There has been much discussion of tagging deficiencies when it comes to classical music. Frankly, this has not been a huge issue for me, even though I have a fair amount of classical music in my collection. No, I cant track what color shirt Mozart was wearing when he scrawled out Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, but the fields available for saving the basic information are robust enough to satisfy my needs.
First, some disclaimers: These comments apply to FLAC/Ogg tags. I cant speak for ID3 tags. Dont use em. Also, ceejay has an issue with at least one of my practices leaving the Artist tag blank in some instances, so Ill add that these comments apply to SlimServer/SqueezeBox exclusively, although in my opinion, any software/player that cant handle a blank artist tag gracefully is pretty lame. Heres the information I want saved with my classical music files: - Name of piece - Name of movement - Composer - Performing group - Conductor - Soloist(s) - Date of recording All of this information can be saved in the existing FLAC/Ogg tags. When I Browse Artists on the SqueezeBox, I want composers, performing groups (orchestra/band/ensemble whatever you want to call it) and soloists names to be listed along with the other (pop, jazz, etc.) artists names in my collection. If they are listed as such, I have up to three ways to zero in on a particular classical selection. The other side of the coin to managing your classical collection is your filing methodology. Heres what I do, and 99% of the time, it works great. After I rip a CD, I create a root folder for its tracks. I name the folder <performing group - conductor>, i.e. Chicago Symphony Orchestra Charles Munch. If there happens to be more than one orchestra/conductor, then I create a root folder for each. If the CD focuses on a soloist primarily, then I name the root folder after the artist, i.e. Rubinstein, Arthur. Inside of the root folder, I create one or more subfolders for each composer represented by the tracks, i.e. Beethoven, Ludwig van. Inside of this subfolder, I create third-level subfolders named for the pieces, i.e. Symphony, No. 6 In F Major. Into these third-level subfolders, I copy the individual tracks for the piece. In some instances, the tracks from a CD may end up in five or six or more subfolders, depending on the number of pieces that were included on the CD. The point of all of this is to create a virtual album for each discreet piece of music that appeared on the CD. After Ive created the folder structure for the tracks from the CD, I open Tag&Rename and renumber the tracks in the various subfolders so that they all start with 01. For each track, I enter the name of the piece (Album Title), the title of the movement (Track Title), the composer (Composer), the name of the performing group (Orchestra/Band/Album Artist), the conductor (Conductor) and the year (Year). I leave the Artist tag empty unless a soloist or soloists appeared on that particular track. The advantage to splitting up CDs into multiple virtual albums is that, for instance, when I want to listen to Beethovens 6th, I browse directly to it, rather than to track 4 of the album that contained both the 5th and the 6th symphonies (which is how it appeared on the CD itself). Regarding leaving the Artist tag blank, I have to do a little more experimenting, but I am thinking that it should almost ALWAYS be blank, regardless of musical style, pop, jazz, classical or whatever. I think the Orchestra/Band/Album Artist tag is where that text belongs. Im thinking that the Artist tag should be reserved for an artist that is specific to that track, not the album as a whole. Your mileage may vary. -- jonheal Jon Heal says: Have a nice day! http://www.theheals.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ jonheal's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2133 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18946 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
