Organising classical music

[kilucas]

I hold copies of my ripped classical CDs as MP3s. Generally I have one MP3 for each movement of a piece so a typical symphony comprises 4 separate mp3s.

I'm holding the mp3s in a simple folder hierarchy of CD within composer (and just use a "compilations" folder to manage CDs with pieces by more than one composer).

I can therefore use Winamp's Add button to load all MP3s (movements or single-movement pieces) from a CD or all those by a given composer. Or even all classical music. But if I shuffle them then the movements of a symphony for example become detached whereas I'd like to be able to shuffle symphones (sets of 4 MP3s) as a whole.

I wondered if I should be using playlists to keep movements together and realised that I wasn't sure how best to organise playlists for classical music. For example, is there any merit in storing playlists within the CD or composer folders or am I better off storing all playlists in a separate folder structure entirely?

Is any one type of playlist better than the others for use with classical music and to help solve this issue of keeping movements together?

And I make limited use of Shoutcast (and MP3toolbox to an even more limited extent). Would that affect the organisational choices I might make with classical music perhaps?

If anyone has any guidance on organisation of classical music for use in Winamp and Shoutcast, I'd be very interested to hear.

Thanks

Kevin

[aijoovai]

To all classical music friends the whole issue of arranging classical music if, of course, of great importance.

I think that the biggest, yet not the only, problem is the lack of the composer field (it's not searchable, nor can it be added to the ML view, not to mention the "Artist" pane on top of the ML. A number of players such as iTunes and MusicIP Mixer (previously Predixis MusicMagicMixer) have implemented this whole issue pretty well.

In this
thread somebody mentioned that the composer field hasn't been put avaible possibly because there hasn't been demand for it.

So, please comment in this thread or the other if you think that Winamp should do a better job for the classical music lovers.

[Soap]

I'd love to see a solution to this problem. At a minimum, one would want to store

1. composer (Bach, Johann Sebastian)
2. performing artist (Jonathan Manson and Trevor Pinnock)
3. name of the work (Sonata in G minor, BWV 1029)
4. name and number of the movement (01 Vivace)
5. name of the album (J S Bach Sonatas for Viola de gamba and Harpsichord)

One way to get by with winamp is to replace "Artist" with the composer, append the performing artists to the name of the album (although this can get quite long - long enough to break the Windows file system), and combine numbers 3 and 4. Then religiously stick to a file sytem of Artist / Album / Track Number + Title. The example above would have

Bach, Johann Sebastian
J S Bach Sonatas for Viola da gamba and Harsichord - Johnathan Manson and Trevor Pinnock
01 Sonata in G minor, BMV 1029 Vivace

Winamp can be told to recognize this organization using the Media Library Preferences > Local Media > Watch Folders > Metadata Reading Settings > Configure > Simple. Something like it can be imposed during ripping using CD Ripping > Output File Preferences. When you rip tracks, you'll need to edit the Artist and Album, since winamp will recognize the correct ones, not the ones with the changes suggested above.

Once the files are loaded into winamp, the id3 file info can be forced to match by selecting the tracks, right clicking, choosing "Edit selected items", and then "Update."

It would obviously be better to store the composer and performing artist separately, but winamp does not support this. Well, not exactly - you can edit the file information and enter the composer under "View file info", followed by "Update." However, that extra information is not visible in winamp (except as file info).

It would be helpful to know when, if ever, the composer field will be treated on a par with the artist field (at least as an option). That might justify going to the bother of editing the file info for someone, like me, who is just starting to move to mp3.

By the way, I'm surprised that there's not more demand for the composer field. Don't people realize that most performers don't write their own music? Doesn't anyone listen to jazz? Or remakes of earlier songs?

So much for the basics. What would really be nice, eventually (don't hold your breath), would be the ability to to list multiple performing artists. Some of the popular ones, like Luciano Pavarotti and James Galway, seem to have performed with almost everyone.

For now, the best strategy seems to be to use a consistent directory structure and file naming convention, and keep your Windows "Search" function handy to supplement winamp.

[tynmon]

I totally agree with Soap.

The lack of a composer TOP column (library indexed by composer) is the single reason I don't use Winamp as much as I would like to. I like the way Microsoft Media Player handles this issue.

In the left pane of Media Player's library view stands the option to choose media files viewed by artist, composer, genre, year, etc. You have the choise.

You choose composer and a list of all composer entries appear under "composer". You then click a particular composer name and all the composer's entries show up by album and then by track. Simple! Choose genre and then classical or jazz and a list of all classical or jazz albums and tracks appear. Simple!

I know, one can build queries in Winamp but there's no way to make composer or genre or any other field appear as the top field. The top field in Winamp is always the artist field. This is quite restricting.

It would be very appealing to all listeners of classical, jazz, new age etc. music if Winamp would solve this matter.

After all I cannot see why Winamp lacks this very simple feature. Having this feature well implemented along with its gapless playback feature would make Winamp a killer application for everybody.

Classical and jazz music listeners shouldn't be that much ignored.

[jph6t]

Agreed ... the support for classical content within Winamp stinks. But in Winamp's defense ... the suport for classical content stinks in most all media players. Sure, some may have their isolated features that help, as highlighted above, but none really nail it ... the way it would be were a player built from the ground up to handle classical music. Now that I have you thinking about the perfect classical player ... STOP THINKING ABOUT IT ... it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

However, I do have some good news ...

I think I've envisioned a workaround that could meet a lot of the above requested features. It would require applying a tagging pattern to your classical music files & the granting of two (2) Winamp Wishes:

1. ID3v2.4 Support

1. (both within the tags & the ML)
2. Album Shuffle

First off ... don't be thinking of ways to adjust the ML Playlists kilucas. We should be focusing on the Media Library (ML) here. 'ML Playlists' are more static ... think of it like a mix you make for a friend. It's a set order. The ML is driven by the content contained in the ID tags, and you should be able to create dynamic playlists (as in the playlist window) via the sorts and filters applied within Smart Views. And personaly I prefer to keep my files in as few folders as possible, so I want the organization to be driven by the tags, not the folder structure. This also means that when I transfer the files to other locations, the logic comes with it, regardless of where the file is saved.

I see the above request in two parts:

1. Organization & Viewing
2. Playlist Generation

WORKAROUND - Part 1

This workaround requires the granting of wish #1

Now some new fields were added to the File Info window in Winamp v5.3. Furthermore, discussion in the release thread for 5.3 seems to indicate that further additions, and most importantly updates for these additional fields within the Media Library (ML) may be slotted for inclusion in a future release. The simple addition of the existing File Info fields to the ML would meet most needs and enable browsing/sorting by composer, conductor, orchestra, album, work, etc.

Now that one can filter and sort down to a desired sample of data via the Smart Views ... how does one shuffle among symphonies within that sample (assuming the sample contains numerous symphonies)?

WORKAROUND - Part 2

This workaround requires the granting of wish #2

As I understand kilucus' post. He is looking to shuffle among symphonies, with each symphony containing about four tracks. To achieve this, manipulate the Album field within your ID3 tag. Start with the actual album name, then hyphen, then the name of the symphony. Example entries for the Album Field(s) of a twelve track Album with three symphonies on it released under the title of "Mozart's Greatest Hits":

1. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony ABC
2. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony ABC
3. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony ABC
4. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony ABC
5. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony DEF
6. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony DEF
7. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony DEF
8. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony DEF
9. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony GHI
10. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony GHI
11. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony GHI
12. Mozart's Greatest Hits - Symphony GHI

Track numbers would be left as they were on the original album ... 1 through 12.
With this tagging system in place, each symphony would appear in Winamp as it's own album. But the albums would also appear side by side in the ML, making it easy to select all three. Highlighting all three "albums" would give one all the tracks of the actual album (in this example, 'Mozart's Greatest Hits'). Since the tracks were left as they were on the actual album, one would have no problem playing them in the order as they exist on the CD.

Meanwhile, an album shuffle would enable playing a symphony from end-to-end in order of movement(s). It wouldn't matter that 'Symphony GHI' was track number 9, 10, 11, 12 since there is no track(s) 1 through 8. Winamp would just play in sequence the tracks that are available for the selected album/symphony.

Unfortunately, I see no momentum on the addition of an Album Shuffle function. However, this is a feature that many would want across genres, not just those who listen to classical music. As such, there would be more value in adding this functinality as it would benefit more people. Perhaps if we all post support for this feature in the Album Shuffle thread(s) we can give this wish some legs ...

... and eventually have a player a little more friendly towards classical music.

[jph6t]

Originally posted by jph6t
WORKAROUND - Part 2
This workaround requires the granting of wish #2

Perhaps if we all post support for this feature in the
Album Shuffle thread(s) we can give this wish some legs ...

If the dev team likes the idea AND people are supporting the feature request ...
... seems like we may have a chance

[jph6t]

Originally posted by jph6t
WORKAROUND - Part 1
This workaround requires the granting of wish #1

Wish #1 was granted with the release of Winamp v5.32!
Thank you DEV team!!!

[LeadFoot]

Any word on how wish #2 is progressing? I've been following jph6t's threads on the issue and would really love to see it implemented...

[Aggienator]

Originally posted by aijoovai
To all classical music friends the whole issue of arranging classical music if, of course, of great importance.

<Snip>

So, please comment in this thread or the other if you think that Winamp should do a better job for the classical music lovers.

This is the main thing restricting my use of Winamp. My collection is about 70% Classical. I would really like to be able to view this in ML by composer instead of artist. I think one of the problems has been the delay with tagging systems of introducing a system that meets the needs of those who listen to large amounts of classical music, but with the addition of the composer tag this seems to have improved.

So please add my vote to improving the support for classical music!

[LeadFoot]

I was doing some searching and found these threads:

Classical Music Supertagging:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...=32721&hl=Tagz
- I found this to be less interesting, as it is just different individuals giving their opinions.

I was checking out the changes to the tags in 5.32. They look quite satisfactory for how I would tag my classical music...once I get around to ripping it.


Musicbrainz Classical Style Guide:
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/ClassicalStyleGuide
Slightly more interesting as this is how Musicbrainz actually wants submissions (although this is only a consensus of opinions...)

(I actually found these threads on a post in the Godfather forums, so MrTao should get the credit...)

But yes, an improvement would be appreciated, but as long as the more popular requests get fulfilled first. I am patient enough to wait on this (just as long as they fix #2 now!!! )

[Aggienator]

Originally posted by LeadFoot
I was doing some searching and found these threads:
<snip>

My problem with the musicbrainz solution is that it tries to fit the reality to technology rather than the other way round. The composer is the composer, not the artist. I hope that Winamp will soon support proper use of the composer field.

Happy New Year to all

[DJ Egg]

The composer field is already supported, in both the tags and media library, and also in the playlist advanced title formatting. What more do you want?

[Aggienator]

Originally posted by DJ Egg
The composer field is already supported, in both the tags and media library, and also in the playlist advanced title formatting. What more do you want?

Is it possible in ML to view your music by composer instead of artist? I am relatively new to Winamp, and this is what I am trying to achieve. If I cn do this Winamp will be my surefire winner!

Cheers

[jph6t]

Originally posted by Aggienator
Is it possible in ML to view your music by composer instead of artist?

Yes Aggienator, as Egg pointed out, the Composer field is already supported. You can view the Composer information (contained within the ID3v2 tag) in the song pane of the ML. Right click on the column headings and select "Customize columns...". Note, you can NOT replace Artist w/ Composer in the top two (2) panes if using a Filter Set.

[jph6t]

Originally posted by Aggienator
My problem with the musicbrainz solution is that it tries to fit the reality to technology rather than the other way round. The composer is the composer, not the artist.

Did you read my post above?

Originally posted by jph6t
Agreed ... the support for classical content within Winamp stinks. But in Winamp's defense ... the suport for classical content stinks in most all media players. Sure, some may have their isolated features that help, as highlighted above, but none really nail it ... the way it would be were a player built from the ground up to handle classical music. Now that I have you thinking about the perfect classical player ...
STOP THINKING ABOUT IT ... it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

However, I do have some good news ...

I think I've envisioned a workaround that could meet a lot of the above requested features. It would require applying a tagging pattern to your classical music files & the granting of two (2) Winamp Wishes:

1. ID3v2.4 Support

1. (both within the tags & the ML)
2. Album Shuffle

Certain concessions to "reality" are gonna have to be made ...
We can NOT expect Winamp to morph itself into the classical media player at the expense of all other developement. I think the solution I have proposed above is a reasonable compromise, and can provide Classical fans a great deal of what they want/need with the DEV teams granting of just one more wish.

[Aggienator]

Indeed it was your first post that inspired me to try again. I am using the free version of Winamp, does it contain smart views, or are these only in the paid for version (I can't find them - but that night be me!).

[LeadFoot]

No, the pro version gets you faster ripping and burning:
http://www.winamp.com/player/

Codecs have to be licensed and paid for, after all.

(You can use other tools to rip & burn (CDex, EAC, CDBurnerXP, burrrn, etc.) so having it all-in-one is a personal choice.)

[jph6t]

Originally posted by Aggienator
Indeed it was your first post that inspired me to try again. I am using the free version of Winamp, does it contain smart views, or are these only in the paid for version (I can't find them - but that night be me!).

SmartViews are a basic part of the Media Library included in Winamp.
They come with the free versions (Full and above)
http://www.winamp.com/player/free.php

If you are having trouble with the SmartViews, then I suggest first playing around with Winamp to better understand it (and seaking out appropriate threads within the forum besides this one) before trying to customize it for Classical music.

[Aggienator]

Brilliant, thanks, i have finaly found it and it (almost) does what I want. Now if we could have composer instead of artist in the top right pane harmony would reign supreme! But as it is will do me nicely while the devs sort more pressing issues :-)

Thanks for the help

[tynmon]

Happy New Year to all!

I have tried SmartViews but I regret to say that I'm not satisfied. The only real solution that I could see is to BROWSE by Composer. That is use Composer instead of Artist as it is implemented in Windows Media Player. Just get the list of available Composers and see Albums and then Tracks featuring those Composers. It would simply be Composer>Album>Track. This example is implemented in Windows Media Player for years. Simple! If I'd like to listen to a symphony by say, Beethoven, I would go to Composers and look for "Beethoven". Then go tho albums featuring Beethoven as a Composer and select say album "Symphony No.9 - Karajan". Then I would simply select the whole Album or the tracks featuring Symphony No.9. Simple and clear.

The same would apply with Genre and Year of Recording or even maybe Band/Orchestra or Conductor. The paradigm is there: Windows Media Player. Excuse me but I don't see why it's so hard to do it in Winamp... One should be able to choose Composer instead of Artist.

Nobody would create SmartViews for every Composer his/her library features! This is absurd!... And then, there is not just classical music where Composer matters. It's jazz, new age, soundtracks, etc. There are even forms of pop music that Composer is more significant than the artist/performer.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I hope it will help somehow make Winamp a better application.

[LeadFoot]

How about making it easier (or even possible?) to make a cascading smartview? Where you can configure the view by entering various tags (i.e.: %composer%>%album%>%track%, if GENRE=Classical and %artist%>%album%>%track% if not classical and %album%>%track% if GENRE=Soundtrack).

How does that sound? I think that would grant MOST peoples wishes. It would mine, if we could get random album play with it!

[tynmon]

This sounds interesting. Being myself a database programmer –I design/code both database back-ends and front-ends (i.e. the User Interface) I cannot see why this cannot be done. I have to make clear that I have no experience in media files such as MP3 and their metadata (known as tags). However I guess, a database is created as files are added to Winamp’s Media Library consisting of fields for media file tags i.e. artist, title, album, year, genre, composer etc. The various views-panes are data-bound to the database’s fields. Upper-left pane is bound to the Artist field. Then upper-right pane is bound to the upper-left pane’s selection (Albums of the Artist selected). Finally the lower pane is bound to upper-right pane’s selection (Tracks of the Album selected). Sorry but I could find no difficulty at all in making a view were Composer is used instead of the Artist. Or for this matter anything else such as Genre, Band, Year and so on. As soon as the Media Library holds fields for Composer, Genre, etc this can definitely be done. I cannot see why all the fuzz here about it. And then I see in this forum people asking for Genre-based browsing. Once again this is implemented for years in Windows Media Player which is otherwise not as a fine piece of software as Winamp is. I understand that Winamp programmers have lots to do but User Interface is what the user sees and uses. So the better the UI the more attractive is the software.

[qwert73]

Originally posted by LeadFoot
I was doing some searching and found these threads:

Classical Music Supertagging:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...=32721&hl=Tagz
- I found this to be less interesting, as it is just different individuals giving their opinions.

These different individuals doesn't just give their opinion but alrady found a solution with a player that offer "freestyle tagging".

My recommendation: Before discussing two or three years what all is necessary for organizing classical music better take this and start organizing it.

[LeadFoot]

Why don't you discuss that in the foobar forum instead of here? This is a discussion on using ML to organize, isn't it?

[qwert73]

Originally posted by LeadFoot
Why don't you discuss that in the foobar forum instead of here? This is a discussion on using ML to organize, isn't it?

In the foobar forum there is no need for such discussions and although i use foobar that doesn't mean that i don't use WA anymore!

If you want to put a nail in wall you will take a hammer and if you like to paint this wall a brush may help you: each purpose has its own means. The fact is that winamp is far away from being an ideal tool for organizing.May be that some people will become happy if this column or that column will be added. But there will also remain a big part that will say: " Oh, but where is column blabla ?? - without it i cannnot organize". The fact is that organizing music (even from same genre)is an individual thing - that means: If we both organize classical music that doesn't mean that we have to use the same tags and fields.

As long as Winamp doesn't support "freestyle tagging" such discussions like here will appear. I mean following basics with that type of tagging:
- unlimited creation of tags (look view file info... for ogg files )
- each tag can be a multiple one
- each tag is automatically represented by a column
- each tag can be used in tree views or wa-like paneviews

Please, don't understand me wrong: I don't say that Winamp has to support this. I even believe the most users won't use the full potential of that tagging. Just want to say: if you likes to paint a wall take brush!!

[jph6t]

We have to be reasonable in our requests ... there are limited development resources available. As I stated before, I don't think we are ever going to get the perfect classical music player ... there just isn't enough demand as these problems are not experienced by all users.

However, if we meet the developers half-way, and impliment user workarounds on a few things, and the DEV team adds a few new features ... we can have a player that will meet most of our needs.

This is an attainable short-term solution. We can list features that we want for the perfect long-term solution. But in the meantime I'd like to enjoy my classical tunes within my player of choice … Winamp.

[tynmon]

Features offered is a critical field when choosing an application. It's got to offer what a user assumes it’s important to him/her. (Others things to consider is stability, performance and of course cost.) For a piece of software to 'survive' in the competition war got to be offering the most in a certain cost range. Practically most of media players (except for DVD players) are free. Windows Media Player comes free with windows. So for a user to consider another media player such a program has to do better (in reality much better) than WMP. And WMP has done the COMPOSER view feature long ago. BTW iPod got almost exactly the some feature. (I know Winamp excels in other fields such as variety of decoders and gapless playback).

What I try to say is that no matter what resources are available (an undeniably very important factor) in the end of the day it's the final product that matters. To me it doesn't seem that hard to implement a BY COMPOSER view. Checking my previous post you can see what I mean. The hard work is already done. It's relatively simple to bind a view to COMPOSER instead of ARTIST. We don't ask for more. This is a VERY reasonable request.

If one was seeking a really a total classical music library solution the he would ask for at least two more features:

1. A by ORCHESTRA (BAND) view, and,
2. A by CONDUCTOR view.

These two tags are very important to a classical music listener. Very important. And not any more difficult to implement than the by ARTIST view.

We didn't yet ask for such features. What we ask is the absolute MINIMUM. A Composer > Album > Track view. Not more. Do we ask much? This is matter of respect after all! We ask for it for so long and then in therms of ethics it's important that from time to time minorities be treated as well.

[DJ Egg]

So you'd be happy with having a Composer/Album option in the 'Add/Edit View' dialog's Filters tab for 5.34 then?

[tynmon]

Thanks for your response DJ Egg!

Well, I think it'll do the trick for us! That's all we asked for. THANKS! Better late than never! So it finally seems we'd be able to use our favourite player as we'd like.

From a programmer's/user's standview I believe the Smart View/Filter option which is a really great conception (other programs simply lack this feature all together) would be even more expandable. If one would be able to create such a filter for all (or most) available tags then I think nobody would ask for more. He/she'd be able to create his/her view with no constrains at all. No more stubborn ones (like me!) asking for this or that. It will stand as an almost "total" solution.

After all, all those tags were made in the first place because some people thought it would be useful to be able to store this info. Nowadays that a common user often holds thousands of mp3's or other media files, a library is quite important. In the old days of holding 100 or 200 files it wasn't the case but now it certainly is. So a good library is central in the use of a modern media player.

BTW: Is publisher more important to most users than composer???

Thanks again for quick responding.

[DJ Egg]

Yeah, I reckon 'Record Label' (publisher) is probably just as important or more widely used than 'Composer', these days.

Composer is really only used for Classical music,
whereas Record Label is used for all published music.

Anyway, wish granted... 5.34 implements the Composer/Album filter,
and everyone's happy again, for now :-)

[jph6t]

Originally posted by DJ Egg
Yeah, I reckon 'Record Label' (publisher) is probably just as important or more widely used than 'Composer', these days.

Interesting. I would not have expected that.
Just shows how one user's needs can vary from another's.

Originally posted by DJ Egg
5.34 implements the Composer/Album filter

Thank you DJ Egg and DEV team!
I think this change will be of great help to many in this thread.

And not to get something, and then immediately ask for more ...
But remember the other open item in this thread relating to kilucas' original post.
He is looking to shuffle among symphonies, with each symphony containing about four tracks. As per my above proposed workaround, I think the addition of album shuffle would enable kilucas to achieve the desired outcome.

[jph6t]

Originally posted by DJ Egg
Yeah, I reckon 'Record Label' (publisher) is probably just as important or more widely used than 'Composer', these days.

But isn't the Publisher value only stored in the MLDB and not the actual ID3v2 tag?

As such, if the MLDB is corrupted and or lost ... the Publisher info is lost with it
and can't be retrieved from the physical files. Correct?

[DJ Egg]

It depends on the file format.

Currently, Publisher is written to FLAC, OGG and WMA tags, but not to MP3 and M4A tags (though probably should be, for a future release).

But surely you backup your mldb on a regular basis anyway, yes?

[jph6t]

In Winamp v5.34 new functionality was introduced to the Album pane of the Media Library (ML). For albums which have tracks in different years, the ML now displays the range of years that the Album spans.

If you tag any of your classical music files with the year the piece was composed
(as opposed to recorded) then you are likely to have Albums with tracks in the 18th or 19th century … and thus likely interested in the feature request I have logged here

[kilucas]

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread.

I've been exploring the Media Pane more and wish I'd seen some of the suggestions on tag use before I invented my own (somewhat inferior) scheme. I've a lot of tracks so it'd take a while to reorganise their tags. But I suspect that'll be worth doing until the tools themselves help a little more.

It'd be great to see Album Shuffle (which would still demand I modify all my Album tags) or something else that would enable queuing of multi-track works. I have a lot of these and would very much like the option of listening to the pieces as a whole without losing the option to listen to single tracks too.

So in the meatime my vote goes to Album Shuffle too.

Thanks all
Kevin