ will eventually start recognizing this field as well

- Grouping: the work, e.g. Violin Concerto D-Major op. 77

- Genre: 65 different genres including period and instrument type, e.g. Baroque Piano/Harpsichord

 

With A+ column browser, I usually able to find everything.

 

That said, there is room for improvement.

 

Now on any tag beyond the iTunes set (which by it's ubiquity sets a kind of quasi standard), there are several tags I'd like to use but haven't dared to put in the effort yet, as I'm not sure how universal they are, and what happens to the effort should I switch to a different playback system in the future.

 

A+ offers a nice set of "extended" tags that include Conductor, Ensemble,Soloist, instrument, Style and Period, that'd love to use. I see at old listeners list above he uses sub-genres in JRiver, also a great idea.

 

Now if only we could get these tags to be somehow standardized between players.

 

It would be great if maybe at least the developers of A+, JRiver, Roon, and MusicCHI could connect on setting a de-facto new standard for classical music tagging, including all those additions. This would hopefully then also force developers of other software, or hardware streamers, to adopt these tags.

 

But I suppose this is never going to happen.

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Just for the record, I've had a play with Foobar 2000 (Windows version) and it will indeed organise your music files into any directory structure you wish, based on the files' tags. I haven't tried the Mac version as yet.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

- Einstein

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MP3Tag does support custom fields, but I must admit, that's never been of concern to me. If I know the name of a piece and the performer, that's generally enough to get to it quickly and start listening to it. To that end, I have done away with the concept of the album almost completely, at least for pieces with multiple movements. I treat each multi-movement work as a separate album and the individual movements as the tracks. I always start with the composer, so: Mozart Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major KV453 would be the name of an "album" and the tracks would be: I Allegro, II Andante/ Cadenza Mozart and III Allegretto. and the Artist would be: Geza Anda/ Camerata Academica des Salzburger Mozarteums.

I've used that system for some time, but it has proven fortuitous now that I am using the Plex app on my phone to control a Chromecast Audio. As I browse down the albums on the phone, everything by Mozart is together and within that, all his piano concertos, symphonies etc are also grouped. For single movement pieces I create an album like, say, Chopin Nocturnes.

It's quick and dirty, but effective.

 

I do the same, however I also have a view that is by disc. This way I can still listen to ~45 minutes of music the way it was arranged on the CD/album.

Analog: Koetsu Rosewood > VPI Aries 3 w/SDS > EAR 834P > EAR 834L: Audiodesk cleaner

Digital Fun: DAS > CAPS v3 w/LPS (JRMC) SOtM USB > Lynx Hilo > EAR 834L

Digital Serious: DAS > CAPS v3 w/LPS (HQPlayer) Ethernet > SMS-100 NAA > Lampi DSD L4 G5 > EAR 834L

Digital Disc: Oppo BDP 95 > EAR 834L

Output: EAR 834L > Xilica XP4080 DSP > Odessey Stratos Mono Extreme > Legacy Aeris

Phones: EAR 834L > Little Dot Mk ii > Senheiser HD 800

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