Ratings for Recording Quality

[schliden]

Has anyone any experience or advice on using tags to rate the "quality of the audio recording" for each track. (typically I would imagine the quality would be uniform for a particular album)

In addition to audio format and audio quality, the quality of the original recording seems to me to be something worth quantifying.

[Alandbush]

(23-04-2020 13:39)schliden Wrote:  Has anyone any experience or advice on using tags to rate the "quality of the audio recording" for each track. (typically I would imagine the quality would be uniform for a particular album)

In addition to audio format and audio quality, the quality of the original recording seems to me to be something worth quantifying.

Akin to Dynamic range values?
See Dynamic range values.

If so, simply add your own custom tag containing an appropriate value.
Refer to that tag in the MinimServer indexTags property, perhaps.

[schliden]

Thanks.

I had a look at the linked site (I have seen that site before), but I'm not really sure what it all means.

Clearly an album with a higher DR (greener) is somehow better than one with a lower DR (redder), but what does that mean ?

There is a series of threads on the stevehoffman forums that list albums (in different genre's) that the contributors consider to be audiophile quality recordings.

See Audiophile-level-rock-albums

Does the fact that an album has been particularly well recorded (for whatever reason) also mean that it will have a higher DR ?

[Alandbush]

(24-04-2020 04:05)schliden Wrote:  Thanks.

I had a look at the linked site (I have seen that site before), but I'm not really sure what it all means.

Clearly an album with a higher DR (greener) is somehow better than one with a lower DR (redder), but what does that mean ?

There is a series of threads on the stevehoffman forums that list albums (in different genre's) that the contributors consider to be audiophile quality recordings.

See Audiophile-level-rock-albums

Does the fact that an album has been particularly well recorded (for whatever reason) also mean that it will have a higher DR ?

Searching for Loudness wars or audio dynamic range will provide many web pages that can cover this subject better than I can.

DR values for some of the mentioned albums from your link.

12 - AC/DC Back in Black
13 - Supertramp Even in the Quietest Moments
16 - Steely Dan Aja
16 - Dire Straits Brothers in Arms

Just for comparison

03 - Metallica Death Magnetic

Foobar2000 can generate DR values and probably also add appropriate tags. Requests have been made to Roon to add this feature.
I am sure there must be other examples but it is certainly an acceptable method of determining ‘quality’.

[schliden]

Looks like I will be doing some reading and testing.

Thanks for your help..

[schliden]

I'm now experimenting with Dynamic Range values.

Instead of writing values to the audio file tags, I thought it might be better (in the first instance) to use the tagUpdate feature to play with DR values.

I've been able to achieve this using the following syntax in my tagUpdate.txt file:

@ALBUM=I'm Movin' On
@ALBUM=Blue Bash!
@ALBUM=The Healer
@ALBUM=The Classic Collection
+DR=13

@ALBUM=Live At The Regal
+DR=11

@ALBUM=His Definitive Greatest Hits 2
@ALBUM=Highway 61 Revisted
@ALBUM=After Closing Time
+DR=10

I would like to be able to add artists to, for example, differentiate between "Greatest Hits" albums, but when I add something like:

@ALBUM=The Healer
@ALBUM=The Classic Collection
&ARTIST=Little River Band
+DR=10

the scan process fails.

Is there a way to achieve this ?

[simoncn]

This is working for me. What error message are you seeing?

[schliden]

MinimServer: unexpected instruction in line 12 of /share/Public/tagUpdate.txt

10 @ALBUM=Legend
11 &ARTIST=Bob Marley
12 @ALBUM=Silk Degrees
13 &ARTIST=Boz Scaggs
14 @ALBUM=Wicked Game
15 &ARTIST=Chris Isaak
16 @ALBUM=Waltz Darling
17 @ALBUM=The Classic Collection
18 +DR=13

[simoncn]

You cannot mix @ and & like this. You need to rewrite this as

@ALBUM=Legend
&ARTIST=Bob Marley
+DR=13
@ALBUM=Silk Degrees
&ARTIST=Boz Scaggs
+DR=13
@ALBUM=Wicked Game
&ARTIST=Chris Isaak
+DR=13
@ALBUM=Waltz Darling
@ALBUM=The Classic Collection
+DR=13

[schliden]

Excellent. Thanks Simon.