More tagging woes

Bryce Curdy posted:

...

What I would like to do to take one example is sort David Bowie under B but display as 'David Bowie' rather than 'Bowie, David'.

...

What do you mean by "sort David Bowie under B" but "display as David Bowie"? A set of files can be sorted in different ways. But once you have selected one way, you get the files displayed in that way. Depending on the UPnP server, you can display artist values according to "first name, last name" or "last name, first name" sortings, see for instance the MinimServer documentation. For questions on tagging music files in general, please check "Music tagging" in the MinimServer forum.

If I wanted to listen to a David Bowie album I would like to click on B and then be presented with a choice of 'David Bowie' albums rather than 'Bowie, David' albums.  Not quite sure how I got there, but I actually have that, except that the same choice of albums apppears under Album Artist > D > David Bowie.  Not exclusive to David Bowie, but lots of artists appear on the Naim app by their first name.

Life's too short! If you actually enjoy ****ing around with tag editors, fine. I would just search under D.

This to me is the one bugbear of streaming - and a real PITA it is. Whoever manages to solve the problem universally with all genres will be doing us all a great service.

But wait ...it was easy once, save music in folders using a bpnested file structure that suits your library requirements, and metadata simply stating how you want data displayed. Worked perfectly when I had an ND5XS with music first on a Zyxel NSA325 running Logitech Media Server, then on a Mac Mini running Serviio UPnP player.

But sadly as other people have found with other systems, Audirvana on that same Mac Mini suffers similar problems to the issues cited by the OP. If only more systems would allow simple library browsing and searching by file structure.

I don’t use AssetUPnP (I use MinimServer) but typically you need to set Artist (and/or AlbumArtist) to “David Bowie” and ArtistSort (and/or AlbumArtistSort) to “Bowie, David”.  I’m unsure if there is anything you then need to set in Asset to get it to use the sort tags.

If you’re using MP3Tag it’s fairly simply to run a script to reverse artist name for sort artist (and same for album artists) though you then get problems if things like “Fairground Attraction” becomes “Attaction, Fairground” so it’s not something to do blindly.

Using the Naim app you also need to tell that to use the server’s sort order ... that’s done using the A-Z toggle button (top right on the UPnP selection pages), otherwise the app will resort using the Artist / AlbumArtist tags.  The downside is you loose the little A..B..C..D..etc selection down the right side so you have to guess to jump to the correct point in the list.

Alternatively don’t worry about the tags for sorting, and when you want David Bowie pull downwards and type “Bowie” into the search bar at the top.

Innocent Bystander posted:

This to me is the one bugbear of streaming - and a real PITA it is. Whoever manages to solve the problem universally with all genres will be doing us all a great service.

...

What is the problem with genres precisely? What would a software need to support for this problem to be solved universally? 

Innocent Bystander posted:

...

But wait ...it was easy once, save music in folders using a bpnested file structure that suits your library requirements, and metadata simply stating how you want data displayed. Worked perfectly when I had an ND5XS with music first on a Zyxel NSA325 running Logitech Media Server, then on a Mac Mini running Serviio UPnP player.

But sadly as other people have found with other systems, Audirvana on that same Mac Mini suffers similar problems to the issues cited by the OP. If only more systems would allow simple library browsing and searching by file structure.

I thought that every UPnP server or music player supports file browsing! MinimServer and MPD certainly do so. Since about two years I use MinimServer as a UPnP server and upmpdcli as a UPnP renderer. Perhaps I have modest requirements but, so far, I could always set MinimServer to do precisely what I wanted to do. In one or two occasions I have posted a question on the MinimServer forum and this was readily answered by the developer of MinimServer. A big advantage of using upmpdcli as a renderer is that it is a very lightweight program that front-ends MPD. Thus, one still has MPD runnin g in the background. When I am working with my laptop and do not want to reach for my mobile phone or for a tablet, I just fire up ncmpcpp and I can immediately access my file structure. I keep all my files in a "data" folder. This contains subfolders like "Vilde Frang, Frankfurt Radio Symphony", "Eivind Aarset" or "Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt". But beside the "data" folder, I also have a "composer" folder, a "selections" folder and a "new" folder. These contain symbolic links to actual files in the "data" folder. These days I very rarely browse my music collection through folders. But I like to know that, if I fancy to do so, the infrastructure is in place.

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

This to me is the one bugbear of streaming - and a real PITA it is. Whoever manages to solve the problem universally with all genres will be doing us all a great service.

...

What is the problem with genres precisely? What would a software need to support for this problem to be solved universally? 

My mention of genres is because classical music seems to suffer from more inconsistencies than other genres, whence the problem is the tagging, not the playing software itself (and as I see it a simple solution could be to allow file structure searching/browsing, ignoring tags). A couple of examples of very common ones follow, in respect of the first one it is significant that with classical there can be many recordings of a particular work, e.g by different orchestras and different conductors, all representing different interpretations.

The same work might have genre tag assigned as classical, symphony, symphonic or orchestral. Another orchestral work, different only in technicality of being a concerto not a symphony could have different versions assigned as concerto, orchestral or classical. 

The artist tag can be composer, orchestra, conductor or soloist

The composer may be Mozart; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; W.A.Mozart; Mozart W A,  Mozart, Wolfgang.

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

...

But wait ...it was easy once, save music in folders using a bpnested file structure that suits your library requirements, and metadata simply stating how you want data displayed. Worked perfectly when I had an ND5XS with music first on a Zyxel NSA325 running Logitech Media Server, then on a Mac Mini running Serviio UPnP player.

But sadly as other people have found with other systems, Audirvana on that same Mac Mini suffers similar problems to the issues cited by the OP. If only more systems would allow simple library browsing and searching by file structure.

I thought that every UPnP server or music player supports file browsing! MinimServer and MPD certainly do so. Since about two years I use MinimServer as a UPnP server and upmpdcli as a UPnP renderer. Perhaps I have modest requirements but, so far, I could always set MinimServer to do precisely what I wanted to do. In one or two occasions I have posted a question on the MinimServer forum and this was readily answered by the developer of MinimServer. A big advantage of using upmpdcli as a renderer is that it is a very lightweight program that front-ends MPD. Thus, one still has MPD runnin g in the background. When I am working with my laptop and do not want to reach for my mobile phone or for a tablet, I just fire up ncmpcpp and I can immediately access my file structure. I keep all my files in a "data" folder. This contains subfolders like "Vilde Frang, Frankfurt Radio Symphony", "Eivind Aarset" or "Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt". But beside the "data" folder, I also have a "composer" folder, a "selections" folder and a "new" folder. These contain symbolic links to actual files in the "data" folder. These days I very rarely browse my music collection through folders. But I like to know that, if I fancy to do so, the infrastructure is in place.

Audirvana, at least in its best mode as rendering software capable of very good sound quality (in my experience better sounding than ND5XS as renderer, and indistinguishable from Melco N1A), does not enable file browsing - but then it is not a UPnP server because it loads the file direct. I suffer it’s limitation because of its great sound quality and low cost, but it is irritating and frustrating at times, and when one day I either find a better affordable solution or the Mac Mini reaches end of life, I will change to something else, unless fixed by then.

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

...

But wait ...it was easy once, save music in folders using a bpnested file structure that suits your library requirements, and metadata simply stating how you want data displayed. Worked perfectly when I had an ND5XS with music first on a Zyxel NSA325 running Logitech Media Server, then on a Mac Mini running Serviio UPnP player.

But sadly as other people have found with other systems, Audirvana on that same Mac Mini suffers similar problems to the issues cited by the OP. If only more systems would allow simple library browsing and searching by file structure.

I thought that every UPnP server or music player supports file browsing! MinimServer and MPD certainly do so. Since about two years I use MinimServer as a UPnP server and upmpdcli as a UPnP renderer. Perhaps I have modest requirements but, so far, I could always set MinimServer to do precisely what I wanted to do. In one or two occasions I have posted a question on the MinimServer forum and this was readily answered by the developer of MinimServer. A big advantage of using upmpdcli as a renderer is that it is a very lightweight program that front-ends MPD. Thus, one still has MPD runnin g in the background. When I am working with my laptop and do not want to reach for my mobile phone or for a tablet, I just fire up ncmpcpp and I can immediately access my file structure. I keep all my files in a "data" folder. This contains subfolders like "Vilde Frang, Frankfurt Radio Symphony", "Eivind Aarset" or "Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt". But beside the "data" folder, I also have a "composer" folder, a "selections" folder and a "new" folder. These contain symbolic links to actual files in the "data" folder. These days I very rarely browse my music collection through folders. But I like to know that, if I fancy to do so, the infrastructure is in place.

Audirvana, at least in its best mode as rendering software capable of very good sound quality (in my experience better sounding than ND5XS as renderer, and indistinguishable from Melco N1A), does not enable file browsing - but then it is not a UPnP server because it loads the file direct. I suffer it’s limitation because of its great sound quality and low cost, but it is irritating and frustrating at times, and when one day I either find a better affordable solution or the Mac Mini reaches end of life, I will change to something else, unless fixed by then.

I see, I understand that not being able to browse the file system is a very annoying. Perhaps you could play around with MinimServer + upmpdcli on a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne. This would cost you about 150 EUR but allow you to evaluate alternative solutions very easily and without touching your Mac Mini. In my system the DigiOne directly connected to the Naim DAC sounds as good as the Schiit Eitr to my ears.   

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

This to me is the one bugbear of streaming - and a real PITA it is. Whoever manages to solve the problem universally with all genres will be doing us all a great service.

...

What is the problem with genres precisely? What would a software need to support for this problem to be solved universally? 

My mention of genres is because classical music seems to suffer from more inconsistencies than other genres, whence the problem is the tagging, not the playing software itself (and as I see it a simple solution could be to allow file structure searching/browsing, ignoring tags). A couple of examples of very common ones follow, in respect of the first one it is significant that with classical there can be many recordings of a particular work, e.g by different orchestras and different conductors, all representing different interpretations.

The same work might have genre tag assigned as classical, symphony, symphonic or orchestral. Another orchestral work, different only in technicality of being a concerto not a symphony could have different versions assigned as concerto, orchestral or classical. 

The artist tag can be composer, orchestra, conductor or soloist

The composer may be Mozart; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; W.A.Mozart; Mozart W A,  Mozart, Wolfgang

It very much depends on where you buy classical music from and how your tagging scheme looks like. My experience is that Hyperion and Qobuz downloads need rather minimal corrections. Prestoclassical downloads require some more work in my case.

In my tagging scheme "classical" is indeed a genre (like "jazz", "chamber music", "rock", etc.) and also an era (like "romantic", "modern", "baroque", etc.) but "symphony", "piano concerto", "string quartet", "berceuse", "cello suite", etc. are forms. They are found under "Form", not "Genre". The artist tag never contains composer, orchestra or conductor values in my scheme. This is an index that even for Hyperion download I usually have to correct. I almost always have to correct the composer value, except for Hyperion downloads. They use " Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)" which perfectly matches what I do.

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

This to me is the one bugbear of streaming - and a real PITA it is. Whoever manages to solve the problem universally with all genres will be doing us all a great service.

...

What is the problem with genres precisely? What would a software need to support for this problem to be solved universally? 

My mention of genres is because classical music seems to suffer from more inconsistencies than other genres, whence the problem is the tagging, not the playing software itself (and as I see it a simple solution could be to allow file structure searching/browsing, ignoring tags). A couple of examples of very common ones follow, in respect of the first one it is significant that with classical there can be many recordings of a particular work, e.g by different orchestras and different conductors, all representing different interpretations.

The same work might have genre tag assigned as classical, symphony, symphonic or orchestral. Another orchestral work, different only in technicality of being a concerto not a symphony could have different versions assigned as concerto, orchestral or classical. 

The artist tag can be composer, orchestra, conductor or soloist

The composer may be Mozart; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; W.A.Mozart; Mozart W A,  Mozart, Wolfgang

It very much depends on where you buy classical music from and how your tagging scheme looks like. My experience is that Hyperion and Qobuz downloads need rather minimal corrections. Prestoclassical downloads require some more work in my case.

In my tagging scheme "classical" is indeed a genre (like "jazz", "chamber music", "rock", etc.) and also an era (like "romantic", "modern", "baroque", etc.) but "symphony", "piano concerto", "string quartet", "berceuse", "cello suite", etc. are forms. They are found under "Form", not "Genre". The artist tag never contains composer, orchestra or conductor values in my scheme. This is an index that even for Hyperion download I usually have to correct. I almost always have to correct the composer value, except for Hyperion downloads. They use " Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)" which perfectly matches what I do.

My own primary problem came from ripping hundreds of CDs and buying quite a few downloads before I became aware of the importance of metadata and the essential need effectively to sort out immediately after rip or download -not to mention hundreds of ripped vinyl recordings with zero metadata.

Re genre, yes, I too keep it simple, very much like a conventional record shop or library - in my case just classical, opera, rock-pop and other, used as the first decision as to what type of music I fancy listening to. Artist to me for classical is the composer, surname first, for others the playing artist, band name excluding ‘the’ otherwise surname first for solo artists. Nice and simple in my nested file structure, but even attempts at auto tagging haven’t fixed the problems and I have better things to do in my life than go through all my albums with a tag editor - and it would be totally unnecessary if browsing could be by file structure, which is easy for anyone to tailor to their own desire, and lends itself to simple addition of music without a second thought...

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

....

I thought that every UPnP server or music player supports file browsing! MinimServer and MPD certainly do so. Since about two years I use MinimServer as a UPnP server and upmpdcli as a UPnP renderer. Perhaps I have modest requirements but, so far, I could always set MinimServer to do precisely what I wanted to do. In one or two occasions I have posted a question on the MinimServer forum and this was readily answered by the developer of MinimServer. A big advantage of using upmpdcli as a renderer is that it is a very lightweight program that front-ends MPD. Thus, one still has MPD runnin g in the background. When I am working with my laptop and do not want to reach for my mobile phone or for a tablet, I just fire up ncmpcpp and I can immediately access my file structure. I keep all my files in a "data" folder. This contains subfolders like "Vilde Frang, Frankfurt Radio Symphony", "Eivind Aarset" or "Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt". But beside the "data" folder, I also have a "composer" folder, a "selections" folder and a "new" folder. These contain symbolic links to actual files in the "data" folder. These days I very rarely browse my music collection through folders. But I like to know that, if I fancy to do so, the infrastructure is in place.

Audirvana, at least in its best mode as rendering software capable of very good sound quality (in my experience better sounding than ND5XS as renderer, and indistinguishable from Melco N1A), does not enable file browsing - but then it is not a UPnP server because it loads the file direct. I suffer it’s limitation because of its great sound quality and low cost, but it is irritating and frustrating at times, and when one day I either find a better affordable solution or the Mac Mini reaches end of life, I will change to something else, unless fixed by then.

I see, I understand that not being able to browse the file system is a very annoying. Perhaps you could play around with MinimServer + upmpdcli on a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne. This would cost you about 150 EUR but allow you to evaluate alternative solutions very easily and without touching your Mac Mini. In my system the DigiOne directly connected to the Naim DAC sounds as good as the Schiit Eitr to my ears.   

I may try something else sometime, though I was more thinking microRendu, but I don’t enjoy fiddling around and auditioning different things, much preferring just to listen to music, so for now I just keep nagging Audirvana’s writer to fix, but I am increasingly seeing that as a forlorn hope, so one day I’ll have to bite the bullet...

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

....

I thought that every UPnP server or music player supports file browsing! MinimServer and MPD certainly do so. Since about two years I use MinimServer as a UPnP server and upmpdcli as a UPnP renderer. Perhaps I have modest requirements but, so far, I could always set MinimServer to do precisely what I wanted to do. In one or two occasions I have posted a question on the MinimServer forum and this was readily answered by the developer of MinimServer. A big advantage of using upmpdcli as a renderer is that it is a very lightweight program that front-ends MPD. Thus, one still has MPD runnin g in the background. When I am working with my laptop and do not want to reach for my mobile phone or for a tablet, I just fire up ncmpcpp and I can immediately access my file structure. I keep all my files in a "data" folder. This contains subfolders like "Vilde Frang, Frankfurt Radio Symphony", "Eivind Aarset" or "Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt". But beside the "data" folder, I also have a "composer" folder, a "selections" folder and a "new" folder. These contain symbolic links to actual files in the "data" folder. These days I very rarely browse my music collection through folders. But I like to know that, if I fancy to do so, the infrastructure is in place.

Audirvana, at least in its best mode as rendering software capable of very good sound quality (in my experience better sounding than ND5XS as renderer, and indistinguishable from Melco N1A), does not enable file browsing - but then it is not a UPnP server because it loads the file direct. I suffer it’s limitation because of its great sound quality and low cost, but it is irritating and frustrating at times, and when one day I either find a better affordable solution or the Mac Mini reaches end of life, I will change to something else, unless fixed by then.

I see, I understand that not being able to browse the file system is a very annoying. Perhaps you could play around with MinimServer + upmpdcli on a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne. This would cost you about 150 EUR but allow you to evaluate alternative solutions very easily and without touching your Mac Mini. In my system the DigiOne directly connected to the Naim DAC sounds as good as the Schiit Eitr to my ears.   

I may try something else sometime, though I was more thinking microRendu, but I don’t enjoy fiddling around and auditioning different things, much preferring just to listen to music, so for now I just keep nagging Audirvana’s writer to fix, but I am increasingly seeing that as a forlorn hope, so one day I’ll have to bite the bullet...

The microRendo is just a network player. You can put it between a (Roon, UPnP, LMS) server and a DAC to improve the quality of the server's USB output or to move the server away from the DAC but it has no bearing on metadata handling. If you want to try out different servers or server+player combinations, the most straightforward way to do so is probably to buy a 35 EUR Raspberry Pi. You do not even need to wire it to your LAN, it comes with a wireless interface on board and you can install Raspbian remotely via ssh.

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

This to me is the one bugbear of streaming - and a real PITA it is. Whoever manages to solve the problem universally with all genres will be doing us all a great service.

...

What is the problem with genres precisely? What would a software need to support for this problem to be solved universally? 

My mention of genres is because classical music seems to suffer from more inconsistencies than other genres, whence the problem is the tagging, not the playing software itself (and as I see it a simple solution could be to allow file structure searching/browsing, ignoring tags). A couple of examples of very common ones follow, in respect of the first one it is significant that with classical there can be many recordings of a particular work, e.g by different orchestras and different conductors, all representing different interpretations.

The same work might have genre tag assigned as classical, symphony, symphonic or orchestral. Another orchestral work, different only in technicality of being a concerto not a symphony could have different versions assigned as concerto, orchestral or classical. 

The artist tag can be composer, orchestra, conductor or soloist

The composer may be Mozart; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; W.A.Mozart; Mozart W A,  Mozart, Wolfgang

It very much depends on ...

My own primary problem came from ripping hundreds of CDs and buying quite a few downloads before I became aware of the importance of metadata and the essential need effectively to sort out immediately after rip or download -not to mention hundreds of ripped vinyl recordings with zero metadata.

... Nice and simple in my nested file structure, but even attempts at auto tagging haven’t fixed the problems and I have better things to do in my life than go through all my albums with a tag editor - and it would be totally unnecessary if browsing could be by file structure, which is easy for anyone to tailor to their own desire, and lends itself to simple addition of music without a second thought...

My credo is that one should tag his/her music collection in way that reflects his/her own habits, interests and understandings, not the software or the device that one currently uses.It seems to me that you are facing two very different problems: 1) your preferred software does not let you browse folders and 2) you have a legacy collection that is not tagged consistently.

1) is a bugger but it is largely out of your control. I have tried for years to convince the MPD developers that the tool should support user-specific indexes and I failed. Eventually, I moved to MinimServer + upmpdcli.

For 2), you do not actually need to go through all your albums manually to get a consistent tagging. If you are comfortable with the command line, "lltag" is a very powerful tool to manage metadata. It allows you to modify the tags of all the files in a folder and of its subfolders in a variety of ways, see  http://manpages.ubuntu.com/man...al/man1/lltag.1.html. Of course, a "perfect" tagging requires some manual work. But a consistent tagging is already a very good starting point. From there, you can easily improve stepwise if you fancy to do so. Or just do something better.

nbpf posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

 

My credo is that one should tag his/her music collection in way that reflects his/her own habits, interests and understandings, not the software or the device that one currently uses.It seems to me that you are facing two very different problems: 1) your preferred software does not let you browse folders and 2) you have a legacy collection that is not tagged consistently.

1) is a bugger but it is largely out of your control. I have tried for years to convince the MPD developers that the tool should support user-specific indexes and I failed. Eventually, I moved to MinimServer + upmpdcli.

For 2), you do not actually need to go through all your albums manually to get a consistent tagging. If you are comfortable with the command line, "lltag" is a very powerful tool to manage metadata. It allows you to modify the tags of all the files in a folder and of its subfolders in a variety of ways, see  http://manpages.ubuntu.com/man...al/man1/lltag.1.html. Of course, a "perfect" tagging requires some manual work. But a consistent tagging is already a very good starting point. From there, you can easily improve stepwise if you fancy to do so. Or just do something better.

Thanks NBPF - I shall have a look re 2) when I have a bit of time.

nbpf posted:

The microRendo is just a network player. You can put it between a (Roon, UPnP, LMS) server and a DAC to improve the quality of the server's USB output or to move the server away from the DAC but it has no bearing on metadata handling. If you want to try out different servers or server+player combinations, the most straightforward way to do so is probably to buy a 35 EUR Raspberry Pi. You do not even need to wire it to your LAN, it comes with a wireless interface on board and you can install Raspbian remotely via ssh.

The angle I was looking from, mR would replace the rendering function of Audirvana, and I would be left with having to have a file server in a separate box, whether going back to Mac Mini acting as a NAS (which it did well once upon a time to ND5XS),or looking at an alternative when RPi might be worth investigating -and I know there is much useful info on the Hugo of Streaming thread - of course the more expensive it gets with power supplies for mR and RPi etc the more attractive become something simple like Melco, Innuos Zenith or even Core... 

if I hold out on Audirvana until after I retire then perhaps another hobby suggests itself, though I don’t think I need one!

ChrisSU posted:

Life's too short! If you actually enjoy ****ing around with tag editors, fine. I would just search under D.

I know what you mean, but all I'm looking for is the equivalent of a typical address book - John Smith under S but written as 'John Smith' rather than 'Smith, John'.  It's not a lot to ask.

>His albums now appear in the Naim app under both B and D displayed as 'David Bowie'.  

On the Asset adanved options page is Artist Sort Handling: this option sets how the sorted values are presented:

• Display in Sort and Non-Sort Locations (default): In the above example Beethoven would be listed under both 'L' and 'B', this option is default as an unexpected sort tag effectively hides the artist under the last name (think of Elvis Presley shown under 'P' with a sort tag of Presely, Elvis)
• Use Sort to Order Display: item is displayed in the sort tag location only
• Ignore Sort Values: does not use sort values from ID Tags

And don't forget that the surname prefixes Mc and Mac should have the same sort value, so Paul McCartney should sort before Ewan MacColl if you sort in surname order. Decent software should be able do this. 

Having to rechristen "David Bowie" as "Bowie, David" to get things to behave as you want is horrible. imo.

Bryce, one additional option you have with minim server is to use some form of aliasing whereby you instruct the server to display for searching and displaying various names under one: e.g. David Bowie, D. Bowie as “Bowei, David”. This is done using an alias file. You don’t edit the metadata per se.

I am not using this option extensively it as tend to rely mostly on genre/ album or simply album search but I have set this option up for Bach and Mozart just to make sure it works - it does!