Paul McGowan said
Keep the suggestions coming. They are all very helpful. And hopefully a few of you have PM'd Richard to offer your help. Those that do will be first in line to test Octave when we start asking for volunteers - probably next month. We're getting close.
Yeesh, classical, like soundtrack scores, are complicated. There's composer, conductor, soloist (instrument 1 to N and/or vocals 1 to N and/or data for each soloist (instrument, age, category) where N can be as high as 30), Orchestra, Opus number, Common title, track number, and those are just the ones off the top of my head.
I would expect any database to treat this as a single tagā¦
Like I said, you can nit-pick over the specifics, but the core issue is actually an important one.
Elk said
One could, however, allow multiple tags in a comma delimited format; i.e., āsoul, funk.ā
I wasnāt taking about what Octave will or wonāt allow. I was talking about how Octave will interpret what it finds in the userās own metadata. In practical terms, Octave has to do its best to adapt to what users are already doing, right or wrong, good or bad. Either way, our expectation is that Octave will support multiple genre tags.
I thought I understood the question and answered: I expect a database to treat āsoul & funkā as a single tag.
I then expand on this as to what additionally could be done with tags.
I apparently was unclear. Or wholly misguided. I am sorry I was of no help.
It seems we are talking at cross-purposes, and in a way your responses illustrate my point to a tee. You clearly feel that āsoul & funkā is self-evidently a valid standalone tag, and in that specific case I imagine many people would tend to agree with you. Maybe that specific case was a poor choice on my part - I only invented it as a plausible edge case which I didnāt think is actually used. Weāre talking about the situation where a new Octave customer imports his own pre-existing library into his Octave server. My point is just that the customer who has elected to enter āsoul & funkā into his own single-entry āgenreā field, but meaning for it to represent two separate entries āsoulā and āfunkā, would be disappointed in Octave if it chose to interpret it as a single field.
Rather than get too caught up with āsoul & funkā, consider āoratorio & cantataā. I suggest in the latter case the preferred treatment would be to separate it into two genre entities ā¦ but thatās just me. The question is, from a programmatic point of view, what is the difference between the two?
When someone uses āand,ā and places them in a single location, they are conjoined - whether or not they individual items are in actual fact distinct. āI keep the blue and green crayons in the upper drawer.ā
. . . the customer who has elected to enter āsoul & funkā into his own single-entry āgenreā field, but meaning for it to represent two separate entries āsoulā and āfunkā, would be disappointed in Octave if it chose to interpret it as a single field.
If Octave is importing a user-defined filed how would this result in disappointment? The user created his own single-entry field. Octave is honoring his election. If he intended "soul" as its own category and "funk" as another I would expect him to have utilized two separate tags.
. . . consider āoratorio & cantataā. I suggest in the latter case the preferred treatment would be to separate it into two genre entities
I would as well, but I would never create an āoratorio & cantataā category. If I did, I would expect Octave to follow right along with my misguided approach. :)
So, what is the alternative?
If one is given the option in Octaveās interface to split āSoul & Funkā into two categories how would Octave know what the user thinks is soul; which, funk? Octave could filter the entries into two categories based on its own database of music, but it is unlikely the result would agree with the userās interpretation of what he calls soul and what he thinks of as funk. Plus, Octaveās database would likely know some of the music as an entirely different genre entirely, neither soul nor funk. (Octave could also create two lists with each piece tagged soul and separately tagged funk, but this seems particularly awkward. And useless.)
Of course, allowing Octave to tag genre as it would like - based on its database - is a perfectly viable option, but it need be a clear switch that requires the user to affirmatively elect it. I suggest the default be that Octave recreates exactly the tags the user has already assigned.
The user created his own single-entry field. Octave is honoring his election. If he intended āsoulā as its own category and āfunkā as another I would expect him to have utilized two separate tags.
I donāt think he did. Support for multi-valued fields is still relatively rare among music server type Apps, even though the file formats themselves have long supported it. Think iTunes, where even the ALAC format supports multi-valued fields and yet iTunes doesnāt. Iām pretty sure I have yet to come across a multi-valued metadata tag that I havenāt created myself.
Also, I am less convinced than you that no rational person would enter āsoul & funkā when they intended it to represent two separate values. It is actually my experience that the audiophile community contains a higher percentage of ācomputer-challengedā individuals than you might expect. After all, we still cling to our vacuum tubes and our turntables ā¦
But how does the user expect the software to treat his soul songs differently than his funk tracks when they are tagged with the same genre āsoul & funk?ā
What is the user trying to accomplish and what is he expecting to occur? And, more importantly, how does he expect a single tag to do what he wants? And what does he expect Octave to do with his tag?
I am having difficulty entering this userās thought process.
But if 10 years ago I tagged my James Brown Bodyheat album with āsoul & funkā
Then I would really love the Bodyheat album to come up in Octave if I only searched āsoulā and likewise if I only searched āfunkā, as @bitperfectrichard hinted they are trying to acheive (I think?)
Otherwise I would need to go back and re-tag all my early tags that may not have been done as well back then, as I do tagging now
With services like TIDAL able to deliver high quality lossless music, we will be dealing with large music libraries whose genre tags (in fact, whose tags in general) probably wonāt be at all consistent with the tags in our own local libraries, and (for all practical purposes) cannot be manually tagged. The server software will be more or less obliged to live with that.
Hi Richard
Just on this, in Roon we are able to add tags to Tidal albums that have been added to our library
For example, many have been adding a manual āMQAā tag because at present Roon isnāt showing us which Tidal album version is the MQA version and which is not - untiil you play it and see which is the 24 bit version. Then you can tag the 24 bit version with āMQAā or whatever you want so that you can identify it in your Roon library
I say at present because they are obviously working on it
I use the MQA tag as an example only but I can add any tag I want to the Tidal album in the Roon library
But how does the user expect the software to treat his soul songs differently than his funk tracks when they are tagged with the same genre āsoul & funk?ā
Yes, I see your point, which is why I was anxious to avoid nit-picking the fine details of the example I chose. If I had anticipated this discussion I might have thought more about a better example. But Iām stuck with it, so bear that in mind as you read on. In your view, it seems āsoulā tracks are quite distinct from āfunkā tracks, but my hypothetical user has a different mindset.
This is a hypothetical user who perhaps sees his music in generic terms as breaking down into four broad categories, Rock, Country, Pop, and Soul. He feels he can easily categorize all of his music into one of those four categories. However, he also recognizes Motown, Doo-Wop, R&B, and Funk. So where music falls into both his āSoulā and his āFunkā categories he types āSoul & Funkā in the genre tag.
If I understand you correctly, it is the ampersand which is giving you more discomfort than anything else. If he had typed āSoul/Funkā how would you feel about that?
Just on this, in Roon we are able to add tags to Tidal albums that have been added to our library
For example, many have been adding a manual āMQAā tag because at present Roon isnāt showing us which Tidal album version is the MQA version and which is not - untiil you play it and see which is the 24 bit version. Then you can tag the 24 bit version with āMQAā or whatever you want so that you can identify it in your Roon library
I say at present because they are obviously working on it
I use the MQA tag as an example only but I can add any tag I want to the Tidal album in the Roon library
Thanks for that, but if I read you correctly, you have to add the Tidal album to Roon to be able to do that. That makes sense, since, as far as Roon is concerned, it is no different to having the album in your personal library ... you've made a space for it in your local Roon database. That is quite a limitation, though, and doesn't help you if you want to browse the entire Tidal collection on a level playing field with your local library. I don't think Roon will let you add the entirety of the Tidal library to your local Roon library! [but it would be interesting to know what would happen if you tried to do that!]
Thanks for that, but if I read you correctly, you have to add the Tidal album to Roon to be able to do that. That makes sense, since, as far as Roon is concerned, it is no different to having the album in your personal library ... you've made a space for it in your local Roon database. That is quite a limitation
Many thanks Richard. May I kindly ask, what is the limitation?
Just personally (Iām just one data point only) I donāt see it as a limitation because Iām only interested in the tagging of albums in my library, whether it be a CD rip or adding a Tidal album to my Roon library.
Unless Octave is trying to go another level up - is Octaveās goal to allow editing the tags of the Tidal server side library?
Sincere apologies if I misunderstood the limitation and goal here. Just looking for a better understanding on the current limitations and what the end goal is, regarding streaming service libraries like Tidal
Richard Murison said
I was anxious to avoid nit-picking the fine details of the example I chose.
Your example is perfectly fine. :) I'm happily going with it.
This is a hypothetical user who perhaps sees his music in generic terms as breaking down into four broad categories, Rock, Country, Pop, and Soul. He feels he can easily categorize all of his music into one of those four categories. However, he also recognizes Motown, Doo-Wop, R&B, and Funk. So where music falls into both his "Soul" and his "Funk" categories he types "Soul & Funk" in the genre tag.
Got it.
What I do not understand is how this is potentially a problem for Octave to interpret.
Does he want to search on āSoul & Funkā and get only these recordings? This will work fine. Similarly, If he searches on Funk he will also get his music tagged as āSoul & Funk.ā
That i, I expect Octave to interpret each of the above tags as a separate, discrete tag which can be searched as either a string or as an entire tag. Is this not what this user wants?
*** What is the alternative that our hypothetical user is expecting Octave to do when he loads his music tagged āSoul & Funkā into Octave? If āSoul & Funkā is not a discrete tag, what does he want Octave to do with music tagged āSoul & Funkā? ***
If I understand you correctly, it is the ampersand which is giving you more discomfort than anything else. If he had typed āSoul/Funkā how would you feel about that?
My analysis is the same. Soul is a tag, Funk is a tag, Soul/Funk is a third discrete tag. Each can be searched either as an entire tag or as containing a given search string.
Just some examples I personally donāt get all that picky with tags, I either pick the closest one in Vinyl Studio or go with the one JRiver gets from the rip or download. Granted my total files are much smaller than those who have ripped all their music.
I think it might be helpful to see how Aurender and the other Hardware players are doing things. Find the best starting point, and then refine it. Or software players? I like JRiver and I donāt like Tidalās player. A lot of people like what Roon does, I find more new music in Tidal that I mark as Favorites, then I will ever find time to play. From descriptions of Roon, I donāt want all the distractions. I can end up with a whole lot of open tabs in my tablet, when I start researching an artist.
Iām one of those people that was put off by music on a computer, as it seemed complicated. Now, I wonder why I waited so long. There was a learning curve, but once I dug into it, not as daunting as it seemed. Iām 62, I have a feeling that those of us who didnāt grow up with computers, or were late adopters, first PC was in 1998, have a different outlook.
Yes. In addition, I would use multiple sub categories. e.g. I might categorize something under both "Swing" (a style or genre) and Big Band (the arrangement or instrumentation). I would also like the ability to combine subcategories using and, or and not operators so you could look for "not( Big Band or swing)"
Boy, good discussion! I hate to wade in since by no means am I as up on all this thinking than Richard and Elk and others.
The problem programmers have is machine vs. human. Octave cannot rely just on user tags though it must honor them. Many users will not yet have tags while others have manyāsome weird.
Libraries have value only to the extent they are searchable. A room piled high with books is not very useful. It is the ability to find a particular book that changes that. Imagine walking into Barnes and Noble with the intent of purchasing the Jack Kerouac novel On The Road but you cannot remember the authorās name or the title of the book. You just remember itās a book about a journey, drugs, and jazz. Do you search travel books and would you find it there? Perhaps your friend who recommended it had his own copy filed under drugs and jazz. Your friend, with his own system of tagging, could easily find it, but the Barnes and Noble salesman couldnāt. Perhaps some aggressive programmer might have added the sub-genres, drugs and jazz, or Alan Ginsberg, and that would help.
We want our machines to be smart and do the work for us. Regardless of how I have tagged my library when I search for Beatles thatās what I want to come up. It should be āobviousā to the machine even if I personally tagged my Beatles collection by Rock, English, McCartney, Lenon.
These are probably not good examples and I apologize. I think the challenge is we want two things: the machine to be smart enough to do broad āobviousā searches irrespective of how I have tagged my stuff and to honor the former. Machines have to place things in associated lists. How are the programmers to achieve both goals if the device does not itself have a means of identification irrespective of the custom tag? Truth is, it cannot. Octave must āknowā in its own parlance each track in the library, while at the same time honoring the userās choices, regardless of right or wrong.
Many thanks Richard. May I kindly ask, what is the limitation?
Suppose you have a bunch of tracks in your personal library with the tag "Northern Soul". Let's assume Octave has imported those tracks and honored the tag "Northern Soul". So now you can ask Octave to show you all the tracks in your library with the tag "Northern Soul".
But what you cannot do is ask Octave to show you all the tracks within the TIDAL collection that are tagged with āNorthern Soulā because Octave doesnāt have that information in its database, and has no means to obtain it. The best Octave can do is ask TIDAL what it has to offer that relates to āNorthern Soulā, and all it will return are track, artist, and album titles which contain the string āNorthern Soulā.
Of course TIDAL, like Octave, will continue to evolve, so who knows when - or even if - that might change. For example, TIDAL could start to do something like Octave is doing and āimportā all of its 46 million-plus tracks, trawling the various on-line databases (and other sources) for rich metadata on each one. Geez, that could possibly keep a single Octave server busy for years!
I am a complete novice when it comes to tagging. I have a small library and do most of my listening through streaming as a result. The cdās that I have ripped using db poweramp put tags automatically on the albums/tracks. For my use case this has been fine and I have no problem finding anything I wish to listen to. As my library grows, I may desire to refine things so that I donāt have to wade through a bunch of albums that, while they may be related genre-wise, arenāt EXACTLY what I am looking for. In this case I would make up my own tag describing a sub-genre and tag all the albums that I feel represent that sub-genre accordingly. Since my idea of what albums should fall under a given genre/sub-genre is a matter of personal taste I could not expect Octave to read my mind. It seems to me that some user tweaking would be inevitable. This flexibility of āhonoring my tagsā appeals to me. So what am I missing here? If Octave does a good job of tagging things in a way that makes generally good sense and I have the flexibility to tweak that to suit my tastes and it will be honored what more could I ask? I can see that if before Octave arrived and I had a large library that I had spent a lot of time tweaking, I would be fearful of trusting ANY software to understand my personal decisions for tagging my library in the way I have decided to. I would not Want the software to undo all of this work but if I am going to buy into a new ātagging eco-systemā I see no way around it.
