> Many thanks for the considered feedback! Thanks for responding quickly and positively.
> The Slimserver/Squeezebox is fairly easy to set up to do > all of those things EXCEPT that smart selection by > conductor/etc is less than ideal. I'm not sure that I would rate the Slimserver/SB so high. Maybe when it is better documented, it will seem more useful to me. Without the Slimserver setting to add Composer tags to the Artist list, I don't think that Slimserver would be useful at all. However, I want to browse Composer first and the Conductor and Soloist at a later step. One example. I've tried playing a work from Softsqueeze with the following commands: Browse Music,Browse Artists, Beethoven, Coriolan Overture, Softsqueeze then displays "5. Overture Coriolan Op. 62". I click the play button and the track is played. Then it starts again. If I select a work with more than one movement, display the first track and click the play button, the tracks will be played in order but then they are played again. I've looked for some way to change this behavior and haven't found anything yet. When I'm going through the menu steps, it is hard for me to know what I'm choosing. I have 2 Beethoven Symphony 3 recordings in the library. After I select Beethoven as the artist, I scroll to Symphony 3. There are two entries displayed with that text (I don't know whether it is the album or a folder name.) To pick the one I want with Savall conducting, I have to select one with the right arrow, showing the first track and then press the down arrow to get artist information. None of this is documented and I'm just blundering around trying to figure out how things work and how I might accomplish what I want. > - Gapless - yes, you're right to highlight this as a > requirement. However you don't have to go the single > file/cuefile route - FLAC, properly ripped, will do this > just fine. Equally, if you go the single file/cue sheet > route you can still play a single movement if you fancy > (Slimserver works out that it is a "track"). Successive tracks without gaps are not the norm but they do occur. Any solution has to work correctly preserving gaps and in avoiding creating gaps where there were none on the CD. I think you probably want to turn off crossfade and such effects at the minimum. It isn't clear from the documentation what is done with cue sheets and how they will affect what you see in a list of albums, artists, etc. > - grouping the tracks/movements correctly together to make a > piece (eg symphony) is also, I agree critical. This is why > the "Album" recommendation is key. If you set up the 4 > movements of a symphony to be one album then slimserver will > find it very easy to play that album for you I don't understand playlists on SB/Slimserver at all. I know that on iTunes, they appear to be a single level thing - a collection of tracks. I think your answer is the sort of advice a user needs. > listening to a whole CD is made easy if you use the > recommendation to put one CD in one directory - > then you can use the Browse Music Folder function > to play it (although the pieces might not come out > in the same order - this depends on careful track naming) This needs to be spelled out in detail. Since using iTunes to rip and tag is supported by Slimserver/SB, the situation needs to be discussed for that case (where iTunes may control the directory layout.) > if I write up one of doing it and say "do it this way" there > will be lots of people who have equally valid ways who might > disgaree. Which is better will depend on subtleties in > desired usage. I agree that one size won't fit all. For example, I have few opera recordings and don't listen to opera much at all. I don't have the natural understanding of what an opera listener would want to do. > The way I'd thought of which might address this - its come up > in another context as well - would be to write a "This is how I > did it" example, which leaves it open to others to contribute > their own. Would that be helpful? Yes! In the main document, put a single short paragraph of description of the purpose and strength of that personal system and links to the detailed description. I think one person needs to edit the "This is how I did it" examples so that they can be compared and contrsted easily by the reader. Some information about the size of the writer's music library, what kind of music is in it and how he or she listens would provide good context. "This is how I did it" needs to link the tagging, layout and file naming schemes to the use of the SB or web interface. And no "mine is best" bragging. > any guide can only describe how to use the system as it is, > not how we'd like it to be. And its fair to say that I've not > yet seen a perfect system for dealing with the complexities > of Classical Music playing, there is a certain amount of > kludging going on here. There may well be a case for a > separate thread asking for more/better functionality! It was my intent to describe what I wanted without restriction for two purposes: 1) to get more documentation of using the existing product and 2) to create an awareness that some changes may be needed in the product. Especially in its user interface. > In the meantime I'll have a go at bringing some of your > comments and suggestions into the Guide as it is. Thanks for making the effort. I'm at the point where I have pretty clear ideas on what I want but not much understanding of how to get it. Bill -- Listener ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Listener's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2508 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18649 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
