(09-16-2018, 04:40 PM)TheOldPresbyope Wrote: [ -> ] (09-16-2018, 03:41 PM)rongon Wrote: [ -> ]Shuffle-play by Album as opposed to shuffle-play by Track would be especially important for classical music listeners.
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If you change that to "shuffle-play by work/composition" then would I agree.
Some of the works in my classical collection, notably operas, were spread over multiple CDs, some of them were combined on multiple CDs, like Beethoven's 9 symphonies as recorded by a single conductor/orchestra/related-sessions, some were combined on a single CD. Shuffle-play by work would allow me to chew through my collection during casual listening in the way a good classical radio station does. (Candidly, though, I'm usually focused on a specific work or predefined playlist of related works. I let Internet radio and music streaming services fill in my periods of casual listening.)
Some folks would still want shuffle-play by album; think theme albums like "Tommy" by the Who. [edit] I think of this as a work.
Whether shuffling by "album" or by "work" is the choice, the question for me is, what metadata/track naming/file organizational structure would be the primary key? I really don't want to combine multiple tracks into a single file plus cuesheet to get there but I admit I've considered it in the past.
Regards,
Kent
I'm not sure what tag exists for a 'work.' What standard ID3 tag could be used for that?
We do have the Album tag, though. I think one could make effective use of 'Shuffle by Album' if one could use a tag editor to make a multi-CD opera (for instance) into a single album. It's a kluge, but it would work.
For instance, instead of dividing a two-CD album of an opera into two Albums named something like "Wozzeck - Lear, Fischer-Dieskau, Wunderlich, Bohm, Orchester des Deutschen Opernhauses - CD1" and "Wozzeck - Lear, Fischer-Dieskau, Wunderlich, Bohm, Orchester des Deutschen Opernhauses - CD2", you could go in and re-order the tracks so that both CDs 1 and 2 became one 'Album' named "Wozzeck - Lear, Fischer-Dieskau, Wunderlich, Bohm, Orchester des Deutschen Opernhauses Berlin (complete)". Let's say CD1 had 12 tracks (with track numbers 1 thru 12) and CD2 had 10 tracks (numbered 1 thru 10). You could re-tag them so that the tracks were 1 thru 22, so that the whole opera would play through complete, with all tracks in order, in one 'mega-album'.
I'm not sure how you could organize the logic to get the application to re-number tracks spanning multiple CDs without making lots of mistakes that you'd have to go in and fix anyway.
The CDs may have been the original source material, but once the CD tracks are files, there's no reason to preserve the structure of the CD imposed by its limit of 74 minutes running time. That'w why a little computer-based music player is nice. It doesn't have to be bound by the limitations of disk-based media. Right?
I hope that all makes sense.
EDIT to add:
Also, I'm not sure if it's useful to combine complete box sets (like The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven) into one 'Album' or 'Work.' I use my tag editor to make each symphony into its own Album. I do destroy the sequencing of the original multi-CD set, but like I wrote earlier, I don't see why it's useful or desirable to save that. I'd rather use the ID3 tags to get the music to play like I want it to, not like I was forced to do with a CD or SACD player.
Another EDIT:
Quote:Tim Curtis:
Conceptually, Album shuffle is simply some JS code that detects when the last track in playlist finishes and then it adds a randomly selected Album to the Playlist. It needs to have Consume mode on so that each track of the newly added Album is removed from the Playlist. This way the Playlist never grows, similar to how Auto-shuffle works for individual tracks.
Would that be difficult to implement? I'd use the heck out of it if it was included in moOde. I generally listen to entire albums, even when I'm listening to pop or jazz.
However, for those who do have collections of both classical and pop/jazz/rock/R&B, etc., is there a way to get Shuffle Play tracks to limit itself to one Genre? Like for instance, can I tell moOde to shuffle tracks within the Rock genre only?
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