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[8139david]

I want to customize the genre view.
For classical music, I wanted it to use the fields composer, interpret (custom-made field) and album in that order.
Four other genres, I wanted it to use the fields artist and album in that order.
How can I do that?

[blgentry]

Make a new view.  Or make TWO new views.  Add the fields you want and set them up the way you want them.

For your classical view, use "set rules for file display" to only show files with [Genre]=Classical .  For your other view, do the opposite and set it up to NOT show classical with -[Genre]=Classical .  Note the minus sign ( - ) which means "do not include this".

Views are one of the most powerful things about MC.  You're about to discover this! 

Brian.

[8139david]

Thanks!

In classical music, an album often has several artists (interprets) in my case.
Then these are displayed separetely in a scheme:
Genre > Artist > Album
(Namely, this shows several thumbnails of the same album, one for each artist collaborating a the same album.)
Is there a way that all the artists of a given album be shown together instead?

[blgentry]

I'm not sure exactly what behavior you are describing, but I'm pretty sure that [Album Artist] will fix this for you.  Read the wiki entry and I think you'll get it:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Album_Artist_and_Album_Artist_%28Auto%29

Brian.

[8139david]

Thanks.

Currently, for classical music, I have this set-up:
Artist = Composers - Interprets (eg "Beethoven - du Pré, Barenboim")
Interprets = the main soloists
Orchestra = the orchestra
Conductor = the orchestra's conductor

I would like to have two ways to look at it:
Artist(s) = my "Composer(s) - Interpret(s)")
AND
Composers THEN Interprets

When I choose Composers, then Interprets, that's where I get the problem of a thumbnail for each interpret of any given album.
So a solution would be to set-up "Album artist" as, eg "du Pré, Barenboim", while my own Artist is, eg, "Beethoven - du Pré, Barenboim". And have Composers THEN Album Artists.

Or is there another way to get these two ways to display my music?

[Arindelle]

Hi

looks like you are on the right track, but just to share some of my hardships you might want to avoid when tagging classical music ..... Now if you search the forum you will find lots of posts on this, and there is no standardized way of tagging.

However, the more your collection grows, especially when you have more than one recording of the same works, good metadata, once its there can be re-manipulated as you go ...

one thing to remember as was already pointed out to you, is that JRiver bundles albums using the Album Artist and Album fields. Although there are workarounds, you don't want to mess with this too much, especially if you have boxed 17cd box sets of Mahler etc.

Your choice of how detailed you want/need to be is up to you of course. But most classical collection are indeed based on Composer. I recommend duplicating the composer in the Album Artist field -- I know it seems redundant, your views will still be based on composer, no worries there, however the album will always stay grouped together, regardless if your main filter/sort is by your "interpret" field or any other way of filtering

I also double up my Orchestra field which becomes fills in the Artist Field. The conductors last name becomes part of the album name in brackets. I also use the Period, Genre, and Style Fields as well as Soloists [for info/ you might want to use the Soloist field rather than create a field "interpret" -- this is a standard vorbis comment field and write to file as PERFORMER. Some external taggers and databases use this which could be very handy in the future. I also have created a new field called Work, and some here on the forum create again another field called Opus (my classical collection is not big enough to warrant this yet, so I combine it in Work for later).

Regardless the key is to be consistent, and Album Artist = Composer is really something to think about before you plunge into hours of retagging.

AS I'm lazy and probably boring you with the detail anyways,  here's a screen shot from the new tag window to illustrate what I do. Of course, you do NOT have to do it this way   The soloists could of course be the principal piano player of a concerto for example, but some might put him in the artist field ... just a question of choice and consistency, once again.

[8139david]

Thanks!

I applied my own suggestion, and replaced my custom Interpret field by Soloists.
So in my tagging scheme for classical music:
Album Artist = shortened Soloists, Conductor, Orchestra
Artist = Composer - shortned Soloists, Conductor, Orchestra

Here are two examples:

Code: [Select]

Album: Violin and Piano Works
Album Artist: Faust, Boffard
Artist: Bartok - Faust, Boffard
Composer: Bartok
Soloists: Isabelle Faust; Laurent Boffard


Code: [Select]

Album: Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 30
Album Artist: Berman, Abbado, LSO
Artist: Rachmaninov - Berman, Abbado, LSO
Composer: Rachmaninov
Conductor: Claudio Abbado
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra
Soloists: Lazar Berman


[Arindelle]

sure, no problem. As I said there is not yet a universal way of tagging classical yet, so have fun with it.

Just bear in mind that the idea is to not choose what you are listening to from windows folders or the tree, but from the main pane using Views and Metadata. I'd recommend setting up a dedicated Classical View based on Composer if you haven't already before tagging all of your cds completely. Remember now the albums grouping and default sorting may have to be changed, looking at your use of the tag fields. Try tagging a bunch on only one composer and see after setting up the view. (you can remove it later) Also remember your question about grouping these together -- and Brian's response.

The default is by Album Artist and not Artist. You can sort of get this to work avoiding Artist and not Album Artist, but it requires some customization and doesn't handle multiple composer albums well in my opinion. It also cancause issue when trying to use the same View in Theater or Remote Modes later. Remember filling in your tags to make it look pretty on the screen is not what you want to do. Figure out first how you want to find the music, then how you want that music grouped together for playback. Afterwards, there are ways to make it "appear" how you want to on the screen. That being said, however, of course you can have "drill-down" categories like Genre then Artist, but on the Artist filter, you will of course have multiple thumbnails, thats the purpose of it - finding all albums that each Artist played on. On a multiple Artist album, you might only have one or two songs. If you are actually try to find complete Album, this can be avoided by  using the Album Artist field like I suggested. Remember a unique Album that by default will be grouped together and sorted is comprised of ALBUM ARTIST/ALBUM not ARTIST/ALBUM. Why the consistency of this field is very important.
 
 remember this is what you wanted to avoid. So if Album Artist/Album is the 1st level then Album, then Artist you can avoid this. Your choice if Composer is not a key field or not -- usually it is, but that's up to you

Thanks!

In classical music, an album often has several artists (interprets) in my case.
Then these are displayed separetely in a scheme:
Genre > Artist > Album
(Namely, this shows several thumbnails of the same album, one for each artist collaborating a the same album.)
Is there a way that all the artists of a given album be shown together instead?

Also, for info, when you have multiple artists that are common on each track but only one Album Artist. You can separate in the artist field each one, by a semi-colon.  Usiing Artist as a category (or much better creating a list field based on Artist -- this is more advanced so lets leave that alone now ), you could if using instead of Rachmaninov - Berman, Abbado, LSO you input Rachmaninov; Berman; Abbado; LSO that could split the artist up depending on your View so you can find all of Berman as Artist without him playing Rachmaninov. This may not be what you want or need.

[8139david]

Thanks again.

I did set up a view for classical, as follows:
Genre > Artist > Composer > Album Artist > Album
When I right-click on the classique genre, I can choose to display Artist (which gives me all the albums and box-sets organized by Artist), or Composer, from which I can then choose Album Artist.

In my way of tagging, my 'Album Artist' and 'Artist' are invariant for any given album.
Given what you say, I should swap them, so that for instance Album Artist = Bartok - Faust, Boffard, and Artist = Faust, Boffard.
Edit: I just did so.

If I want to see all the pieces by Glenn Gould, I can set-up a view using the Soloists field; or just type Glenn Gould in the search field, which is actually very convenient. Likewise if I'm looking for all the works conducted by Karajan...