Tagging classical music

[bbrip]

(27-04-2014 11:10)gnomus Wrote:  I have not found a solution for this, but I have rethought my approach to the way I handle my Opera Recordings. I was going to put each Act into a separate "album" (see previous posts). However, I realise that a better way is to put the whole opera into one album and use the "Group" tag to form groups called Act I, Act II, and so on.

This will make the CP interface much neater in use.

yes, I'd definitly keep all Acts of an Opera in one "Album" (ie Album = 'The Opera')

Good idea to use Grouping for Acts. I am using LUMIN as a control-point and unfortunatly it acts-up a bit on Grouping, so I just put the Act at the beginning of the description of each tag.

(27-04-2014 11:10)gnomus Wrote:  If you are interested, I decided to rip my Complete Beethoven Sonatas in the following way:

1. On the CDs the order of the Sonatas is random - this is not good, so...
2. Everything will be ripped to the same Album (and Folder on the Hard Drive)
3. So that I can find everything in the CP and to correct tagging errors, all the sonatas will be ripped in the correct order.
4. To do this, I will use Track numbering, using the first two digits for the Sonata number (01-32), and a final digit for the movement. Hence, the Seventh Sonata tracks become 71, 72, 73 & 74; the movements of Sonata 32 are 321 & 322.
5. I use the Group tag to tag each Sonata

This results in One album on the Control Point - when I go into that album I should find all 32 Sonatas grouped in the correct order.

Thats certainly one way to do it but it would confuse me. I prefer to see each Sonata separately (ie. Album = Sonata). It gives me the big advantage to see all performances of a certain sonata by different artists next to each other. Or I search by artist (ie Andras Schiff) and I get all albums (= Sonatas) recorded by him neatly showing up underneath each other.

As always, many ways to achieve meaningful results...

bbrip

[gnomus]

(27-04-2014 18:10)bbrip Wrote:  ...
Thats certainly one way to do it but it would confuse me. I prefer to see each Sonata separately (ie. Album = Sonata). It gives me the big advantage to see all performances of a certain sonata by different artists next to each other. Or I search by artist (ie Andras Schiff) and I get all albums (= Sonatas) recorded by him neatly showing up underneath each other.
...

This was my original plan, but I realised that I was going to end up with 100+ "albums" for the Piano Sonatas alone, and only slightly fewer String Quartet "albums". I am, therefore, using a hybrid approach, If I have a single CD with just 2 or 3 sonatas, I will put them into separate albums (so that I know which number sonatas I have). However, for "complete collections" (and that would include things like "Late String Quartets") I will have them all in one "album". If I want to compare my single Gilels 'Hammerklavier' with that of Schnabel, then I can just go to my complete Schnabel "album".

I am probably going to do the same with my collections of the symphonies by conductor.

There's no "right" way, of course, but discussions like these help me to think about the different options.

[simoncn]

(27-04-2014 18:10)bbrip Wrote:  Thats certainly one way to do it but it would confuse me. I prefer to see each Sonata separately (ie. Album = Sonata). It gives me the big advantage to see all performances of a certain sonata by different artists next to each other. Or I search by artist (ie Andras Schiff) and I get all albums (= Sonatas) recorded by him neatly showing up underneath each other.

You can do this by tagging each sonata as a Composition as well as a Group. This allows you to search by Composer and then by Composition (and Artist if you want) to get this exact display.

Quote:As always, many ways to achieve meaningful results...

bbrip

Indeed!

[gnomus]

(27-04-2014 18:42)simoncn Wrote:  ....
You can do this by tagging each sonata as a Composition as well as a Group. This allows you to search by Composer and then by Composition (and Artist if you want) to get this exact display..

Damn! I can see that I am going to be back for a lengthy MP3Tag session again tomorrow!

I hope that there is no possibility of "damaging" my precious FLAC files by this constant tagging, re-tagging, and then tag some more approach that is now dominating my life?

[simoncn]

(27-04-2014 18:52)gnomus Wrote:  Damn! I can see that I am going to be back for a lengthy MP3Tag session again tomorrow!

I hope that there is no possibility of "damaging" my precious FLAC files by this constant tagging, re-tagging, and then tag some more approach that is now dominating my life?

Retagging won't damage the files, but as with any operation that changes bits on a computer disk, hardware or software failures can occur. For this reason, it's advisable to have a full backup of all your files on a separate computer or storage medium before you start any major retagging operation.

[gnomus]

(27-04-2014 19:42)simoncn Wrote:  

(27-04-2014 18:52)gnomus Wrote:  Damn! I can see that I am going to be back for a lengthy MP3Tag session again tomorrow!

I hope that there is no possibility of "damaging" my precious FLAC files by this constant tagging, re-tagging, and then tag some more approach that is now dominating my life?

Retagging won't damage the files, but as with any operation that changes bits on a computer disk, hardware or software failures can occur. For this reason, it's advisable to have a full backup of all your files on a separate computer or storage medium before you start any major retagging operation.

That is probably my next priority. I am getting increasingly paranoid that I am going to lose all of my data. The Synology is my first NAS and I know that it is suposed to keep a copy of the data so that if one of the drives fails, it is backed up on the other. But.... computers.....

I am thinking of getting a second NAS - copying the data to it, switching it off and keeping it in a fireproof safe. What do most folks do?

Secondly is there some clever way of getting MP3Tag (or some other programme) to create the "Composition" tag, then copy the value for "Album Title" into that field? I can see that "Composition" is going to be very useful, but I only found out it existed a couple of hours ago :-)

[simoncn]

(27-04-2014 19:58)gnomus Wrote:  That is probably my next priority. I am getting increasingly paranoid that I am going to lose all of my data. The Synology is my first NAS and I know that it is suposed to keep a copy of the data so that if one of the drives fails, it is backed up on the other. But.... computers.....

This is known as "RAID" and it is *NOT* the same as a backup. If one of the disks fails with a head crash, the remaining disk should (hopefully) retain a valid copy of the data. If some human error or software problem causes files to be deleted or corrupted, the deletion or corruption will be applied immediately to the data on both both disks.

Quote:I am thinking of getting a second NAS - copying the data to it, switching it off and keeping it in a fireproof safe. What do most folks do?

A cheaper option would be to plug in a USB drive to your NAS and copy your files to the USB drive. This will be quicker if you use USB 3, not USB 2.

Quote:Secondly is there some clever way of getting MP3Tag (or some other programme) to create the "Composition" tag, then copy the value for "Album Title" into that field? I can see that "Composition" is going to be very useful, but I only found out it existed a couple of hours ago :-)

Mp3tag can do this kind of thing using bulk actions and regular expressions. (I don't have the exact formula at my fingertips.)

[gnomus]

(27-04-2014 20:48)simoncn Wrote:  ...A cheaper option would be to plug in a USB drive to your NAS and copy your files to the USB drive. This will be quicker if you use USB 3, not USB 2....

As someone who does more of this sort of thing than I do, would you have any recommendations as to make/model? I'd need ~3TB. Reliability is key even if that means a bit more dough.

[Dieter Stockert]

(27-04-2014 19:58)gnomus Wrote:  I am thinking of getting a second NAS - copying the data to it, switching it off and keeping it in a fireproof safe. What do most folks do?

I think I'm quite save with a second NAS in my dealer's rooms in my home town (a usb stick brings new music to it) and a hard disc in another town in my nephew's apartment (it gets updated via dropbox).

[simoncn]

(27-04-2014 21:05)gnomus Wrote:  As someone who does more of this sort of thing than I do, would you have any recommendations as to make/model? I'd need ~3TB. Reliability is key even if that means a bit more dough.

WD Red is a good HDD. There are 3TB and 4TB versions. For a USB 3 caddy, I use an Icy Dock. It probably isn't the fastest, but it seems reliable.