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Support => Tips and Tricks => Topic started by: hiccup on December 31, 2021, 01:16:35 PM

Title: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on December 31, 2021, 01:16:35 PM
(Even though this Tip & Trick is not pertaining to MusicBee solely but needs an external tool (MusicBrainz' Picard), I feel that the results are so nice that it's worthwhile to post it here.)

The goal of this system is to get your music tagged with as many genres as possible, but restricted to appropriate and sensible ones.

It will also make sure the genre names (and their spelling) conform to, and line up with how MusicBee knows and recognises them.
Which is important if you for example use MusicBee's Tag Hierarchy browser.

The second post after this one provides additional background info and details on the workings.

This start post will explain how to set things up:

- Download and install MusicBrainz' Picard.
   I strongly suggest the portable version, if only for the benefit of this making it possible to have more than one Picard installation for different purposes.

- Navigate to: Options > Metadata
   Make sure these two are checked:


(https://i.imgur.com/s1UK0TJ.png)


- Navigate to: Options > Tags > ID3
   set it to use ID3v2.4
   (Well, I strongly suggest this. If you have reasons to stick to v2.3 so be it.)

- Navigate to: Options > Plugins.
   In the right panel scroll down to Wikidata Genre, and click the green arrow icon. (download and install)
- Apply [Make it So!], and restart Picard.
- Under Options > Plugins there should now be an options tab for Wikidata Genre. (you can leave everything there as is)
- Check the other Option tabs to set other personal preferences if so desired.
- Important suggestion: You will probably want to uncheck everything under Albumart to prevent downloading and writing of artwork! (Options > Cover Art)

Stricken-through since I have changed my opinion about using the Wikidata plugin (Because of its very bad results I don't use it anymore)


- Navigate to: Options > Genres

  Set the checkboxes and values as in below screenshot, and copy the genre whitelist into the include/exclude box.


(https://i.imgur.com/CwLn1Dq.png)


Over time the whitelist and the scripts have grown to such lengths that the forum engine doesn't allow including them in this post as code anymore.
(exceeding maximum length)

So the whitelist and the scripts are now available as a download
here (https://rebrand.ly/Picard_Genre_whitelist_and_scripts)

Next, another essential part: adding scripts.
I have provided two of them that are needed for this to work well.

- The first one makes it so that the retrieved genres are named and written in a uniform way, so that they will align well with MusicBee and the (optional) Enhanced Genre Hierarchy List.

- The second one is very important, since it will make sure only the Genre tag gets written, and all other tags will remain unchanged.
   (experienced Picard users can probably ignore this one since they will likely already have their own 'unset' scripts in place)

How to add the scripts:

- Navigate to: Options > Scripting
- Check the checkbox at the top next to:'Tagger script(s)'
- Paste script #1 in the blank pane on the right.
- On the left, rename 'My script 1' to your liking, e.g. 'Genres'.
- Click [Add new script]
- Paste script #2 in the blank pane on the right.
- On the left, rename 'My script 2' to your liking, e.g. 'Unset tags'.
- Make sure the checkboxes for both scripts are checked.

You then should have something like this:


(https://i.imgur.com/O8Ope5O.png)


- Apply and close.

That's pretty much it.

If you don't want the original 'Genre' tag to get written/updated, but have another tag set up for this purpose (e.g. a 'Subgenre' tag), see post #2 for how to do that.


______________________________________________________________________________________________


Detailed explanations on the actual use and workings of Picard are beyond the scope of this topic.
There are very good tutorials on that to be found (like the
quick-start (https://picard.musicbrainz.org/quick-start/) and the full documentation (https://picard-docs.musicbrainz.org/)), so here is only a quick-and-dirty to at least help to get started a bit:

- Drag an album folder to the left panel.
- Press 'Cluster'.
   All album tracks should now get gathered as an album.
- Select the album and click 'Lookup'.
   It then will usually get matched and moved to the right panel.
   (if that failed try 'Scan' instead of 'Lookup')
   When next, you select the album in the right panel, you will see all present tags, and the suggested genre tag changes in the bottom panel.

Only the 'Genre' tag should be written in either green or light brown. (which indicates that a tag has new or altered content and will get updated and written to the file if you press 'Save')

- If the info displayed in the bottom panel is to your satisfaction, press 'Save'.

Now if you (re)scan the tracks in MusicBee you should see the newly added genres.

I also strongly suggest to check out the
Enhanced Genre Hierarchy List (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35266.msg192822#msg192822), since it will allow you to get the most out of navigating through your genres, and is fully compatible with the above scripts, the whitelist and the genre names this workflow produces.


______________________________________________________________________________________________


As always!!! :

Do your first (and second, and third) tests on copies of your music files!
Especially if you are new to Picard.
It is a very powerful tagging tool that can easily be configured to do things you did not intend or may not like.



______________________________________________________________________________________________
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on December 31, 2021, 01:17:04 PM
 
Some further information and more details on the workings.


This system will retrieve genre information from MusicBrainz.
I would have liked it to additionally retrieve genres from RYM/Sonemic since they have a very good genre database, but regrettably they—still—don't have an API available.

I have decided not to use Discogs and LastFM as sources, since personally I am not that impressed with the quality of the genres that they provide.

- - - - -

One advantage of this specific configuration (my opinion, you may have a different one) is that it will try to provide relevant and appropriate genre tags on a track basis.

So if an album contains tracks of different genres, each may get (a) different genre(s).
Which is what I personally prefer and think is 'right'.

Something like this could be a possible result:


(https://i.imgur.com/cBmtKqtm.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/cBmtKqt.png)


- - - - -

The way this system names the genres is optimally aligned with the Enhanced Genre Hierarchy file that can be found here:
Enhanced Genre Hierarchy (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35266.0)

But MusicBee's default genre list should also work well, since it has the same fundament as the Enhanced version.
It's just not as complete, and hasn't been updated for a while now.


- - - - -

extra tip:

Users that don't want their original Genre tag altered or (over)written, but have for example set up a 'Subgenre', or another tag for this in MusicBee only need to make a small edit in script #1:

- Navigate to the bottom of script #1
- you'll find these two lines there:


(https://i.imgur.com/9FPhHdP.png)

- Change the two instances of 'genre' to the tag name of your choice.
- Add the command: $unset(genre) at the very bottom.

It should then look like this:


(https://i.imgur.com/xUvizwE.png)

Now your 'Genre' tag will remain untouched, and genres will only be written to the tag of your choice.

- - - - -

An important note regarding mp3's:

For mp3 files, both Picard and MusicBee are expected to be configured to use ID3v2.4 for all this.
If you have reasons to use ID3v2.3 instead, I am not sure what the results will be.

- - - - -

If while testing and using this system you find any unclarity or oversight in the how-to write-up, or encounter unexpected or bad results, please report them here.
I can use the input to improve on the how-to or the scripts if needed.


- - - - -

Good luck, and now you have no excuse to be lazy or bored on new-years day ;-)

All the best for 2022 to everybody!


- - - - -
update 14-05-2022

a virtual tag to improve displaying genres in the Track Information panel:


This method of retrieving tags can result in ending up with a lot of genres for a track.
When you have set the Track Information panel to display <Genres>, the two options for that panel are to either show all of them on a single line, or have them split up over several lines.
The first option will only show the first ones and cut off all the othe…
The second option will often result in ending up with a very large amount of rows, wasting a lot of vertical space.

To solve that problem I created a virtual tag that will split up the genres in groups of four for the first three lines.
If a song has more than twelve genres, the rest will will be displayed on line number four.
So this genres display will take up between one and maximum four lines.

As an example how that could turn out:

(https://i.imgur.com/GljRiMh.png)


this is the virtual formula:
Code
$RxReplace($Replace(<Genres>,;, ·),"^((?:.[^·]*·*){0,4})((?:.[^·]*·*){0,4})((?:.[^·]*·*){0,4})((?:.[^·]*·*){0,4})(.*)(.*)(.*)","$1;$2;$3;$4;$5;$6")
Give it a name, and use that virtual tag to display genres in the Track Information panel.
(make sure you tick 'split multi-value tags into rows' for this virtual tag)

tip:
The script will allow for maximum 4 genres per line.
If you prefer to have it show a different maximum number of genres per line:
Change all instances of {0,4} to the number you desire. E.g. change it to {0,3} if you want no more than three genres per line.


edit
I completely forgot/overlooked that you can also simply set the row count to e.g. 3, and disable 'split multi-value tags into rows'.
That gives similar results. Except that then semicolons are displayed instead of commas, and genre names that consist of two words can get broken up to the next line.
So, my solution works better and looks nicer ;-)

 
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on December 31, 2021, 05:02:55 PM
Fan-freakin-tastic!
HAving the option to write the tags as a subgenre is exactly what I've been looking for - unfortuately I suck ass when I come to writing scripts myself.

I'll be giving it a good going over during the weekend for sure.

Happy New Year!
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on December 31, 2021, 08:05:24 PM
Followup…

Is this geared to work with Classical music and the Classical Extras plugin with Picard.
I randomly tried tagging a few Classical albums, and the only subgenre I'd get is Classical <I'd be expecting Baroque, etc>
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on December 31, 2021, 08:25:30 PM
Is this geared to work with Classical music and the Classical Extras plugin with Picard.
A very good question.
Short answer: no yes
I'll elaborate on this next year ;-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 02, 2022, 08:50:59 PM
Quote from: hiccup
Quote from: Mr. Trev
Is this geared to work with Classical music and the Classical Extras plugin with Picard.
Short answer: no

Well, the answer is 'yes' actually.

The reason I answered 'no' so quick, is because for my classical, and non-classical music I have dedicated and separate portable installs for both MusicBee and Picard.
So for me 'the two shall never meet'.
And for my classical Picard I am using dedicated scripts, and I haven't been testing this specific Enhanced Genre list on it for a while.
So that's why I said 'no' without thinking it through.

But it should work fine, because the list contains all genres from MusicBrainz, and that is where Classical Extras also retrieves them.
The only exception (I know of) is that CE sometimes also retrieves 'work type' genres. And those are not in MusicBrainz genre list, and not all of them are probably in my Enhanced Genre list.
So I'll see if I can find all those and add them too.

Two other observations/warnings:

There are some complications and issues with using Picard with both the CE and the Wikidata plugin.
(you would want to use both, since that gives the most and the best results)
But these two (and probably most genre related plugins) do not work perfectly together.
The results sometimes seem a bit unpredictable, and I am trying to make sense out of it.
But that's not easy or straightforward. E.g. 'Period' (and 'year composed', on which it depends) also doesn't seem to function any more when both plugins are active.
Weird.

And secondly,
Perhaps you already know this, but The CE plugin has an 'Allowed genres' list. The idea is that only genres in that list are accepted.
So the plugin has an out-of-the-box genre limitation. There is a checkbox that should disable this filtering so that you should get all available genres.
(I have some slight doubts if it completely disables all filtering under all circumstances, but that also needs some further and specific testing)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 03, 2022, 01:28:38 AM
I haven't really dug too much into CE - Classical is a comparatively small percentage of my library. I did follow your Classical guide somewhat, but again I really don't need to get uber-detailed.

A quick question about your Musicbrainz genre settings: I see in your screenshot that you have 0% minimal genre usage and max. 20 genre. That's waaay of the default settings (90%, max. 5. IIRC) What the deal?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 03, 2022, 05:44:40 AM
A quick question about your Musicbrainz genre settings: I see in your screenshot that you have 0% minimal genre usage and max. 20 genre. That's waaay of the default settings (90%, max. 5. IIRC) What the deal?
That setting is mostly to restrict the garbage tags that you will often get when you have enabled 'folksonomy' tags.
I disable those, and in this way I get as many good quality tags as possible.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 03, 2022, 08:22:34 PM
A quick question about your Musicbrainz genre settings: I see in your screenshot that you have 0% minimal genre usage and max. 20 genre. That's waaay of the default settings (90%, max. 5. IIRC) What the deal?
That setting is mostly to restrict the garbage tags that you will often get when you have enabled 'folksonomy' tags.
I disable those, and in this way I get as many good quality tags as possible.

I see. Never used folksonomy tags - I'm not entirely sure what they even are ;D

Just some feedback on my experience… I just planned on having the tags written to subgenre, but when I added the script amendments to so, it didn't write either genre or subgenre. I wouldn't be surprised if this is user error on my part though, I'm routinely outsmarted by writing scripts.
No biggie. I typically do run my music through Picard anyways for the extra tags Musicbee doesn't fill, so I just skip the "unset" script and made genre a preserved tag
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: alec.tron on January 06, 2022, 09:53:30 AM
extra tip:

Users that don't want their original Genre tag altered or (over)written, and have for example setup a Subgenre tag in MusicBee, only need to make a small edit in the scripts:

Thanks for that info!! I Might finally also be able to look at integrating picard tags in my lib in its' own field ;)
Cheers.
c.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 22, 2022, 05:39:48 PM
update

I have made a significant U-turn in how I previously set up Picard to retrieve genres:
I have abandoned the Wikidata plugin, and now only use Picard's built-in genre retrieval function.

There are two reasons for this:

1. While the results that the Wikidata plugin provided looked very nice at a casual glance, I also did notice a lot of inapropriate, wrong or unfitting genres being supplied.

2. While I never liked using the folksonomy tags option because it would give an enormous amount of completely useless tags, I have now learned how to set up a filter that will make it so that only genres from a specified whitelist are retrieved.

After these new insights I have been doing some extensive and focussed testing, using some 100 releases of various genres and 'difficulties', comparing the results between using my previous method using Wikidata, and the new one without Wikidata, but allowing the use of folksonomy tags, restricted by a whitelist filter.

The latter won hands-down.
The retrieved genres were significantly more appropriate and 'correct'.

So, I've changed my ways, and I have edited the startpost of this Tip & Trick accordingly.
 
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 22, 2022, 07:26:41 PM
Just some feedback on my experience… I just planned on having the tags written to subgenre, but when I added the script amendments to so, it didn't write either genre or subgenre. I wouldn't be surprised if this is user error on my part though, I'm routinely outsmarted by writing scripts.
Have you been able to resolve this?
Did you perhaps have other scripts or plugins managing 'genre'?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: psychoadept on January 24, 2022, 09:36:58 PM
Related to this topic, a big update to genres in MusicBrainz: https://community.metabrainz.org/t/a-new-set-of-genre-tags-for-musicbrainz-recordings/569378
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 25, 2022, 12:34:23 AM
Just some feedback on my experience… I just planned on having the tags written to subgenre, but when I added the script amendments to so, it didn't write either genre or subgenre. I wouldn't be surprised if this is user error on my part though, I'm routinely outsmarted by writing scripts.
Have you been able to resolve this?
Did you perhaps have other scripts or plugins managing 'genre'?

Just noticed you updated things. I'll check it out later today - I hope this means I don't need to retag all the files I already tagged with the earlier method ;)

I haven't "resolved" it because I have a suitable workaround. I skip using script 2 (unset) and added genre to the preserved tags in Picard. I do run all my files through Picard anyways so the 2nd script isn't necessary and I keep using my default Genre choice. Your method might work out better for parent/main genres, but I'm happily in the rut of my own making on that front - I'd need to do some trials to decide if I'm willing to make a major change or stay set in my ways ;D

Cheers
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 25, 2022, 04:16:06 AM
Found one issue… your steps for changing the script to have a subgenre tag need an update.

 - In script #1, navigate to the last line saying:
$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genretemp4%))
   and change it to:
$setmulti(subgenre,$unique(%_genretemp4%))

In your updated script there is no lines with %_genretemp4%. I needed to change the very last line in script 1 from:
$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genremusic2%))
  to:
$setmulti(subgenre,$unique(%_genremusic2%))

Simple enough fix considering I was able to brain it out myself
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 25, 2022, 07:37:36 AM
Related to this topic, a big update to genres in MusicBrainz: https://community.metabrainz.org/t/a-new-set-of-genre-tags-for-musicbrainz-recordings/569378
To be honest, I'm not sure that's a good thing happening.
They ignore the only website that has a very good and sensible genre database, that is also under continuous development by knowledgeable enthusiasts: RYM/Sonemic.
Discogs is very limited and rough in their genres, and LastFM in my opinion is more targeted towards radio format type genre descriptors. Many genre names that they use can't even be called 'factual' genres.

And heaven forbid that what they are trying to do now will result in MusicBrainz releases getting genre tagged by copying actual release tags from LastFM and Discogs.
This can get very messy.

All that MusicBrainz should have done is adopt all RYM genres and their hierarchy:
https://pastebin.com/tr9DggBb

It seems they are now trying to invent the wheel all over again and construct yet another list.

Concerning my genre hierarchy list and system, I'm afraid it will only result in me needing to add even more aka's.
Which won't improve anything at all, and will just be a waste of time and a useless lengthening of the Picard script and whitelist.
 
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 25, 2022, 07:44:33 AM
I hope this means I don't need to retag all the files I already tagged with the earlier method ;)
It shouldn't.
I don't think I changed the names of any genres (I only added a few)
The most important update is about how genres get grouped under the category node in the hierarchy browser.

Quote from: Mr. Trev
Found one issue… your steps for changing the script to have a subgenre tag need an update.
 - In script #1, navigate to the last line saying:
$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genretemp4%)) …
Simple enough fix considering I was able to brain it out myself
Good catch, thanx!
That's fixed.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 25, 2022, 06:07:08 PM
I hope this means I don't need to retag all the files I already tagged with the earlier method ;)
It shouldn't.
I don't think I changed the names of any genres (I only added a few)
The most important update is about how genres get grouped under the category node in the hierarchy browser.

Just out of curiousity I check the tagging of the latest SunnO))) album (https://musicbrainz.org/release-group/e242147b-092d-40b2-a2f2-00e2449fc7c1)
Using your earlier Wikigenre I got 2 subgenre's: Doom Metal and Drone Metal. Using the updated method I only got Drone Metal.
Doesn't seem like enough of a difference to me to redo anything.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 25, 2022, 06:37:28 PM
Just out of curiousity I check the tagging of the latest SunnO))) album (https://musicbrainz.org/release-group/e242147b-092d-40b2-a2f2-00e2449fc7c1)
Using your earlier Wikigenre I got 2 subgenre's: Doom Metal and Drone Metal. Using the updated method I only got Drone Metal.
Doesn't seem like enough of a difference to me to redo anything.

Which seems to be correct and more appropriate: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/sunn-o/metta-benevolence-bbc-6-live-on-the-invitation-of-mary-anne-hobbs/
'Doom metal' probably came from Wikidata, which I found has an enormous amount of wrong, or over-enthouiastic genre tagging.

It's just a single example of course, but I think this is a fine indication this new system is an improvement.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: The Incredible Boom Boom on January 25, 2022, 11:09:51 PM
How would you guys feel about a service specifically for cataloguing music genres at the track level?
Would it be worth it to make and would it get any use?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 26, 2022, 07:37:50 AM
How would you guys feel about a service specifically for cataloguing music genres at the track level?
Would it be worth it to make and would it get any use?
Picard/MusicBrainz (can) do(es) that.
See post #2  ;-)

another example where that works nicely:
(https://i.imgur.com/9TLoXOpm.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/9TLoXOp.png)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: The Incredible Boom Boom on January 26, 2022, 01:03:29 PM
Picard/MusicBrainz (can) do(es) that.
See post #2  ;-)

another example where that works nicely:
(https://i.imgur.com/9TLoXOpm.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/9TLoXOp.png)

I mean more accurately. I had set up Picard to grab genres by way of the MusicBrainz tags with your previous instructions and all I get is crap, really. I still have it setup, just in case, but I always (and not exaggerating here) end up erasing the tags there and adding my own when I get a chance to listen to the album. Not that your tutorial is bad; it's the information itself.

These are a few albums I've done manually.
(https://i.imgur.com/kuOV2b5.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/hKS1DpF.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/C4OqJDR.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/U2xM73R.png)

I was thinking about a service specifically for determining the exact genre(s) of a song, similar to what I've done above. Like this (https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/the_verve/bitter_sweet_symphony/), but the ability to classify every song on an album, not just the singles. As far as I'm aware, MusicBrainz has decided to let genre tags be somewhat of a free-for-all (as you've stated, RYM is well in the lead for genre listings) and while they're not as bad as LastFM, the quality is still not what I would like. (I realize genre cataloguing is a subjective thing and maybe that is one of the larger hindrances to tagging them by song, but...) "Electronic," "R&B," "MPB," "Soul," etc. are broad categories, not exact genres.

When I tag an Alceu Valença with Picard, I get a lot of "Latin music" or "MPB." Like ok, in an overarching sense that is the type of music, yes, but such descriptions are essentially meaningless at the track level, in my opinion. Maybe there's just not enough interest besides this thread or so to go beyond basic categorical tags...
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 26, 2022, 06:21:03 PM
You are touching upon a lot of interesting aspects concerning genres, categories, hierarchies, etc.
Some of them I have been/am struggling with a bit myself.

I started to write-up a reply trying to address all of it, but I quickly realised it would become a ten-page essay.
Which could be interesting for another thread/topic, but not so much for this one.
So I'll try to curb my response to what pertains most directly to Picard and my system.

Quote from: The Incredible Boom Boom
I had set up Picard to grab genres by way of the MusicBrainz tags with your previous instructions and all I get is crap, really.
I'm not familiar with that artist, but running that album through Picard for me results in this:

(https://i.imgur.com/UXoWqw2m.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/UXoWqw2.png)

Which to me doesn't seem deserving of the description 'crap'. But then again, I'm not familiar with the artist, nor much with the type of music to be honest.

Looking at the genres you manually applied, genres such as 'Urban Adult Old School' 'Smooth G-funk' are not in any genre database that I am aware of. So indeed, those will not be retrieved.
But as soon as you or somebody else adds these as a tag to the recording @MusicBrainz, they will be instantly available to anyone.
If you are interested to test it: I just added 'New jill swing' to track #1.
If you re-run Picard on it you should now see it showing up.
(you do need to add '+ New jill swing' to the whitelist first)

I understand now that (and why) you personally will still not be happy with the result, but if people with expertise on specific music add specific genres such as these to the MusicBrainz database, it will be an improvement for many to benefit from. And it's not much work.
Also it wouldn't be hard for me (or yourself) to add more (sensible and broadly agreed on) genres to the whitelist so from then on they will also get retrieved.

About genres, categories, subgenres etc, I think it's simply impossible to create a strict hierarchy where you can put every piece of music ever produced in one specific box.
Many 'genres' are sometimes categories, sometimes genres, sometimes styles, influences, and sometimes describing a social/political movement and period.
If you wanted to cover those (and some more I could come up with) you will need a lot more tags than just 'genre or 'subgenre'.
And a lot of music just can't be restricted to be placed under a single higher level category.
For one song, Person A would place it under the category Pop, Person B under Rock, another under Electronic, another under Latin, another under Soul, or Folk, etc. etc.

So my perspective on this matter (for now…) is that I just like as much as possible appropriate genre tags attached to a song.
And that is what this Picard system of mine is aiming to do.

For an Elis Regina song, I am fine with ending up with something like: MPB, Bossa nova, Brazilian, Latin.
None of them will pinpoint the song exactly, but they are all 'correct', and the Tag Hierarchy Browser will then allow me to find the music where I would suspect I can find it.
And if I find that somebody labelled it as 'Pop' or 'Vocal jazz' in MusicBrainz' database, I can easily vote it down. And if at least a few people agree, it then will be gone.

So concluding:
My quest and aim is different from yours.
I would like to have all my music getting as much as possible not-incorrect genre tags.
It's easier (for me) to use filters to narrow down a search having such tags available, than not to be able to find music because all more generic (but correct) style or category genre names are absent or removed, and I forgot that I labelled a song as 'Alternative symphonic indie neo-proto synthpunk' ;-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 26, 2022, 09:03:14 PM
After giving The Incredible Boom Boom's input and thoughts more thought, an idea popped-up in my head, resulting in me adding a new paragraph at the  bottom of the start post.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: The Incredible Boom Boom on January 26, 2022, 10:21:36 PM
I'm not familiar with that artist, but running that album through Picard for me results in this:

(https://i.imgur.com/UXoWqw2m.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/UXoWqw2.png)

Which to me doesn't seem deserving of the description 'crap'. But then again, I'm not familiar with the artist, nor much with the type of music to be honest.

Haha Maybe "crap" is harsh, but this is actually a good example of what frustrates me so much about MB's genre tags!

For the example you gave, there's some good stuff there. (There's also some... crap extremely broad words that are not all that helpful once you start thinking of a song beyond its base categorization.) "Indietronica." "Alternative Dance." "Club House." "Europop." Those are good. I've heard of exactly zero artists on that album (lol), but without even listening to it, those particular labels give me an idea of what to expect. Furthermore, if I wanted to make a shuffled playlist of synthpop songs and don't want "nu disco" tracks to pop up, some of those tags are a great starting point. Heck, I might even YouTube some of those synthpop songs later and see if I like them!

On the other hand, the tags for that Aaliyah album scream, "Listened to the album once (if at all), but doesn't matter 'cause artist is black and sings, so that means... Contemporary R&B, of course!" And then someone came along behind that first person and was like, "Black...? Hip-Hop!" And then a third person - this guy is from r/LetsTalkMusic (https://www.reddit.com/r/letstalkmusic), wore Abercrombie (https://www.glossy.co/retail-redux/teens-have-moved-on-the-death-of-the-high-school-mall-brand/) all through middle school, became edgy and listened to screamo through high school and now his "favorite artist is Kanye West" - comes along and says, "This isn't quite contemporary R&B, but it's not quite hip-hop either... It's new jack swing," with his pinky finger in the air, while sipping a cup of whatever coffee brand snobbish trend followers are into these days. Technically, all these tags are in the ball park, but granularity allows for more versatility and options when quantifying data on your music library or listening more "efficiently" and "effectively."

If I feel like having a "bossa evening," I wouldn't want Elis's "Aprendendo a jogar (https://musicbrainz.org/recording/69fe80f8-0b5a-4bfb-863d-7be8795741db)" to be on that AutoDJ playlist, ya feel me? Lol But, I do want that song on every funk playlist and autoplaylist I make, regardless of whether the artist is "Brazilian music" or "Latin music"!

Quote
Looking at the genres you manually applied, genres such as 'Urban Adult Old School' 'Smooth G-funk' are not in any genre database that I am aware of.

The way my system works is <STYLE>: <Genre Category> -> <Genres>
The <STYLE> tag encompasses the overall musical style of the album and is based on US radio formats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_format) for the most part. The <Genre Category> and <Genre> classify the song.
Urban Adult Old School: Funk · R&B · Soul -> Hip-Hop Soul
"Urban Adult Old School" is a combination of "Urban Adult Contemporary" and "Old School music."

Quote
But as soon as you or somebody else adds these as a tag to the recording @MusicBrainz, they will be instantly available to anyone.
If you are interested to test it: I just added 'New jill swing' to track #1.
If you re-run Picard on it you should now see it showing up.
(you do need to add '+ New jill swing' to the whitelist first)

I understand now that (and why) you personally will still not be happy with the result, but if people with expertise on specific music add specific genres such as these to the MusicBrainz database, it will be an improvement for many to benefit from. And it's not much work.
Also it wouldn't be hard for me (or yourself) to add more (sensible and broadly agreed on) genres to the whitelist so from then on they will also get retrieved.

The thing with anyone being able to just add whatever (what I meant by free-for-all) is I'm usually just clearing the genres completely and retagging them anyway. Even if I do add more accurate genre tags, all the "black + singer === contemporary R&B"-type tags are still there.

But, you've given me an idea. I could maybe modify your whitelist and turn it into a blacklist. I'm always redoing generic tags like, "New Wave" and "Pop" anyway, so making a blacklist would remove the stuff I didn't want in the first place and leave stuff that (may or may not) be accurate and research from there. (Which is at least a little bit better than constantly removing "Electronic," "Hip-Hop," "Punk," etc. plus still needing to research all the obscure differences among different types of house music.)

What I personally was envisioning was a service that had RYM's accuracy pertaining to track level genres, but with the ability to use it without having to go a website, search for the artist, then open numerous tabs of the album and any singles from it, in order to tag one's genres more precisely. There would probably be a voting system, like when adding information to the MB database, but - most importantly - a way for majority vote to remove a genre after it's been added. I've gone back and forth on whether it's a service I could write as an extension to MB itself. I'm also waiting to see how RYM plans to handle access to its database.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 26, 2022, 10:28:43 PM
These are the kind of replies that make me think it is all worth it ;-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 26, 2022, 10:38:02 PM
If I feel like having a "bossa evening," I wouldn't want Elis's "Aprendendo a jogar (https://musicbrainz.org/recording/69fe80f8-0b5a-4bfb-863d-7be8795741db)" to be on that AutoDJ playlist, ya feel me? Lol But, I do want that song on every funk playlist and autoplaylist I make, regardless of whether the artist is Brazilian!
I do feel you. I honestly love Elis, and I now realise I forgot how funky and modern some of her songs are.

(Guilty of derailing my own topic. So sue me ;-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: psychoadept on January 26, 2022, 10:45:06 PM
'cause artist is black and sings, so that means... Contemporary R&B, of course!"

I feel you on this kind of stuff. I mean, a lot of these particular genres go back to the early record days when the recordings were actually on "race charts", and we've just come up with fancier ways to say "black people music".

I'd love to have the level of granularity that you're talking about, but presently I'm letting Picard do as it will and I'll sort it out once I'm doing with other, more clear cut, projects. With regards to my own collection, I get the same tracks tagged with any combination of Electronic, Industrial, EBM, Dark Electro, Synthpop, Futurepop, etc, based on the genre source. I'd be pretty happy to just get them all under one umbrella for now.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 26, 2022, 10:55:58 PM
… a lot of these particular genres go back to the early record days when the recordings were actually on "race charts", and we've just come up with fancier ways to say "black people music".
Ok, now I really think we are drifting off-topic from what this Tips & Tricks topic is about.
If the colour of the human skin is being brought up to be relevant to music genres, and somebody is interested and willing to discuss that (and probably have it challenged), this is not the right thread for it.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: psychoadept on January 26, 2022, 11:06:17 PM
… a lot of these particular genres go back to the early record days when the recordings were actually on "race charts", and we've just come up with fancier ways to say "black people music".
Ok, now I really think we are drifting off-topic from what this Tips & Tricks topic is about.
If the colour of the human skin is being brought up to be relevant to music genres, and somebody is interested and willing to discuss that (and probably have it challenged), this is not the right thread for it.

It's less about color of skin and more about cultural sources of music, which goes to a bigger question about "what is a genre", and you're probably right that we could spend pages on that (and people have, I know).
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 26, 2022, 11:20:16 PM
It's less about color of skin and more about cultural sources of music, which goes to a bigger question about "what is a genre",
I really understand, but both you and TIBB specifically introducing the colour of people's skin to this thread doesn't seem relevant to this Tips & Tricks to me.
If you or anyone else would like to discuss race, skin colour or culture in relation to music (genres), this is not the right thread.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 30, 2022, 09:04:30 AM
the script and whitelist were updated
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: please55 on April 20, 2022, 09:10:01 PM
Could the bit.ly link to the scripts be updated please? I keep getting message that the URL has been blocked as potentially harmful.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on April 21, 2022, 06:55:56 AM
Thanks for reporting,

There must be something going on at Bitly that is causing these false security warnings.
I'm not sure creating new links would solve this, or for how long.

The best thing to do for now is if you (and other forum members that care and have a moment to spare) could fill in the form that the warning page has a link to, to inform Bitly that the security blocking is a false one.
I am guessing the more users report it, the sooner it will be solved.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: please55 on April 21, 2022, 01:34:23 PM
Thanks for reporting,

There must be something going on at Bitly that is causing these false security warnings.
I'm not sure creating new links would solve this, or for how long.

The best thing to do for now is if you (and other forum members that care and have a moment to spare) could fill in the form that the warning page has a link to, to inform Bitly that the security blocking is a false one.
I am guessing the more users report it, the sooner it will be solved.

Done.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Peekstra on April 30, 2022, 01:10:04 PM
Still blocked, informed Bitly.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on May 14, 2022, 03:38:24 PM
updated

Added a virtual tag formula that can be used to nicely display genres in the Track Information panel without getting them cut-off on one single line when there are a lot of them.

(https://i.imgur.com/GljRiMh.png)

It's explained in post #2
 
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on May 14, 2022, 04:47:22 PM
Nice. The gift that keeps on giving.
For my instance, I replaced <genres> with <subgenre>, cause that's how I roll
Quick question...
(https://i.imgur.com/38ruhfs.png)
You see how there's "Met..." in the first line. Is there any way to fix that without resizing the panel (something along the lines of a soft return/word wrap)?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on May 14, 2022, 05:05:38 PM
Is there any way to fix that without resizing the panel (something along the lines of a soft return/word wrap)?
Yes, you only need to make a small adjustment to the formula:
You'll see that there are two occasions of {4} in it.
Those make it so that there are four genres displayed in a line before more are broken into a new line.
If you change both of them to {2} it should result in showing no more than two genres in the first two lines.

off-topic edit:
Thnx for introducing me to Wo Fat.
I had never heard of them before, but they sound nice. Well, not nice. Dirty.
Nice and dirty perhaps. Perfect background music for a bar fight ;-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: phred on May 14, 2022, 05:40:45 PM
Thnx for introducing me to Wo Fat.
I had never heard of them before, but they sound nice. Well, not nice. Dirty.
Nice and dirty perhaps. Perfect background music for a bar fight ;-)
Wonderful. Yet another group to investigate. Any group that's good for a bar fight, needs my attention.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on May 14, 2022, 11:16:36 PM
Is there any way to fix that without resizing the panel (something along the lines of a soft return/word wrap)?
Yes, you only need to make a small adjustment to the formula:
You'll see that there are two occasions of {4} in it.
Those make it so that there are four genres displayed in a line before more are broken into a new line.
If you change both of them to {2} it should result in showing no more than two genres in the first two lines.

off-topic edit:
Thnx for introducing me to Wo Fat.
I had never heard of them before, but they sound nice. Well, not nice. Dirty.
Nice and dirty perhaps. Perfect background music for a bar fight ;-)

Always a pleasure to introduce folks to new music. I think I first stumbled across Wo Fat on Fast 'n' Bulbous. If you're not familiar, you should check em out. The year end lists are great. https://fastnbulbous.com/
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on August 14, 2022, 09:22:33 AM
updated the script and the whitelist
(download link is in the startpost)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on August 16, 2022, 08:57:19 PM
updated the script and the whitelist
(download link is in the startpost)

What exactly do the last couple lines in your script do, and is there a way to permanently overide them?

Here's my deal%u2026 I updated the scripts and completely forgot that I changed the last line to use subgenre. It took a bit of WTF before I clued into what's happening and got things fixed (I also noticed _genremusic2 has changed to _genres <or something along those lines>). Just wondering if there was a way to make my subgenre changes permanent and not be affected by any further updates - did I mentioned I suck at scripting
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on August 16, 2022, 09:21:51 PM
If you could post:

- the last couple of lines in my latest script that you are confused about
  and
- the last couple of lines of a previous script that worked for you

I will take a look.

Quote
, and is there a way to permanently overide them?

Why override them? What is it that you believe they do that poses a problem for you?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on August 16, 2022, 10:49:35 PM
If you could post:

- the last couple of lines in my latest script that you are confused about
  and
- the last couple of lines of a previous script that worked for you

I will take a look.

Quote
, and is there a way to permanently overide them?

Why override them? What is it that you believe they do that poses a problem for you?

I will admit, this is pretty trivial, but…

$setmulti(_genres,$unique(%genre%))
$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genres%))

I believe in your previous script these lines were:
$setmulti(_genremusic2,$unique(%genre%))
$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genremusic2%))

What exactly do these lines do, and why did "_genremusic2" get changed to "_genres"

As per your page 1 instructions regarding subgenre I changed this line "$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genres%))" to "$setmulti(subgenre,$unique(%_genres%))"

I know changing that final line to "subgenre" is really easy, but I'm a dullard and forget about that pretty quick. I was looking for a way for my change to be more permanent regardless of whatever changes happen to your script - the _genremusic2 to _genres change meant just skipping the last 2 lines from the update in favour of my changes also failed.

Eventually, repetition will kick in and I'll learn to do the changes myself out of habit, so don't feel you need to go out of your way change anything ;)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on August 16, 2022, 11:21:24 PM
Eventually, repetition will kick in and I'll learn to do the changes myself out of habit, so don't feel you need to go out of your way change anything ;)
Yeah, I'm sorry for changing my ways with scripts like these.
Know that I'm not a coder in any trained or professional sense of the word, and I often start concocting a script out of my amateur brain until it 'works'.
But then sometimes I find out later that it's a bit obese and convoluted, and I can leave some things out or make some small changes to improve it or make things more efficient.

Maybe that's what happened here.
I believe the latest version of the script performs very well. (It does for me)
I will check your (earlier) posts in this thread to refresh/understand what your objective regarding subgenres is again.
If I recall correctly, it shouldn't be hard to solve it by simply adding a line or two.
I'll be back. (not today ;-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on August 17, 2022, 02:04:45 AM
Eventually, repetition will kick in and I'll learn to do the changes myself out of habit, so don't feel you need to go out of your way change anything ;)
Yeah, I'm sorry for changing my ways with scripts like these.
Know that I'm not a coder in any trained or professional sense of the word, and I often start concocting a script out of my amateur brain until it 'works'.
But then sometimes I find out later that it's a bit obese and convoluted, and I can leave some things out or make some small changes to improve it or make things more efficient.

Maybe that's what happened here.
I believe the latest version of the script performs very well. (It does for me)
I will check your (earlier) posts in this thread to refresh/understand what your objective regarding subgenres is again.
If I recall correctly, it shouldn't be hard to solve it by simply adding a line or two.
I'll be back. (not today ;-)

Maybe I can save you some time… On the first page you mention
"extra tip:

Users that don't want their original Genre tag altered or (over)written, and have for example setup a Subgenre tag in MusicBee, only need to make a small edit in the scripts:

- In script #1, navigate to the last line saying:
$setmulti(_genremusic2,$unique(%_genremusic%))
   and change it to:
$setmulti(subgenre,$unique(%_genremusic2%))
- In script #2, add the line:
$unset(genre)

Now the Genre tag will not get altered or written, and the retrieved genres will get written to the Subgenre tag only."

That's what I've been doing. The script does work really well, I have no complaints - other than what I've been complaining about ;D
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on August 17, 2022, 05:39:46 PM
Ah yes, you don't want 'genre' written but 'subgenre' instead.

That's still easy to do:

change the last line from
$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genres%))
to
$setmulti(subgenre,$unique(%_genres%))

And remember to also have: $unset(genre) added to script #2
(and/or you could add it at the very bottom of this script)
It's important, because regardless of what this script does, Picard will try to write the 'genre' tag.
This 'unset' function will prevent that from happening.

I also changed the text of the explanation on how to do this in post #2. Thanks for pointing it out.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on August 17, 2022, 05:41:35 PM
The script was updated, a mistake concerning two genre names was corrected.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on August 17, 2022, 10:41:31 PM
Ah yes, you don't want 'genre' written but 'subgenre' instead.

That's still easy to do:

change the last line from
$setmulti(genre,$unique(%_genres%))
to
$setmulti(subgenre,$unique(%_genres%))

And remember to also have: $unset(genre) added to script #2
(and/or you could add it at the very bottom of this script)
It's important, because regardless of what this script does, Picard will try to write the 'genre' tag.
This 'unset' function will prevent that from happening.

I also changed the text of the explanation on how to do this in post #2. Thanks for pointing it out.

OK, but can the last (or last couple of lines - still not entirely sure what/how they work) be used independent of your script - as in their own script or something? This way if/when you update this script, then no additional changes would need to be made - again this is just about me being forgetful/lazy.
<BTW, you can just say no and I'll stop nagging you>

I don't remember exactly what the deal was, but your second script was causing issues with my workflow so I don't use it. I just made Picard preserve the genre tag
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on August 18, 2022, 06:40:34 AM
Yes, the script could be split into two scripts.
The first containing everything except the last two lines, and the second one only the last two lines.
You could do (and try) that yourself.

But I am not going to split the script up and publish these parts separately.
It's asking for complications for me and other users.

And all that one has to do to have the script write the genres to a desired tag other than the 'genre' tag, is change the word 'genre' in the last line to 'mygenre'. (or whatever)

I can't imagine making that any simpler for anyone.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on August 18, 2022, 04:48:02 PM
Thanks, that was the explanation I was looking for.
I do agree it would be silly for you to split it up as a default, and just to be clear not what I was expecting either

I'll try to do the extra script and see how it works, but from what you've said, it seems like it'd probably just be a sideways move.

Cheers
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on August 19, 2022, 06:44:44 AM
I can't see myself changing much about the structure of the script anymore.
It's pretty lean and optimised by now.
So for the future, the only thing you'll probably need to remember is changing the word 'genre' to 'subgenre' in the last line.
I'll try to remember not to change that part of the script's working.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on September 25, 2022, 11:25:13 AM
updated

- new genres added
- housekeeping ('unproductive' genres were removed)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: l.dc on September 25, 2022, 01:48:20 PM
Hi. There's something in script #2 that makes the results of the scanned songs appear all blank in the right panel of Picard. As of now I'm using it with unticking #2.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on September 25, 2022, 02:11:28 PM
Hi. There's something in script #2 that makes the results of the scanned songs appear all blank in the right panel of Picard. As of now I'm using it with unticking #2.
That is exactly the purpose of that script.
It's for users that want only the genre tag written/updated, and leave all other tags untouched.
(I believe I explained that in the startpost)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: l.dc on September 25, 2022, 05:49:51 PM
Probably I'm missing something. But saving with the second script on does delete all the other tags.

But never mind, keeping it off is anyway useful for me as the tracks are able to have some newer data in the other tags from MusicBrainz.

Thanks a lot for your awesome work!  :)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on September 25, 2022, 06:13:56 PM
Probably I'm missing something. But saving with the second script on does delete all the other tags.

But never mind, keeping it off is anyway useful for me as the tracks are able to have some newer data in the other tags from MusicBrainz.

Thanks a lot for your awesome work!  :)
You're welcom l.dc

Script #2 most certainly does not delete any tag.
It only prevents Picard from writing new tags, and/or existing tags getting overwritten.
What you are suggesting could happen if the script was using $Delete commands, but it is using $Unset commands, and that one does not delete anything.
Perhaps in Picard you have set 'clear existing tags'?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: l.dc on September 25, 2022, 06:15:54 PM
You're right. I did have 'clear existing tags' active.

By the way, does the second script do anything special compared to the 'Preserve these tags from being overwritten' in the 'Tags' section of 'Options'?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on September 25, 2022, 06:22:17 PM
Yes, 'preserve tags' will keep existing tags, but will allow new (empty) tags to be written.
The $Unset command prevents writting of the specified tag,
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: l.dc on September 25, 2022, 06:29:51 PM
Thanks.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on September 27, 2022, 06:00:53 PM
updated

- I noticed that at some point in time I must unintentionally have removed a part of the script that could write the 'period' for classical music, so I have put that back.
 (it only does something if you are using Picard's Classical Extras plugin)
 
Also:  (@ Mr. Trev !)

-I updated post #2 that has the explanation on how to make it so that the script writes new genres to another tag (of your choice), and not to the 'genre' tag, so that your original genre tags will be left untouched.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: SanPe on October 22, 2022, 08:03:56 AM
Hey!

I'm kind of new to picard and came to it only because of your post. But, somehow I don't get it.
I set it up exactly like you explained on the original post. I used the scripts from the 15th of October on your dropbox, and somehow, it just doesn't work.
Picard don't seem to download genres and don't add it to the files. My latest attempt:

(https://i.imgur.com/XM4ov45.png)

If i go to the settings, in genre, Pop/Rock is not allowed. But still Picard don't seem to see the issue. If I delete the tag and add the files again, Picard don't download the genre either.

Is there something I am missing?

Thanks!
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on October 22, 2022, 09:01:07 AM
Welcome to the forum SanPe.

So you have set Picard's preference pages exactly like my screenshots?
e.g.

Options > Metadata > Genres >
 'Use genres from MusicBrainz' is ticked

Options > Tags >
genre is not accidentally listed in the 'Preserve these tags from being cleared or overwritten…' panel?

You don't have a script running that unsets genre?

edit:
What I get:
(https://i.imgur.com/bRQGaPQ.png)

(it ignores tags under 'autres tags' that are not considered to be widely acknowledged valid genre names)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: SanPe on October 22, 2022, 11:26:35 AM
Well, I have...
Here are my conf screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/KGRP9ND
You'll find here my picard.ini conf: https://gist.github.com/pedrom34/c85cabb299807935dc943f0b5beac771

I don't really understand... I really think it's an obvious thing I don't see :-X
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on October 22, 2022, 11:34:22 AM
You'll find here my picard.ini conf: https://gist.github.com/pedrom34/c85cabb299807935dc943f0b5beac771
Thanks, that was useful.
You have $unset(genre) in your 'Unset' script.
Remove that entry and it should work.

edit
Hm, I see it somehow appeared in the script I made available myself?
That's a mistake on my part.
I'm sorry for that, I'll correct it later today.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: SanPe on October 22, 2022, 11:50:37 AM
That was so simple!
Thanks a lot for your time and your turorial, that's gonna be really helpful for me  ::)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on October 22, 2022, 02:39:48 PM
There was a dumb mistake in script #2 (the 'unset' script)
That's corrected now, the download link is the same.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: SanPe on November 02, 2022, 12:55:32 PM
I am sorry hiccup, I have another question about your tutorial.
How do you manage to get your genres written in capitalized case? I mean, I see on your screenshot that every genre are capitalized "Alternative rock; Blues rock..." when I get "Alternative rock; blues rock".

Is it something I have to set in Picard or in Musicbee, or is it in your scripts? I took a look at all the options and didn't find what I was looking for...

Thanks!
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 02, 2022, 06:30:49 PM
Is it something I have to set in Picard or in Musicbee, or is it in your scripts? I took a look at all the options and didn't find what I was looking for...
It's script #1 that will do that.
Did you perhaps modify the script?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: SanPe on November 02, 2022, 09:38:54 PM
It's script #1 that will do that.
Did you perhaps modify the script?
I didn't change, no... I have this for the case, copied and pasted from yours:
Code
$setmulti(_genre,$lower(%genre%))
$setmulti(_genre,$map(%_genre%,$upper($substr(%_loop_value%,0,1))$substr(%_loop_value%,1,)))


Edit:
Never mind, adding a paragraph between the two lines above and  the rest of the script just like you did on the screen shot in the OP solved the issue :)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 02, 2022, 10:49:44 PM
Never mind, adding a paragraph between the two lines above and  the rest of the script just like you did on the screen shot in the OP solved the issue :)
Good that you solved it, but the paragraph (blank line) by itself can't have been the cause, since paragraphs don't have any function in these scripts.
I am guessing something must have gone wrong with copying and pasting the script.

When I test the downloaded script and paste it into Picard it works just fine as it is. Without adding any paragraphs.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: SanPe on November 03, 2022, 06:25:53 AM
Yes, you are right. I must have done something else when adding a new blank line that corrected something else that I did before, since it working now without the paragraph thing.

Sorry for that!
Thanks anyway 👍
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 03, 2022, 08:35:29 AM
No problem, thanks for the feedback.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 06, 2022, 08:22:30 AM
updated
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on November 11, 2022, 07:24:45 PM
Saw that "subgenre" has been pretty much dropped from your genre hierarchy list. That's not going to affect any of these scripts is it?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 11, 2022, 07:34:40 PM
The main difference concerns what you could do with the Enhanced Genre Hierarchy browser, and MusicBee's Tag Editor.

The Enhanced Genre Hierarchy browser used to check both 'genre' and 'subgenre', and for the Tag Editor, if you selected a song that had a genre that had several subgenres 'hanging under it', the Tag Editor would propose these subgenres for that genre so you could easily select and add them as subgenre.
That's gone now.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on November 11, 2022, 10:20:53 PM
As long as these scripts still function as originally intended I'm happy. I really don't use the genre browser too much, but I do like using the scripts to write the genre tags into my subgenre tag for my own usage (autoplaylists mostly).
I had noticed over the past week quite a few additions to my library were only being tagged with a single genre/subgenre (rather than the usual 5 I typically get) and I wasn't sure if that was just coincidence or if something was amended in the scripts too
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 11, 2022, 10:42:10 PM
I had noticed over the past week quite a few additions to my library were only being tagged with a single genre/subgenre (rather than the usual 5 I typically get)
The maximum amount of retrieved genres is determined in Picard's preferences. (see screenshot #2 in the start post)
The scripts play no role in that.
If you have doubts like these, it's pretty easy to check yourself: re-run songs that had five or more genres assigned to them before and see if that has changed.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 20, 2022, 03:38:07 PM
The matter of the (sometimes large) amount of genres that Picard will be able to retrieve from MusicBrainz' database has been itching in the back of my head a bit.
It's not that problematic, since most of the proposed genres will make some sense, but there is also quite some redundant garbage in the genres that MusicBrainz/Picard is providing.

For example:
It has a lot of music that is labelled 'Jazz' when it is only somebody playing the saxophone.
It has a lot of music that is labelled 'Electronic' if only someone is playing a synthesizer.
And if the word 'woman' is in the title it is 'Blues'.
etc.

So this afternoon I had some thought on one path to attack this problem:
I am assuming that when a song/album gets a very large amount of genres matched to it (e.g. more than 10), a lot of them will be useless or incorrect.

That made me create a virtual tag that will show the amount of genres a song has been matched with:

Code
$If($Len($IsNull(<Genre>,,$RxReplace(<Genres>,"([^;]+)","");))=0,,$Len($IsNull(<Genre>,,$RxReplace(<Genres>,"([^;]+)","");)))
It will display the amount of genres attached to a song.
This can be useful to filter out songs/albums that have an unrealistic amount of genres attached to them.
I am using this to filter out the most problematic ones in my library, and edit their genre entries at the MusicBrainz database.

I just thought to share this with other users that are actively helping in trying to improve the MusicBrainz database regarding genres.
It will surely help in getting even better results if others contribute and improve on it.

edit:
In case of doubt on what genres to apply to your music:
Check RYM (RateYourMusic)
It's by far the best one out there regarding genres.


edit 2:
fun poll:
What is the largest amount of genres a song has been appointed to in your library?
Mine is Dare by Gorillaz.
28 genres…

I will be checking that one in a few days again to see if you also care about this stuff and actually did something about it ;-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on November 20, 2022, 08:44:49 PM
I throttled my Picard to max 5 genre, 10% minimal usage, just because of the sheer amount of WTF moments I was getting. Maybe I'm limiting myself too much?

Did a quick mod of your virtual tag (changed genre to subgenre for my purposes) and the most I have currently is 17. "Everything Matters" by Aurora - the rest of the songs from the album (The Gods We Can Touch) only have 14 subgenres. This must have been tagged before I throttled things. For the record RYM only lists 4 genres for the entire album.
The remainder of my library is 8 or less - I still have a whole lot to Picard tag (I'm a lazy, lazy man)

This virtual tag reminded I'm still having an issue with your MUSICBRAINZIDS tag - I'll rebump the issue there
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 20, 2022, 09:10:36 PM
I throttled my Picard to max 5 genre, 10% minimal usage, just because of the sheer amount of WTF moments I was getting. Maybe I'm limiting myself too much?
Setting a max won't make sure you will get the most applicable genres.
You may be filtering out the ones that are better than the ones you are allowing.
(the filtering may be simply on alphabetical bases)

Quote
"Everything Matters" by Aurora - the rest of the songs from the album (The Gods We Can Touch) only have 14 subgenres. This must have been tagged before I throttled things. For the record RYM only lists 4 genres for the entire album.
That looks like a good example of MusicBrainz providing/allowing for a lot of genres that are not completely appropriate to the music.
I just edited the genres for that album on MusicBrainz. If you re-run the album through Picard, are the results better now?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on November 20, 2022, 10:15:40 PM
I throttled my Picard to max 5 genre, 10% minimal usage, just because of the sheer amount of WTF moments I was getting. Maybe I'm limiting myself too much?
Setting a max won't make sure you will get the most applicable genres.
You may be filtering out the ones that are better than the ones you are allowing.
(the filtering may be simply on alphabetical bases)

Quote
"Everything Matters" by Aurora - the rest of the songs from the album (The Gods We Can Touch) only have 14 subgenres. This must have been tagged before I throttled things. For the record RYM only lists 4 genres for the entire album.
That looks like a good example of MusicBrainz providing/allowing for a lot of genres that are not completely appropriate to the music.
I just edited the genres for that album on MusicBrainz. If you re-run the album through Picard, are the results better now?

Hmm, I was just going on the assumption that the given genres were filtered by relevance - I have no idea if this is actually true.
As far as my example album… too late, I manually edited the tags in MB using the genres from RYM (unless your changes are different from RYM)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 20, 2022, 10:19:23 PM
Hmm, I was just going on the assumption that the given genres were filtered by relevance - I have no idea if this is actually true.
It isn't.
How would a filter know what genre is more relevant than another?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 20, 2022, 10:39:33 PM
As far as my example album… too late, I manually edited the tags in MB using the genres from RYM (unless your changes are different from RYM)
Well, the purpose of what I offered in this thread is to retrieve genres from MusicBrainz in the best possible way.
Feel free to enter your genres manually, but that is not what this thread is about.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on November 20, 2022, 10:51:10 PM
Hmm, I was just going on the assumption that the given genres were filtered by relevance - I have no idea if this is actually true.
It isn't.
How would a filter know what genre is more relevant than another?

Say for example if more people called a certain album a certain genre then it'd be more relevant? Dunno if Musicbrainz (or anything else) even works like that. It kinda makes sense to me that if you're going to crowd source data there should be a way to offer feedback on what's available (upvote/like genre choices?).
This probably just shows that I haven't spent any time on the actual Musicbrainz website

As far as my example album%u2026 too late, I manually edited the tags in MB using the genres from RYM (unless your changes are different from RYM)
Well, the purpose of what I offered in this thread is to retrieve genres from MusicBrainz in the best possible way.
Feel free to enter your genres manually, but that is not what this thread is about.

True, my point just was I already changed the tags myself for that album (RYM was already open to that page, so why not). But, I did rerun it through Picard and your changes are way better than what was there before. IIRC, the only difference from RYM was folk-pop vs. indie-pop. Nothing I'd give a second thought about, really
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 20, 2022, 10:58:48 PM
This probably just shows that I haven't spent any time on the actual Musicbrainz website
If you are interested or critical about how Picard retrieves genres exactly you probably should.
It all boils down to (sometimes flawed) human effort.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on November 21, 2022, 03:44:24 AM
I did try somewhat a while back (couple years ago).
The last time, I was trying to add the Canadian release of "The Holy Bible" by Manic Street Preachers. I somehow managed to make some unintended changes to every release. The whole process was very unintuitive IMO. I did manage to get some advice via PM on how to best make entries/changes from somebody who luckily caught the mistake and veto'd them, but I really never put much into it after that.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 21, 2022, 08:22:58 PM
The last time, I was trying to add the Canadian release of…
The whole process was very unintuitive IMO.
You are talking about creating and adding new releases.
That's a very different and rather complicated matter.

Editing or adding genres for existing releases is pretty simple.
It's pretty much a simple voting system:

(https://i.imgur.com/Qf37cbp.png)
 
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on November 23, 2022, 08:52:46 PM
updated

- added a couple of genres to the whitelist
- some changes in filtering/mapping regarding:
  Dance pop/Dance-pop
  Rock and roll/Rock & roll
  Rhythm and blues/Rhythm & blues
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 06, 2023, 06:04:38 PM
updated
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 14, 2023, 02:43:37 PM
Updated the virtual tag to display genres in rows in the track details panel.
(as described in post #2 (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35975.msg196796#msg196796))

- The previous version failed in displaying subsequent genres if a preceding genre contained certain non-standard characters.
- And it now uses · (middle dot) as a separator instead of a comma. (looks nicer to me)

(https://i.imgur.com/mYLafk1.png)

also:
Guess the song?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: phred on January 14, 2023, 02:55:42 PM
Guess the song?
Give it a minute before leaving...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rdCq1LecYU
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 14, 2023, 03:02:37 PM
Guess the song?
Give it a minute before leaving...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rdCq1LecYU

Very nice, and close. But I don't hear any Hát tuồng in it?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: phred on January 14, 2023, 03:47:13 PM
Very nice, and close. But I don't hear any Hát tuồng in it?
Then you didn't listen all the way through. It's the seventh verse and chorus.  :-)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 14, 2023, 03:50:28 PM
Ah yes, between 1:54 and 1:55
Not sure how I could have missed that.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: voodoopunk on January 21, 2023, 12:32:34 PM
Hi Hiccup,

Regarding your update in post 2 for the virtual tag to display the genres, I've had bash at using it but it seems if there's only a single genre then a bunch of semi-colons are displayed. I'm assuming this isn't by design?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 21, 2023, 12:52:52 PM
...but it seems if there's only a single genre then a bunch of semi-colons are displayed. I'm assuming this isn't by design?
Can you post a screenshot of that?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: voodoopunk on January 21, 2023, 01:45:00 PM
Here, take a look. I will be adding genres to this as just Hardcore isn't correct but it shows the semi-colons. Not that it should make any difference but I didn't use a virtual tag, just pasted your code a track information field.

(https://imgur.com/49CZmaR.jpg)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 21, 2023, 01:53:28 PM
Not that it should make any difference but I didn't use a virtual tag, just pasted your code a track information field.
That's o.k. and how I use it too. No need to sacrifice a virtual tag on this.

At the moment I can't explain why this is happening for you. (it's working fine here, also for single genres)
- what MB version are you on exactly?
- does it only happen when there is only 1 genre?
- could you post a screenshot of the settings panel?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: voodoopunk on January 21, 2023, 02:00:45 PM
Just realised, I hadn't ticked the split mutli-tagged box. My fault.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 21, 2023, 02:16:43 PM
Yes, that's pretty essential for this to work ;-)

And it seems you are not using Picard to populate your genres?
I'm getting more than one for that release:

(https://i.imgur.com/mR79KDo.png)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: voodoopunk on January 21, 2023, 02:21:17 PM
I'd have sworn blind I'd ticked it. You even explain about the semi-colons in that second post.

No, I'm not using Picard for my genres, I'm using RYM and inputting manually. I haven't got around to that release yet is all.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 28, 2023, 03:02:32 PM
Updated the scripts and the whitelist.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 29, 2023, 08:59:07 PM
A quick question about using your track info virtual tag again…
I swapped to the modded version (different separator), changed it 2 genre per line. The genres gets truncated.
I was wondering if there is a way to use word wrap or if it's just something that'll come down to panel size and luck of the draw

and one minor critique. When the tag splits the lines, it leaves the · behind. If I remember my typography, a line shouldn't end with a · (examples in your earlier screenshots)

sorry to pick nits (and I admit, I have no idea if/how that can be fixed)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 30, 2023, 04:29:05 PM
I was wondering if there is a way to use word wrap or if it's just something that'll come down to panel size and luck of the draw
When the tag splits the lines, it leaves the · behind.
Both are intentional.

- I don't like genre names getting cut-off to a next line.
If you want that you could simply use the <Genres> tag instead of my formula.
(disable 'split into rows' and set the number of rows that you want)

- The trailing middle dot indicates there are more genres to follow.


edit:
Playing around a bit with non-breaking spaces, I created one that seems to work nicely too.
It will neither truncate, nor cut-off a genre name to a next line.:

Code
$Replace($Replace(<Genres>," ",$Char(00A0)),;$Char(00A0)," · ")
1. It requires the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin to be installed. (a recent version of it)
2. Set the panel to not split tags into rows. Set the max.row span to your preference.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 30, 2023, 08:21:37 PM
just to confirm I have this set up properly

This tag will remove all spaces from the genre - ie. deathdoommetal

Another thing that just popped into my head while working on this.
Does any part of your virtual tag limit the number of tags displayed (maybe the number of "0,4" instances or string of numbers at the end)?
My thought was if I wanted to have 5 genre available for library purposes, but only display the first 2 in the track info panel
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 30, 2023, 08:32:52 PM
just to confirm I have this set up properly

So you also read/did this?:

1. It requires the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin to be installed.

Quote from: Mr. Trev
Does any part of your virtual tag limit the number of tags displayed (maybe the number of "0,4" instances or string of numbers at the end)?
Nope.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: Mr. Trev on January 30, 2023, 10:16:31 PM
just to confirm I have this set up properly

So you also read/did this?:

1. It requires the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin to be installed.

Yes, I did read that, and it was installed (v5.5.8397). I'll see if a newer version is available…
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on January 30, 2023, 10:42:51 PM
Yes, I did read that, and it was installed (v5.5.8397). I'll see if a newer version is available…
That's probably it.
The $Char function that the formula uses was added only recently to AT&RT, so an updated version is indeed necessary for this to work well.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: boroda on January 31, 2023, 01:29:52 PM
quite a few last versions are already 5.6.xxxx
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on March 26, 2023, 08:28:48 PM
the scripts were updated
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on May 20, 2023, 07:35:55 AM
updated, added some genres
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on September 13, 2023, 05:58:13 PM
Updated the whitelist.

It surpassed the (questionable) milestone of now containing 3.000+ genres.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: stargatetraveler on December 31, 2023, 04:27:32 AM
By chance has anything been developed that gives us this functionality without having to go through all this "programming"?
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on December 31, 2023, 07:53:32 AM
By chance has anything been developed that gives us this functionality without having to go through all this "programming"?
No pain, no gain.
And it's me who has 'gone through all this programming'.
All you need to do to get this functionality is doing some simple copy/pasting and checking boxes as shown in the screenshots.

Or don't, and just accept the standard results that Picard will give you when simply checking 'use genres from MusicBrainz' and doing nothing else.
I guess many are/have been happy with what that results in too.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on February 04, 2024, 09:30:00 AM
the whitelist and scripts were updated
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: HBY14 on March 12, 2024, 03:45:11 PM
Afternoon. Could I ask what I am doing wrong please? Have read the first and second posts a couple of times, loaded the script, ticked (I think) all the right options. When I come to run the script, the genre still doesn't populate. Used Wire as a fairly simple, to me, example of what it should be (Post-punk).

(https://i.imgur.com/F961CfI.png)
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on March 12, 2024, 05:06:35 PM
When I come to run the script, the genre still doesn't populate. Used Wire as a fairly simple, to me, example of what it should be (Post-punk).
Welcome to the forum HBY14

This is what I get for that release:
(https://i.imgur.com/kRN6OVB.png)

Is Picard showing you no genre at all?
In that case my best suggestion would be to look again at the screenshots in the start-post, and compare them with your settings, eagle-eyed.
Those settings should (still) work.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: HBY14 on March 12, 2024, 05:27:40 PM
When I come to run the script, the genre still doesn't populate. Used Wire as a fairly simple, to me, example of what it should be (Post-punk).
Welcome to the forum HBY14

This is what I get for that release:
(https://i.imgur.com/kRN6OVB.png)

Is Picard showing you no genre at all?
In that case my best suggestion would be to look again at the screenshots in the start-post, and compare them with your settings, eagle-eyed.
Those settings should (still) work.

Thanks for the reply hiccup. Nay, no genre at all. Shall get my fine toothcomb out and have another look.


EDIT: Nothing a good reset to default won't sort. Noticed I'd not changed the values in the first screenshot, still didn't work. So decided to reset Picard and just go with your post step-by-step again. Much obliged, friend.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on March 12, 2024, 05:30:41 PM
Thanks for the reply hiccup. Nay, no genre at all. Shall get my fine toothcomb out and have another look.
O.k.
If that fails, you are welcome to send me a PM with a link to the Config.ini file you have for Picard.

edit
Assuming you are using Picard on WIndows? The portable version by any chance?
The Linux version probably does things a bit different.
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: HBY14 on March 12, 2024, 05:44:58 PM
Thanks for the reply hiccup. Nay, no genre at all. Shall get my fine toothcomb out and have another look.
O.k.
If that fails, you are welcome to send me a PM with a link to the Config.ini file you have for Picard.

edit
Assuming you are using Picard on WIndows? The portable version by any chance?
The Linux version probably does things a bit different.

Windows 11, aye. And as for portable version, no idea what that means. Did notice that it was something you mentioned, but with you saying something along the lines of "check stuff before you really go ahead with it" I was not pressing save until I was happy with what I saw in the right-hand-side panel. I might not be the most technical of people, and sometimes my common sense is not so common, but I do like to take care at times. And not effing-up my music is something I do care about quite a fair bit!
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: hiccup on March 12, 2024, 05:53:42 PM
I might not be the most technical of people, and sometimes my common sense is not so common, but I do like to take care at times. And not effing-up my music is something I do care about quite a fair bit!
That's nothing but wise.

I would suggest:

- Download the portable version of Picard.
- Create a folder outside Window's system folders, so e.g. at C:\Picard, or simply on another drive.
- Copy the downloaded MusicBrainz-Picard.exe to that folder and run it.
- Make a copy of the folder that has your Wire album.
- Load that copy of the album into Picard and start testing and experimenting.

If it still fails to populate the Genre tag after you have applied the settings as explained in the start post, send me a link to your Config.ini file.
 
Title: Re: How to retrieve good quality genre tags using Picard
Post by: HBY14 on March 12, 2024, 06:08:24 PM
I might not be the most technical of people, and sometimes my common sense is not so common, but I do like to take care at times. And not effing-up my music is something I do care about quite a fair bit!
That's nothing but wise.

My suggestion:
- Download and install the portable version of Picard.
  (install it outside Window's system folders, so e.g. at C:\Picard, or simply on another drive)
- Make a copy of the folder that has your Wire album.
- Load that copy of the album into Picard and start testing and experimenting.
 

Framing that  ;D
And will do, thanks for the help :-)