How to organize and tag classical music

[Pastim]

(09-10-2014 19:03)simoncn Wrote:  

(09-10-2014 14:17)Pastim Wrote:  Can someone be a little more explicit about the use of the Group tag? I also use Work (and Movement) tags, but have been encouraged to try the Group tag as well to see if it overcomes some of my browsing issues.

Do I have to include it in the property indexTags or itemTags, or neither? I can't find it in the user guide

The Group tag is processed automatically and doesn't need to be included in indexTags or itemTags.

Quote:Is it only useful when viewing by Album? I'm trying it on a few tracks and getting somewhat confused as to how it is intended to be used.

It is useful for any kind of view. All tracks in the group will appear as a single item in any view. This single item can be opened to show its contents if you want to view the tracks and select them individually. You should also be able to play the contents of the group (in order) with a single click.

Ok. Thanks. I'm trying it (initially as a duplicate of Work) but getting quite a lot of errors on startup. I'm investigating......

[Pastim]

I have several problems just copying Work to Group, not least that I have several Albums with more than one recording of the same Work. However, I'll be able to sort these out in due course.

Some other issues are a little trickier to resolve. I have some albums that are large collections, with items replicated elsewhere. Sometimes I have kept the stand-alone version and omitted the copy in the collection. I have, however, kept the disc and track numbers as they were, so that when I read the booklet it matches the disc and track numbers of the items still in the collection. All is OK so far, and I still have just one Album when browsing, with missing tracks & discs.

However, some works (and hence groups) span discs. This seems to fall foul of the rule regarding the Disc numbers being visible. When disc numbers are missing, minimserver seems to add Disc numbers to the display for the CP. I don't particularly want this, and don't get it on other albums, but that's what is displayed.

So the error in the log is:

Code:

Error: group spans multiple discs: Vespro Della Beata Vergine in album John Eliot Gardiner - The John Eliot Gardiner Collection

This work, and group, is consecutive, across 2 discs, but because minimserver wants to display the Disc numbers, it breaks the multi-disc rule.

Is there some way round this conundrum?

[simoncn]

(09-10-2014 21:31)Pastim Wrote:  However, some works (and hence groups) span discs. This seems to fall foul of the rule regarding the Disc numbers being visible. When disc numbers are missing, minimserver seems to add Disc numbers to the display for the CP. I don't particularly want this, and don't get it on other albums, but that's what is displayed.

I think I understand what you mean by MinimServer wanting to display the disc numbers. This album has its discs unmerged because the discs aren't consecutive. In order to do disc merging and track renumbering (which I presume you are seeing on your other multidisc albums), MinimServer requires all discs to be available so that it can calculate how many tracks are on each disc. The visual display of disc number as dividers between the items for each discs isn't the reason for the error message but is a symptom of MinimServer being unable to merge the discs from this particular album. The error message about the group spanning discs is another symptom of the album discs being unmerged.

[Pastim]

(09-10-2014 22:30)simoncn Wrote:  

(09-10-2014 21:31)Pastim Wrote:  However, some works (and hence groups) span discs. This seems to fall foul of the rule regarding the Disc numbers being visible. When disc numbers are missing, minimserver seems to add Disc numbers to the display for the CP. I don't particularly want this, and don't get it on other albums, but that's what is displayed.

I think I understand what you mean by MinimServer wanting to display the disc numbers. This album has its discs unmerged because the discs aren't consecutive. In order to do disc merging and track renumbering (which I presume you are seeing on your other multidisc albums), MinimServer requires all discs to be available so that it can calculate how many tracks are on each disc. The visual display of disc number as dividers between the items for each discs isn't the reason for the error message but is a symptom of MinimServer being unable to merge the discs from this particular album. The error message about the group spanning discs is another symptom of the album discs being unmerged.

Indeed, but how do I get around it? The group itself is internally consistent, and the Album still shows as only one album. The only problem is that there are missing discs/tracks elsewhere on the album, which breaks the 'group' rules.

[simoncn]

(09-10-2014 22:39)Pastim Wrote:  Indeed, but how do I get around it? The group itself is internally consistent, and the Album still shows as only one album. The only problem is that there are missing discs/tracks elsewhere on the album, which breaks the 'group' rules.

In slightly more detail, the missing discs/tracks prevent the album discs from being merged and the presence of unmerged discs in the album prevents defining a group that spans unmerged discs. This is because a group is treated as a single item for display purposes and therefore can appear in only one of the unmerged discs. There isn't any way to get around this.

[Pastim]

(09-10-2014 22:52)simoncn Wrote:  In slightly more detail, the missing discs/tracks prevent the album discs from being merged and the presence of unmerged discs in the album prevents defining a group that spans unmerged discs. This is because a group is treated as a single item for display purposes and therefore can appear in only one of the unmerged discs. There isn't any way to get around this.

Bother. I had a feeling that Groups would cause me problems. I don't suppose minimserver could be told to ignore omissions and merge the discs anyway?

[simoncn]

(09-10-2014 23:03)Pastim Wrote:  Bother. I had a feeling that Groups would cause me problems. I don't suppose minimserver could be told to ignore omissions and merge the discs anyway?

This isn't possible because there isn't enough information to renumber the tracks correctly.

[Pastim]

There must be something I can do. Having groups work 95% of the time is not great. Is there really no possible answer?

I'm not really sure why the tracks can't be renumbered - if a disc is missing so be it, just go to the next one and number sequentially from the last track found to the next one found on the next higher disc. Still, I'm sure it's more complex than that.

[Pastim]

I have a solution, whose technical name is 'a bodge'.

I created 1 second silent flacs for the missing discs with the same Album name and AlbumArtist(s). Not pretty, but it stops the error messages and allows the groups to be defined.

The bulk of the work I have to do now to make groups work is attend to albums where there are multiple versions of the same work. I'm doing this by creating a new tag called GroupSuffix. This can be empty, present or FALSE. When my standard tagging action is invoked (which I use on all tracks) it copies Work (if present) plus GroupSuffix (if present and not FALSE and Work is present) to Group. If work is present and GroupSuffix is FALSE, the Group is not populated. GroupSuffix could also be used to contain 'Act 1' or whatever should I decided to split works up in that sort of way.

So most of my tracks have Work as Group. Where there are multiple versions, I enter a GroupSuffix. Where it's a recital disc and there are excerpts in sundry non-consecutive tracks, I copy the Movement name to the GroupSuffix.

As and when I have to re-tag all my tracks (as happened recently to solve my multiple AlbumArtist issue, and will happen again to solve other issues), all the tags get reset correctly without manual intervention.

Does any of that make sense? I hope it might be useful to others.

[simoncn]

(10-10-2014 11:05)Pastim Wrote:  I have a solution, whose technical name is 'a bodge'.

I created 1 second silent flacs for the missing discs with the same Album name and AlbumArtist(s). Not pretty, but it stops the error messages and allows the groups to be defined.

The bulk of the work I have to do now to make groups work is attend to albums where there are multiple versions of the same work. I'm doing this by creating a new tag called GroupSuffix. This can be empty, present or FALSE. When my standard tagging action is invoked (which I use on all tracks) it copies Work (if present) plus GroupSuffix (if present and not FALSE and Work is present) to Group. If work is present and GroupSuffix is FALSE, the Group is not populated. GroupSuffix could also be used to contain 'Act 1' or whatever should I decided to split works up in that sort of way.

So most of my tracks have Work as Group. Where there are multiple versions, I enter a GroupSuffix. Where it's a recital disc and there are excerpts in sundry non-consecutive tracks, I copy the Movement name to the GroupSuffix.

As and when I have to re-tag all my tracks (as happened recently to solve my multiple AlbumArtist issue, and will happen again to solve other issues), all the tags get reset correctly without manual intervention.

Does any of that make sense? I hope it might be useful to others.

Thanks for posting this and it does make sense.

I am hoping to add support in MinimServer for multiple groups with the same name in the same album. See this thread.