MusiCHI 3.7.03 released

Pianophile

New Member
Aug 20, 2014
4
0
0
Germany
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
 

Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio
Jul 1, 2010
860
1
0
Filename length: I never encountered this problem (or didn't notice it :) )
If you have an example, mail it to support@musichi.eu

Conductor tag: you can edit tags like these by defining custom tags http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Players/CHI/CHI_CustomTags.htm
There are a lot of performers in the database but you can use this option only with the album artist/performer tag.

I do think the auto complete a nice option.

Années de Pèlerinage. I know Schubert's Winterreise is in the database both as the Winterreise and as individual songs.
Not to clutterup the compositions, I prefer the have Winterreise as composition and the individual songs I put in my custom "movement" tag.
Anyway, submit your compositions to MusiCHI, adding them to the DB I do think the best solution

Best

Vincent
 
Last edited:

Pianophile

New Member
Aug 20, 2014
4
0
0
Germany
Filename length: I never encountered this problem (or didn't notice it :) )
If you have an example, mail it to support@musichi.eu
I believe that this also depends on the directory structure of the computer you're using. My music is in a root folder of the NAS (G:/music), and then there is a sub-folder structure pursuant to the genre, composer name etc. (e.g. G:/music/classical/beethoven/piano). If then the file name is rather long (e.g. "Variations on a theme of Diabelli op. 120 "Diabelli Variations" - Variation 30 ...) the entire file name including the directory structure (path) may exceed 255 characters. As this depends on how you organise your folder structure, this is not something dependent on MusiCHI. However, it would be useful if MusiCHI at least indicated when it cannot load one of the files into the tagger due to excessive character lenght of the entire path. That would then prompt the user to shorten the file name or re-think the directory structure, without leaving some files untagged without being aware of it.

Conductor tag: you can edit tags like these by defining custom tags http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Players/CHI/CHI_CustomTags.htm
I will try this out. I assume that this also works with tags that are already existing (as a lot of my ripped files already have the conductor tag for example) and that I can the uniformise all these tags by using the custom tag option. Under this link from the MinimServer website under "Tag Mappings" there's a list of available FLAC/Vorbis tags, the conductor tag among them. I assume that in order to be able to edit any of these under MusiCHI I would have to define those as custom tags that are not available in the "edit" menu?

There are a lot of performers in the database but you can use this option only with the album artist/performer tag.
Ah ok, which is one I do not use as I am only using the "artist" tag for this purpose. It would be good I think if this option was also available to use with the "artist" tag.

I do think the auto complete a nice option.

Années de Pèlerinage. I know Schubert's Winterreise is in the database both as the Winterreise and as individual songs.
Not to clutterup the compositions, I prefer the have Winterreise as composition and the individual songs I put in my custom "movement" tag.
Anyway, submit your compositions to MusiCHI, adding them to the DB I do think the best solution

Best

Vincent
I think this approach works well when you have complete performances of each of these works, such as the entire AdP or Winterreise. However, very often only excerpts of these cycles are performed (same thing for the Êtudes transcendantes for example) and IMO it would be good to be able to find these as compositions individually, without needing to use an additional tag. MusiCHI has implemented this for some compositions (e.g. Chopin's Préludes), but not (yet?) for many others. Which is why an auto-learning function in this program would be so practical.

Something else I haven't quite figured out: How to tag transcriptions properly. It would be helpful to have some kind of double-composers available under the composition tag in the MusiCHI database (e.g. Bach/Busoni or Wagner/Liszt), otherwise the only option seems to be to put the name of the arranger into the composition tag, e.g. "Violin Partita BWV 1004 in d-minor - Chaconne (arr. Busoni)". This seems somewhat clumsy to me, and I can't look for all transcriptions by using the composer tag which would be the most intuitive.

In any case, thanks a lot for your quick feedback and insight, much appreciated.

Marcel
 

Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio
Jul 1, 2010
860
1
0
If you create your files straight on the NAS (assuming Linux) then the filename/path can be much longer than Win allows for.
I don't know how SAMA deals with this.

Mapping custom tags works on existing tags, it sumply tells CHI to look for e.g. Conductor

Artist/Album artist. I use both.
In general the definition of an Album in a Media Player is Album Title and Artist must be the same
For Artist I in general use something short e.g. Kremer

If a recording contains both a duo and a trio I use the performers to specify the members of the duo or the trio.

WInterreise: tue, one often has exerpts.
Personally I prefer the "whole" as not to clutter up the compositions with to much detail.

Transcriptions: I do think if one have e.g. a transcription by Listz of a work by Schubert, the composer should be Listz and the transcription should be in the database under Listz. This is I believe how CHI works

Best

Vincent
 

Pianophile

New Member
Aug 20, 2014
4
0
0
Germany
If you create your files straight on the NAS (assuming Linux) then the filename/path can be much longer than Win allows for.
I don't know how SAMA deals with this.
Sorry to ask but what is SAMA?

Mapping custom tags works on existing tags, it simply tells CHI to look for e.g. Conductor
Ah that is very helpful, thank you. I will try this out as soon as possible!

Artist/Album artist. I use both.
The problem with the "Album Artist" tag is that the creator of MinimServer (which is the music server I'm mainly using) wrote the following:
Simon Nash said:
With MinimServer, you need to limit AlbumArtist to a single value because MinimServer doesn't accept multiple values for AlbumArtist. There is no problem with using multiple values for Artist.
This has led me to list the performers in the "Artist" tag rather than in the "Album Artist" tag.
In general the definition of an Album in a Media Player is Album Title and Artist must be the same
For Artist I in general use something short e.g. Kremer
From what I've seen so far there is no problem in tagging an album differently, i.e. using several different artists throughout the album. To give an example, there's a CD where Cyprien Katsaris plays Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto and a few solo pieces by various composers; the first three tracks have three artists (Katsaris, the orchestra, the conductor), whereas the "encores" only have the pianist as artist. - There are probably several ways to go about this.

If a recording contains both a duo and a trio I use the performers to specify the members of the duo or the trio.

WInterreise: true, one often has exerpts.
Personally I prefer the "whole" as not to clutter up the compositions with to much detail.

Transcriptions: I do think if one have e.g. a transcription by Listz of a work by Schubert, the composer should be Listz and the transcription should be in the database under Listz. This is I believe how CHI works

Best

Vincent
Yes, that is also what I've been doing so far. Sometimes it's a little difficult though - take the "Wanderer Fantasie" which Liszt has transcribed for piano and orchestra. MusiCHI has this classified with Liszt as the composer, probably due to the fact that it's not only a transcription but even an orchestration. As consistency in the tagging method is important (otherwise you never find the recordings afterwards), I'm just saying that it might be advantageous to have "double entries" in the MusiCHI database, like "Schubert/Liszt" or "Bach/Busoni". But well, that might be a lot of work to do...

Marcel
 

Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio
Jul 1, 2010
860
1
0
SAMA: sorry SAMBA. The is the one who enables Windows to communicate with a Linux file system

With MinimServer, you need to limit AlbumArtist to a single value because MinimServer doesn't accept multiple values for AlbumArtist.
That is a very common convention.
I use CHI for tagging but JRiver for playback. JRiver also adheres to this convention.
Hence in Settings > Tag mapping > standard tags; I map Artist to Album Artist and Alum Artist to Artist

There are probably several ways to go about this.
Sure, it is completely depended on the media player

Bach/Busoni
Personally I prefer to get all Busoni's works when I select this composer. This won't be the case if it one uses a different name like Bach/Busoni.
I don't expect CHI to change its database to accommodate your preference.
But if you really like to make the distinction an option can be to create a custom tag "Transcription"
You can populate it with the composer of the original theme.
You might even use the Text Processor to append this to the Composer at the expense of having 2 Busoni's in your collection
 

steveoat87

New Member
Sep 7, 2015
2
0
0
Musichi tagger is very slow when retagging

Vincent:

I have my flac files stored on a Synology NAS.

I am using musichi with Windows 10.

Since I installed Windows 10, musichi tagger seems incredibly slow, particularly when I am re-editing files (makes changes, adding information).

Are others having this problem? If so, how might I fix this?

SAMA: sorry SAMBA. The is the one who enables Windows to communicate with a Linux file system


That is a very common convention.
I use CHI for tagging but JRiver for playback. JRiver also adheres to this convention.
Hence in Settings > Tag mapping > standard tags; I map Artist to Album Artist and Alum Artist to Artist


Sure, it is completely depended on the media player


Personally I prefer to get all Busoni's works when I select this composer. This won't be the case if it one uses a different name like Bach/Busoni.
I don't expect CHI to change its database to accommodate your preference.
But if you really like to make the distinction an option can be to create a custom tag "Transcription"
You can populate it with the composer of the original theme.
You might even use the Text Processor to append this to the Composer at the expense of having 2 Busoni's in your collection
 

Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio
Jul 1, 2010
860
1
0
I have them on a NAS too.

If the changes are "big" or you don't have any space in the header, an edit forces the file to be rewritten.
This will take some time depending on the speed of the NAS.

Might be something with win10 but here Win 10 is doing fine against Qnap

Try a couple of edits on your local HD and check if this helps.
(That is my work flow, store new tracks local, edit, add art work, etc. When done move to NAS)
 

steveoat87

New Member
Sep 7, 2015
2
0
0
Thanks Vincent,

That will help with new rips, but one of the advantages of Musichi is that you can always retag when new information/composers become available.

I wish Musichi could be directly stored on the NAS (especially the firebird database), but this not possible.
 

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