metadata editing

And then you have the re-mastered dilemma where more tracks are listed than the original - which you still have, coupled with the extended edition with all the out-takes with the same track names but dreadful production/guitar/drums etc.

Interesting way to spend a few weekends though ;-)

It's a fine thought exercise, but I'm not sure that there are any ANSWERS.  If one has a large library of classical music, it must get very difficult to find what you're looking for.  My classical music library is relatively small, so I tend to use Composer as the main classifier.  But for a large collection, I can see that not working out.  One must drill deeper . . . 

Something I would have liked in iTunes, including the Store, is an ability to search by record label.

Also give thought to how you want to see things sorted - depending on your player/server you may or may not have good options. dbPoweramp will tag, if you ask it nicely. ComposerSort and ArtistSort so your control point can, if it is capable, sort things in say composer surname order, while displaying the composer name normally. Similarly with Album Artist. Not all tags are ripped by the default dBpoweramp settings - it is worth digging about to see the full range possible. You might as well get everything that is going. Also play with a few boxed sets and compilations albums. There are various ways you can set the tags for these, but again the smartest choices will depend on your server/player/control point.

fwiw I found it worthwhile to standardise the naming of classical albums along the lines of "Beethoven: Symphony 3 (Abbado,LSO)". 

Hi Jon

All of this can be achieved adding whatever Tags you wish to add and then using MinimServer as a UPNP server to serve this information up to a streamer. Not sure if you are using a streamer/UPNP setup?

http://minimserver.com

http://forum.minimserver.com/showthread.php?tid=11  (excellent thread regarding Classical Music tagging and ways to go about it.)

I use Conductor, Orchestra, Composition and Composer in addition to the normal tags you already mention. With MinimServer sending this information out, it makes browsing my Classical collection a real joy.

lots of useful info on the site regarding use.

Handling of multiple disc collection is a breeze.

One of the many useful features of MinimServer is controlling how your tags are displayed by the control point and UPNP device display. For example, my artist display field shows the following if available: artist$orchestra$conductor. 

Really useful when playing my Classical library.

Good luck and enjoy!

im asking what people actually use, and what is important to them. For sure, there might well be some esoteric settings that few people use. I'm looking for what is considered to be necessary by a broad majority

For symphonic music, I rely on Composer.  Composer to me is most akin to "artist" in the pop/rock/jazz world.   I never say to myself, "I want to listen to something played by the Chicago Symphony." Or any other orchestra in particular.

I have a particular fondness for cello music, so have set that as its own genre. I can browse that genre and pick what I want, as I do not have all that much -- thus freeing me from also having to sort among performer or composer.

It's all a compromise, to me.

I listen mostly but not exclusively to classical music (because my wife has different priorities) and I like to have my music arranged by Composer (with Franz Schubert and Schubert together) and then the name of the music. I choose which performance I want by looking at the album cover. With those non-classical albums, I like those to be arranged by album name.

i browse through my albums arranged like this and think "Oh yes I forgot I had that. I will listen to it now."

So Naim's ignoring of my metadata arrangements in imports into the Core, is very annoying indeed, as I may have mentioned.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

So Naim's ignoring of my metadata arrangements in imports into the Core, is very annoying indeed, as I may have mentioned.

 

Not to divert too far . . . but other servers are far more metadata friendly, unfortunately for Naim.

I have ripped about 1600 cds, around 1100 of which are classical most of these are split into five genres, classical (symphonic, concerto etc,), chamber music, opera, choral & vocal.
In addition there are two categories for two complete Bach Cantata cycles.
I search within these genres only by composer, I do not have, or feel the need for, any tags for conductors, performers etc.
I do however add the year of composition, so the albums are displayed in chronological order.

jon honeyball posted:

im asking what people actually use, and what is important to them. For sure, there might well be some esoteric settings that few people use. I'm looking for what is considered to be necessary by a broad majority

Gosh, you are late to the party.

Surely the essence of a tag based system is that you use tags that are meaningful and useful to you, and usable by your playback software. Soloists, BPM, Orchestra, Sub-Genre, Bass Player .. what do you need? How do you look at your music? What is important to you?

.. also lend some thought as to how you would like to deal with and individuate variants of the same cd .. the hires one, the reissue, the original, the remastered one .. does it suit you to use a tag or tags to individuate variants, or does it suit you to perhaps append something to the name?  

jon honeyball posted:

im asking what people actually use, and what is important to them. For sure, there might well be some esoteric settings that few people use. I'm looking for what is considered to be necessary by a broad majority

What the majority does or considers to be useful really does not matter. This is why a non-customizable set of indexes as propagated by Naim or Apple is useless. As a first step, install MinimServer and assign values to the indexes that are important to you. You can then add, rename or remove indexes later on whole directories using for instance lltag.

More difficult than selecting the indexes that one wants to populate is selecting the tags or values to assign to such indexes. This is particularly true for indexes like "genre" or "form". Make a table with the most used values for these indexes and revise your choice if needed. For a "form" index, for instance, typical values could be: "adagio, andante, aria, bagatelle, ballet, barcarolle, berceuse, caprice, choral, Gregorian chant, choral prelude, étude, fantasia, fugue, cantata, piano bagatelle, piano quintet, piano trio, piano cycle, concerto, accordion concerto, recorder concerto, cello concerto, bassoon concerto, clarinet concerto, oboe concerto, piano concerto, violin concerto, violin and cello concerto, opera, oratorio, prelude, rhapsody, requiem, romance, scherzo, serenade, sonata, cello sonata, piano sonata, violin and piano sonata, viola and piano sonata, cello and piano sonata, viola sonata, violin sonata, string quartet, string trio, symphony, symphonic poem, tone poem, suite, toccata, transcription, variation, violin romance, waltz".

Apart from the standard indexes, I tend to use "composer", "conductor", "director", "ensemble", "work", "form", "period" and "incdate" (the date I have incorporated an album into my collection). Here is an example of the values associated to these indexes for a classical music file. Note that some indexes have multiple values and some indexes are missing:

37 Act III - Gesegnet sei, du Reiner, durch das Reine! (Gurnemanz, Parsifal).flac:
composer=Wagner, Richard (1813-1883)
title=Act III - Gesegnet sei, du Reiner, durch das Reine! (Gurnemanz, Parsifal)
form=Oper
work=Parsifal (1865-1882)
comment=UPC: 827949040160
albumartist=C. Elsner, F.-J. Selig, M. DeYoung, E. Nikitin, E. W. Schulte, D. Ivashchenko, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester & Rundfunkchor Berlin, Marek Janowski
artist=Christian Elsner
artist=Franz-Josef Selig
artist=Michelle DeYoung
artist=Evgeny Nikitin
artist=Eike Wilm Schulte
artist=Dimitry Ivashchenko
isrc=NLE421100437
genre=Klassische Musik
genre=Vokalmusik
album=Wagner | Parsifal
publisher=Naxos
disctotal=4
conductor=Marek Janowski
tracknumber=37
period=romantic
label=PentaTone
date=2012
ensemble=Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin
ensemble=Rundfunkchor Berlin
discnumber=4
copyright=2012 PentaTone
encoder=TwistedWave

"Gosh, you are late to the party."

Yeah right. 

Another option is to rip using defaults and pay someone else to apply meaningful metadata. 

The someone else being Roon. 

.sjb