Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: The best way to store classical on HDD? (Read 6438 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Hi,

so, what do you do when you have the following thing: (if you wanna bring tose files into a hdd-library)

CD: Ludwig Van Beethoven - 3. Symphony "Eroica" - Karajan Gold - Herbert von Karajan & Berliner Philharmoniker (Deutsche Gramaphon)
track #1-4: beethovens 3th
track #5: Egmont Overtüre

album title? 3. symphnoy for everything? or for each work a new album title?

well, this is even very simple, sometimes you have classical cd's with more then one composer, i dont know whats the best qay to handle the files. one big FLAC with CUE, normal FLAC??? in original CD-Format or spiltted for each composer? m realy confused how to store it...

so, whats your solution for that? today im using choosing one artist and then the major piece and the rest is tagged correctly (except artist and albumtitle) but not sorted corretly in the folder (so could be a piece of mozart in my beethoven folder)

the rest is tagged this way:
Artist Name : Giuseppe Verdi
Track Title : Act I - Una vela!
Album Title : Otello (CD 1)
Date : 1978
Genre : Opera
Composer : Giuseppe Verdi
Performer : Plácido Domingo - Renata Scotto - Sherril Milnes - James Levine - National Philharmonic Orchestra
Album Artist :
Track Number : 01
Total Tracks : 20
Disc Number :
Total Discs :
Comment : EAC

(i dont like the disc-number tags, give problems in the folder structure and my foobar2k desing cant handle it very well...)

hope you can help me to find the best solution for this problem...


seeya

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #1 –
Which music player?

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #2 –
Lieber Mundschuss,

Tagging classical music is a royal pain in the ... With what you have just described you have just scratched the surface of the pain. You will not find a "best" solution because there is none, you can only minimise the pain according to your needs.

There are a number of links for this topic, unfortunately I have lost my managed to loose my list of related links. I recommend a search for "tagging classical music", for instance here and also on the slimdevices web site. Anyway, I went through a similar exercise which became more complicated because I wanted to ensure that I get a tagging that makes the tracks readable on a mobile player such as an iPod or iPhone as well.

The  two major problems are the fact that most players, both on PCs/Macs, only sort by album title, and the second the lenght of album and track titles. A sub-problem comes from having unrelated works on the same CDs. Then question regarding conductor and orchestra arise. Some of the tagging choices also work around other limitations of the music database one is using, e.g. to be able to search

My solution which I can only explain abbreviated due to limited time is as follows:

1) Rip all works into one directory per CD. For multiple CDs use multiple directories with disc number appended. I differentiate works only by tagging.

2) Separate the works into separate albums. I usually do this, but not always, for instance for the concerti grossi by Corelli I have all of them in one album.

3) Always use composer, work and performer in the album title. Example

  Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 (Michelangeli)

4) Store full album title in comment. Example

  Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466

5) Shorten the track titles. Example

1. Adagio

6) Have one album artist. This can be the performer, e.g. Michelangeli, or  the conductor, e.g. Karajan. Which I choose depends who I regard the artist by which I want to identify the album in my folder structure. For instance for Michelangeli or Oistrakh all albums go into folder hierarchies with their names as the top level folder, irrespective of the other artists.

7) Have multiple artist tags for all the other participating artists. I usually also add -- reduntantly -- conductor and orchestra.

Finally, I use dBpoweramp to rip all my music because it has good access to multiple tagging databases on the net. It has good macros for flexibly storing the ripped files into the desired directories. Ripping is all done to flac for archiving and listening at home (PC and squeezebox/slimserver). dBpoweramp is then used to transcode/convert to AAC with Nero's aac encoder.

A hint: start with a few CDs with different contents: operas, symphonies, multiple composers, multiple artists etc. Then check if the result is OK. Make sure you understand what you desire and only then set out for the full task. I have ripped a few hundred CDs and when you find out only afterwards that you want to change something fundamental...

Hope this gives you a start.



The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #3 –
My solution:
0. Get a decent speaker set connected to your PC somehow
1. (Learn to) Use Foobar (and install Facets)
2. Split tags into fields, for instance:
[blockquote]Composer : Beethoven, Ludwig van
Work Title : Symphony N°9 'Choral'
Conductor : Wilhelm Furtwängler
Ensemble : Stockholm Konsertförenings Orkester; Musikalista Sällskapets Kor
Performers : Hjördis Schymberg; Lisa Tunell; Gösta Bäckelin; Sigurd Björling
Genre : Classical
Track/Movement Title : Symphony N°9 in D Minor, Op 125:3 'Choral' - Adagio molto e cantabile
Opusnumber : Op 125
Key : D Minor
Composition Date : 1824
Dedicatee :
Recording Date : December 8, 1943 {Archipel 0173}
Recording Venue : Stockholm
Instrument :
Actnumber :
Tracknumber/Movement : [/blockquote]
Is what I have on the "Properties" page that opens on every track. you can add standard fields to this properties dialog through the advanced settings (might take a little bit of getting used to how it works, but the information can be found on the Fb2k subfora).
And after that just make sure you tag consistently. Facets will let you search all tags anyway, but making sure you always put the same sort of information in the same fields really helps.

My foobar setup as it looks now, link to it here

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #4 –
I rip into composer folders. Each long work (usually multimovement) is its own album. I only consider a CD an album if it consists of that work alone. If a CD contains several works by the same composer I'll make 2 albums, one with the large multimovement work and one with the single movement pieces.

  So a single CD might produce something like (simplified version):

  Barber (folder title) > Symphony No. 1 - Alsop
 
                                  Alsop Conducts Barber (containing several short works)

  If there are 2 or more composers on a CD it goes into a separate Compilations folder and the Cd will be a single album:

  French Organ Music >

Composer: Title

                                  Composer: Title

                                  Composer: Title

    I developed this for my lossless archive when I first started to put my music on the HD, and for the working files I just follow iTunes which by default uses Artist folders, though I keep the tagging scheme I developed for the archive. I tend to remove all tags I don't use.

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #5 –
@ mundschuss and the world in general

Artist is the composer, not the orchestra/conductor. Surely one thinks "Mmm, I fancy some Beethoven now" and no-one thinks, "Mmm, I fancy listening to some Berlin Phil/Karajan", just as you think "Beatles" and not "George Martin". Anyway....

Artist: Beethoven

Album is the main work, not the whole CD, so

Album: Symphony No.3 in E flat, Op.55 "Eroica"

Track titles:

1. Allegro con brio
2. Marcia funebre. Adagio assai
etc

The orchestra/conductor/performer info goes in the Comment field. True, lots of players won't display it, but you'll have your album art to remember WHICH Eroica this is, if you have more than one.

For actual track file naming, I use dBpoweramp's dynamic naming feature in CD ripper, thus: "BvnSym3-[track]". Mozart usually gets Koechel numbers, e.g. K550-[track]. Use whatever works for you. Op55-[track].....

For the pesky Egmont Overture,

Artist: still Beethoven

Album: Overtures [Beethoven] (since if you have overtures by more than one composer they might get merged into one big album by a DAP unless you distinguish between them)

Track title: Egmont Overture, Op.84

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the directory structure:

Each composer gets his (sorry, or "her". I have a grand total of one female composer in my library, although it's possibly the most stunning piece I have ever heard. Answers on a postcard please  ) own folder. Then the type of work. So...

Beethoven/Symphonies/

If I have more than one recording of a work, the performer (conductor/pianist/ensemble) comes next

Beethoven/Symphonies/Karajan/
Beethoven/Symphonies/Gardiner/
Beethoven/Symphonies/Norrington/

etc. NB if you've got the whole box set, not just one CD, this scheme works nicely. Or when you get a new Symphony/Overture it will already have a home

And then the individual tracks. Of course, Egmont goes in

Beethoven/Overtures/Karajan/

(This is based on the assumpion that you think, "I'll listen to the Eroica now" rather than "I'll listen to the whole of CD 2 from the DG 6-CD box set". I know I do!)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Compilation CDs (this is an extremely small %age of my collection*) are dealt with on an ad hoc basis. e.g.,

Pilgrimage to Santiago/CD1/[track]-[title]

New London Consort/Philip Pickett goes in the comment field


* I guess the hardcore classical collector will mostly use the Beethoven-y scheme, whereas the person with only a few Classical CDs might have mostly compilations/recitals but not very many, so this will be a very occasional dilemma for them.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another example, slightly half-and-half:

Artist: Chopin

Album: Favourite Piano Works

Vladimir Ashkenazy goes in Comment

[track]-[title]

so

01-Grande valse brilliante, Op.18.flac

and they live in

Chopin/Favourite Piano Works/CD1/etc....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope all this makes sense. Or maybe it's just stating the extremely obvious. Anyway, it works for me. (I have 98.5GB of Classical FLACs: 4,256 files in 351 folders..............)

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: matt_t on
@ mundschuss and the world in general

Artist is the composer, not the orchestra/conductor. Surely one thinks "Mmm, I fancy some Beethoven now" and no-one thinks, "Mmm, I fancy listening to some Berlin Phil/Karajan", just as you think "Beatles" and not "George Martin". Anyway....


Interestingly, for me is indeed different. I mostly go along, "Ahh, now this Brahms by Benedetti", or "this Mendelssohn by Oistrakh" where in my mind the performer comes first. This is because I have a number of works by different performers and have a very strong preference for some of them.

I think your scheme can work. What should be clear to the OP, however, is that there is no clear-cut naming scheme despite some attempts for standardisation. The problems arise due to non-standard behaviour of PC player, mobile devices and streaming servers; and then different search/usage preferences.

Fun!

Cheers

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: KFal on
Interestingly, for me is indeed different. I mostly go along, "Ahh, now this Brahms by Benedetti", or "this Mendelssohn by Oistrakh" where in my mind the performer comes first. This is because I have a number of works by different performers and have a very strong preference for some of them.


Ah well, it would be boring if we were all the same! 

But yes, there is no standard, and if it works for you then it's good.

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #9 –
my software is fb2k and i think im pretty well into it (at least i manage around 800GB of music with it...) and i have around 700 houndred classical albums on it (of course lossless)

@boombaard:
youre solution is pretty intresting (and probably the best) but i dont think that ill do that because i have a wide range of music on my HDD and that would totaly mess up,beginning new categories in the tags and so on

i think ill continue the cd-sorted thing because thats the way i would like to hear and if i search something i can use the search function. i also use the library mostly to burn CD's because i want to hear it not over a cheap computer equipment, i want to hear it over a real stereo  (specialy classical)

btw, heres something wrong:
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/ClassicalStyleGuide
if you have c minor you dont write it "C minor", you write it "c minor" (or the best for most classical things: c-moll, but C-Dur/C-Major)

thank you all for your informations and opinions, i try to find the best solution for me


seeya


Artist Name : Peter Tschaikowsky
Track Title : Symphony 6 'Pathetique' Op.64 - I. Adagio- Allegro
Album Title : CD 06 - Symphony No.6 'Pathetique' Op.64
Date : 2006
Genre : Classical
Composer : Peter Tschaikowsky
Performer : Kurt Masur - Gewandhausorchester

Z:\Musik\Peter Tschaikowsky\2006 - CD 06 - Symphony No.6\01 - Symphony 6 'Pathetique' Op.64 - I. Adagio- Allegro.flac

very good recording, one of the best recordings of the 6th ive ever hear (well, ok, i only hear 5 or 6 conductions(?)) less noisier then the karajan one from 1985, but karajan condcuted it way better IMO which is a bit more dramitacaly caused by the whiny violins and more imposant caused by the louder horns

and im still not satisfied with the folder strucure, ill probably do that thing that matt_t said.

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #10 –
All I'll add is that you need to get clear what you're using the tags for: is it locating the piece of music you want to hear, or is it for recording all the musicological and discographic info you want? The two can be in tension, especially on a DAP with its limited display of tags.

There could be a case for using the comment field for everything you'd like to find on an album cover, but isn't relevant to your music retrieval practices. Of course, I can think of some listeners who might want to pull up everything they've got in c minor, so it's very variable.

Some people recommend using the <Album> tag for musical work. Others say you will regret not using <Album> for noting the physical CD. I've used it as though it were <Work> on a few things, and I am beginning to regret it.

One of the best bits of advice you've been given is to try a representative sample before you do your whole collection--but even so, it's worth bearing in mind that you might want to change things, anyway, as your collection or interests develop.

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #11 –
Allow me to add my two cents here, bearing in my mind that the vast majority of my music collection is of classical (I have close to 2200 hours of classical).

I use the formula of one Album for one CD or for a multi-CD set. So, for instance, Mozart's Don Giovanni is only one album (and one folder), despite taking three CDs (I change track numbers to make them sequential and eliminate all references to disc number). I also use one single album for most sets of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos I have, unless they come in separate CDs with different cover arts. The same way, it's one single album for Gustavo Dudamel's Fiesta, which includes pieces by different composers as Revueltas, Castellanos and Ginastera. Or for Bartók's Piano Concertos with Pierre Boulez, that uses three different soloists. I tried once the one-work-per-album formula, but it made my library too confusing and I like to have some albums as they were originally.

My tagging scheme goes as follows:
ALBUM: Beethoven: Symphony 9 - Mackerras (I always include the performer, to facilitate identification and to avoid confusion with multiple recordings of the same piece)
GENRE: Beethoven (since I have so much classical, it doesn't make sense to use Classical as a genre and the composer name is more useful for quickly locating what I want; plus, some portable players don't support the composer tag; in the case of multi-composer albums, I either use different genres or adopt a Various one)
COMPOSER: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
ALBUM ARTIST: Charles Mackerras
ARTIST: Philharmonia Orchestra; Charles Mackerras (players like MediaMonkey or WMP will list the two separately; for a portable player like the iPod I simplify and use only Charles Mackerras)
COMMENT (I use a script in Foobar to copy this to LYRICS as well, which will display in an iPod or in the Now Playing screen of WMP):
Janice Watson, soprano
Catherine Wyn-Rogers, mezzo-soprano
Stuart Skelton, tenor
Detlef Roth, bass
Edinburgh Festival Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Charles Mackerras
TITLE: No 9 in D minor Op 125: IV. Presto - Allegro assai

Some observations: I usually use words like Symphony, Sonata, Concerto in the singular in titles to facilitate listing. If not, Brahms: Symphonies 3 & 4 - Harnoncourt would show up before Brahms: Symphony 1 - Harnoncourt. Also, I exclude No. just to make it shorter. In the example of Beethoven's Ninth with Mackerras, I also use the piece description in the track title, repeating the album name, to facilitate when I list all symphonies under the same conductor. I exclude the composer name from works that have unique titles. So, for Bach's St Matthew Passion or Mass in B minor I don't add Bach, the same way Carmen doesn't go with Bizet. It's just to shorten. I considered using abbreviations (Gramophone has some useful ones: Sym, Conc, Orch, Pf, Vc, Vn, for instance), but decided against it because I like it more complete.

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: MichaelW on
Some people recommend using the <Album> tag for musical work. Others say you will regret not using <Album> for noting the physical CD. I've used it as though it were <Work> on a few things, and I am beginning to regret it.


I don't do that consistently either but mostly for a reason, and wonder why you are regretting it. Would you mind giving a bit more detail?

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: KFal on
Quote from: MichaelW on
Some people recommend using the <Album> tag for musical work. Others say you will regret not using <Album> for noting the physical CD. I've used it as though it were <Work> on a few things, and I am beginning to regret it.

I don't do that consistently either but mostly for a reason, and wonder why you are regretting it. Would you mind giving a bit more detail?


Nothing much: I have, say, an album with a bunch of Corelli Concerti Grossi, and I split them up, and it works out I mostly think of giving myself an hour of Corelli, rather than listening to Op 6 #2, as opposed to Op 6 #1. Guess it's because I'm a casual listener.
 

The best way to store classical on HDD?

Reply #14 –
Some factors are specific to each individual's situation.

1. What tools will you use to rip CDs, edit tags and organize and play music?  Those tools will have limits on the tags they support and how they support them.  For example, iTunes uses the Composer tag in a limited way.  (Your choice of file format matters too.  Flac allows you to use custom tags easily.  Some versions of ID3 tags used in MP3 files are quite limited.

2. What do you expect from PC based audio when you have everything ripped and tagged?  Do you just expect to play a "CD"? (i.e. all the files you ripped from a CD.)  Dol expect to browse your music in ways you couldn't with physical CDs?  Do you expect the tags to store information about the performance beyond what you need to locate that performance?

3. Do you expect to use a portable MP3 player like an iPod?  These devices rarely provide the tag support you would like to have for classical music.  iPods do allow you to browse starting with the Composer tag but the subsequent steps are not optimal.

My answers to there questions:

1. I chose J. River Media Center 11/12/13 for ripping, tagging and playback because it allowed me to use the Composer tag and several custom tags.  Some people choose tools that limit them and contort themselves to fit the tools.  I didn't.  dBpoweramp for ripping, Mp3Tag for editing anf Foobar2000 for playback would have be possible.  Getting Foobar to do what I want is a lot of work.

2. I use tags to browse in various orders.  I do not store extra descriptive information in tags.  Here are the tags I use:

Tag name          contents                    example                                  comment

Composer          Composer                  Mozart  or Haydn, Michael        (last name first, first name when necessary)

Album                work name                Symphony No. 1  or                  (I store the same info in Work and Album. Either will work.)
/Work                  or group of works      Concerto, Piano No. 21
                                                            Mazurkas                               

Artist                  performers                Heifetz_Munch_BSO                (a compromise that works.)

Genre                broad category          Classical or Jazz                      I use different browse strategies for each genre

Sub_genre          finer detail                  Orchestral or                          Some composers wrote many works.  I can shorten the list to be
                                                          Concerto, Piano                      browsed  using the Sub_genre tag

Version              remastering version    Living Stereo or                      If I really like a performance, I will buy a new re-mastering
                                                          Essential Classics or                that promises improved sound quality.  This tag lets me choose
                                                          24-but remaster                      from several versions.

I use Flac format.  In J. River MC, I can display browser panes with lists of values for each of the tags I listed above.  (A Genre pane is not usually needed since I have separate views for each Genre.)  My normal order for browsing is

(Genre) -> Composer -> (Sub_genre if needed) -> Work -> Artist -> (Version if needed)

All the browser panes are visible sat any time o I can select values in wnatever order I want to use.  At each stage I can see what alternatives I have in my collection.

3. I use an 80 GB iPod in my car.  I selected a subset of my collection for the iPod.  For single movement works, I just select the Flac files in MC and made an MP3 copy.  For multi-movement works, I used Foobar to combine all movements into a single MP3 file.  I changed the use of tags a bit to fit the limited browse orders available in the iPod.  (I appended the performer name to the work name to fit the Composer -> Album -> Song (Track name) browse order.)

Bill