Topic: Squeezebox Issues: Live Recordings Not Listed as Seperate Albums

[bhadella]

I've been using my Squeezebox and I love it.  One major issue, my recordings (including 16 and 24 bit versions of the same show) are not coming thru as easy to pull up with the Squeezebox.   They are showing under the "Artist" section as "No Album" and will show all of the available recordings under this area (in order of recording date and then alphabetical order) .  What is an effective way of separating these and identifying by specific show and bit rate?  I'm using the "Live Show Tagger" to update my flacs in Foobar but cannot figure out how to modify the "Album" data that is pulled in.

[jbraveman]

Select the entire show and right click - properties
Edit the album field to your liking.
I put the differentiating information at the end in parenthesis.

1990-03-29 Madison Square Garden, New York (24 bit)

[bhadella]

Select the entire show and right click - properties
Edit the album field to your liking.
I put the differentiating information at the end in parenthesis.

1990-03-29 Madison Square Garden, New York (24 bit)

Sucks to have to key in that info for each recording.  I've got 400 masters to update.   

[Brian Skalinder]

Rather than updating tags for the 400 recordings, you might try modifying the SqueezeCenter | Settings | Formatting | Guess Tags Formats configuration.

[bhadella]

Any good suggestions for folder structuring to use for the live recordings I have?  My commercial releases were tagged when ripping via EAC and show up well via SqueezeCenter. 

For live recordings, I have the following file structure:

Structure: Live Recordings / YYYY / artistnameYYYY-MM-DD.filetypebitrate
Structure: Live Recordings / 2009 / ryanadams2009-03-20.flacf16

[Brian Skalinder]

I like to keep live and studio recordings in separate directories -- I just find it's easier for me to manage.  Plus, I'll often decide I want to listen to live or studio before I decide on the genre and/or band.  So, that's the top level of my directory structure.  (I don't bother using genre in my directory structure.  I probably should, and may some day, add genre to my metadata / tags.)  Band comes next, followed by album / date+bitdepth, and finally track-level information.  Looks like this:

Music | Live   | Band | BandYYYY-MM-DD.FiletypeBitdepth | BandYYY-MM-DDtNN.Filetype
      | Studio | Band | Album                           | Track#_Track-Name_Album-name_Band.filetype

My live band directory structure and filenames reflect the "eTree" standards I started using ages ago.  I use the studio filename structure above because <1> it provides proper sorting within the album, and <2> I typically already know the band and album to which I'm listening, so the only question is the track name.  Since my primary playback is based on my Squeezebox, which has only a single line of playback info, I see the track name right away without having to wait for the line to scroll.

[bhadella]

I like to keep live and studio recordings in separate directories -- I just find it's easier for me to manage.  Plus, I'll often decide I want to listen to live or studio before I decide on the genre and/or band.  So, that's the top level of my directory structure.  (I don't bother using genre in my directory structure.  I probably should, and may some day, add genre to my metadata / tags.)  Band comes next, followed by album / date+bitdepth, and finally track-level information.  Looks like this:

Music | Live   | Band | BandYYYY-MM-DD.FiletypeBitdepth | BandYYY-MM-DDtNN.Filetype
      | Studio | Band | Album                           | Track#_Track-Name_Album-name_Band.filetype

My live band directory structure and filenames reflect the "eTree" standards I started using ages ago.  I use the studio filename structure above because <1> it provides proper sorting within the album, and <2> I typically already know the band and album to which I'm listening, so the only question is the track name.  Since my primary playback is based on my Squeezebox, which has only a single line of playback info, I see the track name right away without having to wait for the line to scroll.

So how do you have Guess Tags Formats set?

[Brian Skalinder]

So how do you have Guess Tags Formats set?

I don't -- it's set to the default.  And as far as I can tell, SC has never used it.  Was just trying to think of ways to address your issue.

FWIW, I have my studio and live recordings tagged the same:

Artist Name
Album Title ("album name", or city, "state - venue")
Date ("YYYY" for studio or "YYYY-MM-DD" for live)
Track Number

Now that I think about it more, I think I had the same issue as you:  the Album Title tag was empty for live recordings.  I vaguely recall my Foobar tagger plugin (not sure which one, I've used at least two) setting the Venue tag to "city, ST - venue", but SqueezeCenter didn't pick it up because it was looking for the Album tag.  So I used a tagging utility to copy all the Venue tags to Album Title tags.  (Sorry, I don't remember which tagging utility.)  Now, the SC Settings | Interface | Title Format configuration (set to TRACKNUM. TITLE - ALBUM - DATE - ARTIST) displays studio and live recordings using the same set of common tags.

[bhadella]

So how do you have Guess Tags Formats set?

I don't -- it's set to the default.  And as far as I can tell, SC has never used it.  Was just trying to think of ways to address your issue.

FWIW, I have my studio and live recordings tagged the same:

Artist Name
Album Title ("album name", or city, "state - venue")
Date ("YYYY" for studio or "YYYY-MM-DD" for live)
Track Number

Now that I think about it more, I think I had the same issue as you:  the Album Title tag was empty for live recordings.  I vaguely recall my Foobar tagger plugin (not sure which one, I've used at least two) setting the Venue tag to "city, ST - venue", but SqueezeCenter didn't pick it up because it was looking for the Album tag.  So I used a tagging utility to copy all the Venue tags to Album Title tags.  (Sorry, I don't remember which tagging utility.)  Now, the SC Settings | Interface | Title Format configuration (set to TRACKNUM. TITLE - ALBUM - DATE - ARTIST) displays studio and live recordings using the same set of common tags.

I've reorganized my recordings into much better shape.  Still cannot find a tagging utility that recognizes the "Venue" tag that Foobar created.  I'd love to combine "Venue and Date" into "Album" for ultimate geekery.  Anyone know of a program?  Both "Tag and Rename" and "The Godfather" both fail to show "Venue" as a tag.

[bhadella]

So how do you have Guess Tags Formats set?

I don't -- it's set to the default.  And as far as I can tell, SC has never used it.  Was just trying to think of ways to address your issue.

FWIW, I have my studio and live recordings tagged the same:

Artist Name
Album Title ("album name", or city, "state - venue")
Date ("YYYY" for studio or "YYYY-MM-DD" for live)
Track Number

Now that I think about it more, I think I had the same issue as you:  the Album Title tag was empty for live recordings.  I vaguely recall my Foobar tagger plugin (not sure which one, I've used at least two) setting the Venue tag to "city, ST - venue", but SqueezeCenter didn't pick it up because it was looking for the Album tag.  So I used a tagging utility to copy all the Venue tags to Album Title tags.  (Sorry, I don't remember which tagging utility.)  Now, the SC Settings | Interface | Title Format configuration (set to TRACKNUM. TITLE - ALBUM - DATE - ARTIST) displays studio and live recordings using the same set of common tags.

I've reorganized my recordings into much better shape.  Still cannot find a tagging utility that recognizes the "Venue" tag that Foobar created.  I'd love to combine "Venue and Date" into "Album" for ultimate geekery.  Anyone know of a program?  Both "Tag and Rename" and "The Godfather" both fail to show "Venue" as a tag.

Just found that Masstagger can combine "Venue and Date" into "Album" for ultimate geekery.   Final step is to find a tagger that can pull "Bit Rate" and add it to the end of Album to split out my 24 bit recordings from the 16 bit.

[jbraveman]

folks have said that mp3tag is a good tool.  I'm not sure if it does what you want, but you can set it to display the tags that you want.   Don't forget to scan all your music to set the replay gain values.

[L.B.]

I have taken the long, hard work and tagged all my live recordings using dbpoweramp ID-tagger.
I know it is not what you are asking but here are my "procedure":

I like to keep official and live recordings seperate.
That means that I have a folder called "Bruce Springsteen" with official releases and a folder called ""Bruce Springsteen Live Recordings" with live recordings.

I copy all ID-info from info-files where available or the even harder way from artwork.
Album-ID is put like this: title of recording (yyyy-mm-dd). If a title is not available, I call it Live [city] (yyyy-mm-dd).

Example of folder structure:
Bruce Springsteen -> Devils & Dust
Bruce Springsteen Live Recordings -> Gothenburg Dust Night (2005-06-23)
Bruce Springsteen Live Recordings -> Live Denver (1996-10-16)

[cheshirecat]

folks have said that mp3tag is a good tool.  I'm not sure if it does what you want, but you can set it to display the tags that you want.   Don't forget to scan all your music to set the replay gain values.

I used mp3tag to tag thousands of shows, its slow going, but you eventually get there, you can use ctrl+n for next so you can go full bore and just go through.  I typically tag starting with Artist then I'll pick a show and put it in etree format YYYY-MM-DD Venue, City, State.  You can choose custom tags, so if there is anything that didn't show up, you can add it and categorize based on that.

[bhadella]

So how do you have Guess Tags Formats set?

I don't -- it's set to the default.  And as far as I can tell, SC has never used it.  Was just trying to think of ways to address your issue.

FWIW, I have my studio and live recordings tagged the same:

Artist Name
Album Title ("album name", or city, "state - venue")
Date ("YYYY" for studio or "YYYY-MM-DD" for live)
Track Number

Now that I think about it more, I think I had the same issue as you:  the Album Title tag was empty for live recordings.  I vaguely recall my Foobar tagger plugin (not sure which one, I've used at least two) setting the Venue tag to "city, ST - venue", but SqueezeCenter didn't pick it up because it was looking for the Album tag.  So I used a tagging utility to copy all the Venue tags to Album Title tags.  (Sorry, I don't remember which tagging utility.)  Now, the SC Settings | Interface | Title Format configuration (set to TRACKNUM. TITLE - ALBUM - DATE - ARTIST) displays studio and live recordings using the same set of common tags.

I've reorganized my recordings into much better shape.  Still cannot find a tagging utility that recognizes the "Venue" tag that Foobar created.  I'd love to combine "Venue and Date" into "Album" for ultimate geekery.  Anyone know of a program?  Both "Tag and Rename" and "The Godfather" both fail to show "Venue" as a tag.

Just found that Masstagger can combine "Venue and Date" into "Album" for ultimate geekery.   Final step is to find a tagger that can pull "Bit Rate" and add it to the end of Album to split out my 24 bit recordings from the 16 bit.

I lanced the ".flacf24" or the ".flacf16" from the folder names that contained the files to get the bit rate tagged via "Masstagger".  Then killed the "flacf" portion and then combined that with my existing "Album" info to get it all together.  Yeah geekery!

[Gordon]

so i don't have a squeezbox yet.  keyword yet

I understand that foobars live show tagger doesn't include the "album" field.  I use tag and rename or properties in foobar to add it to my masters.  anyway I have many shows on harddrives that aren't tagged properly (1.5 tbs worth).   is there a way to simply view the folders the shows are in for easy playback or do they have to be tagged properly?

[Brian Skalinder]

Gordon -- Squeezecenter allows you to specify a top-level music folder:  Squeezecenter Settings | Music Folder.  Both SC and the Squeezebox provide a Music Folder view that navigates to the directory specified in that setting.  From there, you can navigate to subdirectories, or even different drives (using shortcuts).

For example, I have Squeezecenter Settings | Music Folder set to h:\audio\.  When I select the Music Folder view in SC or on my Squeezebox, it takes me to h:\audio\.  From there, I have access to a subdir LiveA-R.  And I also have a shortcut, LiveR-Z, which redirects to another drive, j:\LiveR-Z.

[Gordon]

gotcha.  so it sounds like I can have multiple drives show up and easy to view folders regardless of tags.  that was my main concern.   flacing and then tagging a 500gb drive of jerry shows has been a long, long process.  my dead drives are all still shn but I'd like to think I could just flac them and then slowly work on the tags but still be able to easily access said externals though the squeezebox.

all my masters are tagged but many not with the album field (didn't realize foobar didn't do that till it was too late.)

thanks for the info.

[rjp]

I understand that foobars live show tagger doesn't include the "album" field.

I'm running Foobar 0.9.6.2 here, and the built-in tagger ("Properties" when you right-click a tree-view item, a single song, or a selection of songs) most definitely has an "album" field.

[Gordon]

I understand that foobars live show tagger doesn't include the "album" field.

I'm running Foobar 0.9.6.2 here, and the built-in tagger ("Properties" when you right-click a tree-view item, a single song, or a selection of songs) most definitely has an "album" field.

I know.  but using the live show tagger where it grabs the info from the textfile it doesn't write a album field.  as you said if you right click properties you can add it manually. 

[bhadella]

I understand that foobars live show tagger doesn't include the "album" field.

I'm running Foobar 0.9.6.2 here, and the built-in tagger ("Properties" when you right-click a tree-view item, a single song, or a selection of songs) most definitely has an "album" field.

I know.  but using the live show tagger where it grabs the info from the textfile it doesn't write a album field.  as you said if you right click properties you can add it manually. 

The cool thing is that you can if you right click after you have selected the entire group, you can change the "album" field for all of the files in one step. 

[rjp]

but using the live show tagger where it grabs the info from the textfile it doesn't write a album field.

Ah, I hadn't noticed there was a tagger that did that... I've been tagging things manually.

[Gordon]

but using the live show tagger where it grabs the info from the textfile it doesn't write a album field.

Ah, I hadn't noticed there was a tagger that did that... I've been tagging things manually.

live show tagger rules!  except for the album field but entering one thing is a lot easier than than doing everything that way.  there are a few threads on here about the live show tagger with tips etc etc.