Metadata

[smisk]

I'd like to be able to set genre and year from the Review metadata screen for each individual track - perhaps possible to fit nowadays when almost everybody uses a widescreen display?

I'd like to be able to submit to MusicBrainz and AMG - this option for AMG is almost never ever lit up in the menus although I entered composer data in an empty field when metadata was retrieved from AMG (and all the other sources). I don't understand why it is not lit up more often.

VERY IMPORTANT SUGGESTION: - I would like to save "my" metadata for every record I (successfully or not) rip to a local database so that when/if i need to re-rip the CD i won't have to go through all the tedious work of re-reviewing and re-editing the metadata from the metadata providers. For example if the disc was dirty i would have to take it out, clean it, re-insert it and all my edits are gone, the way it works today. Same thing if i should one day decide that i want to recode all my CDs to FLAC where I only ripped to mp3 before. The "my"-version metadata would of course only need to be saved if it was manually modified from the multisource lookup.

Suggest to add individual disc title of a release. For example Buddha Bar I disc 1 is called "Dinner" and disc 2 is called "Party". This name, if supplied, would be used as a filename/directory macro to save in M:\VA\Buddha Bar I\Party instead of M:\VA\Buddha Bar I\Disc 1.

Suggest to add multi-volume support; Buddha Bar has (to date) 13 released compilations, each contains 2 discs. So Album Title in this case should be only "Buddha Bar" and Volume should be I (or II och III) and Disc could be 1 or 2 (or disctitle, as outlined above): The ripped files would then be saved to M:\VA\Buddha Bar\II\Disc 1\ instead of M:\VA\Buddha Bar II\Disc 1.

Ask to modify the Review Metadata editor screen for easier keyboard-only data entry (for example some good key combination to scroll down the tracklist). See suggestion about including individual track genre and year for this one as well.
Use Alt-keys or Ctrl-keys to navigate, eliminating the need to shift back and forth between keyboard and mouse for this data-entry-intensive work.

Suggest investigate to interface with Jaikoz audio tagger, MusicIP's GenPUID (as DSP utility/effect), BPMAnalyzer from MixMeister, Platinum Notes and Mixed-in-Key softwares to tag with BPM, Song key and for extra sound processing
Also interested in generating AcousticID but don't have a command line utility for this (at least i think i don't).
Also Suggest submitting MusicID PUID/AcousticID pairs back to MusicBrainz for building a better lookup database.

http://www.jaikoz.com/

https://www.mixedinkey.com

https://www.mixmeister.com

https://www.platinumnotes.com

[Porcus]

Re: Metadata

I'd like to be able to submit to MusicBrainz and AMG - this option for AMG is almost never ever lit up in the menus although I entered composer data in an empty field when metadata was retrieved from AMG (and all the other sources). I don't understand why it is not lit up more often.

As far as I understand, this is a limitation made to prevent users from taking e.g. AMG metadata and just submitting it to e.g. Freedb. You can circumvene it by putting the cursor at say the album field, enter a space and then deleting it (using the delete button!) -- then the metadata has been 'changed' (even if only back and forth), and the application allows you to submit to AMG.

I would like to save "my" metadata for every record I (successfully or not) rip to a local database so that when/if i need to re-rip the CD i won't have to go through all the tedious work of re-reviewing and re-editing the metadata from the metadata providers.

You can workaround this by using a tagger utility like MP3tag. Open the old files, mark all, Ctrl+c, open the new files, mark all, Ctrl+v. Downside: even the old AccurateRip tags will overwrite the new ones, and those would hopefully be different after a successful rip ...

For example if the disc was dirty i would have to take it out, clean it, re-insert it and all my edits are gone, the way it works today.

In the metadata menu, make sure the dBpoweramp cache is checked as one metadata provider. Then it will remember your disc as long as you haven't ripped too many in the meantime. (Don't know how many is 'too many' these days, sorry.)

Suggest to add individual disc title of a release. For example Buddha Bar I disc 1 is called "Dinner" and disc 2 is called "Party".

Good point. But if this is not supported in the metadata, you would most probably have to enter it yourself. You could do that in the middle field at the bottom (between the ripfoldername etc. configs and the album art). Call the tag whatever you like (<discname>?) or look up what others call it. (Myself I would actually enter two different album titles: Buddha Bar I *1: Dinner and Budha Bar I *2: Party. That has its downsides, as media players will of course not identify those two as being the same album.)

Suggest to add multi-volume support; Buddha Bar has (to date) 13 released compilations, each contains 2 discs. So Album Title in this case should be only "Buddha Bar" and Volume should be I (or II och III) and Disc could be 1 or 2 (or disctitle, as outlined above): The ripped files would then be saved to M:\VA\Buddha Bar\II\Disc 1\ instead of M:\VA\Buddha Bar II\Disc 1.

Again the problem would be that you won't find this supported in the metadata, and then you would have to type it in yourself anyway. I would suggest that you define a 'volumes' folder/file naming scheme which you employ for those cases. [artist]\[album]\[disc] ...

Suggest investigate to interface with Jaikoz audio tagger, MusicIP's GenPUID (as DSP utility/effect), BPMAnalyzer from MixMeister, Platinum Notes and Mixed-in-Key softwares to tag with BPM, Song key and for extra sound processing
Also interested in generating AcousticID but don't have a command line utility for this (at least i think i don't).
Also Suggest submitting MusicID PUID/AcousticID pairs back to MusicBrainz for building a better lookup database.

I like these ideas

[Porcus]

Re: Metadata

You can workaround this by using a tagger utility like MP3tag. Open the old files, mark all, Ctrl+c, open the new files, mark all, Ctrl+v. Downside: even the old AccurateRip tags will overwrite the new ones, and those would hopefully be different after a successful rip ...

Spoon, a suggestion to this end:
When a CD is inserted and metadata is retrieved, what about a drag+drop feature: if a number of audio files or a folder containing such (total number matching the CD tracks, assuming they are tagged with track number or otherwise chosen by alphabetical collation or something like that) is dragged + dropped into the big tracks window, then copy these metadata (the ones written post ripping, like the Accuraterip result, would then overwrite those from the files). Add an undo operation.

Could be combined with an 'overwrite these files' popup. Or rather than drag + drop, if they are Ctrl+c'ed, then right-click in the window would pop up a 'paste metadata', 'paste metadata and overwrite all', 'paste metadata, overwrite on success only' or whatever suitable.

[smisk]

Re: Metadata

As far as I understand, this is a limitation made to prevent users from taking e.g. AMG metadata and just submitting it to e.g. Freedb. You can circumvene it by putting the cursor at say the album field, enter a space and then deleting it (using the delete button!) -- then the metadata has been 'changed' (even if only back and forth), and the application allows you to submit to AMG.

The above doesn't work for me. It's really a shame with all the work i put in to enter the composers etc. for all the disks i rip - the data only goes into my mp3 files not to an online database because the option to submit to AMG is always greyed out (i have actually seen it lit up once this week, but can't remember the specific circumstance). Ripped 26 cds this week.

I'd also really like to see an option to submit to MusicBrainz - since this is a non-commercial solution it would warm the heart better to submit to them.

Even a simple option to just put the metadata for the whole cd in the clipboard (with some easy-to-recognize tags in front of field data) would be awesome - one could then write one's own software to submit to MusicBrainz.
I guess XML would be a more-than-perfect format for this. The metadata should only include the user-version of the fields i.e. whatever was fuzzy-logicaly derived from the various metadata providers and then possibly edited by the user.
The xml should include the identity string (if any) from each provider though (ie. MBID for MusicBrainz) so that an update could be performed.
Ideally the whole thing should be availiable only after a successful rip of all tracks so that any post-processing like adding the MusicIP PUID and AcousticID, BPM etc could be included in the XML for submission to the databases that support these fields.

[Porcus]

Re: Metadata

The above doesn't work for me. It's really a shame with all the work i put in to enter the composers etc. for all the disks i rip - the data only goes into my mp3 files not to an online database because the option to submit to AMG is always greyed out (i have actually seen it lit up once this week, but can't remember the specific circumstance).

Just off the top of my head: (1) you have checked what metadata providers are chosen? (The small arrow next to the bigger Meta button.) Reason why I as, was that you seemed not to have chosen the cache as source. Then (2) I am subscribing (paying) to the metadata, so if you don't that might be the explanation why I have this opportunity and you seem not to. (The reason why it was lit up, might have been that you were still in the trial period.)

I'd also really like to see an option to submit to MusicBrainz - since this is a non-commercial solution it would warm the heart better to submit to them.

As far as I understand, Spoon has had a hard time negotiating with commercial metadata providers, who are afraid their metadata will be submitted to others. Now you will say 'freedb is supported, why not MusicBrainz?', but for freedb it is a large chance that submissions won't make their way in due to DISCID collisions. Spoon has been even less detailed about this in his replies than he usually is, so I can only guess that he has been worried about the business connections.

However ... have a look at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...=250&start=250 . Evidently, there is a far bigger project being in the works (and I guess, in the negotiations).

[smisk]

Re: Metadata

I too am paying for metadata.

If the composer field is empty from all the metadata suppliers and i type in something, it still won't allow me to submit.
If (which happens sometimes) I am ripping a variious artist/compilation disc, somtimes the track artist from the metadata provider is just "Various" - if i change this to the correct artist for each track and submit it somewhere i don't think that is copying.

However i can appreciate how it would be very difficult from a programming point of view to interpret what is a correction of a spelling mistake and what is just typed in as opposed to what is just data chosen from another metadata provider.
Perhaps metadata submission should only be enabled if something is actually typed into the field or edited in the field --- meaning if you just click to select the data from another metadata provider that should not be considered an edit candidate for submission.

I have noticed today that if i change metadata on the main screen (not the metadata review screen) such as the individual track year, i seem to get the option to submit to AMG every time.
If I only change things in the review screens i think I do not.

[Porcus]

Re: Metadata

I have noticed today that if i change metadata on the main screen (not the metadata review screen) such as the individual track year, i seem to get the option to submit to AMG every time.
If I only change things in the review screens i think I do not.

Yes. The submit button is not activated by changes in the PerfectMeta window. I think that is deliberate -- this is where metadata from [$$charging vendor no. x] can be chosen en bloc, and they probably want at least some polite 'you are not supposed to do this!' against submitting this to [competition y]. So, insert and remove a space in, say, the Album Artist field in the main window.

[smisk]

Re: Metadata

Even a simple option to just put the metadata for the whole cd in the clipboard (with some easy-to-recognize tags in front of field data) would be awesome - one could then write one's own software to submit to MusicBrainz.
I guess XML would be a more-than-perfect format for this. The metadata should only include the user-version of the fields i.e. whatever was fuzzy-logicaly derived from the various metadata providers and then possibly edited by the user.
The xml should include the identity string (if any) from each provider though (ie. MBID for MusicBrainz) so that an update could be performed.

And if the above is implemented I would love to be able to paste the xml back from [custom made clipboard active application] to overwrite everything in memory about the current disc. (provided the xml is valid and complete, prompting user for correctness if the cd identifying fields such as cddb-id do not match)

[cantabrigian]

Re: Metadata

I would strongly support the "VERY IMPORTANT SUGGESTION" from the post by "smisk" quoted below. The inability to save one's own metadata is a major deficiency in the software. I have ripped almost 500 CDs so far (with many more to come) and I cannot recall a single one where the metadata from internet retrieval was completely satisfactory. This is especially so for classical music, the most frequent errors being a composer's name in the artist fields and track names which are far too long for most equipment and software to display correctly. The track names in particular are a huge amount of editing work.
The fix should be simple - we just need an option to save the data to a file on the local computer, perhaps in the directory along with "genres.txt".
Even better would be the ability to retrieve metadata from the ripped track files themselves!!

VERY IMPORTANT SUGGESTION: - I would like to save "my" metadata for every record I (successfully or not) rip to a local database so that when/if i need to re-rip the CD i won't have to go through all the tedious work of re-reviewing and re-editing the metadata from the metadata providers. For example if the disc was dirty i would have to take it out, clean it, re-insert it and all my edits are gone, the way it works today. Same thing if i should one day decide that i want to recode all my CDs to FLAC where I only ripped to mp3 before. The "my"-version metadata would of course only need to be saved if it was manually modified from the multisource lookup.

[TedSmith]

Re: Metadata

I'll play devil's advocate:
Rip to a lossless format (convert those to whatever other format you might need, e.g. mp3. Why ever go back to the original CDs?)
I find that NO single program even gets close to getting good meta data so a cache for any particular program is not very helpful. FWIW I rip with dbPoweramp, then use Picard, then Album Art Downloader, then Mp3Tag and finally foobar2000. I make value decisions at each step. I can usually get this all done while the next disc is ripping.
Back up your collection (at least the lossless files with the carefully groomed tags.)

[garym]

Re: Metadata

Or just export your tag data to a cvs file and easy to convert or create tag data from a cvs file. What you are seeking more or less already exists, albeit with a couple extra steps.

Also, note that you can't get metadata directly from cd tracks (normally). It doesn't exist there. Thus the need for databases for lookup.