Re: [Easytag-mailing] MP3 style and usage query.

["Colin Brace" <cb lim nl>]

On 10/3/06, Alastair <ajebay errichel co uk> wrote:

> I do have some problems with classical records, however,  where CDDB
> results are quite varied in style if they exist at all and would appreciate
> guidance please:-

Having ripped a large collection of classical and opera recordings, I
am familiar with some of the issues involved. IMO, ID3 tagging, at
least in the current implementations, is not well suited to the way
classical music is organized, and imposes many limitations on the way
you tag it. Moreover, as you have seen, people have uploaded data for
classical recordings to CDDB in an unbelievable variety of formats.
Even accented characters aren't handled in a consistent fashion
(you'll notice a lot of windows garbage). Regardless of all that,
using CDDB can still save you time. And once you get up to speed with
the Scanner feature, Easytag makes it very easy to clean things up.

> First Question.  The Easytag screen on the right shows MP3 File and below that ID3 tag which is referred to as "Common".  With what or to what is this tag common?  It
> seems only to relate to the one track not every track on CD.

"Common" simply separates the text tags from image tags on the second tab.

If you have only one track selected in the track panel, any edits you
do to the tags displayed will only pertain to that one track. However,
if you have multiple tracks selected, you can have your edits applied
to all tracks by clicking on the rectangular buttons next to each
tack.

> Second Question.  The ID3 tag has the usual Title, Artist & Album fields which I can fill in from the CD sleeve but these do not change the MP3 file name.  Usually the file
> name is the same as the track title.  Is it necessary to type these in twice or am I missing something.

Correct. You need to open the Scanner to actually rename the files.
The Scanner is perhaps the most powerful feature of Easytag, and it
will be quite worth your while to get up to speed using it, for both
renaming files and filling and manipulating ID3 tags.

> Third Question.  Popular music is almost invariably referred to by song title and the name of the performer as in "Midnight Rambler"  and "Rolling Stones".  Classical
> music is usually referred to first by title, composer and then performer.  For searching purposes therefore it seems to me sensible to put the composer in the artist field.  Is
> this OK or is there an accepted style/format for ID3 tagging of classical music.

When using previous versions of the ID3 scheme, offering only Track,
Artist, and Album fields, people put the composer in the Artist field.
However, now we have a Composer field, so why not use that? CDDB does
not have a Composer field, and many classical recordings in that
database have the composer in the Artist field, but it is easy enough
fix that in Easytag with the fill tag feature of the Scanner.

As for the filename format, I have standardized on "Composer - Work -
Track - Artist.[ogg, etc]" which makes it easy to manage files both on
the command line and from within media players. In the Scanner, the
mask is this:

%p - %b - %t - %a

I usually put the work in the Album field for classical music and
opera, hence the %b. I end up with something like this:

Handel - Rinaldo - Cara Sposa, Amante Cara - David Daniels.ogg

However, if you prefer a different scheme, be my guest.

> If anybody has time to help or give guidance I would be most grateful as I have no wish to upload garbage to CDDB database.

Don't worry too much about that. Just one thing: If you do upload any
unknown recordings to CDDB, your fellow classical music enthusiasts
will be most grateful if you make sure you spell the
German/Italian/French/Spanish/Latin, etc names and titles correctly.
;)

As I said above, ID3 imposes many limitations on tagging classical
music and opera. Ideally, there would also be fields for orchestra or
ensemble and conductor. Even better would be extensible arrays for
soloists, ie, Solist1, [Solist2, Solist3], and media players which
would support this, so you could search on Soloists and find all
occurrences. But I suspect this is not a priority for the Hip-Hop etc
crowd for which ID3 tagging is faraway the largest audience, so I am
not holding my breath.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate...

--
 Colin Brace
 Amsterdam