I have a large library of mostly classical/opera, with some soundtracks, jazz, and electronica thrown in. I've ripped about half of it so far, and have approx 2 TB of FLAC files.
1. How do you find music in your own library ? - Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus) By Album or Artist (using custom album format for classical based on composer and work; Artist includes performers, conductors, and ensembles). - Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different situations ? iPeng on iPhone (preferred), front-panel controls on Boom, or IR remote for SB3. - Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings, play counts, history) No -- I find music based on whatever my mood strikes me; whether that means listening to a Ring cycle, or all my Autechre albums. - Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ? No - Do you use album art when selecting what to play ? No - Do you typically start searching/browsing from an artist, album or track and want to find something related to that ? Start at Album or Artist, not track 2. How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't have in your library ? - Heard it on the radio? In the past, when I lived in LA and listened to KUSC, not anymore. - Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar artists ? Branch from known composers to related unknown ones, or to unfamiliar works. - Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music store directly? Web sites, Amazon reviews can be useful to help distinguish versions or different remasterings. - Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when searching for new music ? Computer. - Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar? I usually only buy based on reviews. I exclusively buy lossless, and MP3 previews are not useful to me. - Do you use a subscription based service so you aren't actually buying albums, you just need to find the albums/tracks you are interested in by browsing the service ? No, but the B&W service looks interesting. - Through reviews ? Any specific online site ? Various classical music blogs, subscription to Fanfare (fanfarearchives.com), reviews on music-web. - Through friends ? Some community site ? No 3. How would you like to be able to find music in your own library in the future ? - What kind of functionality is missing today related to browsing? Lacking lots of needed features needed for classical/opera, such as explicit support (tag support [incl. sort versions] and menus) for the following tags: composer, work, opus no.(or KV etc), original work name (e.g. in german or french), classical part (e.g. movement no. and description), conductor, performer with instrument, singer with voice type and role. - What kind of functionality is missing today related to searching? Search by conductor, work, opus no., ensemble, performer, instrument, voice type, opera role. 4. How would you like to find new music you like to buy/get in the future ? - What would you like to do through the Squeezebox/SBS or one of it's remotes? No. - What would you like to do on some other hardware? Browser the web and read e.g. Fanfare via something like an iPad, but with more resolution. 5. What kind of tagging/management do you do on new music you add to your library to make it easier to find stuff later on ? - Which additional tags do you add which isn't handled by standard SBS today ? Disknumber/Disktotal Disktracknumber (per disc, allowing track to overflow for multi-disc albums) Classical work Classical opus no. Classical composer, and composersort Classical part Classical short work (e.g. abbreviating "A-flat minor" to "ab") Classical album is synthesized from composer and work, a single CD may contain multiple albums. Classical album name (e.g. Bernstein plays Bernstein), if applicable - Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ? Yes. This is my primary way of recovering the location of the FLAC files relating to a single CD. - If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides those supported by SBS ? Stopped using custom scan due to inability to get it working just the way I needed it. - Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ? No ratings. 6. Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make it easier to find interesting music ? No. I won't allow any app to touch my tags automatically. I use Foobar 2K to query my tags and find things, MP3Tag with lots of custom regexes to help automate my tagging process. -- felixh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ felixh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=39681 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80910 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
