Editing Tags in classical music

In MinimServer, which I freely admit isn't an intuitive tool, you can add a tag to the default lists of tags it will index and display on the control point (the Naim App). So, for example I can browse by Composer, Conductor, Orchestra, Date Added, Audio Quality, as well as the usual ones. 

But the point you made is essential - the tagging of stuff must make sense only to you as a first priority, so if you want to browse by Stuff I Listen To While Blind Drunk, you jolly well do it and to blazes with anyone else.

DrMark posted:

Well a point of curiosity: in my (admittedly) limited exposure to the programs on remote devices that run the systems (LMS, Squeezer, and the Naim app) I have yet to see where any of these myriad tags are available as indexed item by which to search

Well I can only speak to my own system ... but I use MinimServer and the Naim App.

So along with the usual "Artist", "Album", "Genre" fields, I can choose to look at "Composer", "Orchestra" and "Composition" (amongst others).

So I can choose "Classical" and then see a list of composers and choose "Beethoven" and from there see all the compositions / works from Beethoven and choose "Symphony No.9" and from there decide to choose which recording by either selecting a conductor or an orchestra.

But as I said above ... whats important is to be able to browse in a way that suits you ... until I came across MinimServer (and was using LMS) I found it more logical / useful to me to have the composer in the Artist field.

DrMark posted:

Well a point of curiosity: in my (admittedly) limited exposure to the programs on remote devices that run the systems (LMS, Squeezer, and the Naim app) I have yet to see where any of these myriad tags are available as indexed item by which to search, which in my mind is the number one function they fill.  I can have all the meta tags I want with all the correct data in place, but what is the value if I cannot display nor see them on the device(s) I use to play and or control the play of the music?

This is a 100% honest question; nothing combative about it at all.

As pointed out by Eloise and Gary, Minimserver allows one to set the indexes that show up in the Naim app (or in any other control point). This is easily done by writing the names of the indexes that you want to show up in a list in the MinimWatch user interface. The interface shows up if you double click the MinimServer icon on the screen of the device that runs MinimWatch. The MinimWatch interface allows you to control and set up all your MinimServer instances from one device. I guess Asset works more or less the same but I haven't tried it. 

The important point to understand is that the Naim app (just like Linn Kazoo, BubbleUPnP, etc.) does not have any notion of indexes. It just show the contents that the server tells it to show. Thus, it is crucial to use a server that can show the indexes that you want to see (and use) to browse and navigate your music collection. This is particularly true for classical music: here we want to be able to index our files by Composer, Work, Conductor, Orchestra, Period, Director ... or perhaps other notions! I regularly read the Gramophone magazine and tend to use some of the classification criteria that are used there, e.g. "Instrumental music". Other people will have other notions and priorities, of course.

Even more important (than using a server that allows me to see certain specific indexes) for me is to use a server that allows me not to see indexes that I do not care about!

Gary Shaw posted:

In MinimServer, which I freely admit isn't an intuitive tool, you can add a tag ...

Are you using MinimWatch to setup and control MinimServer? I find it very intuitive and the MinimServer documentation is probably the best software documentation I came across. Just my opinion, of course. But I wish Naim would provide a comparable level of documentation for their UPnP server and control application.

Hopefully the upnp server applications will catch-up and have search capabilities a la Tidal or Spotify - I really don't want to browse by some tag index nor set it up. Then perhaps, the Naim app can aggregate the home library and Tidal (or what have you) with a single search, something that Sonos has. It's not too far off...

Thanks for the explanation, that helps.

timster posted:

Hopefully the upnp server applications will catch-up and have search capabilities a la Tidal or Spotify - I really don't want to browse by some tag index nor set it up. Then perhaps, the Naim app can aggregate the home library and Tidal (or what have you) with a single search, something that Sonos has. It's not too far off...

The searching and browsing capabilities of Tidal and Qobuz are miserable, in my view. I have tried Tidal and I have been using Qobuz for a few months. I have tried Idagio. Compared with MinimServer, these services offer a very crude searching and browsing interface, zero customizability and an oversimplified, vulgar view on musical contents. If this is how internet streaming is supposed to work I can very well understand that many users prefer to stay with their own collections and metadata. I might be missing something, of course. 

A subject close to my heart!  I've been streaming for a few years now, using ripped CDs on a NAS drive as my source.  I did try Tidal when it was free for three months but had little intention of carrying this forward.

I don't think I've seen it mentioned on this thread but I use a program called Tag & Rename to edit metadata for the FLAC files on the NAS but try to keep this secondary to setting correct tags when ripping - I use Windows Media Player (via Windows 10 PC) and then convert using Foobar.

So: CD -> Seagate HDD (WMA lossless) -> NAS (FLAC) ... which means I have two versions of the ripped CD.  I do a lot of re-arranging (e.g. sorting works in multiple CD box sets back to their original albums, splitting two symphonies/concerti into separate albums, etc.)

For tagging/sorting, etc. I hold that Composer is very much an (Album) Artist but agree that the issue is contentious.  Tag & Rename has many fields but the main ones are: Album, Genre, Year, (Track) Artist, Composer, (Album) Artist and Conductor.  The program is easy to use and since purchasing it several years ago I've received numerous updates - free of charge.

I use the program more than I should because I'm forever amending tags to achieve desired results for sorting/selection.

Classical music is the largest single genre in my music library and I have multiple recordings of the basic works.  I use a suffix to identify the specific recording, e.g.:

Symphony #5, Op.67 in C minor [Karajan/BPO/1962]

Symphony #5, Op.67 in C minor [Karajan/BPO/1977]

Symphony #5, Op.67 in C minor [Karajan/BPO/1982]

Symphony #5, Op.67 in C minor [Karajan/PO]

Symphony #5, Op.67 in C minor [Karajan/VPO]

(and I have another 13 non-Karajan recordings of that symphony, too)

Note the missing detail?  That's why, for me, (Album) Artist = Composer is essential.

For server I use AssetUPnP - NAS which I've friend the most user friendly.  I note that many recommend Minimserver and I do have this and use it sometimes but it fails in one major respect (as far I know) which means I won't adopt it as my primary server: in the Artist (Album or Track) or Composer fields it reads the whole tag and does not allow selection of a second or third name.  Someone may put me right on this but I find the online notes impossible to follow.

E.g. in easy listening I have a large number of works by Frank Sinatra and so, for me, tagging would be:

Album artist: Sinatra,Frank

Track artist: #1:Sinatra,Frank; Riddle,Nelson - or #2:Sinatra,Frank; Jenkins,Gordon - or #3:Sinatra,Frank; Martin,Dean; Riddle,Nelson.

Using AssetUPnP I can select works by Sinatra,Frank and include all three recordings; or I can select Martin,Dean and this shows only #3; or I can select Riddle,Nelson and this will show #1 and #3

Using Minimsever if I search for Sinatra,Frank I find all of these provided Sinatra,Frank is the Album Artist ... if he's not then his works don't appear.  Note: I can find other recordings such as his contribution to Nancy Sinatra's album Movin' with Nancy ... using "All Artists" ... but I have to know that he is accompanied by Billy Strange, rather than Nelson Riddle or Gordon Jenkins or ...!

As much as I understand these tagging programs and servers, AssetUPnP allows up to five names in a field and whilst this isn't perfect it's the best I've found to date.

Back on classical, my tagging of the orchestra as one of the (Track) Artists allows me to find all three Berliner Philharmoniker recordings above, whilst searching on Philharmonia Orchestra provides the fourth listed recording.  If I select another conductor - e.g.: Abbado,Claudio - then none of those recordings appear despite his recording being with the BPO.

Mitch

Musicmad posted:

...

For server I use AssetUPnP - NAS which I've friend the most user friendly.  I note that many recommend Minimserver and I do have this and use it sometimes but it fails in one major respect (as far I know) which means I won't adopt it as my primary server: in the Artist (Album or Track) or Composer fields it reads the whole tag and does not allow selection of a second or third name.  Someone may put me right on this but I find the online notes impossible to follow.

E.g. in easy listening I have a large number of works by Frank Sinatra and so, for me, tagging would be:

Album artist: Sinatra,Frank

Track artist: #1:Sinatra,Frank; Riddle,Nelson - or #2:Sinatra,Frank; Jenkins,Gordon - or #3:Sinatra,Frank; Martin,Dean; Riddle,Nelson.

Using AssetUPnP I can select works by Sinatra,Frank and include all three recordings; or I can select Martin,Dean and this shows only #3; or I can select Riddle,Nelson and this will show #1 and #3

Using Minimsever if I search for Sinatra,Frank I find all of these provided Sinatra,Frank is the Album Artist ... if he's not then his works don't appear.  Note: I can find other recordings such as his contribution to Nancy Sinatra's album Movin' with Nancy ... using "All Artists" ... but I have to know that he is accompanied by Billy Strange, rather than Nelson Riddle or Gordon Jenkins or ...!

...

It seems to me that you are browsing/searching a wrong index: assuming that 1) "Sinatra,Frank" and "Riddle,Nelson", 2) "Sinatra,Frank" and "Jenkins,Gordon" and 3) "Sinatra,Frank", "Martin,Dean", "Riddle,Nelson" are the values of the Artist index in files (tracks) 1, 2 and 3, then selecting "Riddle,Nelson" in the Artist list in your control point shows you at least files 1 and 3. Of course, if "Riddle,Nelson" is an Artist value also in other files, the list will contain these files as well. For concreteness, I have made the following test: I have added a "Gugu" value to Artist on 3 tracks in my collection, namely:

a) Track #3 of the album "Puccini | Manon Lescaut (1957)". This track already has "Dino Formichini" as Artist

b) Tracks #1 and #5 of the album "Puccini | Turandot (1957)". Track #1 already has "Elisabeth Schwarzkopf" and "Giulio Mauri" as Artist. Track 5 has no artist apart from "Gugu".

Now, if I select "Gugu" in the Artist list in my control point under MinimServer I get the following list

- 2 albums

- 3 items

- work

- artist

The first entry give me access to the two albums. In each album, I can then select the specific tracks that contain "Gugu" as Artist or select the whole album.

The second button button gives direct access to the 3 files (tracks) that have "Gugu" as artist.

The third button gives me access to the works (Manon Lescaut and Turandot) associated with the three files in which "Gugu" appear as Artist.

The artist button gives accees to the other Artist values of the three files in which  "Gugu" appear as Artist. These are "Dino Formichini", "Elisabeth Schwarzkopf" and "Giulio Mauri" as one would expect.

I do not see any unexpected behavior here and it seems to me that MinimServer does precisely what one would expect it to do. If the 3 tracks to which I have added the "Gugu" artist would have different composers, I would see a composer entry in the list of options presented by MinimServer after the selection of "Gugu". In the above examples this entry does not appear because it would itself contain a singleton list with "Puccini, Giacomo (1858-1924)" as the only entry. This is what is called "intelligent browsing" in the MinimServer documentation: if selecting a value of an index leads to zero or only one option in the values associated to another index, the latter is not shown as an option for refining the original selection. Thus, if I had added "Gugu" to three tracks of the "Puccini | Turandot (1957)" album (instead of two albums), the option to select a work would not have been displayed in the list above. This, again, is precisely what I expect a UPnP server to do: avoid displaying options that are actually immaterial.

Many thanks, NBPF, for your detailed reply.  I think I understand your logic ... except for the final example ("Gugu" to three tracks ...) but I'll sleep on it and see if I can grasp this later.

In the meantime, can you advise how your names are separated within the Artist (or Composer) field.  All of mine are in the format: Karajan,Herbert von; Berliner Philharmoniker which means that if I search (in Minimserver) "Karajan" under:

"Artist" - I get nothing ... he's not the Album Artist (he is the Track Artist)

"All Artists" - I get many answers ... split over every Track Artist recording in which his name appears (at least up to the fifth name!) but such that, e.g.

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker                             appears as a distinct entry with

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker; Battle Kathleen

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker; Kunz,Erich *

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker; Kunz,Erich; Seefried,Irmgard **

all separate listings.  Note that the tracks revealed under * and ** are exclusive (they are separate Albums) but this does mean that if I want to select a Karajan album I have to scroll through dozens of listed items and know what accompanying Track Artist to choose before finding the Album I want.

With AssetUPnP I simply select Artist / Album -> Karajan,Herbert von to find all albums for which he is a Track Artist.  If I search Kunz,Erich I get all three albums on which he appears (i.e. * and **) whilst a search for Seefried,Irmgard gives me her recordings (whether or not Erich Kunz is also a Track Artist).

This seems much simpler/easier to me.

Cheers,

Mitch

Musicmad posted:

...

In the meantime, can you advise how your names are separated within the Artist (or Composer) field.  All of mine are in the format: Karajan,Herbert von; Berliner Philharmoniker which means that if I search (in Minimserver) "Karajan" under:

"Artist" - I get nothing ... he's not the Album Artist (he is the Track Artist)

"All Artists" - I get many answers ... split over every Track Artist recording in which his name appears (at least up to the fifth name!) but such that, e.g.

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker                             appears as a distinct entry with

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker; Battle Kathleen

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker; Kunz,Erich *

- Karajan,Herbert von; Wiener Philharmoniker; Kunz,Erich; Seefried,Irmgard **

all separate listings.  Note that the tracks revealed under * and ** are exclusive (they are separate Albums) but this does mean that if I want to select a Karajan album I have to scroll through dozens of listed items and know what accompanying Track Artist to choose before finding the Album I want.

With AssetUPnP I simply select Artist / Album -> Karajan,Herbert von to find all albums for which he is a Track Artist.  If I search Kunz,Erich I get all three albums on which he appears (i.e. * and **) whilst a search for Seefried,Irmgard gives me her recordings (whether or not Erich Kunz is also a Track Artist).

This seems much simpler/easier to me.

Cheers,

Mitch

I do not know Asset, in MinimServer I would select "Karajan,Herbert von" under Conductor and get all albums (tracks, works, ...) conducted by von Karajan. Again, to make a concrete example, if I select "Marek Janowski" under Conductor in my control point, I get the following next page:

8 albums

355 items

work

ensemble

artist

period

This tells me that I have 8 albums and 355 tracks conducted by Janowski in my collection. I can further refine my search by selecting, for instance, Work or Ensemble. Or just pick up an album. That seems rather intuitive to me. I never put composer, orchestra or conductor information in the artist field, but that's my personal choice, of course. I put composer information in a "composer" field, orchestra information in an "ensemble" field and conductor information in a "conductor" field. To make a concrete example, here are the tags of the first track of "Dvořák | Symphonie No.9 'Aus der neuen Welt'" by Wiener Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan as displayed by the command line command "lltag -S":

01 - New World Symphony - Adagio.flac:
replaygain_reference_loudness=89.0 dB
conductor=Herbert von Karajan
composer=Dvořák, Antonín (1841-1904)
ensemble=Wiener Philharmoniker
genre=Klassische Musik
genre=Instrumentalmusik
replaygain_album_peak=0.92974854
form=Sinfonie
album artist=Wiener Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
replaygain_track_peak=0.91885376
period=modern
period=romantic
work=Sinfonie Nr. 9 in e-Moll, Op. 95 "Aus der Neuen Welt" (1884)
replaygain_album_gain=-1.41 dB
albumartist=Wiener Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
discid=3c0cea05
replaygain_track_gain=-1.90 dB
title=Adagio
tracktotal=05
album=Dvořák: Symphonie No. 9, Smetana: Die Moldau | Herbert von Karajan, Wiener Philharmoniker
tracknumber=01
date=1985
gramophone's top 10 symphonies=03 Dvořák | Sinfonie Nr. 9 in e-Moll, Op. 95 "Aus der Neuen Welt" (1884)

Notice that "genre" and "period" are multi-valued and there is no "artist" field! Also, notice a "gramophone's top 10 symphonies" field and a "form" field. I distinguish between "genre" and "form". The first field contains values like "classical music", "jazz", "rock", "pop", "electronica" but also "solo cello". The field "form" contains values like "andante", "adagio", "nocturne", "symphony", "étude", "piano concert", etc. I have found it very useful to introduce a "work" (or "composition") field. Thus, for instance, if I select "work" in the first list (bold face), I get a list of all works conducted by Marek Janoswki in my collection.

likesmusic posted:

I have found J River Media Center to be an excellent tag editor for Windows. It has extremely powerful searching and tagging capabilities. 

 

J River MC also works well on the Mac.  

Once again, NBPF, thank you for the detailed reply ... I'm not computer illiterate but this looks a little too intense for me.  Perhaps my use of Tag&Rename - which does not appear to support all of those data fields - is a limiting factor.  It does demand data for Album Artist and Track Artist ... both of which flow from WMA (my CD ripping format) ...

Your statement as displayed by the command line command "lltag -S" is completely beyond me, I'm sorry to say.  I can't think where you're looking to seek that info ... certainly not an iPad/iPod/Android control point.

In your Dvořák example you have Karajan/BPO as the Album Artist which is where our paths separate.  I know this would produce useful results but it would create problems for me, such as: a collection of works under the banner of Telemann called getreue Music-Meister, Der which comprise works by different composers performed by different artists ... but all 126 tracks should be accessible from the Album Artist: Telemann,Georg Philipp.

Also, if I should adopt your approach this would require a massive restructure of my music library - my classical collection is nearing 21,000 tracks - so I'm likely to stick with my (imperfect) indexing system which works for me in almost all respects ... the control point/NDX display being my major bug-bear (an issue for another thread).

Cheers,

Mitch

Musicmad posted:

Once again, NBPF, thank you for the detailed reply ... I'm not computer illiterate but this looks a little too intense for me.  Perhaps my use of Tag&Rename - which does not appear to support all of those data fields - is a limiting factor.  It does demand data for Album Artist and Track Artist ... both of which flow from WMA (my CD ripping format) ...

Your statement as displayed by the command line command "lltag -S" is completely beyond me, I'm sorry to say.  I can't think where you're looking to seek that info ... certainly not an iPad/iPod/Android control point.

In your Dvořák example you have Karajan/BPO as the Album Artist which is where our paths separate.  I know this would produce useful results but it would create problems for me, such as: a collection of works under the banner of Telemann called getreue Music-Meister, Der which comprise works by different composers performed by different artists ... but all 126 tracks should be accessible from the Album Artist: Telemann,Georg Philipp.

Also, if I should adopt your approach this would require a massive restructure of my music library - my classical collection is nearing 21,000 tracks - so I'm likely to stick with my (imperfect) indexing system which works for me in almost all respects ... the control point/NDX display being my major bug-bear (an issue for another thread).

Cheers,

Mitch

Hi Mitch, as long as you come along well with your tagging scheme, there is no reason to change it! Just a few remarks on your observations:

- lltag is a small Linux command line program for tagging multimedia files.  I mainly use it to check my music library for errors and inconsistencies. It is a very powerful frontend to the command "flac" and allow one to process recursively all files in a directory and its subdirectories. If you like to work from the command line, it is a very nice tool.

- In my Dvořák example the album name is immaterial. I have albums in which different tracks have different composers, conductors, artists, etc.These go in their respective fields. I also use an Album field. I tend to put in it more or less what is printed on the cover of the album. I almost never use Album as a search criteria: I use Composer, Work, Conductor, Artist, etc. MinimServer lists then the matching albums and tracks, as shown in a previous post.

- Restructuring a collection is an incremental process. You can add an index, say Work or Conductor, but you do not need to throw away other fields. If you do not ask MinimServer to display the added indexes, you will not notice any difference. I tend to switch off indexes that I realize I am using rarely. But I do not erase any metadata. This allows me to revise my decisions later if I fancy to do so.

Generally speaking, there is not a "right" way to classify a music collection, of corse. But there are ways of coping with the deficiencies of certain UPnP servers that are inconsistent or just odd. I think that it is important that we are aware of what we can achieve with suitable tagging schemes. What we in the end decide to do, depends on many factors, among other the time that we decide to invest in tagging our data.

Thank you to everyone for so much information, and for sharing experiences.  Obviously what works for one doesn't work for all.  After much reading and experimenting, I have now decided to work with Jaikoz, at least for the moment.  Particularly thank you to TonyM for suggesting it.  It seems relatively user-friendly and I have been able to correct much of the incorrect metadata on some downloads.  It seems that metadata is an area which all download sites need to address, particularly for classical music.