Author Topic: Improvements for Classical Music Support  (Read 45318 times)

hiccup

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We could discuss the naming, use, and compatibility of tagging fields such as Artist, Performer, Album Artist, Original Artist, Musician Credit List, etc. etc. endlessly, without even coming close to finding The Ring That Rules Them All.
Anybody who wants to organise his classical collection, will have to accept that, and make his/her own choices, and make use of the vast amount of options MusicBee already offers with mapping, virtual tags etc.
Tips & Tricks would be a very good board to assemble and ventilate useful advice and good practices on that.

Until there (ever?) is a widely supported proposal for id3v2.5 or 3.0, I think MusicBee shouldn't change much in this area.
I personally agree with the idea that until then, any existing tagging fields should preferably be used for what they are called, and what they are intended for. (e.g. TOAL - original album)

Anybody can decide for himself by means of custom tagging or mapping how he wants to set that up.
Experienced users will be able to accomplish that by themselves.
For less savvy users, it would be great if there would be presets or plugins available to accommodate easy and convenient compatibility with content providers/software/portable players. But that's probably not for this thread.


To focus in on one suggestion that comes up in this thread and seems to be supported: improving the tagging panel.
I would welcome that too.
With the screen estate available, it would be very nice to have a large version available, with less tabs, less scrolling, etc.
And yes, customizable please.
For example, to return to the subject of 'Classical', the concept of 'years' is more important here. You might want to use seperate fields for: year composed, year performed, year released, year of remaster, etc.
e.g. with classical music you often have albums containing recordings from different years. It would be good to be able to easily manage that.

I am not enthusiastic about the suggestion to have such a tagging panel as a vertical bar. I've seen that in other software, and especially with long titles (classical!), or many contributing artists/performers (classical!), that's not practical at all.
A substantial increase of vertical space, yes please. Having it as a bar with limited width, rather not.

theta_wave

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This is what irritates me with the whole classical/popular tagging debate.  The disregard for the ID3 standard when it doesn't work how we want it to and the expectation that player software should adjust to our own personal revisions of that tagging system.
I'm one of the few (maybe the only one?  ;)  ) that makes no distinction between classical and other music.  It's all music for tagging purposes.
A Composer is a Composer is a Composer.
An Artist is an Artist is an Artist.
A Conductor is a Conductor is a Conductor.
Mozart certainly did compose and was the original performing Artist (if it had been able to be recorded at that time)
So lets keep Mozart and other composers as composers.
By all means, do as I do and use the multiple artist splitter to put the composer as the first artist, for backwards compatibility with players that only read the first artist and can't read the composer frame.
Totally agree on this.  I also make no distinction between genres when it comes to tagging.  I mean, a soundtrack I wouldn't tag as classical could be backed by an orchestra that's led by a conductor, so I place them in their respective tags (PERFORMERS and CONDUCTOR respectively).

With existing tag schemes, I've been using the following for awhile now to ensure cross-compatibility among different players:

Composer -> <Artist>
Composer -> <Album Artist>
Composer -> <Composer>
Orchestra -> <PERFORMER>*
Performers -> <PERFORMER>*
Conductor -> <Conductor>
Titles = Work Title, Op. #, Catalog #: Movement -> <Title>
Album = Album (star/headlining performer's last name, Orchestra/Ensemble name: Conductor's/Ensemble leader's last name)

\* I understand that IPLS is available, but I don't really care about its "performer:instrument" format; in my mind, it is a terrible tag spec.  Besides, personally, I don't really lookup names based on instrument.  Then again, if I'm listening to a track and there's a particular instrumentalist I happen to enjoy, that info is likely in <Comments> displayed on the right sidebar in full (mp3tag's websource scripting is pretty powerful).  

As for some of the above suggestions, how would one reconcile that sometimes Opus #'s and Catalog #'s don't agree with each other?  Create another field for opus # that is becoming increasingly overcrowded?  Furthermore, with the proposal of more classical tags, I would be disinclined to process over 12,000 classical tracks in my library.  I would rather see more regex support (http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=18878.msg113604#msg113604) to customize how to present such info as virtualtags.  In that way, one could create autoplaylists reflecting any particular sort order or query criteria and sync that up to DAP's or cellphones.

Virtualtag examples for <Title> = Concerto Grosso No.2 in F Major, Op.6/2, HWV 320: III. Largo, Larghetto andante e piano

Code: "Concerto Grosso No.2 in F Major, Op.6/2, HWV 320: III. Largo, Larghetto andante e piano"
<Catalog> = $regexp(<Title>,(^.*)(,\s)(.+)(:)(.*$),\3) => HWV 320

<Opus> = $regexp(<Title>,(^.*)(Op.+?)(,.*$|:.*$),\2) => Op.6/2
Last Edit: November 16, 2016, 11:45:44 PM by ssri

alec.tron

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the concept of 'years' is more important here. You might want to use seperate fields for: year composed, year performed, year released, year of remaster, etc.
I'm not very invested in Classical music, but that strikes a nerve as there's an open ticket with discogs about adding multiple date values to single songs/a release (info is very vague as to what might come :/) who might add something like that to their end in the semi near future as well (Nik mentioned it's in beta testing and progressing well - how applicable their implementation will be to cataloging classic music is unknown - but in case anyone wants to chime in:
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/710721
).
Since there is a MB discogs tagger (although very little classical music on discogs afaik... probably due to its' database fields favouring popular/electronic music) - this could be useful...?!
c.

hiccup

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......  as there's an open ticket with discogs about adding multiple date values to single songs/a release (info is very vague as to what might come :/) who might add something like that to their end in the semi near future as well (Nik mentioned it's in beta testing and progressing well  .......

As you also indicate, at Discogs there doesn't seem to be much activity or interest in extending and improving date/year information.
Only a handful of postings on that topic, years old, not many replies, etc.

When I try to navigate to your ticket, it leads to a general page.
Can you give some more details about what they replied to you about "hinting at a few to-come things to address this"?

alec.tron

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Sure. Here's the vital bits of the ticket. Original post, & follow ups over the last months:




#-----------------said 6 months ago -----------------#
Heya,
I thought the forum might be a good start for this, but looks like it's too broad/dev centric and it's already on page 3.. so I doubt I ever get any info there:
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/710721

So I thought I'd ask directly at the source:
I'm on a mission to re-tag my digital library of records I own… and one shortcoming, which has been in discussion for a while, is biting me again – and I'm wondering where this is at, with the discogs team officially as well as with the community.

In my mind, to make discogs even better than it already is – each track of an artists should have its own 2 dates as well, [managed through a "master-track" page (which does not seem to exist and would probably be a bigger undertaking, but might be something like this is in the cards already ?].
This is not an easy feat, but it would benefit all of us by allowing us:
- to browse an artists body of work from 2 angles, from a media angle (albums/singles/compilations) as well as a 'track/song' angle and a more chronologically/accurate representation of the same, not tied to a (physical) medium
- compilations / re-issues could more accurately display the release date of each song on on it (when each son on it was created/released first) as well as Original Release (of the master release) VS media-centric release date (of the re-issue).

There's a lot of old threads about this, I stopped when I found a half dozen of them, and all were locked, with no official statement regarding this:
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/160357#2062039
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/272325#2961793
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/349734#3286038
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/366661#3399853

Probably the most accurate wording, release (recording) VS manufacturing date:
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/343676#3226263

Would be great to get some more current info on this topic.
Cheers.
c.
#----------------------------------#






#----------------said 6 months ago ------------------#
We are working on a beta version of a feature that could provide some (or all!) of these functions you are envisioning. We will make an announcement when we have the first iteration of this for everyone to look at. I can't promise anything, but hopefully in under 3 months. I look forward to you trying it out and giving us more feedback!

Thanks,

Nik

#----------------------------------#







#---------------said 3 months ago -------------------#

Hey Nik,
I had a look around on the forum & https://blog.discogs.com/tag/engineering/ hoping for some news on this but without much avail - so I thought I'd ask directly if there's more info or even the  "initial release will be very basic" available by now ?
Churs & all the bestest.
c.
#----------------------------------#






#---------------said 2 months ago -------------------#
Hi,

We are still working on the feature here. Things are going to plan and there should start to surface some beta functionality within a fre months.
#----------------------------------#





I'd really hope they'll add some more single track date fields and some sort of master-song page.
But, it's more slow than announced then... so we'll need to see with what comes around the corner whenever they are happy to show something... but interesting breadcrumbs/developments...
c.

redwing

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how would one reconcile that sometimes Opus #'s and Catalog #'s don't agree with each other?  Create another field for opus # that is becoming increasingly overcrowded?

Read my proposal again. It doesn't have separate opus number tag. Put everything under catalogue number.
If people think separate "Key" and "Catalogue number" tags are not really needed, then we could put everything into Work Title. That would be another option.

Furthermore, with the proposal of more classical tags, I would be disinclined to process over 12,000 classical tracks in my library.

Don't think you're the only one who has already full-tagged tracks. Everyone here has some sort of unique tag scheme that suits her needs to tackle the complicated classical music tagging using all kinds of tools MB provides such as standard/custom/virtual tags and sub-headings. I too would have to re-tag all of my classical music tracks if the proposal gets implemented. But I proposed it anyway because this is a really great opportunity to make all your wishes regarding classical music handling with MB you have only dreamed of come true. In other words MB can become a best tagger/organizer/player in the realm of classical music as well, depending on our discussion here.

hiccup

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Mp3tag has released a new version with some extensions on this matter:
 
- Added support for iTunes flag to trigger showing movement information instead of the song title via SHOWMOVEMENT (MP4 only).
- Added support for iTunes tag fields for classical music MOVEMENT, MOVEMENTTOTAL, MOVEMENTNAME (ID3v2 and MP4) and for WORK (MP4 only).

Steven

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I havent forgotten about this but given my work is very busy at the moment and probably January as well, it might be some time before i can get into this. I havent really read the posts in detail but my general sense is this is still not really closed out in terms of a clear set of requirements.
Keep in mind i'm not really into classical music so i dont really appreciate the issues that people have with managing this type of music to make an informed decision when people dont agree

this is what iTunes has:

Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 10:04:27 PM by Steven

psychoadept

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Given the amount of effort and the number of people involved in MusicBrainz' classical style guide, I think it could be helpful for guidance.  It's far from perfect, though.  I personally prefer to use the actual performance artist in the Artist field and use my sorting and grouping to distinguish classical from pop.

https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Style/Classical

I like the iTunes example there, too.
Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 10:41:09 PM by psychoadept
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vincent kars

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Keep in mind i'm not really into classical music so i dont really appreciate the issues that people have with managing this type of music to make an informed decision when people dont agree

Obvious needs differ.
I wonder if there is anybody who is into classical not needing a “composition” tag.
Likewise, this tag should be treated the same way as an album is treated.


hiccup

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Just adding some info on what's happening with iTunes (and MP3Tag to some extend):

MOVEMENTNAME — Movement name
MOVEMENT — Movement number
MOVEMENTTOTAL — Movement count
WORK — Work name
SHOWMOVEMENT — Flag to trigger showing of classical fields instead of normal title in iTunes (1 = yes)

vincent kars

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I just learned today this is indeed the case.
Got a mail from Paul Taylor, the developer of SongKong and Jaikoz.
He added support for these tags to his taggers.
 

hiccup

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Do you have any detailed info on how they will handle this for mp3 and flac? (id3 and Vorbis)
For as far as I know, I think this is currently iTunes (m4a) only?

If MusicBee is going to adopt this, it will probably have to fall in the realm of custom tags.

vincent kars

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I'm highly unfamiliar with iTunes
All I know is this:
http://www.mcelhearn.com/apple-is-finally-making-itunes-better-for-classical-music/

As it is part of the iTunes interface I expect it to support all file formats supported by iTunes
If this means populating the tags or keeping it library only depending on the format, I can't tell you.

hiccup

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As it is part of the iTunes interface I expect it to support all file formats supported by iTunes
If this means populating the tags or keeping it library only depending on the format, I can't tell you.

I think it's probably a bit early to tell. There seem to be quite some complaints and issues with iTunes users on this implementation (what else is new ;-)
So it might take one or two iTunes revisions before they have something working o.k.

Also I believe iTunes doesn't support flac, so there is nothing to expect from them in that area.
That, together with the fact that it seems that neither id3 nor Vorbis comment platforms seem to have anything that you could call 'a pulse', it will be up to MusicBee to decide what to do with this, and possibly create a path of it's own that works. (And others might follow. Or not.)