More > JRiver Media Center 18 for Windows
Album friendly Media Library setup thoughts (long)
kstuart:
--- Quote from: InflatableMouse on February 21, 2013, 03:05:41 pm ---Thanks for taking the time and write this up. You have some good tips and ideas here.
I'm not sure I understand this one, but I understand the problem.
I want my [Date] field to contain the original release date of an album. I'm considering adding an extra field for the re-release (ie, version release date). I've also added an extra field for the version, which you call Description but maybe I can combine the two, I don't know yet.
I was using Music Brainz Picard with the API key that allows scanning of songs and picking the right album. With my properly ripped CD's this works fine but it not always picks the proper album version and sometimes notoriously picks some various album type for 1 particular song. Editing some tags and rescanning mostly fixes that. Do you think mp3tag with Discogs works better?
--- End quote ---
For the first point, I am putting the Version Date in the Description field - it has a lot of space for just about anything. I like having the version information stored, but I don't sort by it, or refer to it ( I don't care if it is 2003 or 2006 ).
I haven't used Picard, I have only tried Music Brainz through mp3tag. Mp3tag uses the Album name to lookup , and you can use any of several sources. It often takes several tries of massaging the Album Name, if it is an odd one with ten words like "In Person Friday and Saturday Night at the Blackhawk, Complete". The parsing software is not very bright, and you can try several different versions and one will work perfect and another won't - or you could get two different entries depending.
Once you get an entry in discogs, it is more accurate and more detailed. You just don't get people uploading data to discogs who are not really sure what they are doing, where you clearly seem to get people uploading to other databases, who are not even aware that there is more than one release of an album. discogs users are aware of the difference between the 1983 UK release and the 1983 Italy release.
But there could exist a better way to access the discogs data than mp3tag, I have not researched it.
Vincent Kars:
--- Quote ---Similarly, I want "The Miles Davis Quintet" "The Miles Davis Quartet" and so forth to appear under "Miles Davis".
--- End quote ---
The same problem with classical
The internet databases are not the most structured so you get
Gideon Kremer
Gideon Kremer/ Martha Argerich
Gideon Kremer/ Olaf Mustone
Harnoncourt / Gideon Kremer
Martha Argerich
Martha Argerich / Harnoncourt / Gideon Kremer
Etc. as Album Artist
This makes it almost impossible to use the navigation tree to select all the compositions performed by Kremer.
I went at great length including a custom multiple values tag to have the individual performers: http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Players/MC14/MC_Multiple.htm
Today I do care less.
If I type “Kremer” in the search box it simply returns all the tracks Kremer is involved in as long as his name is in any tag used by the search box.
kstuart:
MrC - I wanted to mention that your idea of & as a delimiter, as opposed to "and" indicating just another word, is a great idea - because it mirrors the difference between a punctuation character and a word.
Okay, I went back and thought more about the issue.
It hinges on the issue of compatibility with tagging in the Rest of the World. So, I went back and found the thread on the introduction of List data type for Artist in MC17. A lot of these issues were discussed.
The thing that convinced me just now, is someone's comment that the file tags have supported for a long time, multiple individual artist tags in one file:
ARTIST = John McLaughlin
ARTIST = Carlos Santana
ARTIST =
and so on.
The other thing that made an impression was this comment by Matt:
--- Quote from: Matt on January 27, 2012, 08:41:00 am ---Only the stock list fields will be saved using the new list tagging methods. This is because the tagging plugins only know that the stock fields are a list. This might change someday, but not until other tagging changes are finished.
--- End quote ---
So, by using the stock Artist field with all my multiple artist changes, they will all get saved into the files. This has two advantages:
* If there is some problem with MC, I can regenerate my library from the file's internal tags without having to re-do all those multiple artist modifications. While library backups should suffice, I can imagine some scenario where it would be helpful to start from scratch and re-import (just like a "clean build of Windows").
* If I use my music with other software, all that information is present in the tags.
Furthermore, when I have a compilation album ("Greatest Hits of the 1980s" or whatever), then I will still be using Artist for the artist name for each individual track. Then those compilation albums will also appear when I choose a particular artist, as well as all the albums for which that artist is one of the multiple ones found in the ; delimited list. So, if John McLaughlin has one track in Greatest Hits of the 1980s, then that album would appear when you choose John McLaughlin, as well as "Carlos Santana & John McLaughlin - Love Devotion Surrender".
The way the Artist list is implemented in MC17 allows all of this to work without any further intervention or customization. From Matt's comments in the other thread, MC uses the first Artist name for both Album Artist(Auto) and for generating folder and file names. So, it's even unnecessary to specify [Album Artist] - which then makes it coherent with the general use of Album Artist only when all the tracks have different Artists (a compilation).
Lastly, I want to clarify that I have no loyalty to any particular system, and will continue to consider any alternatives.
MrG:
I plan to migrate to MC18 and need to determine and set basic rules for tagging/naming of my huge collection. The thing is I have many SACD ISO files and I want to play them directly (on DSD-DAC) instead of extracting individual dff/dsf files.
This means I cannot use file tags because ISO files don't support them.
Going further in my analysis I decided not to bother file tagging at all and in fact my files should be stored in read-only NAS share. I don't want my files to be accidentally tagged by MC.
Is there any downside of such approach?
My tags will be stored only in MC internal database.
I am one of the "collectors" who have many different versions of particular album (LP rip, CD, SACD, first Japanese pressing with Pre-Emphasis, etc.).
Adding "[SACD 2003]" as a part of album name doesn't look good. Your idea of "Description" field is good but the question is what determines an "album" in MC18? Can it be configured somehow? I guess the "Album" tag and file folder should do it. What about multi-disc SACD rips with the same ISO file name? Now I place them in separate folders. Will they be recognized as different albums because of separate folders?
Doing things right from the beginning will save me a lot of re-doing after discovering any approach faults in the future.
MrC:
Quick comments.
- You should be fine with disabling tag writing (be sure to do that, or you'll get errors when MC tries to tag on read-only media).
- An album is determined essentially as you say - the Album tag, one album / directory is safest (this requires more explanation, that isn't relevant here). For multi-disc albums, set the Disc # tag, and stock views will show the tracks in the correct order. (Leave Disc # clear for single disc albums). Artist can vary; if you set Album Artist for various artist albums, be sure it is the same for all tracks. You can leave Album Artist empty for single artist tracks or various artist albums that you want to appear under MC's (Multiple Artists) grouping. See Album Artist (auto).
- You can use the stock Description field, but I wouldn't because it is a Type=Large field, that allows newlines, and those don't look good in formatted titles you might use in MC. Create your own field, perhaps called Album Version, and place your unique identifiers there. You'll use those to differentiate the album versions in a view.
- MC distinguishes files on the full file path, not just the file name.
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