Importance of tagging your music files - properly

Posted by: engjoo on 17 June 2016

I thought I will share a bit of what was an interesting problem I managed to solve recently.

For the record, I am using the latest Synology's DSM and its build-in media server. I also use Media Monkey extensively (and mp3tag for DSF files)  to manage the tags in my music library.

Recently, I had discovered that some albums just won't appear under "Album Artist" view despite me making sure that the files are tagged under "Album Artist" as well as re-indexing the entire collection again. Despite all these efforts these albums will only show up under "Unknown Artist" all the time.

What I had found is that these files are missing its "Genre" tag. As soon as I got this field populated, these albums shows up immediately!

I have a question for those who are seasoned in upnp streaming.

1) Is this problem limited to Synology's media server?

2) Are there any source of reference on how our music files should (or should not) be tagged?

 

 

Posted on: 17 June 2016 by Bart

My guess -- its a server (Synology media server) issue and not an issue with UPnP generally.  I routinely leave the genre tag empty.

Posted on: 17 June 2016 by blownaway

I'm a bit of a music nerd and first most importantly I have my music properly tagged.  I prefer to put music into genre folders then by artist.  I use minimserver.  I can search by artist date or whatever but I usually stay with genre folders first then artist.

It's a highly personal choice how you organize your music. My folders and sub folders are....

Blues

Classical

Electronic & Dance

Folk Country

Jazz

Rock with subfolders: Alt Indi Pop Punk, Classic, Metal, Prog

Soul

Soundtracks

World

 

 

Posted on: 18 June 2016 by Huge
Bart posted:

My guess -- its a server (Synology media server) issue and not an issue with UPnP generally.  I routinely leave the genre tag empty.

From the software perspective, there's a difference between a tag being empty and it being missing (i.e. just not there).

I don't know the internal particulars of Synology Media Server, but it may not appropriately handle the error where a tag that's indexed is actually missing.