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[okvaal]

If I have one album ("Haydn: Two cello concertos"), including two compositions ("Cello concerto no. 1" and "Cello concerto no. 2"), both with three movements, in what property would you tag the latter? (Album name is easy. Composition name I tag as "Name".) The point is, off course, to have a tag field that will still be there when upgrading to a newer version, for instance). Please give a hint so that I may finish this job with my classical albums . . .
Thanks in advance.

[Jaguu]

I have extra fields for composer, conductor, orchestra, movement, soloist, choir, opus, the movements go to the movement field.

Sample:
Artist: Beethoven
Composer: Beethoven
Conductor: Karl Böhm
Orchestra: Wiener Philharmoniker, Vienna
Choir: Wiener Staatsopernchor, Vienna
Album: Symphonies 8+9
Name: Symphony No. 9, in D Major, op. 125
Soloist: Gwynet Jones (Sopran), Jess Thomas (Tenor),...
Movements (all tracks have the same information, except movement):
1. Allegro ma non troppo
2. Molto vivace
3. Adagio molto cantabile
4. Presto
5. Allegro Assai

It's not standard yet, but MC9 offers the flexibility to move/copy fields at any time to some new fields!

I keep the album title very simple as it is not really a reference and put all relevant information to a piece in the name field. Still don't know what to do really with the artist field, right now artist and composer field are the same, might change later on. Hope this helps!

[okvaal]

I have extra fields for composer, conductor, orchestra, movement, soloist, choir, opus, the movements go to the movement field.

I'm a bit green here, so forgive for being so slow: I guess you create these fields in the Tree&View settings window? I created a new field a couple of versions ago, but it had disappeared when I upgraded :-(
Is the only trick to "Store in file tags (when possible)"?
Apart from that, yes, your reply was very helpful. Thanks a lot.
I'm beginning to love this product . . . .

[Jaguu]

I always store tags in files! So, if your library gets corrupt, besides backup, you always have the tag info inside the file!

Yes Tree&View is the place to define fields! There were some problems ages ago, but now it works very well!

Just remember when you import files in an empty database, all fields must be defined beforehand, otherwise they won't be imported!

[okvaal]

OK. I just go ahead, then. Thanks a lot for your replies. You have been very kind, helpful and patient. :-)

[aussie1]

I tag my classical music differently. I consider each composition as a separate album. In your example, my tags would look like the following:

1st movement:
Artist: Weiner Philharmoniker/Karl Böhm
Album: Symphony No. 9, in D Major, op. 125
Name: I. Allegro ma non troppo
Composer: Beethoven

2nd movement:
Artist: Weiner Philharmoniker/Karl Böhm
Album: Symphony No. 9, in D Major, op. 125
Name: 2. Molto vivace
Composer: Beethoven

etc.

As a former programmer and database designer, I abhore using custom fields rather than the industry standard ID3v2 spec. Its bad design for my database! Custom fields cannot be read by anything other than MC.

The ID3V2 spec has fields to capture conductor, orchestra, and other details which MC does not read . I've populated those while I wait for one of the vendors to implement them.

I might use custom fields for essoteric things that do not fit into the standard.


PS: (I keep lobbying for JRiver to implement the full ID3V2 standard, but am ignored. Perhaps J River prefers to lock me into their program by getting me additicted to all the custom fields. They don't need to worry, however. For my needs, this product is far better than the alternatives. Tagging is my only persistent gripe/frustration. It is annoying, however. I think this basic thing should be a much higher priority than some of the fancy bells and whistles that will be used by only a small portion of the customer base.)

[okvaal]

Three questions to Aussie (and others): 1) Where do you put info like soloists (like when there are two or more lead singers in addition to orchestra/chorus/conductor?
2) Tagging each composition as one album, how does looking up cover art from internet work, and 3) What do you consider the problem with only MC being able to read your tags? Lack of info when using P2P programs? The display in MP3 players? Or anything else?
Still, I would say I prefer keeping things as simple as this.

[aussie1]

1. Multiple soloists is a tough one. Do a search for classical music tagging in this forum. Others have posted suggestions before. Most involve using custom tags.

In the artist field, I use:  Orchestra/Conductor/Solist(s)


Phydeaux creates the following custom fields:

Orchestra, Conductor, Soloist(s), Choir, Movement, Key Signature, Opus, and Year Composed

His artist field is: Orchestra/Solist/Conductor

Ideally, I'd want a relational database so I could associate multiple solists with one file. But that's beyond the scope of a program like this. And is it really worth all the time it would take to perfect it?


2) Its all in the sequence you use for creating the tags. I do it in the following order:
a. Rip the CD
b. Fill in the tags and album art through one of the online lookup programs
c. Make the manual changes necessary to album, etc.

Most of the classcial album art is available at www.allclassical.com. Usually, I locate the art there, save it locally, then import it into the files.  I store album art inside the file. Others argue in favor of saving it in the folder instead.



3)
a. So the files can be read by other players: My car's CD/CD-R player, portables, etc.

b. Also, my general philosophy for software (which comes from many years of implementing software for fortune 500 companies): use off-the-shelf and industry standard programs or formats whenever possible. Otherwise, you add to your maintenance costs and lock yourself into your custom code.