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[tbng]

I used Sonata for my Windows 7-based music server for more that two years, but just switched to JRiver.  Sonata, for those of you who don't know, is an OEM version of JRiver created by the Spanish company Digibit.  It is VASTLY superior to JRiver for classical music and does everything else that JRiver does.  Indeed, it IS JRiver - plus.  Problem is, it is stuck at v.16, and Digitbit will soon end is support to concentrate on their music server hardware.  Ergo, I bid a fond adios cuate to Sonata and downloaded the latest version of JRiver.

My first reaction to JRiver was, "Where are all the metadata fields?"  You can't even see most of them from standard view as you can in Sonata, only in theater view, and even then there aren't nearly as many.  The keyboard space bar doesn't work when tagging from theater view, which greatly slows things down.  A bug, I suppose.  I note also that updates now occur immediately after tagging, which actually is a pain during setup because everything instantly moves into a different position, and I have to hunt for it.  For classical music, I am putting composer (last name/first name) in the album artist field and the work's name and conductor (e.g., Symphony #5: Levine) in the album field.  For other musical forms, I'll put performer name (last name/first name) in the album artist field.  I have to do all this manually because the automated sequencing makes no sense.  As loaded and displayed in alleged composer sequence, the first album under the classical genre was "Aaron Copland."  Composer sequence by first name?  Don't think that Malcolm Arnold wasn't peeved about being usurped in the alphabet.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'd like to hear them.

[JimH]

The wiki has some useful topics.  You could read this:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Tagging_Classical_Music

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Customizing_View_Schemes

You can add any custom tags you use and display them in any view.  Right click on the title bar to add or reorder.

You can probably copy your Sonata Views.

[Listener]

I used Sonata for my Windows 7-based music server for more that two years, but just switched to JRiver.  Sonata, for those of you who don't know, is an OEM version of JRiver created by the Spanish company Digibit.  It is VASTLY superior to JRiver for classical music and does everything else that JRiver does.  Indeed, it IS JRiver - plus.  Problem is, it is stuck at v.16, and Digitbit will soon end is support to concentrate on their music server hardware.  Ergo, I bid a fond adios cuate to Sonata and downloaded the latest version of JRiver.

My first reaction to JRiver was, "Where are all the metadata fields?"  You can't even see most of them from standard view as you can in Sonata, only in theater view, and even then there aren't nearly as many.  The keyboard space bar doesn't work when tagging from theater view, which greatly slows things down.  A bug, I suppose.  I note also that updates now occur immediately after tagging, which actually is a pain during setup because everything instantly moves into a different position, and I have to hunt for it.  For classical music, I am putting composer (last name/first name) in the album artist field and the work's name and conductor (e.g., Symphony #5: Levine) in the album field.  For other musical forms, I'll put performer name (last name/first name) in the album artist field.  I have to do all this manually because the automated sequencing makes no sense.  As loaded and displayed in alleged composer sequence, the first album under the classical genre was "Aaron Copland."  Composer sequence by first name?  Don't think that Malcolm Arnold wasn't peeved about being usurped in the alphabet.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'd like to hear them.

JRiver is easily adapted to handle classical music very well.  You can keep composer information in a dedicated Composer tag with performer information elsewhere.  Want to use tags to store type of classical music or period?  You can add fields to the database.  You create views that let you browse using standard or custom tags as you choose.

Here is a view I use for classical music.

[tbng]

Easy?  Are those playlists you're displaying?

By the way, does anyone know it it's possible to display additional metadata fields in the TAG operation in standard view?  It would make work go much faster.

[ferday]

Easy?  Are those playlists you're displaying?

By the way, does anyone know it it's possible to display additional metadata fields in the TAG operation in standard view?  It would make work go much faster.

when you click the "Tag" in the action window, click the little icon on the left side of the "tag" window that comes up

you can choose to display "all tags", "all tags with values", "all tags in current view", or "default tags"

[tbng]

It's always easy when you just know how.  Thank you!  Add one point for JRiver's side.

[mojave]

If you go to "Tools > Options > Library & Folders > Manage Library Fields" you can add new fields to match the ones at SonataDB. It looks like the following need to be added in JRiver:

ComposerSort (Name, first name)
SoloistsSort (Name, first name)
Conductor Sort (Name, first name)
Orchestra Period (Ancient, Romantic, etc.)
Label (EMI, Decca, etc.)
Label: Catalog number

Once you add these field, you may be able to import a library from SonataDB.

[Listener]

Easy?  Are those playlists you're displaying?

No, I showed a screenshot of a view not a playlist.

You can define a new view by right-clicking on the word "Audio" in the tree structure on the left side of the MC window.  Choose "Add library view" in the menu that appears.

I may have time to detail the rest of the process later.

The view I showed is in Panes style ("View as:" Panes) and has these categories: Sub_genre, Composer, Work Name, Artist and Version.  (Sub_genre and Version are fields that I defined.)

Those categories are used to select a subset of files in my library.  For example, I might click on Beethoven in the Composer pane.  Then I might click on "Orchestral" in the Sub_genre pane.  Then I might click on Symphony No. 7 in the Work name pane.  At that point, The Artist pane shows a list of performers for that work in my library.  I might choose one ("Szell_Cleveland Orchestra" for example)  The music files with individual movements will be listed below the panes area.  When I click on the Play button, the movements will be played in the order listed.  (I chose the sort order to list the files in movement order.)

[tbng]

Thanks to all of you for your assistance.