Rules regarding dbpoweramp's treatment of AMG Ratings?

[Sapagrino]

This is my first post. dbpoweramp and this forum are just amazingly helpful.

What determines the song’s Rating in dbpoweramp?

I presumed the "Rating" was a hybrid of the album's AMG rating and the identification of certain tracks as AMG Track Picks.

For example, Donald Fagen’s album Morph the Cat is rated by AMG at 4.5 stars, and H-Gang (among others) is a Track Pick. Thus, dbpoweramp predictably shows most songs as 4 stars but H-Gang as 5 stars.

However, when inserting Neville Brothers Brothers' Keeper, the ratings for all songs come up as 2.5 stars, but AMG rates the album 3 stars with no AMG Track Picks.

The mismatch on Brothers Keeper between AMG’s album rating (2.5) and dbpoweramp’s song ratings (3) suggests my presumption above is incorrect. Do one of the other meta data providers’ ratings impact things?

In the event the Brothers Keeper situation is an anomaly, is it a rule that dbpower amp docks most of Morph the Cat’s songs a half star (i.e., 4 instead of the album’s 4.5 AMG Rating) because it wants to show the AMG Track Pick’s as a full star higher than the others? Might another album with those AMG ratings/Track Picks show most songs at 4.5 and the Track Picks at 5? Is there a fixed rule here?

Thank you!

[Spoon]

Re: Rules regarding dbpoweramp's treatment of AMG Ratings?

The rule is pick is rated at 4.5 and non pick is left at default 2.5

[Sapagrino]

Re: Rules regarding dbpoweramp's treatment of AMG Ratings?

Spoon, thank you for the quick reply. Not sure I understand, though:

Test1: Neville Brothers - Brothers Keeper
AMG Album Rating: 3
AMG Track Picks: None
actual dbpoweramp rating for all songs: 2.5
Please confirm that "rule" should have been applied such that all tracks default to 3 and this Test1 is an anomoly.


Test2: Donald Fagen - Morph the Cat
AMG Album Rating: 4.5
AMG Track Picks: H-Gang (etc.)
actual dbpoweramp rating for non-pick/default songs: 4
actual dppoweramp rating for pick songs: 5
Apparent dbpoweramp rule: If album has TrackPicks, Pick Songs = Album Rating, plus 0.5 stars; Non-pick songs = Album Rating, minus 0.5 stars
Please confirm above-mentioned Apparent dbpoweramp rule = actual rule or please state actual rule.

Thank you so much for your help.

[Spoon]

Re: Rules regarding dbpoweramp's treatment of AMG Ratings?

int iRating = (pAlbum->nRating * 10) / 9;
if (pTrack->nPick)
iRating+=(pAlbum->nRating * 30) / 100;
if (iRating > 10) iRating = 10;
is the logic, nRating is supplied from AMG

[Sapagrino]

Re: Rules regarding dbpoweramp's treatment of AMG Ratings?

If I was better at understanding scripts, this would appear to be exactly what I would need, so thank you very much.

Is there a forum post that would serve as a good tutorial for me to better understand more of the logic above?
Alternatively, would Spoon or another user help me interpret this? I promise to work at increasing my understanding.

It would be really helpful is someone could run H-Gang (an AMG picked track) off of Donald Fagen's Morph the Cat (a 4.5 star / 9 rated album, but not an AMG picked album) through the logic to derive H-Gang's song rating (PowerAmp yields 5 stars/10 rating) as an illustration, as well as what the rating would be if the album had been an AMG picked album.

* * *

So folks don't think I'm just being lazy, here is my best crack at it:

1. nRating must be AMG's provided ALBUM RATING (multiplied by 2 to conform * of AMG stars to a 10-based rating system) (Nrating=4.5*2=9 in the Donald Fagan example);

2. iRating must be the PowerAmps notation for the SONG's RATING that this script is trying to determine. I don't know what "int" does. Does "int iRating =" mean "interpret iRating as"?

3. "if (iRating > 10) iRating = 10" must mean that if the calculations above yield a tentative song rating of greater than 10, limit the actual SONG RATING to 10.

4. pTrack must be a reference to the song being an AMG track pick; nTrack must be that it is not?

5. I am just not sure what operations are going on when the script reads "->" [not greater than?] or "+=" [??]

Watching this script newbie struggle through this must be frustrating for those in the know, and I understand I will have to get better at this, but please help. Thank you!

[Spoon]

Re: Rules regarding dbpoweramp's treatment of AMG Ratings?

+= means the value on the right is added to the value on the left and sorted in the value on the left.

Basically Rating is AMGs rating (matched to 0-10), taken to 90%, if it is a pick then an extra 30% is added.

[Sapagrino]

Re: Rules regarding dbpoweramp's treatment of AMG Ratings?

Thanks! Interesting that the 90% starting point has the effect of taking a 3 star album like Brothers Keeper and rounding down the resulting 2.7 for all songs to 2.5 stars. Not disagreeing, just kind of interesting. When I saw a notation like "pAlbum", I was thinking the rule somehow incorporated whether the ALBUM was an AMG picked album.

Can you confirm that whether an album is an AMG picked ALBUM or not has no effect on song ratings?

If that is confirmed, I suppose defaults then are:

5 star album==>5.0*0.9=4.6==>4.5 starred non-picked songs (non-picked songs get docked 0.5)
4 star album==>3.6==>3.5 starred (dock 0.5)
3 star album==>2.7==>2.5 starred (dock 0.5)
2 star album==>1.8==>2.0 starred (not docked)
1 star album==>0.9==>1.0 starred (not docked)
not rated albums==>not rated songs

And then, I suppose for picked songs:

5 star album==>5.0*0.9=4.6*1.3=5.85==>5.0 starred PICKED songs (pick gives no lift)
4 star album==>3.6==>4.68==>4.5 starred (lift 0.5)
3 star album==>2.7==>3.51==>3.5 starred (lift 0.5)
2 star album==>1.8==>2.34==>2.5 starred(lift 0.5)
1 star album==>0.9==>1.17==>1.0 starred (no lift)
not rated albums==>not rated songs

Does all this sound right? One of the reasons I'd like to know, besides that for some reason I am obsessed with AMG and its ratings, is that I am looking at incorporating custom fields when I rip where I can indicate the AMG rating for the album and whether the album and/or song is AMG selected (and now, this PowerAmp's computed song rating). My end game is to embed these AMG (and PowerAmp calculated) data points as a permanent reference, and then over time put my own personal rating into the primary Rating field.

While I don't necessarily abdicate my own listening tastes to theirs, they are directionally very helpful, and the smart playlist opportunities are wonderful (e.g., "all AMG selected tracks...I haven't rated yet" or "...which I have not listened to in the last x days"). A great way, I think for (re)discovering music within a vast collection.

Thanks again, Spoon.