Cataloging classical music on a hard drive
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 9:50AM
#2
RE: Cataloging classical music on a hard drive
Hello I am the designer of Musichi Suite, our application was designed from the ground up for classical and it was a labor of love, we have out of the box, a composition field [on top of the Album tag], multi-lines tag for instruments and performers, a Genre that goes beyond the word "Classical" and a timeline tag "Style or Period"so for example
Composer>Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)
Composition> Mozart, Flute & Harp Concerto K299 in C-M; Rampal, Laskine, Paillard Chamber Orchestra
Album Artists>
Rampal, Jean-Pierre [Flute]
Laskine, Lily [Harp]
Orchestre de Chambre Jean-François Paillard
Instruments>
(04.03) Winds>Flute
(03.13) Strings>Harp
Genre>
(02.02) Concerto>Double
Period>
(06) Classical
All metadata is stored inside the audio files so you are never a prisoner of any library format or proprietary software....all that for mp3, wav[yes we can tag wave],flac, m4a and a few more. Plus a reference data base and a search engine to clean composers, performers and 6000 compositions in the catalog.
I doubt that there are many software out there that offer so much to classify and play [in HiFi-Bit perfect output] our favorite style of music.....
Mon, Feb 25 2013, 12:29PM
#3
RE: Cataloging classical music on a hard drive
Muso (http://klarita.net/muso.html) was designed with dedicated support for classical music in mind.
With predefined fields for Composer, Conductor, Orchestra, Performer(s), Track Group Header (which can be used for the Composition), Disk Subheader, Album Subheader, plus 10 spare/custom fields (which can be fed by custom tags) which can be used for Sub-Genre, Opus Number, Classical Period, etc, it's flexible enough to satisfy the most discerning classical music enthusiast.
Then it supports various ways to present the albums (or works) and allow you to find the music you want - eg. hierarchical drill-down by Composer to Sub-Genre to Orchestra to Conductor, or by Conductor to Classical Period etc - it's fully flexible.
Once you have found an album, the album view presents information much like you see on a CD booklet. Furthermore you can browse and read any liner notes you have stored along-side the album tracks.
http://musoware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Classical_Music_Support
Wed, Mar 20 2013, 8:22AM
#4
RE: Cataloging classical music on a hard drive
Using custom fields is always a risk and breaks interoperability between applications. The "best" compromise on metadata/tagging I've seen is from Naxos: http://blog.naxos.com/2012/04/lets-talk-about-metadata/
Wed, Mar 20 2013, 12:23PM
#5
RE: Cataloging classical music on a hard drive
Forgetting ipod, phones, portable devices that output a suboptimal sound for classical music, any decent computer player software do offer custom fields mapping (Jriver, MusicBee, MusiCHI). Naxos stays with the statusquo which cannot work too well -> lack of composition field vs. album and the artist field as such is not adequate, try to list all the singers, conductor & orchestra of a Mozart opera (including their voice type).....
This metadata business was designed by a younger crowd, which do not listen nor know about classical and it shows, Naxos just cops with the limitations well enough, but IMHO does not solve anything.
Mon, Apr 8 2013, 6:38PM
#6
RE: Cataloging classical music
See my post about 3beez's Wax Music Management System (www.3beez.com) on the General Discussion Forum ("software to catalogue a classical music collection"). Wax has an elegant solution for managing classical music metadata.
The Naims mentioned are network players, including digital to analogue conversion and amplification.
The best way to feed them is with a simple NAS device running suitable UPnP/DLNA software: I've been using TwonkyMediaServer for a long time, and have of late been playing with MinimServer, which seems better suited to classical music.
You'll find more guidance on servers and players in our Listening Wirelessly section.
Audio Editor, Gramophone