Consistent metadata

M

Mabel

Audiophyte
Getting increasingly lost in my music library I noticed the great importance of CONSISTENT metadata tags. At the moment I use mp3tag to add/redress metadata, but this program doesn't provide anything to help me keeping my tags consistent.
Does anyone know which program does provide some support for consitency? It doesn't have to support lots of formats (like mp3tag does); mp3, aac and flac will do fine.
Mabel
 
everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
What library are you using. Monkey Media that I use does an excellent job for me. Kodi does as well IIRC
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
Does anyone know which program does provide some support for consitency?
What exactly do u mean by consistency? I also use mp3tag editor and have no problem editing all the fields (artist, album, year, etc.) consistently.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Plex Server. A single source of truth for all your music tagging.
Probably easiest to set it up is to get nVidia Shield TV Pro
 
M

Mabel

Audiophyte
@Ponzio: "What exactly do u mean by consistency?" Let me clarify:
When looking for a suitable piece of music to play my main orientation is on 'genre'. Afaik there is no general list of 'genres' around, so I started out with just a few genres (mainly those suggested by others through the EAC cd-ripper). But when my library grew I needed finer subdivisions. After a few years, I can't possibly remember what subdivisions I made, what genres I introduced. Nor whether I spelled 'R&B' or 'R & B'. People with some discipline might well use a (judiciously maintained) document to help memory, but I tried and failed. I'd much appreciate it if this were built-in with my metadata-editor.
This really doesn't seem too much to ask; even a simple drop-down list of 'terms already used' would be a great help to me. (A hierarchical list of divisions and sub-divisions would be even better, of course, but hey, I'm not that demanding:)

Then there is the problem with names. At the moment I have pieces composed by 'Beethoven', 'Ludwig von Beethoven', 'Ludwig van Beethoven', 'L. van Beethoven', 'L.van beethoven', 'Beethoven, Ludwig van', 'Beethoven, L. van' and more variations are to be expected.
My ideal metadata editor would help me to consistently use the same name. Ideally referring back to some internet database (there are several) but i'll gladly settle for consistency within my own library.

A more fundamental problem is that the use of metadata fields does not seem well defined; given a certain piece of music (or even more tricky: a certain cd) there are numerous ways to fill in the various fields. My ideal metadata editor would help me being consistent by showing me how I filled in the metadata for comparable pieces of music.

But I'm afraid I got into dreaming now; for starters some help filling in the 'genre' field would be greatly appreciated.
I am stressing 'consistency' because there are several fine tools around which can switch the data from one field to another if needed, but of course this can only be done in bulk if these fields are filled in a consistent way.

@everettT: You asked "What library are you using" I am as yet undecided about what media-server to use but everything starts by writing the right metadata into the files, doesn't it? I tried MediaMonkey but I can't say it did much to help me stay consistent. I'll have a look at Kodi, though; thanks for the tip.

@BoredSysAdmin: "Plex server". I'm getting increasingly confused: Plex, JRiver, Roon, WMS, JVC, Kodi... It may all be very good advice and if I live long enough I'll try them all, but I was hoping for some specific advice on how to tag my music files in a consistent way, like I described hereabove. Neither the screenshots nor the text on the plex website make it clear whether for instance the 'genre' field will provide a drop-down list of 'tags previously used' or any other support for consistency. In fact, the screenshots show fields geared to movies, not to music. And I can't make out whether the added 'tags' are written into the music files or merely conserved in the database.
 
everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
I use the built and add on in tagging feature in media monkey gold, no manual tagging except with live recorded music, which is done through adobe audition. You can use the batch function for multiple tracks, folders.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
@BoredSysAdmin: "Plex server". I'm getting increasingly confused: Plex, JRiver, Roon, WMS, JVC, Kodi... It may all be very good advice and if I live long enough I'll try them all, but I was hoping for some specific advice on how to tag my music files in a consistent way, like I described hereabove. Neither the screenshots nor the text on the plex website make it clear whether for instance the 'genre' field will provide a drop-down list of 'tags previously used' or any other support for consistency. In fact, the screenshots show fields geared to movies, not to music. And I can't make out whether the added 'tags' are written into the music files or merely conserved in the database.
WTF is JVC?
I am not understand your question fully. The way I understand consistent tagging is to have a single source of media. Kodi is not single source with multiple client (least without unsupported external mysql db)
Have your tiles tagged by one tagging editor. Index them in Plex Server and use plex clients for playback.
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
Mabel,

To be honest I don’t think what you’re looking for exists; a one stop shopping intuitive software app to fill in all the meta-data fields you want. I may be wrong and if you find it, please let us know. I’ll be the first to buy it. I caught the meta-data bug myself two years ago, so I feel your pain. I have roughly 3.2TB of music now and at one time it was becoming more & more difficult to get a handle on it. Indexing my HD (hard drive) drastically slowed down my PC whenever I did a search for a particular track/etc. and especially annoying was my inability to output an Excel data base that would create reports to my specs, including the specific folder location.

I use an old school player, WinAmp, because internally for “fields” it offered the most options. Then I picked mp3tag editor for single/bulk editing of my mp3, flac & wav files. And the final piece of the puzzle was Roxio’s Easy CD & DVD Burning software suite with its built-in access to the Grace Note data base for unknown tracks. While it’s not goof-proof, overall it has a 90% success rate and sadly I still have to research the songwriting credits for each song identified and label/publishing information and manually enter them. Yes I’m that anal. :) For research I use the Discogs & All Music Guide web sites. I’m still not able to create a master Excel spreadsheet of my collection with all the fields with an identifying header but hopefully with time the mp3tag editor suite will give me that ability as they update the software.

Good luck with your search and keep us in the loop.
 
M

Mabel

Audiophyte
@everettT: "no manual tagging except with live recorded music". Of course I hate it to have to add or - in most cases - alter the metadata and I, too, long relied on what is so generously uploaded by other music lovers and used by programs like MediaMonkey or EAC. But that is precisely why I now have so many different Beethovens in my collection! And spelling is only one problem; worse is that this beethoven sometimes figures as 'composer', sometimes as 'artist', sometimes as 'albumartist', and so on. At the moment, none of the mediaserver/mediaplayer combinations I tried can give me a list of all of Beethoven's works in my library. In fact, I can not even find 'works' by Beethoven as 'work' is not a valid metadata field!
There are many more reasons for my wish to edit metadata. E.g. to get rid of unhelpful album titles like 'The Great Conductors Series Vol 12'. In so called 'classical' music, albums mostly consist of a number of pieces, thrown together (with more or less reason or taste) to make up a 60minutes CD. To be able to find a symphony and play all parts in the right order, I find I simply have to edit the metadata.
So far, I was mainly talking about ripping old cd's, but the music I now buy digitally does hardly do better; there seems to be no consistency in the way various labels use the metadata fields.
Still more important, for me at least, is that this whole system (with albums, artists etc) seems to heavily rely on memory: I have to have all my library in my head, then choose a piece and set out to find it. I am not able to do that; I need to browse in my collection. But not in 'alphabetical order of album title' or by 'artist'; the only helpful tag here would be 'genre'. That's why I put support for that tag on top of my list.
Tagging my own recordings (I've a fair number) is the least of my worries; in fact tagging by itself is not the problem (like I said: mp3tag is fine); it's the consistency of the tags.

@BoredSysAdmin: "The way I understand consistent tagging is to have a single source of media." Well, as I explained, that is not what I mean; I am talking about the consistency of metadata in music files, wherever they may reside.
What you say about Kodi seems very relevant to me, but I'm afraid I don't really get what it is you are saying. Could you please tell a bit more?
BTW, 'JVC' is a 'slip of the pen'; I meant VLC.
mabel
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Just to be clear, I do not suggest you use Kodi. Plex is wholly different system. I could see why it could be confusing to you as some capabilities are similar, but Kodi does not stream your media to various devices.
What I feel confused about is why your media files need to reside at various places at all.
 
M

Mabel

Audiophyte
@BoredSysAdmin: I am glad you understand my confusion; I am still a newbee (but eager to learn). You say "What I feel confused about is why your media files need to reside at various places at all." Well, keeping a safe backup on a device which is usually disconnected is one reason. But maybe it's just a misunderstanding: apart from the backup, my files DO reside in one place: my media-server. I merely wanted to say that I am talking about the metadata as written into the media files; that is: independent of any mediaserver or mediaplayer software.
In the past, I naively started organising my photo's using software which put my laboriously added metadata in it's own database instead of writing it back into the picture files themselves. As the software I'd used went bust, I lost all my metadata, everything I'd done to organise my collection! So, I'm not about to make the same mistake with my music. If I take the trouble of manually organising my collection by adding metadata, I insist these are written into the music files; in a standardised way as much as is achievable. The only way I can make sure of that, I think, is to use a program like mp3tag.

@Ponzio: so good to know others are struggling as well! You say " Indexing my HD (hard drive) drastically slowed down my PC whenever I did a search for a particular track/etc." This is shocking! It is my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong please) that one of the functions of a mediaserver is to gather the metadata relevant for searching in a database. Querying this database should take a split-second! What software did you use?
To get "an Excel data base that would create reports to my specs" you might want to try the Metadata Extraction Tool (see sourceforge.net). It generatyes an xml-file, but this can be imported into Excel.
I'll certainly come back to this thread if I find a better metadata editor then mp3tag:)
Mabel
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Ok, So all your files are residing in same media server. Great start. I merely suggest to avoid the whole consistent tagging issue, you could use one media server, like Plex or volumio , and use it's native client or any web browser on various devices to access and play it.
This would guarantee you consistent metadata.
One more interesting music server is http://minimserver.com/features.html
Read more here on how to build one:
https://opensource.com/life/16/1/how-set-linux-based-music-server-home
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai


[USER=47769]@Ponzio
: so good to know others are struggling as well! You say " Indexing my HD (hard drive) drastically slowed down my PC whenever I did a search for a particular track/etc." This is shocking! It is my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong please) that one of the functions of a mediaserver is to gather the metadata relevant for searching in a database. Querying this database should take a split-second! What software did you use?

To get "an Excel data base that would create reports to my specs" you might want to try the Metadata Extraction Tool (see sourceforge.net). It generatyes an xml-file, but this can be imported into Excel.

I'll certainly come back to this thread if I find a better metadata editor then mp3tag:)

Mabel[/USER]


Trust me, indexing (Win 10) when enabled on a USB external 4TB HD filled with music bogs down something terrible when doing a search function. I've also disabled the function system wide. U're mileage may vary.

I'll give Metadata Extraction Tool a look. I've tried dozens of apps, including trying to manipulate mp3tag editor's various CSV reports, and none to date can seem to do what I want to do using a simple Excel worksheet. Simply a fixed row header (artist(s)/song/album/year recorded/genre/track/composer(s) credits/file location/label/publishing/notes, etc.) with the columns nicely populated with the relevant data below. It’s frustrating to know that the 1 and zeros are there in text format (ASCII?) in the mp3 file but importing it correctly has not been solved yet. Not to my satisfaction at least. Do I need to install/enable some SQL services in my registry? I don't know. To me it seems so simple in my mind :) but not so much in execution. :mad:
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
Downloaded Metadata Extraction Tool and the first thing I noticed in the descriptive/spec notes was that it was “limited” to so many fields in its data gathering … so back to square one. The simplistic batch GUI didn’t exactly inspire confidence either.
 
M

Mabel

Audiophyte
I merely suggest to avoid the whole consistent tagging issue, you could use one media server, like Plex or volumio , and use it's native client or any web browser on various devices to access and play it. This would guarantee you consistent metadata.
Please have patience: I am really struggling to understand what you mean here. HOW exactly would any mediaserver solve any of the inconsistencies I mentioned as examples? Could you maybe give an example to clarify this?

Trust me, indexing (Win 10) when enabled on a USB external 4TB HD filled with music bogs down something terrible when doing a search function.
That is disappointing, but at the same time somewhat reassuring because you are talking about a USB-drive. Theoretically I would expect this to work much less well then internal drives or a NAS-box. But I didn't mean this thread to be about mediaservers, just about metadata.
Please keep posting your experiences with the Metadata Extraction Tool!
 
Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
That is disappointing, but at the same time somewhat reassuring because you are talking about a USB-drive. Theoretically I would expect this to work much less well then internal drives or a NAS-box. But I didn't mean this thread to be about mediaservers, just about metadata.
Please keep posting your experiences with the Metadata Extraction Tool!
Doesn't matter whether it's a external 3.0 USB or an internal 7400rpm hard drive, the "search" function in Windows Explorer with indexing enabled just takes too long vs. non-indexed. I use an internal 4TB WD Black hard drive to do all the heavy lifting and then back it up daily to 4 external USB drives (2 WD's & 2 Seagate's).

Metadata Extraction Tool is not going to cut the cheese for me. There's a limited amount of columns supported for my needs.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Please have patience: I am really struggling to understand what you mean here. HOW exactly would any mediaserver solve any of the inconsistencies I mentioned as examples? Could you maybe give an example to clarify this?
Ok, Now I admit I was being an impatient idiot and by not reading your responses to ponzio, I've completely missed your question earlier, but I get it now. You're trying to organize your vast music library and have more consistency to easier find music, like in consistent genre. Music server may not be needed for that (still you may benefit greatly later on)

What you're looking for are music library manager. Again, I'm being impatient and I admit I've not investigated these in depth, but these seems to be more relevant to your question:
Articles:
https://www.techhive.com/article/3201150/home-audio/how-to-manage-your-digital-music-library.html
https://www.techhive.com/article/3192777/mp3-players/how-to-master-your-music-metadata-part-1.html
https://www.techhive.com/article/3193116/mp3-players/how-to-master-your-music-metadata-part-2.html
Software:
https://picard.musicbrainz.org/
https://www.clementine-player.org/en/
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
I've used Jaikoz that uses the musicbrainz DB and it is in an excel format for easy editing. You can have it auto tag then make sure all the data is correct. It's great.
 
Bucknekked

Bucknekked

Audioholic Samurai
Ok, Now I admit I was being an impatient idiot and by not reading your responses to ponzio, I've completely missed your question earlier, but I get it now. You're trying to organize your vast music library and have more consistency to easier find music, like in consistent genre.
BSA
I just read the entire thread from the beginning. I must admit, I did not catch the intent of the OP until I read several responses that missed the mark. Sometimes we get programmed in to what we think the problem is based on what we know about solutions. I think understand the problem, but I do not have a working solution. If we end up with one, I'd like to know what it ends up being.

I don't think I had more than the normal amount of metadata envy until I tried the Tidal HD audio 30 day trial. When I saw the metadata they've put together for their music/albums, wow ! They list everything that's on the liner notes, session musicians, and stuff I've never seen before in a regular CD rip. Not only was the information comprehensive, it looked good too. It was a great selling point. Not great enough for me to pay $20 bucks a month, but, it is still a great example of detailed and comprehensive metadata.

This is a truly OCD area of music collections and organization (at least that's my opinion of it) and it would be nice to have a great tool or solution. I must admit, the old fashioned manual entry is the only way I know how to make improvements or changes beyond what a CD ripper and online database like Gracenotes provides. I like to learn new things and I look forward to learning something new about this too
 
M

Mabel

Audiophyte
Maybe slightly off-topic, but nevertheless illustrative: I installed Plex Server. First impression: it responds MUCH quicker then my previous solutions; this is the kind of response speed I'd expect from a database! However, Plex does an extensive job of finding metadata on the web and in so doing messes up what modest organisation I had provided by writing metadata into the files; it does not just complement missing metadata, but even replaces what is there without asking. Fortunately, it doesn't write the thus found metadata back into the files. But this creates the situation I so whish to avoid: a difference between the database and what's in the files.
Among the many settings presented by the (nice!) web-interface, I can't seem to find a setting to prevent it from getting data from the web. Am I missing something?
Of course it inevitably makes serious mistakes; completely mis-tagging some music. Spotting such errors, and in fact any unwanted replacements, is albeit imposible even with the rather modest library I so far added to the server. Correcting the database is possible, but downright clumsy.
Plex (freeware!) seems like an amazing solution for many if not most people. Just not for people like me - at least not before I have found out how to prevent it from changing anything at all in the metadata.
Of course I gladly profit from metadata from the web, especially when ripping CD's, but I want to be able to sanction and edit them before writing them into the file and adding the file to the mediaserver library. The mediaserver I expect to do nothing more then reading the metadata from the files, putting them into a database and exposing them as a dlna server. (BTW: I am only talking about music here.)
 
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