More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

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BMF
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More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

Post by BMF »

Hi there MM-Team,

time did not stand still for MM and it did not stand still for the tagging options as well. I would like to encourage you to expand the tagging opportunities for listeners of classical music. There are "movement", "movementname" and "movementtotal". There is also "work"
as the field for the name of the whole musical piece such as 'symphony no. 9'. And the field "orchestra" would be a perfect addition to "conductor". Speaking of artists. The is a tag called performer too, which i (like to) use for the soloist of a concerto.

A better way to distinguish between "recordingdate" and "releasedate" would be nice too.

I know there are a lot of different names for the same content of a field over the different types of music files (mp3, flac, vorbis, aac, etc ). Give it a try :-).

Regards

bmf
nothing but a bmf ....
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MiPi
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Re: Request: More tag fields for listeners of classical music

Post by MiPi »

Hi,
you're right. ITunes authors added these fields not long ago. But they have made some mess in it, they use some non-standard field in MP3 (GRP1 for grouping/content group), and original standard field (TIT1) use for different data, than before. Urgh...
Anyway, thanks for letting us now, we try to deal with it.
MiPi
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Re: Request: More tag fields for listeners of classical music

Post by MiPi »

Added as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14963
But I am not sure about implementation, as iTunes has made really big mess of it.
yarguy
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Re: Request: More tag fields for listeners of classical music

Post by yarguy »

About the grouping field. MM4 has a very useful, easy to use, never fails (for me anyway) extension called Linked Tracks. Instead of looking at what iTunes did for this, why not look at what an MM add-on developer did. Send the first track to Now Playing and then all the linked tracks (the other tracks in the work) are added to Now Playing.

I would also point out that jiri and I had a discussion about added fields for classical in MM5 some time ago; perhaps you should refer to that. I pointed to the propriety database Sonata that DigiBit developed as a complement to the standard MP3 fields.
BMF
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Re: Request: More tag fields for listeners of classical music

Post by BMF »

To make that clear. I don't need MM5 to be a clone of iTunes in tagging. This would be a desaster ;-).

I simply would appreciate more information like other current programs offer too. My standard software trio for my music collection is MM4, mp3tag and dbpoweramp. Each of it has its merits for my personal workflow. MM does the part of the database. And this is a very important and huge part. But it isn't capable (yet?) showing all of the information the other two - or maybe other programs - can give to the music files through tagging. That's a loss that cannot be compensated by the user defined fields.

Maybe the idea of yarguy can be a solution to make MM5 more handy for classical music.

And don't forget about the other tags i mentioned. It's not all about the movements ;-).

bmf
nothing but a bmf ....
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MiPi
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Re: Request: More tag fields for listeners of classical music

Post by MiPi »

We have to use some common standards in tagging, so that tags written in one program can be read in another. This is what I am talking about. iTunes is widely used program, so one would expect, that tags written in iTunes (or other apps) will be read by MediaMonkey (if supported) and vice versa. If we develop some proprietary solution, it won't be portable. E.g. many users use grouping field and expect, that they will see the same value in MediaMonkey and in other programs like iTunes...
yarguy
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Re: More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

Post by yarguy »

But using Grouping does not provide the same usefulness as Linked Tracks. It is very nice to be able to click one track to get a whole work to play. If you don't want to provide something like that in MM5, fine; I'll just continue to use MM4 since it works just fine anyway. Another lost sale.
jiri
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Re: More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

Post by jiri »

Linked Tracks is an Addon, which definitely could be ported to MM5. However, the original question is about more fields in MM5. As Michal pointed out, we definitely want to support as much as possible meaningful fields, but always try to do it in a (reasonably) compatible way with most used apps (be it iTunes or anything else).

In case you don't care much about tag compatibility, you can use custom fields for anything not in MM5 yet. But we'll keep trying to add the most requested fields...

Jiri
emalvick
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Re: More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

Post by emalvick »

Back to the tags thing, I am for supporting a wide variety of tags (date I say all the tags in file(s)). I use MM as my primary catalog and DAM (Digital Asset Manager) for my music. I'm sure I'm not the only one. As such, I would like to have every tag in a file available in the database.

I know that is a tall order, but implementation could be as simple as being able to read all the tags into a database so a user can at least read and view them (not necessarily write them). I think the problem ITunes has is that they try to dictate how the user uses and tags their files, and it isn't necessarily consistent with other software and causes problems because they are trying to make a lot of different methods conform to their standard. This happens in photography with Adobe trying to dictate the system.

However, the DAM system I use for photography takes a minimalist approach in terms of tags in that it simply reads everything into its database table (which is basically a large 1:1 table with as many columns as their are tags in the database), gives you the ability to setup a structure for browsing by any field in the database (similar to the MagicNodes add-on in MM), and then the ability to access and edit fields using scripts and forms. The software doesn't dictate how things are handled nor enforce anything outside the standard photography tags.

I would think MM could do something similar. I use a few "custom" tags in my audio files, that frustratingly I can't access in MM. Interestingly, I can access them in my media server (Logitech Media Server, LMS) because it has an add-on that lets one expand the database by letting the user define a list of custom tags to read in from each file (as available) and then define menus (similar to MagicNodes again). But, for cataloging in MM, I can't access those fields, and it is frustrating. Some of the tags I use probably aren't all that unusual or even standard (but not common).

Example tags (bold) I use (99% in FLAC files):

Style (sub-genre)
Work
Movement
Opus
Conductor
Orchestra
Venue (e.g. where a performance took place... I use for live Jazz dates, Classical, and concert recordings in popular music).
Performer (e.g. soloist in a symphony, or band-member in a Jazz ensemble)
Composer (standard composer field)

Many of the fields that might have a name/person associated with them will have a corresponding "Sort" field to parallel the Artist Sort tag, which some systems use.

In LMS, I can then define individual libraries and then setup browse menus based on those tags as I define it. The system even lets the user manually combine tags, so that when I want to browse (jazz albums for instance), I can combine Performer and Artist into one field (in its own database).

Anyway, it's a lot of info. As much as I like using MM for cataloging, I've actually started moving to Foobar to have a system I can use for cataloging just to access all the metadata for my files. In this day and age with such large libraries, I cannot invest in a software that won't give me all my data. MM4's catalog breadth (which was basically the same as MM3) is too limiting.

Granted, it may not be easy to get the features in there, but I think it is something that would have to be figured out.

That's just my feeling on it. I'm but one customer (potential customer for MM5). I've loved the program for years, but it has aged and is losing its usefulness to me.
BMF
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Re: More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

Post by BMF »

Hi all,

for the first time i read a mantis thread (https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14963) from beginning to end and now i got the idea what the MM developers have to deal with. For instance i did not know that the movement stuff is not part of the official id3.v.2.4 version. Though iTunes began to add these information and other programs like the two i use together with the MM (mp3tag and dbpoweramp) can handle them too. Above all they create tag fields in the music file, though one of the developers said, that iTunes only store such information in its database.

Reading the mantis section i searched for the id3tags and the different versions which exist. Especially 2.3 and 2.4 which have a lot in common but a lot of differences too. When i see that the id3.v.2.4 version is from 2000 and the importance of digital music has increased that much, i am astonished by the standstill (funny: german word for it is Stillstand :-D) of the standard.

What to do?

One of the goals for MM can be seen on the web page "MediaMonkey: The Media Organizer for Serious Collectors". If so, i encourage (like emalvick does too) to find a solution for exactly this part of the customers. Serious collectors want to have more information than artist, title, album and year. Every day users can appreciate a simplified surface.

And now the bridge from classical to other music branches:

Even listeners of pop/rock and jazz music like to know about recording date, release date or recording location. A lot of tracks are published as live versions ore rehearsal takes. Never before published alternate versions of a track come to birth long after the artist has gone. The music world - be it classical or pop or jazz - are full of gems to discover. And a developed MM could be an important part to giude the listeners. Go for it :-).

By the way: is there a list of the MM field names and the expressions in the id3-world? This would help me understand the tagging of MM. ---> Maybe this?"https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index. ... Properties"?

Regards

bmf
nothing but a bmf ....
--------------------------
Windows 10 Professional (64 Bit); MM 5 (lifetime licence);
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Davo
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Re: More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

Post by Davo »

[url][https://www.dropbox.com/s/22i70hwu2fnce ... t?dl=0/url]

This is my approach to classical music tagging. The discussion about classical tags has gone on for years, i fear it will never be resolved. I think classical music lovers are regarded as being in the minority these days.
I welcome any feedback on this subject.
David
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jiri
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Re: More tag fields for listeners of classical music [#14963]

Post by jiri »

Just a note: As a part of https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14972 we have added support for any possible more or less standardized fields, so I hope that it'll cover at least some of the needs mentioned in this thread.

Jiri
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