tags, moOde/MPD and UPNP/OPenHome

[schliden]

They map their "Unified frame type" Remixer to the ID3v2.3 TPE4 frame type. You might experiment with that, keeping in mind that you're customizing your tracks to fit MPD's Procrustean Bed. [Note that the table does not list a Performer type.] I just now tried this on a test track using Kid3 on my Linux laptop. After I updated the moOde folder the value I gave for "Remixer" now shows up in mpc list performer. I don't see it in the Playback panel when I play the track but I don't have time ATM to figure out why.

@TheOldPresbyope

Thanks Kent..

Your point about "customizing your tracks to fit MPD's Procrustean Bed" is well made... but what choice do we have ?

If we want performer to show up in moOde or via /engine-mpd.php -> json we need to encode our tracks to fit...

So frustrating.

BTW: I was able to mirror your test using "Remixer" via Kid3 and get it to display in moOde.

ps. I also had a look at the MPD source and notice that they recently added support for the new tag: "Mood". Perhaps they are not as intractable as i've read.

[TheOldPresbyope]

@schliden

I can speak only of my own experience. If you explore the MPD github issues a few years back you'll see I had several. My memory is hazy but I think my record is 1 win, 1 loss, and 1 split decision. My win was getting a new metadata type "work". A composer-work-performance hierarchy makes much more sense for classicial music than does artist-album-song.

MPD documentation claims it supports 32 different metadata types. For my test FLAC file with all 32 types populated the MPD database appears to contain almost all (there's a few interesting glitchs but my testing isn't done).

However, the interfaces moOde uses don't allow access to them all. For example, exercising the MPD protocol through a telnet session, I get the following when I ask about mood

Code:

pi@m8pi3a:/mnt/SDCARD $ telnet localhost 6600
Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
OK MPD 0.23.5
list mood
ACK [2@0] {list} Unknown tag type: mood

the MPD utility mpc says the following

Code:

supported tags are: Artist, Album, AlbumArtist, Title, Track, Name, Genre, Date, Composer, Performer, Comment, Disc, MUSICBRAINZ_ARTISTID, MU
SICBRAINZ_ALBUMID, MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID, MUSICBRAINZ_TRACKID, MUSICBRAINZ_RELEASETRACKID, OriginalDate, ArtistSort, AlbumArtistSort, AlbumSort

That's only 21.

I don't have a fully populated MP3/ID3 test file yet.

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

Music metadata was never standardized by the music industry and so today there are multiple conflicting schemes and some important tags are populated and used differently by users and music player applications.

moOde implements a commonly used tag scheme for popular music and has some support for tags used in classical music but classical music tagging and organization varies widely depending on the how the user wants to organize their collection.

There have been suggestions to implement user selectable tags, sorts, grouping, columns and so on but this would entail creating a new music library back-end and UI from scratch and so its a no-go for me.

[TheOldPresbyope]

Music metadata was never standardized by the music industry and so today there are multiple conflicting schemes and some important tags are populated and used differently by users and music player applications.

moOde implements a commonly used tag scheme for popular music and has some support for tags used in classical music but classical music tagging and organization varies widely depending on the how the user wants to organize their collection.

There have been suggestions to implement user selectable tags, sorts, grouping, columns and so on but this would entail creating a new music library back-end and UI from scratch and so its a no-go for me.

Candidly, I got "work" added to MPD's repertoire so I could play with files I've already populated and see what I could do with them in moOde. I totally get that the implementation of a more database-like user interface in moOde is a huge undertaking so you won't hear me complaining. 

Until MP3 came about and people started exchanging digital music outside the confines of the studio and production facilities there was no call for metadata. If you were lucky, an LP would include a good set of liner notes. 

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

lol, I remember that request for the "work" tag. It even gets its own link to musicbrainz in the MPD docs.
https://mpd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#tags

Speaking of MusicBrainz here's some good info on tag mapping.
https://picard-docs.musicbrainz.org/en/a...pping.html

[TheOldPresbyope]

I admire the whole MusicBrainz enterprise and have a permanent bookmark in my browser to their mapping table. 

Trouble is, there are competing mapping tables elsewhere, notably the ones used internally by tools like Mp3tag, Kid3, etc., and those tools try their best to hide their sausage making. The hapless user (me, for example) is left to experiment to find out which tag types are actually being used, let alone which tagging scheme.  VORBIS comments blocks are easy peasy; Id3 frames are a PITA.

One manifestation of naive use of these tools is the FLAC files we see show up from time to time with ID3-encoded metadata.

As for the MusicBrainz database itself, it's good but I've run into some interesting anomolies, such as letting MusicBrainz Picard loose on a multi-CD issue of an opera and finding that the metadata in the tracks differed in style between the different discs. Sigh. I have a ToDo list of tracks/albums I need to clean up after the fact. The list is in my mañana directory.

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

Competing mappings :-0

[schliden]

@schliden

MPD documentation claims it supports 32 different metadata types. For my test FLAC file with all 32 types populated the MPD database appears to contain almost all (there's a few interesting glitchs but my testing isn't done).

However, the interfaces moOde uses don't allow access to them all. For example, exercising the MPD protocol through a telnet session, I get the following when I ask about mood

Code:

pi@m8pi3a:/mnt/SDCARD $ telnet localhost 6600
Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
OK MPD 0.23.5
list mood
ACK [2@0] {list} Unknown tag type: mood

the MPD utility mpc says the following

Code:

supported tags are: Artist, Album, AlbumArtist, Title, Track, Name, Genre, Date, Composer, Performer, Comment, Disc, MUSICBRAINZ_ARTISTID, MU
SICBRAINZ_ALBUMID, MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID, MUSICBRAINZ_TRACKID, MUSICBRAINZ_RELEASETRACKID, OriginalDate, ArtistSort, AlbumArtistSort, AlbumSort

That's only 21.

Interestingly, as per my earlier post in this thread, you can see that mpd is also displaying:

Label:
Location:

tags in my telnet session..

@Tim Curtis is there any chance of getting moOde to support/reflect these tags in the moOde interface and the .json output of /engine-mpd.php

[Tim Curtis]

Yes, those tags are supported by MPD https://mpd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#tags but I've never seen them in my music collection that was ripped from CD using xld or in any of the 100's of test files that users have sent for analysis and troubleshooting.

Couple questions:

1. How are the tags being added to your collection?
2. Where in the UI would you propose displaying the tags?

[TheOldPresbyope]

@schliden

Yep, the protocol does appear to support 31 out of the 32 tag types listed in the docs: only mood is left out.

Regards,
Kent