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[Vocalpoint]

As many of you - within my collection - I have multiple "versions" of specific favorite albums that differ from one another - usually due to mastering, track order etc. Up until recently - these additional "versions" have been part of my long term backup archives and I really want to get them out of storage and into the main library.

But I want to do it in the most efficient method possible. Since I have spend a considerable amount of time entering my metadata - altering the actual "Album" field (by adding text) is not really appealing to me. Ideally - I would like to harness the power of the existing metadata and expressions within MC - to be able to display multiple versions within a view but without actually changing any base metadata. I am open to using (or even adding) new db fields to make this happen.

As far as storage goes - I would probably lean to creating unique folders for the files on the server using the actual catalog number of the release to ensure each file set can be stored (and backed up) out there without conflict.

Looking forward to discussion from those of you who have done this successfully.

Cheers!

VP

[JimH]

Please see if the Wiki topic on Stacks would help.

[Vocalpoint]

Please see if the Wiki topic on Stacks would help.

I tried to understand Stacks before and it didn't take. Just looked at the wiki - and still no joy.

Too technical and confusing to even start to try - especially when I have no actual files in the library to "stack" yet.

I am hoping there are a few folks that can share their "display" method ideas without getting into Stacks.

VP

[JimH]

Select an MP3 and a FLAC of the same track, right click and choose "Stack".  It puts them together and you can move them or tag them as one.  You can unstack.  If you play one, it will play the high quality version.

[Vocalpoint]

Select an MP3 and a FLAC of the same track, right click and choose "Stack".  It puts them together and you can move them or tag them as one.  You can unstack.  If you play one, it will play the high quality version.

Jim,

This is not a case of having an MP3 and a FLAC version - it's more like I need to know an efficient way to properly be able to display, search and access my 6 different masterings of Dark Side of the Moon - all of them in FLAC, all with identical track counts, identical tracknames etc etc.

Stacks does not seem suited to this kind of request.

VP

[ferday]

i have a "system" which is constantly in flux, but here goes (i refuse to change the [album] name)

i use [date], [date (release)], [country], and a few customs [album source], [album information]

in RMC i have a preset that does some stuff to name folders on disc, (forgive me, i have 11 versions of Nirvana Nevermind)

Nevermind-1991-FLAC-CD-USA
Nevermind-1991-FLAC-Vinyl
Nevermind-1991-FLAC-CD-JAPAN
Nevermind-RM 1996-1991-FLAC-CD
Nevermind-RM 2011-FLAC-HD

so [album], if date release is empty or equal to date, then date, else RM-date release-date, file type, album source (then country if i need it to differentiate further)

[album source] is a manual check field for CD, HD (i.e. anything over 16/44), Vinyl, Bandcamp, Itunes...etc. pretty obvious
i also have an [album quality] field which is calculated from variables (lossy bitrate) but i'm phasing it out as i weed my lossy

then i put the album info into [album information], i try for a template, i.e.

remastered 1996 - MoFi gold disc
remastered 2011 - HDTracks
remastered 2011 - DGC 20th anniversary boxset
original 1991 - Japanese release

and finally all of my boxsets (and some "created" boxsets like the new 2014 Led Zep remasters) get a series tag so i can view them as actual boxsets as well

so i can sort on date (release), album information, album source, country...etc. the views are pretty flexible

i'm currently working on catalog #'s but i've only started ripping with them very recently so i have a long haul in front of me

i won't claim to have the best system but it's working good for me and i can view things very quickly and easily and pick what i want, it looks great on disc with a folder structure and the [album] name stays what it should be

thank goodness for MC, if it can satisfy my OCD and penchant for completist collecting it can work for anyone.  hope this give you some ideas at least...

[Vocalpoint]

i have a "system" which is constantly in flux, but here goes (i refuse to change the [album] name)

i use [date], [date (release)], [country], and a few customs [album source], [album information]

in RMC i have a preset that does some stuff to name folders on disc, (forgive me, i have 11 versions of Nirvana Nevermind)

Nevermind-1991-FLAC-CD-USA
Nevermind-1991-FLAC-Vinyl
Nevermind-1991-FLAC-CD-JAPAN
Nevermind-RM 1996-1991-FLAC-CD
Nevermind-RM 2011-FLAC-HD

so [album], if date release is empty or equal to date, then date, else RM-date release-date, file type, album source (then country if i need it to differentiate further)

[album source] is a manual check field for CD, HD (i.e. anything over 16/44), Vinyl, Bandcamp, Itunes...etc. pretty obvious
i also have an [album quality] field which is calculated from variables (lossy bitrate) but i'm phasing it out as i weed my lossy

then i put the album info into [album information], i try for a template, i.e.

remastered 1996 - MoFi gold disc
remastered 2011 - HDTracks
remastered 2011 - DGC 20th anniversary boxset
original 1991 - Japanese release

and finally all of my boxsets (and some "created" boxsets like the new 2014 Led Zep remasters) get a series tag so i can view them as actual boxsets as well

so i can sort on date (release), album information, album source, country...etc. the views are pretty flexible

i'm currently working on catalog #'s but i've only started ripping with them very recently so i have a long haul in front of me

i won't claim to have the best system but it's working good for me and i can view things very quickly and easily and pick what i want, it looks great on disc with a folder structure and the [album] name stays what it should be

thank goodness for MC, if it can satisfy my OCD and penchant for completist collecting it can work for anyone.  hope this give you some ideas at least...

Awesome! Now this is what I am talking about. I really like the idea of using RMC (F6) to create a folder for each "version". Looks to me like I need to expand my custom fields a bit too. I will take this info and start playing around a bit.

How does your "system" play into your views? Have you created a unique Album view that allows you to lean on this custom metadata to correctly display your 11 copies of Nevermind?

VP

[ferday]

yes, but it depends on how you like viewing.

i don't use graphic views very often, or theatre view for audio very often

so i'm a pretty strict pane view guy.  a basic one would be (top panes) genre-artist-album-album information-country

so i could drill down through rock-nirvana-nevermind, then the album information pane will have 11 choices, or i can now go down into the bottom pane and sort groups how i want them

honestly....because my folder structure is really intense i often browse stuff using a disk location view.

if you're into graphic views you could sort within groups by release info, etc. it's just so flexible! 

[kstuart]

Described in great depth in the thread in my signature

[blgentry]

I've been playing with these concepts today after reading what my man Ferday wrote about using an Album_info tag.  I like this idea a lot.  I've set up my Albums view to display Album_info below the rest of the information to distinguish the albums from each other.

So I just decided to play with one of the few albums I have two copies of:  Fleetwood Mac, Rumours.  I have a CD version and a DVD-A version.  The DVD-A version, until about 10 minutes ago, had the string "(DVD-A)" at the end of the album title.  I just changed the Album tag to simply "Rumours".  Then a funny thing happened.  The CD copy of Rumours just up and left the building.  Gone from Album view all together.  I won't bore you with everything I tried (just a few things) before I realized that (DUH) MC now thinks that both Albums are ONE album because they have the same Artist, Album, Album Artist (auto).

If I go to a Panes view and add a column for Album_info, I can distinguish them.  But I'm not a big user of Panes.  I use them, but not primarily.  I'm an Albums view guy.

Is there any hope of doing this and separating the albums other than changing the Album tag to something different?  Or the Album Artist? (which I won't do).  I think I'm stuck and have to go back to having the album names contain extra information about the release.  Which is very disappointing.  This seemed like such a cool thing to do.  <shrug>

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Brian.

[ferday]

When you say Album View, are you talking pure graphic like cover slide or the "standard" album view with the covers on top and album details on bottom?

i just took the stock "Albums" view, and changed the Categories>Album to

Code: [Select]

if(isempty([album info]),[Album],[Album]-[Album info])
and indeed all of my copies of nevermind are separated as if they were "different" albums

not sure this is what you mean....?

I also have rumours on cd and dvd-a, it works for that too

It returns two icons with the same art, one called rumours and one called rumours-Remastered 2011 WB DVD-A

[blgentry]

Ferday:  Yes, that's exactly what I mean:  The included Albums view that shows just album covers.  If you double click on an album you get a pane down below with a file list.

I'm puzzled as to why your Album view behaves differently than mine.  With both of my Rumours albums set to the same Album name and then same Artist name, they both show as one album.  When I double click it I get a file list below with the tracks from both albums.  1 1, 2 2, 3 3, etc.

We must have something key that's different in our tagging.  I've just highlighted all tracks from both albums and opened the tagging pane.  I see the same values for all files in:  Album, Album Artist (auto), Album Artist, Artist, and a few others.  How do yours compare?  Same values in all of those fields or ...?

Thanks,

Bria.

[ferday]

Right click your albums view, customize

Replace the "category" albums on the left with my expression and you should see the same results As me

All my albums are tagged identically other than the date (release), album info, etc

(see below...this is the stock view, it used to say "Albums" but i just did edit and replaced with my expression)

what it seems to do is just leave albums without album info alone and make "new" entries for those that aren't empty

[blgentry]

I hadn't thought of replacing the grouping field in the View definition with the expression.

I tried your expression as a field instead of Album (edited and replaced it).  It shows the right information, but the Rumours albums are still grouped into one.  When I double click all songs from both albums are there.

This is very odd.  I'm sure one of us is missing something.  (probably me)

Brian.

[blgentry]

Ah ha!

I *was* missing something.  My customized field name is "Album_info".  Note the underscore ( _ ).  Yours has a space.  I forgot to edit it to put in the underscore.  Now it works!

Very nice.  Ferday is schooling me today!

Brian.

[ferday]

Every little thing I can give to this forum goes to pay off my debt from taking so much from it

And learning one of the power users makes me feel good ha ha ha

[Vocalpoint]

So I just decided to play with one of the few albums I have two copies of:  Fleetwood Mac, Rumours.  I have a CD version and a DVD-A version.  The DVD-A version, until about 10 minutes ago, had the string "(DVD-A)" at the end of the album title.  I just changed the Album tag to simply "Rumours".  Then a funny thing happened.  The CD copy of Rumours just up and left the building.  Gone from Album view all together.  I won't bore you with everything I tried (just a few things) before I realized that (DUH) MC now thinks that both Albums are ONE album because they have the same Artist, Album, Album Artist (auto).

To this item - with two version of the same album out on your drive somewhere - how are you naming the folders for each "Rumours"?

Does it look like :

DriveLetter->Fleetwood Mac->Rumours * This would be the CD version
DriveLetter->Fleetwood Mac->Rumours (DVD-A) The DVD-A version?

And this....

i just took the stock "Albums" view, and changed the Categories>Album to

Code: [Select]

if(isempty([album info]),[Album],[Album]-[Album info])
and indeed all of my copies of nevermind are separated as if they were "different" albums

Was the awesome expression piece I have been looking for!

Just need to nail down how you gents are naming your folders for multiple versions of each album and I think I will be ready to roll.

VP

[blgentry]

To this item - with two version of the same album out on your drive somewhere - how are you naming the folders for each "Rumours"?

Does it look like :

DriveLetter->Fleetwood Mac->Rumours * This would be the CD version
DriveLetter->Fleetwood Mac->Rumours (DVD-A) The DVD-A version?

I probably *should* have them named something like that.  Instead my DVD-A version is named:

Rumours (24-96-2)

My reasoning was to tell myself the exact format of the audio (24 bit, 96kHz, 2 channel) as opposed to "this came from a DVD-A".  Looking back on it, DVD-A as a suffix makes more sense in a way.  I can see you doing either one.  For me, since I NEVER navigate MC through the directory structure, it really doesn't matter.  The Views are the important part.  I only want the files and directories organized on disk because it makes sense to be organized for maintenance reasons.  The names of the directories don't need to match anything in MC directly, one to one.  <shrug>

Brian.

[ferday]

well you can name it however you want right...

i sometimes have a lot of info in the [album info] field so i don't want that to be in the folder name

for the most part, if i don't have a different date (release), i don't have album info (there are exceptions but it's not like i import 100 remasters a day) so i use that as the trigger in RMC (with an !isequal([date],[date (release)]) and deal with outliers manually

my Rumours DVD-A is:  Rumours-RM 2001-1977-Flac-Multi

but of course you can make it add whatever you want right, just choose your trigger with RMC

i should add, i was an early adopter of digital storing many years ago, so folder structure was pretty important...the obsession remains today so i change mine all the time to "improve" it not only on disc but also tagging in MC

[Vocalpoint]

My reasoning was to tell myself the exact format of the audio (24 bit, 96kHz, 2 channel) as opposed to "this came from a DVD-A".  Looking back on it, DVD-A as a suffix makes more sense in a way.  Brian.

Brian

I will probably go with something different - like concatenating Label and Catalog number to each folder. Something like this:

\\SERVER\Music\Pink Floyd\The Wall\Mobile Fidelity UDCD 537
\\SERVER\Music\Pink Floyd\The Wall\Harvest CDS 7 46036 8

Each and every one of my 6500+ albums has the label and catalog number embedded. Using this combo will allow for clean concise storage on the music server plus give me instant clarity for backup purposes as well. Naming them this way makes searching the backup archives via my indexing software a breeze.

Off to test now!

Cheers!

VP

[Vocalpoint]

i just took the stock "Albums" view, and changed the Categories>Album to

Code: [Select]

if(isempty([album info]),[Album],[Album]-[Album info])
and indeed all of my copies of nevermind are separated as if they were "different" albums

Ferday

Couple questions

Where exactly are you entering the "expression" text (see attachment).

And when you say "changed" - you mean completely "replaced" Categories-Album with Categories-Expression -Not "added to" - correct?

VP

[ferday]

In the expression to group by (top) and yes replace album completely.  I saved it as a new view, recommend for you too, don't overwrite the original view

[blgentry]

VocalPoint brings up something I've been mulling over for quite a while now:  The Catalog Numbers of music and their UPC codes.

Because the recording industry has gone crazy with the cursed "loudness war", I'm constantly consulting the loudnesswar.info database when buying new CDs, trying to find the one with the best compromise of Dynamic Range and quality.  This leads me to looking for specific catalog numbers or specific UPC codes.  Useful for figuring out which CD to buy.  But is it worth recording?  It's an "official" marker, but does it help anyone figure anything out?

VP, you said something about your archiving.  Do you mean that you can tie your digital copies of songs to the physical CD (or DVD, etc) by the catalog number?  So if you needed to re-rip a CD there's no question of which one it came from?  Or maybe there's more to it?

Every now and then I record a catalog number; usually when the automatic metadata populates the album field with it.  I wonder if I should do it more often?  Can anyone think of a good reason for or against?

VP, I'm very thankful you started this thread.  I've had questions about a lot of these topics for a while. 

Brian.

[ferday]

I'm trying to catalog # all of mine.  It's partially obsessive completeness and partly to give each album a unique and unambiguous identifier. 

The most practical use I've gotten from the catalog is using it to search discogs for correct version and label info

I agree with Brian-I like these kind of posts because they play in to my collector personality and make me think about things differently.  Thanks to,you guys I've started using the album view a little bit and think I may have a use for it...

[jaxtherogue]

It's rare for me to keep multiple releases of albums in digital- I keep what I consider the best version and purge the rest (I cannot say the same for my vinyl collection however).  For multiples I do keep I prefer to use the Discogs release number. Catalog numbers mean trusting every label to use them as unique identifiers (and I don't believe they always do) and  I find UPCs unreliable for search, but the discog release number is always there. Until discogs goes defunct anyway; the reliance on Discogs is the lynch-pin for this.

[Vocalpoint]

The discog release number is always there. Until discogs goes defunct anyway; the reliance on Discogs is the lynch-pin for this.

But what if a release simply does not exist in Discogs. I have a number of discs that cannot be found....?

VP

[jaxtherogue]

But what if a release simply does not exist in Discogs. I have a number of discs that cannot be found....?

VP

Then you create them yourself. It takes some learning the rules, but it's a crowdsourced database and relies on user participation.  I have entered many vinyl releases myself.  This will get you started:

http://www.discogs.com/help/doc/contributing

[cinjin]

What about using musicbrainz tagger along with discogs. What I mean is musicbrainz has MBID tags that are specific as in

Oasis   Definitely Maybe album has a MB Release Group ID tag 451dca98-c118-32e1-9244-c47ca9c3c0f9
All Definitely Maybe releases have that unique ID in the tag MB Release Group ID

Definitely Maybe 1994 UK Creation CD has a MB Album ID 9822581d-98bf-3f97-a94c-4b1350d090aa
Definitely Maybe 2014 US Big Brother LP has a MB Album ID  bdf9eda5-7aae-4c36-93f5-b47ff1cbf5ab
This way all Definitely Maybe release have the same MB Release Group ID but each version has its own MB Album ID
I've been using musicbrainz picard tagger and it does a pretty complete job of tagging and I made fields in jriver
MB Release Group ID
MB Album ID
MB Recordings ID   Individual tracks
MB Works ID          The same idea as release group but for tracks. Great for tagging and grouping cover versions of a song.

Check out musicbrainz and their free tagger picard, I think it would help with your situation.

[Arindelle]

I think the only unique identifier I've found is the UPC number ... if you can get it ... otherwise  you need the correct Label + their catalog number.  AllMusic is pretty good with this and can help localize a lot (but certainly not all) cd and digital releases. The porblem with this is Allmusic does not show the tracks for these releases and its often diiferent than what they consider the "primary" recoring. It not good for vinyl though.

Until everything gets some standard so rippers can pull something like a UPC number I can't see how you can assure that the label and catalogue number that is downloaded is going to be correct ...

I have more than 7000 cds, but I have only kept 500 of them and have given most away and donated the rest to my local library ... for me to go backwards and find this information now is pretty well a waste of time.   wish I new what I know now when I started my digital collection

Music Brainz is ok, but I believe its also a contributor site so ther a bunch of errors in it. Also their unique ID is only unique for their database. I'm reluctant to rely on it and I think their tagger is a bit unwieldy for most at least.

So I'm stuck with the Album field for now ... if I had access to all of my old cds, or if I was just starting out,  I'd do what Ferday is suggesting .. I'd create a custom field to merge (whats the word concatenate?) Label (guess JRiver calls this publisher right?)+Catalog number. That could be then used as a unique ID

[stricko]

hi all
i've been waiting a while for a good thread on this topic to open up. i'm not quite as obsessive about catalog numbers as some of you seem to be, but i needed a way to handle multiple copies of the same material, AND to logically divide material which has been grouped together for a physical release.

i've adopted pretty much the same approach as many of you, with custom fields to carry additional data, and if/else expressions to use the data if present. some of the custom fields are populated automatically on import, such as hi-res based on bit depth and rate, and surround based on channels.

oh, i forgot to mention, i only really use mc in theater mode, so everything is geared around that.

the "logical" split thing is used to to separate out bonus material, live tracks etc. also works across multiple physical discs, say for a live album set where disc 1 may contain concert 1, plus part of concert 2 etc.

i don't really have hard and fast rules, but this approach allows lots of flexibility.

so for example, for ziggy stardust, i might have....

original album
rhino re-issue bonus tracks
hi-res re-issue
5.1 surround
etc

all would have the same <album> tag, but all except the original would have a populated <version> custom field

but my thinking has now moved on to thinking about "single" data, alongside the album stuff, any thoughts?

[cinjin]

Arindelle....doesn't JRiver use FreeDB to look up cd rips and uses a discID and an "acoustic fingerprint" as a unique identifier to match and grab tags for that cd? FreeDB you know that user contributed database that both JRiver and Musicbrainz use to identify CD's. UPC numbers or barcodes are listed on Discogs (user contributed) and musicbrainz but rarely have I ever seen a barcode info on an allusic album page. I've seen catalog numbers which are also on musicbrainz and discogs. Allmusic also has user contributed editing for errors found there also. As for vinyl or downloads (hdtracks etc) i have found allmusic to be sorely lacking in any up to date info. Plus they have locked out all software from scaping any info from their (extremely slow)site. I used to use amg.pl created by mrC from here and it was wonderful for scraping info from allmusic but if you don't have any of the basic info of your albums (catalog#, Country or Label) how are you matching it to anything on any site?

[JimH]

We use our own database, YADB, for lookup.  We believe the quality is better.  If we don't find a match, we also check FreeDB.

The acoustic fingerprint method is only used for track lookup.