@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.