Author Topic: Workaround for adding genres to multiple genre categories  (Read 26497 times)

J24

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UPDATE: Also check the workaround Zak posted below. I think it's better than mine.
Currently, it's not possible to add one genre to multiple genre categories so I came up with this workaround to have one genre show up in multiple genre categories. I am not too familiar yet with MB's tagging tools so for this workaround I used the freeware Mp3tag but if someone knows how to do the same using only MB, please post the instructions in this thread.

Steps:
1. Find all the files you wish to add to multiple genre categories and add them to Mp3tag (you can just drag and drop your folder containing all your music files).

2. Select all the files in Mp3tag (Ctrl + A) then go to "Convert > Tag to Tag". Select "GENRE"  as the field and in the format string type:
%genre%; %genre% 2; %genre% 3;

Press "OK", this will add additional genre tags to your file. For example, if the genre of a file was "Pop-Rock", the new genre will be "Pop-Rock; Pop-Rock 2; Pop-Rock 3". In MusicBee, only the first genre before a semicolon is displayed, so this won't make your genre column look ugly (it will still show in MB as "Pop-Rock").

3. Now go to your categories list in MB (Edit > Preferences > Tags (2) > Categorise > Genre Category)
There, you can use all 3 genres in your file to add the file to up to 3 different genre categories. For example, you can now add "Pop-Rock" to one category, "Pop-Rock 2" to another, and "Pop-Rock 3" to yet another category.

Downside:
Editing the genre tag with  Mp3tag is extremely fast and the extra genre tags didn't increment file size in my case (not even a single byte). The downside to this workaround is that other music software (like foobar2000) might display the additional genres in their genre column.

Optional:
You can change the string type in Mp3tag to be able to add the file to more than 3 genre categories (just continue the sequence  %genre%; %genre% 2; %genre% 3; %genre% 4; %genre% 5.
You can also edit what the additional genres look like by editing the string type format (if you don't want a space between the genre and the number, just delete the space from the format string. You can also replace the numbers with symbols or other letters). For files that already have multiple genres separated by semicolons you will need to follow different steps in Mp3tag (which I can post here if needed).

Let me know what you think of this workaround and if you have any suggestions!

Mp3tag download link:
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html

P.S. I wonder if Steven could use this same concept in MB v3.0 to support adding a genre to multiple categories w/o needing to edit the metadata. Maybe when a file is added to MB, additional tags like the ones above are automatically created BUT only stored in MB and not embedded into the audio file. Then, in the categories list, add support to automatically append a number next to genres that already belong to another category (and maybe this appending could be invisible to the user for a seamless experience).
Last Edit: April 28, 2015, 09:56:52 PM by Jorge24
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Bee-liever

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I am not too familiar yet with MB's tagging tools so for this workaround I used the freeware Mp3tag but if someone knows how to do the same using only MB, please post the instructions in this thread.

I took a different approach for a workaround that only used MB's tagging.

Step 1:
Using slightly different variations of the Genre name, map them to the appropriate Genre Category. eg: 'Synth-Pop' under Electronic and 'Synth Pop' under Pop.

Step 2:
With the Column Browser Thumbnail Browser configured to sort by Genre, you can now easily add a "Grouping" tag to the files. eg: 'Synth Pop' to both the 'Synth-Pop' and 'Synth Pop' genre-ed files.

With the above example, this allows the use of:
Genre Category> is any of> Electronic; Pop
and
Grouping> contains> Synth Pop
to group all Synth Pop tracks either in Electronic or Pop genre.
Last Edit: April 26, 2015, 12:46:00 PM by Bee-liever
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Zak

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Maybe easier is to ignore MusicBee's Genre Category setting completely and just create your own custom tag to use instead.
If you create a custom tag called, say "My Category", you can assign as many values to each track as you like and use that where you would otherwise use "Music Category".

e.g.
A track with the genre "Synthpop" could also be tagged with "My Category" values of "Electronic" and "Pop". Selecting either category in the Track Browser would display the tagged track.

You need to tag each track properly yourself, so it isn't as convenient as just updating the Genre Category preferences and having MusicBee do it for you. On the other hand, the previous two suggestions require a fair bit of manual intervention too, so it's still probably easier than forcing the Category Genre to bend to your will via repeated or inconsistent genres. It should scale better too - you could assign a track to 10 different categories without needing to do anything differently.

I've tested it on a small sample and can't see any obvious problems, but I may have overlooked something.  :-\

-edit-
Remember, if you add a new custom tag MusicBee will rescan all of your existing tracks. If you have thousands of tracks, I recommend creating a small test library with a few dozen tracks before testing this.
Last Edit: April 26, 2015, 06:30:53 AM by Zak
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Bee-liever

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Maybe easier is to ignore MusicBee's Genre Category setting completely and just create your own custom tag to use instead.

Yes Zak, I admit that was my first idea too.  I even used a custom tag "Genre Groups".
But when Jorge24 brought this up again, I had a re-think and tried to make a workaround that used the existing tagging fields in MB without having to add virtual or custom tags.

I don't know about anyone else that has +1'd the Genre/multiple Genre Category wishlist thread(s), but I keep living in hope that one day it will be implemented.  The drawback with all these workarounds is that they can't be used under the Genre Category choice in the Grouping section of the Column Browser Thumbnail Browser.  :'(
Last Edit: April 26, 2015, 12:44:26 PM by Bee-liever
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Steven

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The drawback with all these workarounds is that they can't be used under the Genre Category choice in the Grouping section of the Column Browser.
did you mean the thumbnail browser? I am definitely willing to do something about that but please bring it up again around July/ August if i forget

Bee-liever

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did you mean the thumbnail browser?

Doh! Yes I did.
I made two references to it in my posts  -  and stuffed it up in both of them.   :-[
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J24

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Thanks for posting your own methods!

@Bee-liever
I thought about doing something similar (like inverting the order of words) but then realized that it was not going to look as uniform as just appending the numbers.

@Zak
Ah! I was so caught up in trying to get the workaround to work with MB's genre category system that I didn't think of using a user defined tag. The only downside I can think of is that every time you want to change the categories that a genre belongs to, you have to change each file that contains the genre as opposed to just editing the genre category list in MB. Still, I think that's better than what I had proposed so I'm just gonna use your method for now. And who knows, maybe one day there will will be an official genre category tag and I would be able to just copy the values in my custom tag to the official one.

I am definitely willing to do something about that but please bring it up again around July/ August if i forget
That's great to hear!
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Steven

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The drawback with all these workarounds is that they can't be used under the Genre Category choice in the Grouping section of the Column Browser.
did you mean the thumbnail browser? I am definitely willing to do something about that but please bring it up again around July/ August if i forget
just for the record, v3 includes custom tags in the thumbnail browser

Bee-liever

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The drawback with all these workarounds is that they can't be used under the Genre Category choice in the Grouping section of the Column Browser.
did you mean the thumbnail browser? I am definitely willing to do something about that but please bring it up again around July/ August if i forget
just for the record, v3 includes custom tags in the thumbnail browser

Thanks Steven
As if I wasn't looking forward to v3 enough already  :)

and I didn't have to bring it up again or anything  ;)
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Moshi_

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Markus2310

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For example, if the genre of a file was "Pop-Rock", the new genre will be "Pop-Rock; Pop-Rock 2; Pop-Rock 3". In MusicBee, only the first genre before a semicolon is displayed, so this won't make your genre column look ugly (it will still show in MB as "Pop-Rock").

That doesn't work for me.  :(  Musicbee Shows all Genres in the "Genres" row. Including Genre 2, Genre 3 ect. Even in the title information panel, it shows all the genres.

Bee-liever

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That doesn't work for me.  :(  Musicbee Shows all Genres in the "Genres" row. Including Genre 2, Genre 3 ect. Even in the title information panel, it shows all the genres.

Look closely  8)
There is both "Genre" and "Genres"
Genre only shows the first genre if multiple genres exist.
Genres show all the genres listed.
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Markus2310

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That doesn't work for me.  :(  Musicbee Shows all Genres in the "Genres" row. Including Genre 2, Genre 3 ect. Even in the title information panel, it shows all the genres.

Look closely  8)
There is both "Genre" and "Genres"
Genre only shows the first genre if multiple genres exist.
Genres show all the genres listed.

Yes, and thats the problem. When I listen to a song, i want to see all Genres of a song and not just one. :/

My Solution is now this:
I will tag the songs with extra tags called "Cat"
For Example: "Pop Rock; Dancehall; Cat Pop; Cat Rock; Cat Reggae"

Markus2310

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Okay, I've got a way better Idea now.

In Musicbee you can create auto-playlists. Why not use this brilliant function?
So, I started to create auto playlists, filled with the Genres and name the Playlist, as I would name the Genre Category. And it works perfectly for me! :D