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[iajim]

I have a multi part, multi concept question looking for input.

My Music is almost all Classical which means multiple movements that may or may not be played together; also there are multiple performances of the same composition by the same or different performers. Identification and tagging get complicated; but doing so is very important.

I have no interest in YADB or down-loads.

50% of collection is from LP’s that have been processed using Diamond Cut 6 from turntable thru pre-amp to PC for cleanup then stored as WAV files.

All music files are stored on 500 gig hard drive shared on a LAN and attached to a PC driving an AVR & high end audio system ($10000 range) so fidelity is important. Currently all files on the HD are WAV. The files are currently organized in multi level (5-6) folders. These make for lengthy file names but are easy to locate selections.

There are 4-5 PCs on the LAN some wired some wireless; several are also driving their own AVR and speaker systems. Each can choose & playback their own selections.

I am not looking for universal remote control of playback on an in-house wired speaker system.

Currently all retrieval & play selection are being made using Windows Explorer-drag & drop to WMP on all but my machine which has JRiver MC on it.

Dear Wife & family find MC complicated for their play back usage.

Several questions:

If I go to APE format for stored files will I be able to hear the difference on Hi-Fi?
Can other machines on LAN play back if they only have WMP on them?
Can they see the tag info?

Do most of those using JR MC just throw all files into one folder & rely on the program to choose play back?

I’d really like to hear how others are dealing with these issues.

[JimH]

Playback of WAV and APE (or any lossless format) on the same equipment will be identical.

[Listener]

> My Music is almost all Classical which means multiple movements that
> may or may not be played together; also there are multiple
> performances of the same composition by the same or
> different performers. Identification and tagging get complicated;
> but doing so is very important.

I chose MC 11 after evaluating a number of players for their support of the tags,  database features and user interface I needed for classical music.  I've finished ripping the classical part of the collection (~ 1200 CDs) and have all my files in FLAC format.

I understand your concern for the details of identification and tagging.  I spent longer finding a player that let me do things right than I did ripping my collection.

> I have no interest in YADB or down-loads.

YADB was not useful to me either.  MC 11 has some good features to cut down on the work of inputting tagging info manually.  It is super for editing tags for files you have imported. I can supply details if you are interested.

> All music files are stored on 500 gig hard drive shared on a LAN and attached
> to a PC driving an AVR & high end audio system ($10000 range) so
> fidelity is important. Currently all files on the HD are WAV. The files are
> currently organized in multi level (5-6) folders. These make for lengthy
> file names but are easy to locate selections.

With tags, you can find the music files you want by tag values in MC 11.  File location won't matter.  There isn't a standard for storing tags in WAV files.  You will need some other format that has a standard way of storing tags (supported by MC 11.)  That  could be APE or FLAC.  There might be other choices.

MC 11 can guess at database field values (like tags but internal to MC 11)  using the file name when you import files.  That might allow you to continue to use WAV files if you can't find a single lossless file format that both MC11 and WMP can understand other than WAV.

MC 11 has good features for converting music files to a different format.  You should be able to use the file name info and bulk conversion to avoid typing all the Composer, Work, Artist info again.

> Currently all retrieval & play selection are being made using Windows
> Explorer-drag & drop to WMP on all but my machine which has JRiver MC on it.

I remember reading in another thread that you can install MC 11 on your other PCs without additional cost.  That might be an option.

> Dear Wife & family find MC complicated for their play back usage.

Using MC 11 might become much simpler when you have tags in your files and import them into MC 11.

> Can other machines on LAN play back if they only have WMP on them?

Those machines can access the music files.  You need a file format that both MC 11 and WMP can understand.

 > Can they see the tag info?

I don't remember much about WMP.  I evaluated it 7 months ago and  rejected it for my use. It may not use the Composer tag or not fully and probably won't use a tag with a list of performers.  So browsing by Composer, Artist, Work Name and track title will not work as well as it can in MC 11.

The good news is that MC 11 is the best player for organizing a classical music collection.  The bad news is that WMP will not provide the same access to your collection.

> Do most of those using JR MC just throw all files into one folder
> & rely on the program to choose play back?

I have 300+ GB of music in 8 folders (with subfolders by Composer.)  I imported the contents of those 8 folders into a single library so it looks like a single collection in MC 11.  I see everything in one file list and I can browse and search the entire collection.  I don't know whether WMP can import files from several folders.

At this point, I'm picking my music explicitly.  I usually select in browser panes first the Composer, then a Work (stored in the Album tag) and then the Artist .  That usually narrows the list of tracks to the movements in one performace of one work.  I click on Play and it plays the selected tracks.

Sometimes I pick the Artist first, then one of the other fields.  MC 11 provides the database and User Interface features to let me find the music I want in many ways.  You have to do some reading and experimentation to find all  the features and understand them.

----
As I rip CDs, I place them in a separate folder in a separate MC 11 library until I have the tags checked and edited.  When that folder gets large, I import its contents into my permanent library and start on a new ripping library.  (By the way, MC 11's ripper supports the tags you need better than EAC or other rippers I examined.  Ripping classical CDs will be easier if you use the MC 11 ripper rather than a separate ripper like EAC.)

> I’d really like to hear how others are dealing with these issues.

Ask more questions if you found this response to be useful.

Bill

[modelmaker]

You can install MC on any machine you own.

Goto: https://rover.jriver.com/cgi-bin/restore.cgi

MC will send you an email with the key code. Use this key code when installing MC on the other machines. The key code is good for 14 days, afterwhich you can generate another one.

[darichman]

Kinda off-topic, but this may be useful to you...

I recently undertook the task of organising my rather large classical collection. The default tage simply don't cut it for the following reasons:
 --> each piece will have multiple artists (composer, performer, arranger, conductor, orchestra/ensemble)
 --> tracks will belong to a physical album (eg Best of Bach) and to a work (eg Brandenburg Concertos) so a single album tag won't suffice...

If your considering migrating to a taggable format (I find ape fantastic) setting up custom tags suitable to your needs is the best idea. I use the following tags for tagging classical music:

Eg. Bach's: Brandenburg Concerto No.1 BWV 1046 in F Major I. Allegro

[Default Field]
[Custom Field]

[Composer] = Bach, Johann Sebastian
[Artist] = Johann Sebastian Bach
[Album] = Brandenburg Concertos 1-6 (ie the CD album purchased)
[Performer] = Emanuel Hurwitz (Violin); Peter Graeme (Oboe); Ifor James (French Horn); Anthony Randall (French Horn)
[Conductor] = Benjamin Britten
[Band] = English Chamber Orchestra (ie the orchestra or ensemble)

[Genre 1] = Classical (vs. Popular, Film, Comedy etc)
[Genre 2] = Baroque; Chamber Music
[Genre 3] = Concerto

[Works 1] = Concertos and Orchestral Suites
[Works 2] = Brandenburg Concertos

[Classical: Title] = Brandenburg Concerto No.1
[Classical: Name] = (ie common name of piece: not used for this piece)
[Classical: Opus] = BWV 1046
[Classical: Number] = (used for opus parts: not used for this piece)
[Classical: Movement] = I. Allegro
[Key] = F Major

[Date Written] = 1721
[Date Recorded] = 1995
[Date Released] = 1995

The only problem with this for you is that custom fields generated in MC aren't visible in other programs. If you set up MC right, though, there's no reason why your family shoulf find it any more complicated than WMP. If anything, MC's view schemes should make this simpler (the hard part is setting them up)

Without going into too much detail, I then put together an expression (as a new field: "Piece") based on the above fields, which formats the output based on which fields are filled... That way I can fill out whichever fields I've got the information for, and still get a nice clean display to browse my classical music...

If anyone has any form of an organised system for classical music, I'd love to hear about it!