I've been using the MusiCHI tagger for a few months now and am very pleased with the results. I have just started ripping and tagging my extensive classical music collection (800 CDs so far, another 3000 outstanding) and MusiCHI has simplified this process a lot. In particular, the possibility to always use a uniform denomination for a specific composer and a specific composition increases the usefulness of the resulting music database exponentially. With a good music server (I'm using MinimServer) it is now very easy to select certain performances of a given work, e.g. to look for all recordings of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto or Chopin's third piano sonata. The added value of a uniform tagging system cannot be overestimated, and MusiCHI simplifies this process (which otherwise would also be possible with MP3Tag for example) considerably through its database of composers and compositions.
I have also encountered a few problems or flaws in this process though. As there's regrettably no forum for MusiCHI (similar to MinimServer's forum, which is very useful), I'd like to give some feedback here, as maybe Vincent or someone else has a direct line to the developers of MusiCHI.
- It seems that when a filename of a specific track exceeds a certain length, MusiCHI does not load it into the tagger. As a consequence, if one does not notices or specifically looks for tags that are not displayed in the tagger, these tracks are not tagged at all and thus later on cause problems when accessing them through a music server (as these will then appear under a different album name, for example, or with a different spelling for composer and/or composition). It would be useful to have a warning displayed when MusiCHI fails to load certain tracks of a folder into its tagger.
- Although it is possible to look up tags such as "conductor" or "orchestra" that often exist in files that are ripped or downloaded by way of the "display all tags" option, it does not seem to be possible to edit these tags as they do not appear in the editing mask. Just like with the tags "composer" or "composition" it would be supremely useful to be able to make the spelling of the content of these two values uniform, so that for example a search for any works conducted by Riccardo Chailly or any Beethoven Symphonies with the Berliner Philharmoniker can be looked up easily. Right now I have to use another tag editor for these tags which is counterproductive.
- In particular for users with very extensive collections it would be useful if the MusiCHI tagger could take into account / locally save the values of tags that have already been edited and propose these from a scroll-down menu, similar to the tags "composer" and "composition" where it uses its own internal database. For example, as I have loads of recordings with Martha Argerich or Maurizio Pollini, it would be useful if MusiCHI created my own "database" from the "artist" tag with these values, e.g. by way of an auto-complete function. The same goes for compositions that are not yet in the database - for example a lot of Liszt's piano works are not in the database (or only as part of collections such as the Années de Pèlerinage) and although I have edited the "composition" tag with my own spelling of these works I have to do it all over again when the next recording of this work pops up (and run the risk that I use a slightly different spelling, with the consequence that these appear as two different works instead of the same on my music player).
Any input in this would be highly appreciated!
Marcel