Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

thank you Favorite Album!

thing is, when i DO have internet, i'd like to see the stuff in the cloud, so i can stream/DL/listen..... guess that means toggling that setting on and off each time?

Has anyone tried those third party apps that will transfer all the songs/playlists from an ipod/phone to a new computer?

ephpod rescued my years worth of metatagging from an old iPod two years ago

itunes match is going up to 100,000 songs: http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/29/apple-itunes-match-100k-songs/

Finally.

Nice but Amazon still has them beat at 250,000 songs.

I have a question about streaming music from my computer, and I thought you some of you might know the answer...

I have ripped a lot of my albums on my computer as flac files. I also have a bluray player that's capable of playing flacs. However, what I haven't managed to do is stream those flacs as flacs from the computer to the bluray player, so I could listen to them in my living room. I've tried a few media server programs, such as Plex and Subsonic, and while they can stream flac files, they always transcode them into mp3, so the bluray player is playing a lossy transcoded version of the file instead of the original flac.

Are there some technical limitations that makes it impossible to stream flacs as such, without transcoding them? If not, are there any media server programs that would be able to stream flacs without turning them into mp3s?

My dilemma is about tagging classical music albums. I bought this CD of the Berlin Philharmonic playing Schoenberg, Berg and Webern and when I ripped it obviously Berlin Philharmonic comes up as the artist and the tracks are all "Schoenberg String Quartet 1" etc. etc. I'm wondering if I should change the artist tag to the composer's name b/c if I want to listen to some Schoenberg I should be looking for Schoenberg's name not that of the Berlin Phil.

When you tag an album or a song, you can multiple artists with a separator between them. So, for example, if I'll add a Schönberg album played by the Berlin Philharmonic, I can tag the artist as "Arnold Schönberg\\The Berlin Philharmonic", and after that, when I browse through artists in my music collection, the album appears under both Schönberg and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Apparently different music players might recognize different separators, while looking for info online, I've also read that a ";" or a "/" could be used to separate multiple artists in the ID3v2 tagging, but my MP3 player doesn't recognize those (tagging the album as "Arnold Schönberg/The Berlin Philharmonic" means it'll only be listed "Arnold Schönberg/The Berlin Philharmonic", not under two different artists), while it does recognize the "\\" separator.

I have a question about streaming music from my computer, and I thought you some of you might know the answer...

I have ripped a lot of my albums on my computer as flac files. I also have a bluray player that's capable of playing flacs. However, what I haven't managed to do is stream those flacs as flacs from the computer to the bluray player, so I could listen to them in my living room. I've tried a few media server programs, such as Plex and Subsonic, and while they can stream flac files, they always transcode them into mp3, so the bluray player is playing a lossy transcoded version of the file instead of the original flac.

Are there some technical limitations that makes it impossible to stream flacs as such, without transcoding them? If not, are there any media server programs that would be able to stream flacs without turning them into mp3s?

― Tuomas, Wednesday, July 22, 2015 3:19 AM (3 hours ago)

You can absolutely stream flac as flac from Subsonic as long as the player supports it. You should be able to just go to the Transcoding tab and remove flac from the Convert From field, or, if you want it to transcode for all players except the bluray, find the bluray on the Players tab (after you've played to it once so it's a defined player) and disable the audio transcode option for it.

you'll also want to make sure there's no max bitrate defined for the user or player

Thanks Tuomas, I'll try that out.

The tagging convention for classical music where Artist = Performer has always made me crazy, I get why it started (you wouldn't want the artist field for coltrane my favorite things to be Rodgers and Hammerstein) but when I browse CM, like anagram it's bc I want to hear some schoenberg or Schumann or saariaho and that's the list I want to see.

I've always tagged the composer in the Artist field by themselves and identified the performer/ensemble/conductor in the album title right after the work name.

Artist: Schoenberg
Album artist: fuck you I never use this field and always blank it out
Album: Five Orchestral Pieces Op. 16 - Dohnanyi/Cleveland SO

Or

Schumann
Humoreske - Richter (bmg melodiya remaster)

Or

Bartok
Piano Concertos 1-3 - Kocsis/Fischer/Budapest Festival O

an album like yr Schoenberg berg Webern one I would basically rip as three separate short albums by those composers. Only when it's a super mixed recital with like 12 short pieces by 12 different composers will I give in and put the performer in the Artist field.

I only have one version of a given classical piece, so I just go composer-as-artist, and separate individual pieces (like if there are two string quartets on a single disc of Beethoven) into their own albums.

Yeah, the artist = performer thing is mostly useless when it comes to classical music, though I do sometimes use it with solo perfomers that a have distinctive style, like Jacqueline du Pré. But just like you, mostly it's the composer I want to listen to, so I can't be arsed to add the performer to the artist tag, not even with a "\\" separator.

Where the separator comes really handy in classical is the cases (which I think are fairly common in classical music) where you have music by several different composers on one album. So, for example, if I have an album with compositions by Edward Elgar and Hubert Parry, I put "Hubert Parry\\Edward Elgar" in the album artist tag, then put "Edward Elgar" into the artist tag for all of his tracks, and "Hubert Parry" for all of his tracks.

This way I can browse through artists, and my mp3 player shows the album in question under both Parry and Elgar. And if play the album that way, for example, browsing it via Parry, the player will only play those individual tracks on the album where I've tagged the artist as Parry, while it doesn't play the tunes tagged for Elgar. So there's no need to rip the album into separate folders by composer. And if I want to play the whole album with both composers' tracks, I can browse it via albums, and then it'll play all the tracks. Tagging albums like this takes a bit of extra work, but I think it works nicely with classical music.

(xpost)

You can absolutely stream flac as flac from Subsonic as long as the player supports it. You should be able to just go to the Transcoding tab and remove flac from the Convert From field, or, if you want it to transcode for all players except the bluray, find the bluray on the Players tab (after you've played to it once so it's a defined player) and disable the audio transcode option for it.

― felldownawell, 22. heinäkuuta 2015 14:47 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you'll also want to make sure there's no max bitrate defined for the user or player

― felldownawell, 22. heinäkuuta 2015 14:50 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did try streaming flacs with Subsonic, but I'm not sure if I did all the steps you mention here, so I'll try it again once I get home. Thanks for the help!

Album artist: fuck you I never use this field and always blank it out

Why is that, out of curiosity? I was about to suggest that as a good place for the composer's name. I have very little classical in my iTunes so there may likely be issues with that solution, but it works well for me.

I also find that field very useful with pop/rock stuff -- like for compilations that are tributes to a particular artist and I want them sorted under that artist's name, not with the rest of the compilations; or anthologies of an artists who recorded with different bands.

Well there is a Composer tag, why not use that?

In portable players, at least, you usually can't browse albums/tracks by the composer tag. The artist and album artist tags are the only ones through which they'll categorize the music. So putting composer's name only in the composer tag is no use.

I've used the "Album Artist" tag exactly once: Foetus.

Album artist is vital for dj mixes.

album artist field can be very useful for albums that feature guest artists. e.g. the "girl from the north country" version on nashville skyline feat. johnny cash always seemed to be floating off on its own until i tagged the whole album artist as dylan

album artist field can be very useful for albums that feature guest artists. e.g. the "girl from the north country" version on nashville skyline feat. johnny cash always seemed to be floating off on its own until i tagged the whole album artist as dylan

I treat stuff like that as though it's a contemporary pop/R&B/hip-hop song: Bob Dylan - "Girl from the North Country (Feat. Johnny Cash)".

I just find the sorting response of portable players to Artist vs Album Artist to be weird and variable and I use more than one kind of player regularly

Composer field is cool but if I'm browsing a mixed genre library I want to see Current 93 and George Crumb on the same footing (Artist) not Current 93 and Duo Quattro Mani

Hey good news iPod classic fans. The iPod touch is now available with 128 gigs. At $399 it's steep, but probably worth it.

but it's still a Touch

ive never used one. Are they bad?

it's using a solid-state drive now too, correct?

I think sic is just pointing out 'no click wheel/eyes free operation'

One plus I can think of for using a high capacity touch though is you could listen to your stuff with the can opener app which is really lovely.

128 gigs is an improvement...two wrinkles... 1) the cost is too high. But I guess they can get away with it. 2) The apple OS and apps will take up a big chunk of those 128 gigs.

128 GB micro SD cards only cost 70 bucks now, shove that in any old/cheap phone (and leave out the SIM card) and you've pretty much got an iPod Touch right there.

Good... so I'm not just making it up that it's too expensive. It's $200 extra to move from the 16GB to 128GB.

what is the battery life of an iPod touch like? how long can you run it for without charging?

i'm starting to suspect that the main behavior that gives me away as an old person is how i listen to podcasts (downloading them via iTunes and transferring them to my iPod classic, as i always have).

I don't like connected listening tbh. Listening to music files on a device which is itself not connected to anything creates greater listening focus for me. When I listen on spotify or whatever I'm too preoccupied with the infinity of other things I can jump to

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-tragedy-of-itunes-and-classical-music/399788

ha my friend & downstairs neighbor is quoted at length in that (very good) piece

Music metadata *is* incredibly hard but it's ridiculous that iTunes is still so atrocious at it after 16 years of trying.

I think sic is just pointing out 'no click wheel/eyes free operation'

yep

2) The apple OS and apps will take up a big chunk of those 128 gigs.

yep

what is the battery life of an iPod touch like? how long can you run it for without charging?

assuming it's the same as a phone, since it's just a phone that doesn't make calls, about four hours these days

I'm pretty sure I bought my 160 GB Classic for under $300. Nice to know there is that option now, but boy, what a ripoff.

I think you can still get new 160GB Classics on Ebay for less than that 128GB iPod touch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BkUG-vnUEA

I've had an iPod touch for a while now (5th gen, 32gb) and tbh I've been pretty satisfied with it. I don't use it as much now since I have an iPhone, but I did for a couple years. The battery life is pretty good imo especially if you only use it to play music, if you are browsing the web and shit and using the screen a lot it will obviously use up more battery. I need to charge my iPhone more because I am of course using it for all the non-music features too. since iPod doesn't have cellular data I didn't really use the web or apps that much, unless I was at home. It also charges super fast, like it gets to 100% in like less than a half hour ime

I know it has its fans by th click wheel blows ime, I much prefer the touch screen. We have an iPod classic too and I hate it, so tedious to use

Why would people pay $399 for a 128GB Ipod when they can get a 128GB Fiio X1 for one third of the price?

Doesn't that thing have a 5000-song limit?

They've fixed that problem about 6 months ago with new firmware. I've got an X1, I'd definitely recomend it.

No, the problem hasn't been yet fixed. You can have as many songs as you want on the memory card, and you can browse through them all via folder view, that's not a problem... But if you want to browse them by category (album/artist/genre/etc), at the moment the X1 can't index more than 5800 songs. For me, it's not a problem because I only have FLACs on the player, so I won't be going over 5800 limit, and I prefer the folder view anyway. (The latest firmware added a neat optional feature called "play through folders", where the player players jumps to the next folder after the previous one has been played through... So, for example, if I have 4 Bach albums in the "classical" folder, they'll play in a row without having to change.)

Fiio has promised that a new firmware that'll solve the 5800 limit problem will be released this month, though. They already solved it for the X3, so I'm hoping they'll keep their promise. In general they are pretty good at taking in customer feedback and tailoring their firmware updates based on what people want.

"without having to change albums"

Aaaah, I only ever browse by folder so it's not a problem I've encountered! *hangs head in shame*