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[BigJ]

For those with large(r) Music libraries, how are you handling Genres?

It seems like it can easily get out of hand with subGenres.

For instance:

House Music
..Acid House
...Deep House
...Electro House
...Progressive House
...Tribal House
Etc

Rock
...Classic Rock
...Alt Rock
...Hard Rock
Etc.

Just after auto importing a bunch of Music I already have 362 Genres, which ends up being unhelpful in many cases.

I understand there is a lot of subjectivity in this area, but any insight into how others are doing this would be appreciated.

(I searched for Genres, Lists of Genres, and other variations, and read several threads but didn't see what I was looking for.)

Thank you.

[ferday]

this came up in an unrelated thread recently.

there are many ways to do it.  the "easiest" way, is to nest genres, which you do with the backslash \
so for the rolling stones, you might have Rock\Classic Rock.  you can delimit them also like Rock;Blues\Classic Rock;Folk

this will show up in a view as >Rock
                                          >Classic Rock

the downside to this view (for me) is that the nested "sub genres" stay nested...that is you can't work with them and while great for viewing it's hard to work with IMO

you can also create an infinite number of custom fields like [sub genre 1], [sub genre 2], etc.  this is a lot of work, but makes the genres "un nested" so you can work with them separately

what i did was use keywords (you could make another custom string field).  The nice thing about this, is keywords are really easy to work with, so i'd have for house music
[genre]=House [keywords]=acid;deep;electro;progressive;tribal  or, [genre]=electronic [keywords]=house,acid,electro, etc.

this way, i can put genre in one pane, and have 3 or 4 keywords panes, and select as i want.  if you keep keywords a little more generic (like "acid" instead of "acid techno" and "acid house", you can use the "acid" keyword across all appropriate sub genres, like
   
[genre]=electronic  keywords=house,acid,progressive
[genre]=electronic keywords=techno,acid,progressive

if i highlight [keyword] = progressive, without any [genre] or any other keywords, i would get rock,metal,and electronic albums...so the keywords can be used across genres rather than nested in specific genres.  if i highlight [keywords] = progressive, house, i'll get just that.  or highlight [genre]=electronic, [keywords]=progressive, i might get progressive house, techno, dubstep, etc.

this has taken (and continues to take) a lot of work, but i'm really enjoying the power it gives me, and it's easy to pane tag keywords with the checkboxes so it's good for workflow.  i have about 20 actual genres, and around 250 keywords so far, but by keeping my keywords somewhat generic, it makes them powerful over all genres

[6233638]

Personally, I would not recommend using the [keyword] field for sub-genre information.
 
If you want to put sub-genres into a separate field, I would create a new one - likely called [sub-genre]. (Tools → Options → Library & Folders → Manage Library Fields…)
To use a custom field for sub-genres will require custom views though, rather than a standard genre view.
 
Media Center's "official" way of doing things would be to tag using backslahes: "Genre\Sub-Genre"
To apply multiple genres to a track, separate with a semicolon: "Genre 1; Genre 2"
This can get complex if you want multiple sub-genres though, as you would have: "Genre\Sub-Genre 1; Genre\Sub-Genre 2"

[ferday]

the thing with keywords, is they are id3v2 compatible so they'll show up in other programs.  i'm almost sure that custom fields won't map directly to id3 but if i'm wrong, i'd love someone to point that out

[Arindelle]

the thing with keywords, is they are id3v2 compatible so they'll show up in other programs.  i'm almost sure that custom fields won't map directly to id3 but if i'm wrong, i'd love someone to point that out

can't show you how but they will show up (although itunes will make a mess of it, but we are talking about decent programs right )

what I do (although it can cause some issues as Ferday is talking about in the "other" thread ...) is create a second field called genres (add the s) and that will basically be a list field. It will populate the normal genre field (and vice versa), so it will parse or split in views easily. The normal ID3 genre field with multiple genres will look like grunge; alt.rock  when exported. I use Grouping for the Top genre, and genre for the sub-genre, and style for the 2nd sub-genre. Even iTunes accepts these fields as they are standard ID3 fields. The custom fields also are cool in that you are presented with check boxes instead of a box in the tag frame.

The hic is that if you start having ůultiple top "genres" (my grouping) you end up getting Alt. Rap under Electronic music. I have 13 supra- genres, 151 genres, and so too many styles (511 ouch)  

If you don't mix the top level up its great - which is the "other post"  .

I can do a screen shot to help you set it up later or maybe 623... could tell you (he probably taught it  to me in the first place ). The fields are calculated data fields ... just don't want to do the expression off the top of my head

[~OHM~]

My thoughts on the sub Genre madness is..are they really needed...I think not. I have a large library and use the general (sane) list of genre...i know if a album is rock, dance, electronic, house ect. ect. do i care if its  Acid House
...Deep House...Electro House...Progressive House...Tribal House...no because if it's in my library i like it. so in the end i have 24 allowed genre and my life is good and MC is UNDER MY CONTROL....just my thoughts....oh btw i don't have 1, nope not 1 disco album...they are dance....lol

[RCAal]

my question regarding genres is a different one.  is there a way to not have to deal with the genres on a track by track basis but to be able to just set the genre for the whole album?

[BryanC]

my question regarding genres is a different one.  is there a way to not have to deal with the genres on a track by track basis but to be able to just set the genre for the whole album?

You can just select the album and set the tag in the tagging window, and it will be applied to all tracks in the album.

[RCAal]

thank you