How does Genre / Genre Category work?

[hongertree]

Hello
I can't work out how the Genre and Genre Category tags work.  I can see genre is a displayable field and can be edited by right-clicking on the track and using the Tags edit tab there.  But there is nowhere to edit Genre Category.  I can see the lists of genres and categories that appear in Edit/Edit Preference/Tags 2 but I'm still unsure as to which should be the more general one - eg "Rock"-  and which more specific - eg "Heavy Metal".

I'd like to know how the standard functionality is intended to be used.

[After loads of searches I've found lots of information on clever and complex changes people have made to customise genre tagging, but I just want to know the basics]

Thanks

[hiccup]

Genre is a tag, Genre Category is not.
Genres are categorised following the list you can find (and edit) under Preferences > Tags (2) > Group genres: Categorise…

The easiest way to edit it to your liking is copying the list to a text editor, make edits there, and paste it back into the genre categorisation pane.
I don't really understand what you are saying about rock and heavy metal.

[hongertree]

Thanks Hiccup
I think I start to see how this works.  I choose the genre then it auto populates the Genre Category by looking up that genre on the lists within the Genre Categorisation Editor?

And then the Genre Category can be used in auto-playlists and the like?

Cheers

[hiccup]

Exactly, that's it.

[hongertree]

Thanks Hiccup

[Tarnish]

Hello.
Since I also have questions regarding the genre category, I thought I'd rather post in this topic than start a new one.

Either I am extremely stupid and just can't figure out how this genre category thing is supposed to work, or it's somehow broken for me.
I have the Thumbnail Browser set to display the Genres, sort by Name, and group by Genre Category. I want to achieve a look that for example would have a genre category named 'Vocal' and have 'Female Singer' and 'Male Singer' under this category to look something like:

Vocal
   Female Singer
   Male Singer

I already set the genre tags in my files like this:


I started from scratch in the genre category editor in order to try and understand how it's supposed to work, so as a test I have it looking like this:


But instead of looking like how I want it to, it looks like this:


I get the 'Unknown Genre Category' part since I didn't specify any categories for those genres, but where from hell does it get that 'Acoustic', 'Cover Song' and 'Rapcore' is supposed to go under the 'Vocal' category? And why doesn't it put 'Female Singer' under there? What am I missing?

[hiccup]

I get the 'Unknown Genre Category' part since I didn't specify any categories for those genres, but where from hell does it get that 'Acoustic', 'Cover Song' and 'Rapcore' is supposed to go under the 'Vocal' category? And why doesn't it put 'Female Singer' under there? What am I missing?

Welcome to the forum Tarnish.

The way the Thumbnail Browser works is that it is a sort of filter, that depending on the settings will output songs that match that filtering.
But a song can and will only get matched once.

I am guessing what's happening is that it is matching the first genre that it finds in a track, and uses that to place the track in a category group.
If a track has only one genre that will work.

But if a track has more than one genre (what's probably the case with your files), it will be placed under the category of the first genre, but it will also display the other genres that track contains under the same grouping.
Because the Thumbnail Browser can't split up or duplicate tracks.

What you will want to use for this is the Tag Hierarchy Explorer.
It was created pretty much exactly for what you are trying to do.

[Tarnish]

I tried it out, yes, this is what I was looking for! Thanks.

[Tarnish]

Just something I noticed: I don't know if this is a known bug or it is intended to be like this, but seems like if you exit MusicBee with a certain Year, Album Artist, Artist or other item selected in the Column Browser, the next time you launch MusicBee the Tag Hierarchy Explorer will only show the genres associated with that Year, Album Artist, Artist or other selected item's songs. I have to select All in every displayed column and restart MusicBee in order for it to display all the genres I have in my library.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

Just something I noticed: I don't know if this is a known bug or it is intended to be like this, but seems like if you exit MusicBee with a certain Year, Album Artist, Artist or other item selected in the Column Browser, the next time you launch MusicBee the Tag Hierarchy Explorer will only show the genres associated with that Year, Album Artist, Artist or other selected item's songs. I have to select All in every displayed column and restart MusicBee in order for it to display all the genres I have in my library.

Can confirm this occurs.