Boxed sets - Top level grouping

[MikeL]

I am in the early stages of ripping and tagging several very large boxed sets (complete Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Scarlatti etc) which tend to come out at a hundred or so discs apiece.

This rather pollutes the album browsing ( I use bubble on android as a CP) with many cover images which are identical or similar. To me, there is a natural grouping since the individual discs have a lot in common - either orchestra, conductor or even just an interpretive aesthetic - and I would like to group them under a single cover image. I know about DISCNUMBER & DISCSUBTITLE and use them a lot elsewhere, but a single album with 155 (Bach!) subdiscs would be really unwieldy!

Perhaps a special BOXSET='xxx' tag would be a solution? If I am missing an existing way to do this, would this be a useful feature request for others too?

Many thanks, Simon, for this superb software. minimserver + renderer is transforming my music listening by makeing everything so easily accessible. I haven't found any other server solution that comes even close. (kudos to bubble too - there are some viable alternatives, but it is easily the best of the half dozen or so that I tried)

Mike

[simoncn]

I don't understand how a boxset containing 155 albums would be less unwieldy than an album containing 155 discs.

The usual way to solve this problem is to use DISCNUMBER and DISCSUBTITLE. You don't need to make the tagged subdiscs identical to the physical CDs in the set.

[MikeL]

(08-05-2016 17:19)simoncn Wrote:  I don't understand how a boxset containing 155 albums would be less unwieldy than an album containing 155 discs.

The usual way to solve this problem is to use DISCNUMBER and DISCSUBTITLE. You don't need to make the tagged subdiscs identical to the physical CDs in the set.

On reflection, in sets with identical cover art perhaps not.

However the Bach Edition by Brilliant classics that I am working through now has different cover art for each disc, and I find visually scanning the album covers very quick and easy. There are a lot to have at top level, though. Unless I am missing a trick, using DISCNUM & DISICSUBT would mean visually scanning a very long track list and reading the text of each DISCSUBTITLE to find what I want (or can each DISCSUBTITLE be collapsed under its own cover art?)

Mike

[DavidHB]

I had a somewhat similar exchange with Simon a year or so ago. This concluded with the following:

(24-05-2015 20:21)simoncn Wrote:  I am hoping at some point in the future to investigate alternative approaches to providing "album art" that is different from "disc art".

I wonder whether these investigations made any progress?

David

[Fritz]

How about having a look at the thread "Handling music boxes" https://forum.minimserver.com/showthread.php?tid=2055

[MikeL]

(10-05-2016 22:18)Fritz Wrote:  How about having a look at the thread "Handling music boxes" https://forum.minimserver.com/showthread.php?tid=2055

Thanks for the link: I need to spend some time digesting the pros and cons of the various ideas. It is always hard to predict what will be a good idea when the collection is bigger and the details of todays decisions have faded from memory!

Mike

[simoncn]

(08-05-2016 17:53)MikeL Wrote:  However the Bach Edition by Brilliant classics that I am working through now has different cover art for each disc, and I find visually scanning the album covers very quick and easy. There are a lot to have at top level, though. Unless I am missing a trick, using DISCNUM & DISICSUBT would mean visually scanning a very long track list and reading the text of each DISCSUBTITLE to find what I want (or can each DISCSUBTITLE be collapsed under its own cover art?)

I have looked at this set on the Brilliant Classics website. There is not much information but I have the impression that it is a packaged bundle of other albums that are also available separately. It appears that some of these other albums are multidisc albums. This would mean that this box set is different from a multidisc album whose discs contain material that is unique to the album and cannot fit on a single physical CD.

If the above understanding is correct, this difference suggests to me that there would be some value in having MinimServer support the concept of "box set" or "album set" in a way that is different from a multidisc album. I will give this some further thought.

[MikeL]

(12-05-2016 21:55)simoncn Wrote:  This would mean that this box set is different from a multidisc album whose discs contain material that is unique to the album and cannot fit on a single physical CD.

Yes, I think this is it in a nutshell. The discs have more in common than the rest of the general collection so should be grouped somehow, but not enough in common to be considered a like a big single disc spread over several (ie 'too big to fit).

For me, a good rule of thumb for deciding on mutidisc is the question 'is the cover the same?' (apart from, obviously, lettering like CD1, CD2 etc).

Mike

[simoncn]

(15-05-2016 11:09)MikeL Wrote:  Yes, I think this is it in a nutshell. The discs have more in common than the rest of the general collection so should be grouped somehow, but not enough in common to be considered a like a big single disc spread over several (ie 'too big to fit).

For me, a good rule of thumb for deciding on mutidisc is the question 'is the cover the same?' (apart from, obviously, lettering like CD1, CD2 etc).

Mike

I presume you have the physical box of CDs rather than a download. In this case, your ripping software should identify the album title for each CD as well as a DISCNUMBER tag within the album. What are you seeing as suggested DISCNUMBER tags when you rip CDs within this box set?

[simoncn]

(08-05-2016 23:09)DavidHB Wrote:  I wonder whether these investigations made any progress?

Not yet. The main issue is ensuring upward compatibility with how things work currently.

In the current discussion, I think the first priority is to establish what kind of grouping is appropriate for this kind of box set. If the answer is a new MinimServer concept such as "box set" or "album set", the artwork discussion would be about how to provide artwork for the set and whether this artwork could be different from the artwork for the albums in the set. This is similar to the previous discussion about album art and disc art but it is not the same discussion.