SUB GENRES

[barnburner13]

sorry for bringing a two year old thread back to life

[olivechicago]

Crazy how one thinks they have a brilliant idea, only to discover it's been thought about over and over for 4+ years.

While the Magic Node is neat and all, I still think it'd be useful to have the genre and sub-genre(s) written to tags. Not only written to tags, but maybe also recorded as a usable tag option in MM. Even if one has to spend an hour or two creating their genre tree.

For example, I import a new CD, and whatever DB is used for the lookup, the genre is recorded as "pop/rock"(which is an oxymoron in my opinion, but whatever.)

I decided to tag it like this: Rock;Punk Rock;Chicago Punk Rock. Doing this manually is time consuming if you really want to fine tune your entire library. Since MM already stores tags, or looks up existing to determine what my existing tagging options are, it would be awesome if I could just choose "Chicago Punk Rock" as the tag, and MM would determine that Chicago Punk Rock is a sub-genre of Punk Rock, which in-turn is a sub-genre of Rock, and write the tags to the files accordingly.

[Guest]

re: Genres & Sub-Genres
While MediaMonkey is still consistently the best for managing a large library, MusicBee is automatically presenting the sub-genre function.
I use Grouping for master-sorts, with only one entry per field (eg, Rock or Psychedelic), but I have no end of entries in Genre, separated by semi-colons.
In my main display, I have select fields: Grouping - Genre - Genre - Artist.
In MusicBee, after selecting a Genre in the first instance, the second instance shows only sub-categories .. a very effective sub-select.
In MediaMonkey, the second instance is only a copy of the first, so pointless.

If not for that one difference, I wouldn't need MusicBee (and it still fails regularly when asked to scan too large a group of files ((in the multiple dozens of thousands range))), but that one difference makes such a huge difference in navigating the library, that I'm still going back to it regularly.

[FLWB]

While I use various mixing programs I use MMW as my library program. For me, the easiest solution has been to use Groupings for subgenres. Genres I use for the top level classifications; Blues, Country, EDM, Folk, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Latin, etc. To do the opposite seems a bit wonky.
My collection is large and diverse, as most MM users collections are and I incorporate products like Mixed In Key for track bpm and initial key tagging (initial key another missing tag I've griped about elsewhere) which also inserts the track's "energy" level represented numerically to the Grouping tag. A large number of tracks in my collection cross multiple subgenres (and my mixes typically cross genres) so it helps to be able to tag tracks with multiple identifiers. Using Genres for this tends to interfere with other applications.

Offering an example Amnesty's Love Fades I have tagged in the R&B genre and have tagged in Grouping as; 4|Deep|Funk|Groove|Jazz|NewOrleans|Psychedelic|Soul because it incorporates all of those elements. (Note for example NewOrleans may not be normally recognized as a subgenre as a region it infuses its own aural flavor.) Steegy's CustomFieldsTagger has been invaluable in being able to add multiple grouping tags. I've also split descriptors where "Deep Funk" would normally be its own subgenre it becomes two unique identifiers. (This also works well with some of my mixing programs that use the Grouping tag as a filter so when the algorithm searches for "like" tracks the results can be quite unique.)
The search feature works great for creating playlists based on Grouping, the only downside is that Grouping is not manageable within the tree like Genre and is why counter-intuitively users have been forced to use Genres for subgenres.

Give us Groupings in the tree as a category and problem solved.

[Lowlander]

Custom Tree nodes: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... agic+nodes

[FLWB]

Custom Tree nodes: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... agic+nodes

Thanks Lowlander my first reaction to an add-on with 143 pages of comments, maybe it's not an ideal solution compared to an inherent function.

But I'll give a shot.

[Friedrich]

Custom Tree nodes: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... agic+nodes

Magic Nodes split function is nice for displaying subgenres,
but lacks one feature for organizing them: drag & drop.
And as far as I can see, MM's option to use multiple genres for the same tracks by using the ";" delimiter is lost.
Using 503 genres in hierarchies of up to more than six steps deep makes a built-in solution
very desirable..

[ZvezdanD]

Magic Nodes has drag & drop, but it currently works only when the target node is some simple field with displayed its full content, i.e. it doesn't work when the target node has only part of the field created with SubStr/Trim/Split by/Left of or Right of qualifiers. Such functionality is on ToDo list.

Split by qualifier works fine with the ";" (or any other) string specified as separator, but there is one very important thing with that qualifier: the ";" and "; " are two different separators. If you use "; " between items in multi-item fields (with the space character after ";"), then you need to specify the same string as separator for Split by qualifier. That also means that you need to use uniformly the same string as separator in all files if you want correctly displayed split nodes in Magic Nodes. You could make that easily with RegExp Find & Replace add-on and its two presets: "Add space character after ";" separator in multi-item <Into field> if missing" and "Remove space character after ";" separator in multi-item <Into field>".

[dtsig]

ZvezdanD your reply surprises me .. I had thought that I read that the ';' was converted to a null character per the id3 specification. If this is true then that means that MM leaves any space character when it writes it out which would seem to NOT be a good idea as the standard doesn't talk about a space character. Am I reading your reply correctly?
Thanks

[ZvezdanD]

First of all, MediaMonkey supports many audio and video formats and many of them have tagging systems different than ID3, e.g. OGG or APE.

Secondly, MediMonkey has 3 different places where those separators exist and those 3 places have independent separators that could be different: 1) database, 2) GUI, 3) tags in files. For example, separators between items in the fields in database are always the same ("; "), not matter which is the format of the file (it would be unpractical if it is otherwise). Also, users could chose their own separator for display in the GUI (the filelist, Properties dialog, ...) modifying the related option in the Options dialog, but separators in database and in tags will not change, again because of practical reasons.

MediaMonkey is just doing mappings on-the-fly. For example: you specify "|" as separator in MM options and type "Item1 | Item2" in some field; MediMonkey will store that as "Item1; Item2" in the database and as "Item1\x00Item2" in the file's tag (if the \x00 is the item's separator declared for such files).

If you choose "; " to use as separator in GUI then you would have the same separator in GUI and database, but it would be still different than the separator used in MP3 file's tags that follow ID3 standard.

All of that is true for multi-item MM fields. For all other fields that are not multi-item, the separator that you see and use in GUI would be written in the database and file's tags as such, e.g. "Item1 | Item2".

You could specify whatever string as separator for Split by qualifier of Magic Nodes, but it should be the same as it is used in the corresponding field of the database.

[dtsig]

Yes .. err thank you.

[New new wave]

The feature I wish MM actually had is being able to define dependencies between specific genres like in MB.
The two most important relations between genres are being derivatives and influences.
The "derivative" relation indicates the parent/origin of a genre, while an "influence" refers to secondary influences and fusions from other musical styles that are not necessarily related to its stylistic origin.

The reason I think it is important to let the user define these relations between genres is because it helps to organize a library, query auto-playlists, and results in a more consistent and clean tagging for the genre field.

The actual utility of this feature is that it lets you render songs with a very specific genre in other queries that look for their actual stylistic origins and broader genres instead of their exact specific genre.

It helps a lot when you have like 250 different genres as a result of carefully tagging each song in your library accurately for the exact micro-sub-genre it really belongs to at the deepest level.

Typical examples include: "Rock → punk → new wave → dark wave → ethereal wave"
Say I have a playlist that looks up for "new wave" songs, and since "ethereal wave" is a derivative of a derivative of "new wave", it should look up for that song as well, although the genre "new wave" was not mentioned in its "genre" field and nor "dark wave", but only "ethereal wave".

In this case, the value "ethereal wave" should be equivalent to "Rock; punk; new wave; dark wave; ethereal wave" when looking up for genres. It leaves the genre field way shorter, clearer and maintainable.

And it becomes even more useful when it relates influences and fusions, there are fusions almost between every two major genres, and especially in electronic and rock genres. For example, the results of "crossover thrash" should be relevant equally for both "thrash metal" and "hardcore punk", Although thrash would rather be derived from something else like NWOBHM in the chronological sense of hierarchical dependency and origin, and having to mention both of them in every actual "crossover" song would just make the "crossover" label completely redundant to specify the fusion.

Why is having to describe every time repetitively like 5-6 stylistic origins in each song, is more elegant than just binding the relations between those genres once and for all? It would be way more consistent, every "symphonic black metal" entry is also a "rock" entry at the end of the day, but mentioning both in each entry feels wrong to me, just think of it... and put on a note that MusicBee actually already offers this exact feature, why is MM still behind with that?

[MMFrLife]

Can you elaborate?

Does Musicbee rely on an online communication to id subgenres?

I get into the subgenres thing too, but I use a custom field to write the associations out in a list/tag like form, simply,
something like "(R) PRG" in Genre, and in a custom field, all the fused elements associated with that album and/or song
"jazz, funk, classical". I would then use playlist, collection, Magic Nodes to filter what I want.
It's a bit of a pain to list/tag out all of them, but I would also want them all "saved" to a tag and not have to rely on online connection.
Even if online tags them for me, chances are it wouldn't do it exactly how I wanted it, anyway.

[New new wave]

Does Musicbee rely on an online communication to id subgenres?

AFAIK - No. You have to describe the actual dependencies at the settings of MB.
but you do get a default setting of sub-genres when you install MB which I found to be somewhat inaccurate and a bit superficial missing many important genres, fusion styles and specific scenes.

I get into the subgenres thing too, but I use a custom field to write the associations out in a list/tag like form, simply,
something like "(R) PRG" in Genre, and in a custom field, all the fused elements associated with that album and/or song
"jazz, funk, classical". I would then use playlist, collection, Magic Nodes to filter what I want.

I don't, I just use the standard "genre" tag, and it is exhausting, I would rather try to embrace your method than switching back to MB, to be honest.

It's a bit of a pain to list/tag out all of them, but I would also want them all "saved" to a tag and not have to rely on online connection.
Even if online tags them for me, chances are it wouldn't do it exactly how I wanted it, anyway.

I know... I use GenreFinder with a very strict whitelist setting, and only to get hints, I then filter manually what I think is appropriate for each song.
Last.fm has plenty of misleading tags regarding genres and music styles, I wouldn't rely on it blindly. I also check out information on Rate Your Music, it is highly reliable and very accurate there.

Sorry for the late reply btw... I felt like nobody even cares when I posted the thread, so I left the forum.

[MMFrLife]

I would rather try to embrace your method than switching back to MB, to be honest.

Stay tuned and I will spill the deets on my Genre/styles method. It's flexible and reasonably simple to follow.