Tagging classical music

[magister]

(18-04-2014 16:38)DavidHB Wrote:  

• Android in its native form (particularly on Google's own Nexus devices) is designed to work with Google's ecosystem, and expects you to have and use a Google account;
• Manufacturers customise Android, so one device does not necessarily look like another (try before you buy);
• 3rd party manufacturers tend to lock their devices to particular versions of Android, and I would not myself purchase a version earlier than 4.2; Google allow updates to their devices.
  

Thank you for this. I do have a Google account, but I would not have expected the 2nd and 3rd items you mention -- very good to know.

Quote:Long-clicking on the Android back button takes you immediately to the MinimServer root display, thereby avoiding multiple tapping.

Excellent, that's just what I am looking for. I keep forgetting about long-tapping--I'm going to try this in some of my iOS control points and see if anything happens.

[bbrip]

(18-04-2014 16:38)DavidHB Wrote:  Firstly if you are thinking of trying out an Android tablet, you may wish to be reminded of these differences from iOS:

• Android in its native form (particularly on Google's own Nexus devices) is designed to work with Google's ecosystem, and expects you to have and use a Google account (I had one, so the transition was not an issue for me);
• Manufacturers customise Android, so one device does not necessarily look like another (try before you buy);
• 3rd party manufacturers tend to lock their devices to particular versions of Android, and I would not myself purchase a version earlier than 4.2; Google allow updates to their devices.
  

There is one key element no one should forget when thinking about Android: it is BY FAR the most insecure and vulnerable mobile operating system around. 97% of all mobile spyware and malware attacks are targeted at Android. iOS os A LOT more secure.

As far as I am concerned, I would not touch an Android phone or tablet with a forknife in order not to infect myself.

bbrip

[magister]

Thanks, bbrip--this is good to keep in mind. I already have an iPad that I take traveling with me, so if I bought an Android it would be just for controlling music and light internet surfing. I wouldn't keep email contacts, financial information, etc. on it.

[gnomus]

As I continue to "rip", I keep coming across new niggles, etcetera. Ripping and Tagging the non-classical was a breeze compared to the classical tagging.

I have a lot of Opera recordings. I have been entering Artists names and this has been working well. One thing that would be nice, however, would be to be able to see the "Role" that that Artist played in a particular recording. For example, when I am playing my 1962 Knappertsbusch Parsifal, it would be nice to be able to see that Amfortas was sung by George London (actually I am using London, George), and that Parsifal is being sung by Jess Thomas, and so on.

When listening to CDs I may be impressed by Amfortas and want to remind myself who was singing that role (I cannot remember who sung every role on each recording I have). With CDs I can just look at the brochure. I can see that this is one thing that I would miss by streaming everything.

Is there a way of doing what I would like to do?

[simoncn]

(24-04-2014 09:17)gnomus Wrote:  As I continue to "rip", I keep coming across new niggles, etcetera. Ripping and Tagging the non-classical was a breeze compared to the classical tagging.

I have a lot of Opera recordings. I have been entering Artists names and this has been working well. One thing that would be nice, however, would be to be able to see the "Role" that that Artist played in a particular recording. For example, when I am playing my 1962 Knappertsbusch Parsifal, it would be nice to be able to see that Amfortas was sung by George London (actually I am using London, George), and that Parsifal is being sung by Jess Thomas, and so on.

When listening to CDs I may be impressed by Amfortas and want to remind myself who was singing that role (I cannot remember who sung every role on each recording I have). With CDs I can just look at the brochure. I can see that this is one thing that I would miss by streaming everything.

Is there a way of doing what I would like to do?

It's easy to tag artist roles and have MinimServer send these to your control point. Unfortunately, it's quite unlikely that the control point will be able to handle this information in any useful way.

As an example, if you want to tag a soloist for an album, you can use a Soloist tag (or multiple Soloist tags). In MinimServer, you can add Soloist to either indexTags (if you want a Soloist index) or to itemTags (if you don't want a Soloist index). To identify Soloist as an artist role, you would add

Soloist.displayRole={artist}

to the tagCustom property. With these settings, MinimServer will send your soloists to the control point as artist roles. Unfortunately, I don't know of any control points that would show you this information on the Now Playing screen.

[gnomus]

(24-04-2014 09:37)simoncn Wrote:  ...It's easy to tag artist roles and have MinimServer send these to your control point.
...
... As an example, if you want to tag a soloist for an album, you can use a Soloist tag (or multiple Soloist tags). In MinimServer, you can add Soloist to either indexTags (if you want a Soloist index) or to itemTags (if you don't want a Soloist index). To identify Soloist as an artist role, you would add

Soloist.displayRole={artist}

to the tagCustom property.

Erm .....

Is this something that I do in MP3Tag? In that software I get a side window with some tags. I bring up "Extended Tags" using 'Alt-T'. I can add some tags there (and I believe I can call them what I like), but I don't have a clue what to put in the windows.

I don't know what the difference is between indexTags and itemTags and don't know where to find them. I do have a list of separate Soloists (and Artists) in the "Extended Tags" view in MP3 Tag.

Taking my example of George London as Amfortas in Parsifal, what should I put where?

(24-04-2014 09:37)simoncn Wrote:  ...Unfortunately, I don't know of any control points that would show you this information on the Now Playing screen.

Then it may be a pointless exercise in any case. I could set it up to work in "anticipation" of this being incorporated into a CP at some point in the future, but ....

... Is there a way of having two images associated with each track? That way I could scan in back covers as well as front.

[simoncn]

(24-04-2014 10:24)gnomus Wrote:  Is this something that I do in MP3Tag? In that software I get a side window with some tags. I bring up "Extended Tags" using 'Alt-T'. I can add some tags there (and I believe I can call them what I like), but I don't have a clue what to put in the windows.

I don't know what the difference is between indexTags and itemTags and don't know where to find them. I do have a list of separate Soloists (and Artists) in the "Extended Tags" view in MP3 Tag.

Taking my example of George London as Amfortas in Parsifal, what should I put where?

If you can see the soloists in Extended Tags in Mp3tag, it sounds like you have already done the Soloist tagging part.

indexTags and itemTags are MinimServer properties.

Quote:Then it may be a pointless exercise in any case. I could set it up to work in "anticipation" of this being incorporated into a CP at some point in the future, but ....

Adding Soloist tags allows you to have a Soloist index in MinimServer that you can use to find albums with a specific soloist, so the tagging part wouldn't be pointless.

Quote:... Is there a way of having two images associated with each track? That way I could scan in back covers as well as front.

UPnP allows this but it isn't currently supported by MinimServer. Also, I'm not sure how many control points can show multiple images for a track.

[bbrip]

(24-04-2014 09:17)gnomus Wrote:  As I continue to "rip", I keep coming across new niggles, etcetera. Ripping and Tagging the non-classical was a breeze compared to the classical tagging.

I have a lot of Opera recordings. I have been entering Artists names and this has been working well. One thing that would be nice, however, would be to be able to see the "Role" that that Artist played in a particular recording. For example, when I am playing my 1962 Knappertsbusch Parsifal, it would be nice to be able to see that Amfortas was sung by George London (actually I am using London, George), and that Parsifal is being sung by Jess Thomas, and so on.

When listening to CDs I may be impressed by Amfortas and want to remind myself who was singing that role (I cannot remember who sung every role on each recording I have). With CDs I can just look at the brochure. I can see that this is one thing that I would miss by streaming everything.

Is there a way of doing what I would like to do?

Hi gomus,

I also have a lot of opera recordings and was tinkering around with the Soloist/Role assignment tagging before. I must admit, I never got to any satisfactory way of getting this displayed in a control point in any meaningful way (as Simon pointed out as well).

Also, if you do take that effort, you really want to be able to use this in a meaningful way, ie, taking your axample get a list of all "Amfortas'es" when I select that Role -- and vice-versa a list of all roles a certain Soloist has sung...

I think this is something that may only come along in many many moons time (if ever). Considering where the guys over at Linn (and elsewhere) stand with their latest-but-not-greatest control point efforts at the moment, I dont have much hope.

If you do find a way to work this out, happy to hear about it

bbrip

[gnomus]

(24-04-2014 22:52)bbrip Wrote:  ...
Hi gomus,

I also have a lot of opera recordings and was tinkering around with the Soloist/Role assignment tagging before. ....

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.

The "Group" tag proved to be a godsend when it came to tagging my "Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas" box sets (three versions).

[PS]

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.

It sounds like more work than it is, and as seems usual with classical, the main problem was the available metadata - Art and so forth.

I don't know if this is the best way of doing this. I'd certainly be interested if there was an even easier way.

[simoncn]

(27-04-2014 11:10)gnomus Wrote:  I don't know if this is the best way of doing this. I'd certainly be interested if there was an even easier way.

It sounds good to me. The "track number" of a Group item is the track number of the first track within the group, so using this approach will ensure your groups are listed in the right order in your combined "album".