Music File Metadata and OCD

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Spitfire, Aug 6, 2018.

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  1. Spitfire

    Spitfire Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    I have a decent size FLAC music library (about 2300 albums and 33,000 tracks) on a NAS which I keep adding to. I seem to be constantly fixing metadata that I see. Latest kick is making sure all versions of a song by multiple artists have the exact same title. It's amazing how different songs are titled even by the same artist. Punctuation like question marks and commas are a constant problem. Anybody else struggle with this? Even basic things like a band's name can be an issue. A lot of bands use a leading The on one album and the next time they don't. Good example is the Flamin' Groovies. Half of their album covers say The Flamin' Groovies and the other half have Flamin' Groovies and that's just the covers. The records labels contradict the covers half the time too. It's madness.
     
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  2. Anachostic

    Anachostic Forum Resident

    I just happened to see this thread as I was taking a break from making my multi-disc albums consistent. Among my collection, I have:

    Album, Disc 1
    Album - Disc 1
    Album (Disc 1)
    Album, Disc I

    As well as the variant, "Disk" in there. I've recently set up a Plex server and while I'm loathe to change my file structure and naming to suit a software's desires, making everything use "(Disc X)" in both the folder name and metadata is something I can compromise on.
     
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  3. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    @marmil this sounds familiar...
     
  4. Lovealego

    Lovealego Senior Member

    Same OCD here. Eventually you will get it all the way you want it and then when are finished you will change your mind about having all the words of a song title begin with a caps to liking the lower case words in there like it is on musicbrainz.

    Then changing how you use [],{}, and ().
    Ugh I really wish I didn’t care about such things.
     
  5. Lovealego

    Lovealego Senior Member

    As part of my last cleanup, I made some changes that I really like now.
    All soundtracks and singles use " "
    If the EP has a true title then no " ", but if the EP is just the song title, then I use " " like a single.

    Before: Land Of Confusion [single], Now: "Land of Confusion"
    Before: Music From The Motion Picture Grease [deluxe edition], Now: "Grease" [deluxe edition]

    A benefit also is that all singles are grouped together in the file structure before or after the albums.
    Now if I could only decide the best way to note deluxe editions, remasters or alternative pressings. [], {}, or (). Caps or no caps. I am always changing my mind.
     
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  6. Lovealego

    Lovealego Senior Member

    You want to get really frustrated? I started ripping all my SACD into ISO's and DSF files. I can't believe the inconsistency on the Artist, Album and Song titles that are embedded in the SACD's. Not only do these SACD rips have huge variations in the embedded metadata, but its not that easy to change it on a mac.

    You will have
    Elton John - Madman Across the Water (perfect)
    and then the next disc text be
    ELTON JOHN - GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD - DELUXE EDITION - CD 2 ( with all the songs in caps, ugh)
     
    Grant likes this.
  7. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    Whenever I encounter these inconsistencies I think, man I'm gonna fix that. Then I press play and seem to forget about it.

    One of these days.
     
  8. Spitfire

    Spitfire Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    I wish I could do that. There always seems to be something to fix or change. Advice to anyone who's just starting out, figure out a scheme and stick with it as it's harder to edit a big library. My problem is I got the basics pretty well from the start but it's all the little things that bug me and you won't know until you start looking at it and deciding what you like and how anal you are.
     
  9. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    I'll tell you how non-OCD I am about it. I have several Laurie Anderson albums and one of them is listed under Anderson, Laurie. Even though it bugs the hell out of me, I haven't even changed that. Now that's a big discrepancy. Non-OCD, or just plain lazy.
     
  10. marmil

    marmil It's such a long story...

    Hmmm...
     
  11. Archimago

    Archimago Forum Resident

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  12. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    ..."Tull, Jethro..." :rant:
     
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  13. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Years ago I started a database in CATraxx, just for my Various Artist collections of singles on CD. Naturally, seemingly every label could spell or describe every cut mirrored by another label's set, differently ("Close To You", for instance, and "(They Long To Be) Close To You", or "16 Tons" vs. "Sixteen Tons", et cetera ad nauseum). So, naturally I would try and correct some of the spellings and mis-labelings of some of the tracks...and, wouldn't'cha know, correcting several would somehow, make the entry itself disappear, for cryin' out loud! I had to halt what I was doing, try and find the problem, but so many of the tracks I'd entered so far (which was just simply by putting the disc in the tray and have it read it automatically) had mysteriously disappeared through my misbegotten corrections, that I knew I'd have to start over. Then, naturally. I'd find something else to take my attention away, and the farther away I got from the issue, the more complex and difficult it appeared to start over, now here it is half a decade later, and the program's out of business, my database is corrupt, I'm in a whole 'nother OS...and I gotta go mow the lawn again...! :doh:
     
  14. Patrick Cleasby

    Patrick Cleasby Hi-Res idiot

    Location:
    London, UK
    You can edit .DSF tags on a Mac in Metadatics, or Feisty Dog's tag. App store is your friend
     
  15. Lovealego

    Lovealego Senior Member

    I know you can edit, it takes a separate software than the ripping software (iso2dsd) though.
     
  16. harby

    harby Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    Rename the files in bulk from existing names - Ant Renamer (free)
    Tag multiple files at the same time (correcting artist and album), get tags from file names and rename files from tags: Tag&Rename (30 day trial)
    Re-tag and re-name from audio fingerprint and internet lookup: MusicBrainz Picard (free)

    Still takes a bit of user intervention, but all are better than retyping info for every file.
     
  17. JimmyCool

    JimmyCool Elvis Presley Expert

    MP3Tag (Free)
     
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  18. Anachostic

    Anachostic Forum Resident

    Previous obsession - Setting ReplayGain for all my albums. I wrote a PowerShell script to do everything.

    Current obsession - Embedding lyrics in all files. Wrote an application to batch download and embed lyrics.

    I'm not sure if the obsession is good or bad based on my programming activities.
     
  19. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    This has been an issue I've dealt with for a long while in my attempts to get consistency in my metadata. I've done the following for consistency (which might help others):
    • Square Brackets: I use square brackets to indicate any information that I add to the metadata.
    • Song Title: If there are two songs that have the same title despite being different songs (like "You Don't Own Me" where there is one song by Leslie Gore and a different song with the same name by Gilbert O'Sullivan). In that case, I put the writer's/writers' name in square brackets after the song title.
    • Album Titles: If two or more album have the same title I do one of the following:
      • If the albums are by different artists then I put the artist's name in square brackets after the album name. As an example, I have the following in my collection: Shine [Bond] and Shine [Frida]
      • If the same artist has two or more albums with the same name, like Peter Gabriel, then I put the album's release year after the album's name. So if had any two or more of Peter Gabriel's first four albums I'd have the following album titles:
        • Peter Gabriel [1977]
        • Peter Gabriel [1978]
        • Peter Gabriel [1980]
        • Peter Gabriel [1982]
    • Artist/Act Name:
      • I treat it as a single string for listing and sorting purposes. As an example, I sort "Huey Lewis & The News" with "H" and also "Huey Lewis" (solo artist) with "H". The exception are acts whose names are usually mentioned with "The" (like The Beatles and The Rolling Songs) which are sorted by the first word after "The".
      • In the same way, for solo artists I write them and short them by first name/last name (Paul McCartney is listed and sorted as "Paul McCartney." I've found that using "McCartney, Paul" becomes a nightmare when you have to combine it with other names.
      • If the word "And" is part of a group's name, then I replace it with "&" as long as it is an actual group. I use "And" if it is a one-off pairing. As an example, "Sound Of Silence" is by Simon & Garfunkel, but "My Little Town" is by Paul Simon And Art Garfunkel (they did not reunite as an act for this song).
    • Year: For album I base it on the year the album was first released. For compilations, for each song I use the year it was originally released unless it is an original song, when I will use the year the compilation was released.
    I hope this helps.
     
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  20. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    Lyrics have become an interest of mine since my current Walkman can display running lyrics that appear in time with the song. I include lyrics for my favorite songs.
     
  21. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I deal with it, too, and that's not even including my own typos!
     
  22. Spitfire

    Spitfire Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    Forgot about typos. Those are bad too.
     
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  23. jfeldt

    jfeldt Forum Resident

    Location:
    SF, CA, USA
    I have this problem too with my library. Must standardize all the things!
     
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  24. snowman872

    snowman872 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wilcox, AZ
    On thing I like to add recently is song composer - but it's a royal pain with modern songs, all of which seem to have 6-12 people involved. Crazy.
     
  25. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Yeah, there must be a better way to handle these happenstances. When a rapper takes the mic for :17, and it has nothing to do with the thematic or melodic thrust of the song per se, it still opens up confusion, particularly in the case of rights management.
    Did he write that? Did the producer? Or even the artist himself (doubt it)?
     
    snowman872 likes this.
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