Genre / Style

[evasv]

Re: Genre / Style

I know I have mentioned this before on these forums, but if you want sound quality, I really think you should at least investigate/consider using a portable DAC/Headphone amp.

If you obtain a high quality DAC (from the likes of HRT, Audioquest, Cambridge Audio etc.), it is an affordable and flexible solution.

You can use it with an Apple/Android mobile device with an appropriate USB adaptor (as long as the mobile device supports audio over USB). You can also use it with a Windows PC and an Apple PC.

Great tip! You are right since sound quality is a priority of mine. Downside is another device to connect.

I actually have use for a laptop DAC, so this route would be a double solution.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Genre / Style

It's interesting how different preference can be - some people seem to be content with just a few genres, while others have loads of genres, styles & moods and yet others also tag bpm & key!

Evasv,

'BPM' would be good for DJs I guess?

'KEY SIGs' would be good for musicians who transcribe the music they listen to.

I don't think I would add these though because - manually - they would take months to detect and compile!

Paul

[evasv]

Re: Genre / Style

Evasv,

'BPM' would be good for DJs I guess?

'KEY SIGs' would be good for musicians who transcribe the music they listen to.

I don't think I would add these though because - manually - they would take months to detect and compile!

Paul

Yes, professionals would have most use of those tags of course, but I know a few "common people" who add them for reasons I do not know.

I think there are programs that you could set up to detect and tag over night(s), but I don't know how long it would take... I believe bpm would be fairly accurate, but key sometimes a little harder to detect correctly. But I'm no expert here and I don't use those tags.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Genre / Style

Joni Mitchell went from Folk to Jazz over a period of time, whilst artists like Neil Young and Frank Zappa, you never knew what you would get from album to album. Often these style changes were seismic.

Zappa was a style unto himself.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Genre / Style

It's interesting how different preference can be - some people seem to be content with just a few genres, while others have loads of genres, styles & moods and yet others also tag bpm & key!

A lot of this depends on how one listens to one's library. Most of the time (and literally all of the time since I dumped Zune for foobar2000), I listen to one huge playlist containing everything I've ripped, save for tracks that contain errors as manufactured and songs I can't bring myself to listen to, with playback set to Random. Basically, I treat my library as a radio station with a very large and varied playlist. Given that, I don't currently need even the few genres I use, and as I've mentioned, Style is useless to me.

Sometimes I feel like the Henry David Thoreau of music playback: "Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify."

[schmidj]

Re: Genre / Style

Exactly how I listen to my music in my car, player in my smartphone set to random, bluetooth to car "radio". But I've now filled up my 256 GB micro SD card (128K +/- VBR copies of my FLAC library. I can't yet afford the 400 GB micro SD cards, so I'm going to have to weed some tracks out in the transfer process...

[Oggy]

Re: Genre / Style

It's interesting how different preference can be - some people seem to be content with just a few genres, while others have loads of genres, styles & moods and yet others also tag bpm & key!

There are so many variables in a personal library, the obvious ones being what genre / style people listen to, and the size of the collection. What works for 100 CDs, may not be so good for 10,000 CDs, and for some, optional tags are clearly essential; for others an irrelevance.

Modern dance music, whatever 'style', or 'genre' it is called this week, has long passed me by, but for others, a few BPM either way, is essential for knowing which 'style' it is. Perhaps they need some more Euro Trance, and just chill.

Does Nirvana Unplugged, become 'Accoustic', rather than, Grunge, Pop/Rock, Rock?

We could all use Popular and Other. KISS, job done. Simples!

From what I've seen from most of my friends files, Artist / Album with track numbers, and song titles are the only things they care about. I respect that, and in some ways I am jealous, because they are relaxing listening to music.

To each there own, BUT, it would be great if there was a little more standardisation, to offer us more personal choice: with compatibility.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Genre / Style

Yes, professionals would have most use of those tags of course, but I know a few "common people" who add them for reasons I do not know.

I think there are programs that you could set up to detect and tag over night(s), but I don't know how long it would take... I believe bpm would be fairly accurate, but key sometimes a little harder to detect correctly. But I'm no expert here and I don't use those tags.

Evasv,

Many DJs use DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation) s/w such as 'Ableton' for their performances. These often have a sophisticated tagging engine and I dare say that such professionals make use of many other tags of which the likes of you and I would not consider.

The problem with BPM in non-electronic music is that because the band (say, The Beatles) are playing live (and with no backing-track), and so the tempo (ie. BPM) constantly wanders. This is nothing against their (or anyone's) 'musicianship', but rather a fact-of-life in that humans are not mechanical machines and able to main absolute precise precision (eg. like a drum-machine). And so, to compensate for fluctuations, the value one would have to state in the BPM field would be that of an approx. value or range:

BPM = 124~128

Cheers,

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Genre / Style

Exactly how I listen to my music in my car, player in my smartphone set to random, bluetooth to car "radio". But I've now filled up my 256 GB micro SD card (128K +/- VBR copies of my FLAC library. I can't yet afford the 400 GB micro SD cards, so I'm going to have to weed some tracks out in the transfer process...

Hi John,

I ended up buying a SanDisk 200GB micro-SD to save all of my FLACS on, and to keep inside my Amazon Tablet for playback (the latter only has 16GB onboard storage). I am hoping, when I have finished ripping my collection, that everything will fit on it; otherwise, like yourself, I will have to reluctantly perform some selective omitting.

Cheers,

Paul

[evasv]

Re: Genre / Style

Good points above! We have different needs, and libraries of different size and variety.

My friends often want my advice about software and tagging. Initially they are often dedicated, but most of them realize that it's more work than it's worth for them and settle for genre, maybe style, but rarely more. Then they usually ask if they can have my library instead... Or they just accept what they can import online. So workload is a factor naturally.

---

FWIW, the Nirvana example could be this in my library:

Genre=Pop/Rock
Style=Rock; Grunge; Acoustic; Unplugged

So you can see that style is rather loose for me

[evasv]

Re: Genre / Style

The problem with BPM in non-electronic music is that because the band (say, The Beatles) are playing live (and with no backing-track), and so the tempo (ie. BPM) constantly wanders. This is nothing against their (or anyone's) 'musicianship', but rather a fact-of-life in that humans are not mechanical machines and able to main absolute precise precision (eg. like a drum-machine). And so, to compensate for fluctuations, the value one would have to state in the BPM field would be that of an approx. value or range:

BPM = 124~128

Interesting! I didn't realize that BPM can vary so much within a track. I guess this is one of the reasons why musicians swing better than machines. On a similar note, an opera singer could sing slightly out of tune, and you would love this "colouration". Perfection isn't always the key...

[Oggy]

Re: Genre / Style

Interesting! I didn't realize that BPM can vary so much within a track. I guess this is one of the reasons why musicians swing better than machines. On a similar note, an opera singer could sing slightly out of tune, and you would love this "colouration". Perfection isn't always the key...

I will defend the honour of drummers here! As a drummer, I have a recording of me playing a strict tempo song, live, played without a click track. Out of interest, I put a metronome on, and it was spot all the way through.

Equally, there are songs where drummers will push or lay back on the beat and even deliberately slightly slower down or speed up. Sometimes it is not deliberate!

Whereas a drummer can play strict tempo, it is far harder to hit hi-hats and a snare drum consistently, which possibly more than tempo, is why a drum machine sounds robotic.

Astrud Gilberto sounds rather gorgeous singing desafinado, and in a Post Punk; New Wave; Goth Rock, style (!), I enjoy Siouxsie Sioux singing ...... flat.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Genre / Style

Interesting! I didn't realize that BPM can vary so much within a track. I guess this is one of the reasons why musicians swing better than machines. On a similar note, an opera singer could sing slightly out of tune, and you would love this "colouration". Perfection isn't always the key...

Evasv,

Exactly. A drum-machine will not groove like a good drummer! Equivalently, as you point out, constant precise tuning will sound robotic after a certain period of time (ie. imagine if all singers used 'auto-tune' FX on absolutely everything); the result would be unmusical.

Paul

[Oggy]

Re: Genre / Style

Evasv,

Exactly. A drum-machine will not groove like a good drummer! Equivalently, as you point out, constant precise tuning will sound robotic after a certain period of time (ie. imagine if all singers used 'auto-tune' FX on absolutely everything); the result would be unmusical.

Paul

Sadly, a few years ago, most modern music was auto-tuned; I'm sure not all of it was necessary.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Genre / Style

Exactly how I listen to my music in my car, player in my smartphone set to random, bluetooth to car "radio".

My need to play my library on the road disappeared when I got satellite radio with the last car I bought, in 2006. If I ever get a new car (I'm thinking about it), it will have SiriusXM. The only problem I've had with it is when Sirius and XM Radio merged and they dropped the XM "Beyond Jazz" channel. I might never have heard of Hiromi, Ozric Tentacles, and others if it hadn't existed.