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[benn600]

My library is quite consistent and almost official in the sense that everything I have is a complete CD.  I thought this would resolve the complaints I've had with music before.  However, it has not.  As I listen to my music, I seem to always encounter any of these types of tracks...

1. Remakes
2. Live recordings
3. Special editions
4. Unplugged, sessions, etc.
5. Remixes
6. Covers
7. Tributes

The issue is that my core playlist building scheme is based entirely on rating: 4 and 5 star songs are worth syncing, listening to anytime, etc.  3 star are backup when I want new music--which can easily get promoted in certain cases.  The problem is that when I search for a specific artist, my results are littered. With an artist I just selected, I get three results from soundtrack CDs and other artists return tributes (album named after artist).  Now this is simply a database and the results I am getting are obviously what I called for.  However, I am curious if anyone has an interesting solution to these complaints.  One thought I had was a simple flag called [Studio Official] or something like that.  I really like being able to pull up the main discography for an artist without it being littered by all of the above (and any other categories I forgot).

It gets worse when you talk about greatest hits albums.  Not that I want to name names but we all know of artists who release greatest hits albums with ONE new must-have track.  So of course the track listing gets further destroyed with 12 duplicates from that CD.  But removing the duplicates would result in incomplete and very short CDs ( 1 or a few more tracks, which bothers me as well).

I hope others have some similar feelings.  Let the discussion begin!

[datdude]

Yeah. My system is pretty simple.  I took all the songs that I rated 3, 4, and 5 and then found all the duplicates for those songs (not counting live).  I then decided to pick one that I thought was the best and then created a new field in MC called 'duplicate allowed' and had a yes or no check box to it.  The one I picked as the best, I marked as Yes, and the rest as No.

Then any smartlist or search I create, I make sure I add in the rule for 'duplicate allowed' = Yes.

Not sure if that helps or not.

[marko]

More or less the same approach here, the difference being that I use 'Hidden' and 'Allowed' playlists to mange mine.

Hidden has all the pure dupes from greatest hits albums and the like, and Allowed has the live, unplugged, alternate takes etc. etc.

It's a lot of work to set up initially, but once done, visiting a purpose built viewscheme every 3 - 6 months is all that's required to keep it in order.
Part of my View Scheme allows to see all tracks from albums with exclusions, and it's not uncommon for me to find all but one or two tracks excluded on an album, at which point, I'll often move the 'keepers' into my 'Assorted Tracks' album, tagging their origin in a library field, and delete the rest of the tracks.

-marko.

[bunglemebaby]

I go the complicated route .  I've got two custom fields, Release Type and Performance Type:
Release Type -> LP, EP, Single, Compilation, Soundtrack, Bonus Material (and probably one or two more I've forgotten).
Performance Type -> Studio, Live, Acoustic, Remix, Cover, Bootleg (again I've probably forgotten some).

For me this works best, because sometimes I want that extraneous junk (that is why I have it in my library to begin with). So if I just want normal releases I can choose Release Type = LP or EP and Performance Type = Studio. Conversely if I'm in the mood for some laid back live acoustic material I can quickly throw together a playlist for that. It's certainly more effort to keep the tags updated, but I find it to be a worth while effort.

-JB

[dcwebman]

But wouldn't it be sweet if after all these years of asking, there was an alias type of ability so you could still have that complete album with only one new song and just pointing to the other tracks that existed in another album? Doubt it will ever happen though.

[benn600]

I remember talking about the pointers configuration back with MC 11.1 I believe -- when I first discovered MC.  Thanks to everyone for the ideas.  I like your complicated way JB.  Basically a few extra categories.  I looked at subgenre but more is required than that alone.  Having the two fields really opens the door.

In the past I've set Soundtrack in the genre field.  It would be nice to actually set a real genre here instead of just soundtrack.  Of course as the number of used, important fields increases, then more real estate is taken for MC to be fully usable on screen--width-wise.

[benn600]

Maybe what I need is a 6th rating state.  I like the possibility of avoiding a new custom field if possible.  Right now, I waste the 1-star rating for non-ratable items, which mainly consists of duplicate tracks.  If there was a sixth state (sort of like unrated, except obviously not actually un-rated).  I can't just leave the questionable tracks unrated because that would throw a red flag, which should only occur when I add new music.  Everything should have a rating, 1 - 5 stars or "Not-Rateable."

This could very easily be displayed as the (x) which appears to un-select a rating.  I feel that it should have a numeric value as well and 0 (zero) seems to be the most appropriate choice.

For my purposes, I think this would definitely resolve the issue without going crazy with a new field that I have to then setup and maintain.  I've spent nearly 200 hours rating my entire library and one extra task I undergo as I proceed is checking for duplicates.  In this case I immediately mark a track 1-star while I verify another track receives the real rating.  I generally prefer giving 1-star ratings to compilation (greatest hits) albums because they are basically re-releases and less artistic in cover art and overall layout.

Something as simple as adding the ability to set a star count (2, 5, 8, 10--arbitrary would be best) + the option to include 0-star ratings would be perfect for my needs and I know a lot of people would appreciate custom star numbers in the custom fields.