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Album friendly Media Library setup thoughts (long)

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kstuart:
I used to work for music retailers (and actually had a small part-time music retailing business for a while), so I have a lot of CDs and my listening is oriented towards albums.

I postponed ripping a lot of my CDs until I decided on Media Library software (and my final choice was MC18).   I read through some threads here on the Forum and then gave some thought about what would be the most effective organization.  I  thought I would post what I decided, in case it was helpful for someone else reading this later.

Since most people listen to individual songs, MC18 is setup by default for individual song playback, so those who want to listen primarily to albums must customize it.

Tags (Fields)

In order to use the powerful capabilities of MC18, you need to use the Fields.  In order to save time, I use an online database, instead of entering Field information manually.  As of today, I've found that the only reliable source for that information is discogs.com  (mp3tag free software program will pull tag information from discogs).  (My guess is that the discogs information is far more accurate, because discogs is used to sell to collectors.  Since the difference between the 1986 Italian CD and the 1989 UK CD is important to the fanatical collector who is missing one, then the tiny details must be correct in the discogs database.)

To keep my music files as "future proof" as possible, I want to keep maximum compatibility with online databases (and other music software).   So I want to use as many "Standard Tags" as possible.  Standard tags in FLAC and MP3 files are setup for individual song playback, and so additional tags must be added.  Actually, even the "Album" tag is present mostly to identify a song.

After considering various suggested possibilities, I am using these standard tags:

Artist - The performer (whether pop or classical) as stated on the cover

Since no other Artist related field is a "list" in MC18, I find that I also use this in preference to Album Artist.  When an album is a collaboration (eg "Carlos Santana & John McLaughlin"), then for sorting purposes, I need three entries - "Carlos Santana" "John McLaughlin" "Carlos Santana & John McLaughlin" - so that the album shows up when I select Carlos Santana in the Artist list, and so it shows up when I select "John McLaughlin".   If none of the Artist-related fields were a List, then it would only show up in "Carlos Santana & John McLaughlin", so it would be rarely played.

MC will use your first artist in the list in various places where it needs just one, so put the Artist from the cover as the first one.

Note that compilations (eg "Greatest Hits of the 1980s") will still use the Artist field as the artist for that one song, and "(Multiple Artists)" or "Varies" in places for the overall artist of the album.

In order to have the Player Display at the top of MC18 display the artist for individual songs in a compilation, and also the artist listed on the cover of collaborations, then customize the display with the following (instead of any other artist info that it may be showing by default):

listitem([Artist],0,;)

Album - The album as stated on the cover

This means compatibility with online databases, etc.  It then means another tag/field is needed for different versions of the album, and by process of elimination, that is:

Description - The specific version of the album (eg "30th Anniversary Remaster by Doug Sax 2003")

This is the sort of thing that some people put in brackets right into the Album tag/field, but that has several disadvantages:

- Clutters up the album lists (many different entries for "Dark Side of the Moon" or "Kind of Blue", that you have to scroll past to get to other albums)
- Requires a decision (of which version) when you just want to play "Dark Side of the Moon"
- Conceptually, different Versions are really a separate level below the Album, they are not equivalent things under the Artist level (some aspects of the Album apply to all versions of the Album, such as Musicians and Recording Date, while the Version information only applies to specific files)

(I did not use "Comment" because it is frequently used, and many online tag databases have something already in that tag field, such as "Tracks 1-3 feature Joe Blow on flute".)

Date -  The date when the album was released

The point here is to give power to the widely used "Year - Album" sorting method, so that Album lists become:

1957 - Blue Train
1958 - Soultrane
1960 - Coltrane's Sound
1961 - The Complete Village Vanguard

Which allows one to choose to listen to an album from a certain era (eg 50s - bop, early 60s - modal, late 60s - avant garde).  In contrast, the online databases have been filled with Date tags that use the version release date, for two reasons - 1) the inexperienced tag submitters don't actually know the original release date, while the version release date is easily found, right there on the back cover, or else 2) the experienced tag submitter knows the original release date by heart, so what is important to him is the version release date.

Genre - The broad category, not a dizzying array of sub-genres or styles

The purpose here is just to narrow the display by what you are going to want to listen to.   I find that I know I want to listen to "Classical" or "Folk" or "Jazz" or "Rock" (and a few others) and then I want to select an artist within that Genre (which makes the Panes View very helpful).  I don't need to narrow it to "Vocal Trance" or
"Progressive Metal" in advance - that usually happens automatically by the choice of Artist.

I also find that the assignment of small sub-genres or styles is very subjective, and so many albums cross the line, or have a foot in many camps.  So, removing that entirely removes a large amount of unnecessary work (especially since the online database tagging will often put it into a different sub-genre than you would).

The most important genre distinction is Classical vs. everything else, because this alone makes a difference in how you want MC18 Views to work, IF you have Classical music.  I will put my Classical mods in a separate post below, so you can skip it if you don't collect Classical music in any quantity.

===

Keywords

This is the most effective way to control what is included or excluded from any View in MC18.  You define specific keywords, and then tag files with them when they apply.   Then in Views, you define a Rule:

Keywords      is not any      keyword

and then any files or albums that have that keyword won't show up.  To make my system explained above work properly, I need:

Superseded - A lesser version of an album that I am keeping as part of my collection, but is not as good as another version.

(You can use any word you want, since this is not a Standard.)  The idea is to first listen to all your different versions ( I recommend you to listen, rather than just taking the advice of others that you find on the web ), choose one, and then check the "Superseded" box in Keywords for all the other ones (the checkbox will appear for all other files, after you enter a new keyword for the first time, making it easy).

When you have done this, "Dark Side of the Moon" shows up only one time, and clicking "Play" on it will play your preferred version.  But, if you do a search in the search box for "Doug Sax", it will turn up the "30th Anniversary Doug Sax Remaster 2003" - even though several other versions sound better.  So, you can always find everything that you have in your Library, but they don't clutter up your View when you are looking for music to play.

Avant-Garde - The sort of atonal, dissonant music that you might choose only when you are in the mood for something challenging, but is the wrong thing for Family time, or when you have guests.  By having a View,  plus a Rule "keywords is not any Avant-Garde", you know you won't ever have to quickly change the music playing.

"Avant-Garde" is just an example of how you can use keywords to filter what your View shows.  You can also do this in a positive, instead of negative, way, by using the rule "keywords is" and having a keyword such as "Kids Faves" that tags everything that you know your kids like.

Views

I find that the most practical View for albums is not Albums View, but rather Panes View.   Sure, if you think "I'd like to hear Close to the Edge", then just bring up Album View and type "Clo" to automatically scroll down to where you can see it and right-click "Play".

But any music organization lets you find a specific album.  The advantage of a Music Library, is to help you figure out what to play next.  Panes first filters by Genre, then when you select a Genre, by Artist, and then when you select a specific artist, you can just select an album in the right pane and click on Play.   To implement what I setup above, I need to setup the three panes as Genre, Artist (not Album Artist(auto) ), and Year-Album (when I setup the panes, I edit the Year-Album one and set the sorting to "Date (oldest)".  That way, if the artist has, say,  two or three albums in 1963, they will appear in order.

While it looks really cool to have album covers flying around every time you click in MediaCenter, I find that it is a big waste of screen space when you are perusing your Library to display any covers.  In fact, if you have so few albums that you can recognize every one by a small thumbnail, then you don't need Media Library software.  So, I always use List Style "Details" and remove the Thumbnail columns as well.   Of course, once a track is playing, then I want to see that one album cover - in Playing Now.)

Folders

Don't waste any time with any sort of detailed folder setup.   The only reason that the folder structure could ever be important is if the tags are accidentally cleared.  Otherwise, once every file is correctly tagged, all the files could go in one folder !  (If we assume they have unique filenames.) But, often you have other files that are not imported, but are associated with an album, such as more cover art files, or a booklet in some format.   So, it is best to at least have separate folders for each album with the basic " Artist - Album " folder name (this could help if there is some sort of database or computer problem).   Then filenames will only need to be " Track# - Title ".

MC18 can write such folder and filenames, but you will need to take care of collaboration albums mentioned above that have a List of Artists.   Take the artist name from the album cover (such as "Carlos Santana & John McLaughlin") and put that into the "Album Artist".  Then set MC18's Rename to use "Album Artist(auto)" and it will take Album Artist if it has anything and Artist if not.

Lastly, Enjoy the Music !

kstuart:
Classical

The online databases are notoriously poor for classical music, although they do have some entries, so be prepared to do a lot of the tagging yourself.

Composer - This is the most important Field that is needed for Classical Music, and less so for other music.  Yes, it is possible (and perhaps helpful) to have "Bob Dylan" as the Composer for Jimi Hendrix's performance of "All Along the Watchtower" - but it is not crucial.

But it's crucial for Classical.  So, to start with, I add "Composer" Field as an early column in Playing Now.  In cases where a pop song is a cover, you will see information there, otherwise blank space, but MC18 does not have dynamic Playing Now columns.

So, to minimize the lost space (and to give more space for other classical fields), I use Last Name Only for Composer.  So, "Mozart" rather than "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart".   Whereas we can see dozens of people with the same last name in Jazz or other popular music,  we don't see that in Classical.  (In those cases where the Composer has a descendent, I just add the initials to the end, eg "Bach,JC".)

Date - For the date, I use the same pattern as for other music - I use the date that would be most helpful for sorting in "Year - Album" in the Date field, and I put the other date(s) in Description, along with the same Release information.

The Date that is most helpful for me in choosing Classical Music to play is the Date of Composition.  That way, it sorts with earlier Mozart first, followed by later Mozart.

Work - Here is the one exception to the "album based" focus of this article.  Classical albums often have several works in one album - or in multiple disk sets.  The flexible View-based software of MC18 allows the Classical fan to see which performances he owns of a particular work - such as Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
Amazingly, while MC18 supports "Conductor", "Orchestra" and "Soloists" fields (and use those if they are useful to you), there is no "Work" field, so you are going to have to create your own Custom Field.  For instruction on that, see:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/File_Properties_%28tags%29#Custom_Fields

Artist - I just use the primary artist who is responsible for the performance, usually the Conductor for something like a Symphony, often the soloist for a Concerto, etc.   Since Artist is a list field, you can put both the soloist and the Conductor if you like.   You can then also use the Conductor and Orchestra and Soloists fields if you are going to sort by those.  (If you do, modify these instructions for both tagging and Views to suit.)

You can then make a Classical View as follows:

Take Panes, and make a Rule "Genre is any " and then select all your Classical Genres.  Then change the 3 panes to "Composer", "Work" and "Artist".   When you save, tell it to not overwrite the default Panes, and it will make a Panes Copy which you can rename "Classical".

Jong:
A lot of what you say sounds good. The one thing I don't understand is why you intend to use the Artist tag instead of Album Artist. What do you do with the many albums which have different collaborators on different tracks or, the smaller number of albums, where an album with one named band on the cover may have some tracks by individual band members and/or earlier iterations of the band with different a different band name? Do you really just lose that information? Putting the real track collaborators/band name in the Artist field and the name on the cover into Album Artist just seems sensible as well as well-understood, standard practice.

kstuart:

--- Quote from: Jong on February 21, 2013, 11:40:18 am ---A lot of what you say sounds good. The one thing I don't understand is why you intend to use the Artist tag instead of Album Artist. What do you do with the many albums which have different collaborators on different tracks or, the smaller number of albums, where an album with one named band on the cover may have some tracks by individual band members and/or earlier iterations of the band with different a different band name? Do you really just lose that information? Putting the real track collaborators/band name in the Artist field and the name on the cover into Album Artist just seems sensible as well as well-understood, standard practice.

--- End quote ---

Let's take an example.

I see people put "The Beatles with Billy Preston" as the Artist for a couple of tracks only (in the online tag databases).

But then, when I click on "The Beatles", those two tracks don't show up.

Instead, it makes more sense to put "with Billy Preston" in the Comments tag.

Again, all this is necessary for those cases where who want the album - as a whole - to show up under two (or more) different Artists.

So, with the album:

Carlos Santana & John McLaughlin - Love Devotion Surrender

when I click on "Carlos Santana" in the Artist column, I want "Love Devotion Surrender" to show up amongst the albums, and when I click on "John McLaughlin" in the Artist column, I want "Love Devotion Surrender" to show up.   If the Artist is "Carlos Santana & John McLaughlin" (the cover artist), then it shows up in neither.  (And so when I am picking a McLaughlin album to listen to, I don't see it at all.)

That collaboration situation is only fixed by a List data type, and currently only Artist has a List data type - Album Artist and Album Artist (auto) do not.   If they eventually become List data types, then you can do it in a more "elegant" way, but this is what works for the moment.
 
NOTE:  For compilation albums, something like "The Best Blues of the 20th Century", you are still going to have a different artist name for each track, and it will show up as "Varies", and the MC18 Album Type will be "Multiple Artists", all of which is the same as it would be anyway.

MrC:
Because *any* field can be treated (i.e. cast) as a list type in a view, it really doesn't matter much.  What the user needs to do is enter data in a format compatible with presentation as a list.  For the OCD crowd who has trouble changing "with" into ";", this will require more expression work.  But for those more pragmatic souls, using a consistent item separator makes life much easier.

If I were to bet, Album Artist and certainly Album Artist (auto) will never become list types.

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