# Which music catalog software do you use?



## Azol

Here is the poll to figure out which software do forum members use to track their musical collections. Considering cataloguing classical music (especially opera) is very tricky, every bit of information could be useful!


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## ptr

I started building my catalogue/database in 1991-92 and at the time Filemaker was the best database builder software back them, I still use it as none of the pre-made software's I've checked out have given me the flexibility of building with filemaker. The only drawback is that I have to fill in all the information myself, but then, I'm quite OCD about this, not trusting anyone else to do it correctly! 

/ptr


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## Guest

I just about manage to keep my CDs in alphabetical order. That's as organised as I get!


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## joen_cph

I´ve registered the collection in Word documents, one for each letter of the alphabet, and then one section for each composer there. My collection is mainly in the old media of LPs and CDs, but I also have digital files.

The good thing is that one can design it according to one s taste, and add for example Wikipedia- or other biographies and material etc. in the entries, and that it is clear and comprehensible; 

the bad thing is that there are basically no search options, no other categories than composers, and that it is overall very time-consuming.

I used to keep a basic listing according to record labels too, but gave it up, since it meant spending more time.


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## Pugg

dogen said:


> I just about manage to keep my CDs in alphabetical order. That's as organised as I get!


This is my method to, and use the brains :tiphat:


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## Azol

Basically cataloguing software allows easily to answer such questions as:

- how many different recordings of Bruckner's Third Symphony do I have?
- how much money I spent purchasing CDs last year?
- which Verdi opera recordings feature Tito Gobbi?
- what are the lyrics of this particular song?
- what is the timing of each Guglielmo Tell recording in my collection?
- how many different sopranos sing Tosca in my collection (including compilations and recitals)?
- which operas were recorded in 1995?

as well as

- listen to full albums as well as individual tracks;
- rate the recordings and tracks;
- attach notes, comments, memos, libretti, cover art;
- use custom fields to store any other information imaginable (limitation No., dB gain etc)


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## bigshot

I use iTunes. It does what I need it to do.


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## jtbell

I use a DIY relational database in MySQL. This is strictly for inventory-keeping, not for playback.

I also have iTunes which I normally use for playback together with an Apple TV, but it contains only about 15% of my collection.


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## Albert7

bigshot said:


> I use iTunes. It does what I need it to do.


Same here because all of my listening is either vinyl or iPhone.


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## Krummhorn

I have created Excel spreadsheets for this purpose. 

In fact my entire library of classical organ scores, consisting of some 4,000 or so titles, is in spreadsheet form in a manner that lets me sort it by title, or composer, or arranger.


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## opus55

I use My System developed by me using CD shelves - old fashioned method. Simple composer-alphabetical order then small to large ensemble (solo piano, violin sonata, trio, quartet, symphony etc). Opera is separate and mostly unsorted.

Once in a while I have trouble at the store trying to remember if I have the recording or not. I call my assistant - wife.

No, no software. All hardware.


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## SixFootScowl

No special software. All is arranged in folders/sub-folders on my computer (Linux Mint OS). All backed up to a 1TB external drive and favorites backed up to Google Drive.


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## bestellen

Disclib is a CD collection organizer program. It may be used as a catalogue of CDs. After creating the catalogue, disclib stores file and folder names and tree, allows user to categorize folders and files, and allows searching all the files from the collection CDs without need to place them in CD reader. Disclib may place in the catalogue any windows folder not only folders on CDs. Disclib has a customizable Multilanguage functionality. The program also extracts mp3 info.


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## Weston

I use a combination of Excel and Word. Excel is easily sortable and I even have a column with a random number generator to help with randomizing my listening order, although both the iPod and WinAmp do that also. Another column keeps track of the number of deep listens posted on "Current Listening." Why? I have no idea. 

The same info is imported into Word for easier reading when I'm shopping.


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## campy

bigshot said:


> I use iTunes. It does what I need it to do.


I'm in this club too..


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## opus55

Azol said:


> Basically cataloguing software allows easily to answer such questions as:
> 
> - how many different recordings of Bruckner's Third Symphony do I have?
> - how much money I spent purchasing CDs last year?
> - which Verdi opera recordings feature Tito Gobbi?
> - what are the lyrics of this particular song?
> - what is the timing of each Guglielmo Tell recording in my collection?
> - how many different sopranos sing Tosca in my collection (including compilations and recitals)?
> - which operas were recorded in 1995?
> 
> as well as
> 
> - listen to full albums as well as individual tracks;
> - rate the recordings and tracks;
> - attach notes, comments, memos, libretti, cover art;
> - use custom fields to store any other information imaginable (limitation No., dB gain etc)


Some of those features would be interesting/useful to me. Do they all have to be entered manually?


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## bigshot

Not if you are ripping into iTunes and using Gracenote to tag. It will add all of the data for you. Sometimes it needs a little touch up, but I do that as I rip and it isn't time consuming at all.

Once you have the files in iTunes, you can sort by just about any criteria you want, and you can set up smart playlists to play specific music that fits your criteria... For instance, Tchaikovsky symphonies not conducted by Karajan that you haven't listened to in the last six months. It's very powerful, and it can change the way you listen to classical music.

When I was disk based, I rarely was ever able to directly compare multiple interpretations. With iTunes, it's easy to line up all of the versions of a particular work and compare.


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## Azol

Yes, exactly. But sometimes even Gracenote offers incorrect information (which you can edit and upload back online, so other people would benefit from your input) and some info you have to enter manually or using the software search capabilities to facilitate it (lyrics, for instance).


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## arpeggio

ClassiCat. Unfortunately it is out of print.


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## fjf

I store music in folders, and I do not like the tagging thing. Too much work and does not keep albums complete (I must be a bit OCD). The only solution is to find a good file cataloging software. I used before CDCat, but it is old, not maintained and hard to install in MAC. Now I am testing the trial version of Neofinder. So far I like it. Works very well and finds you everything fast.


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## Lord Lance

I have a slight case of OCD. Basically, my entire 1TB external storage is classical music stored with utmost attention to correct file and folder naming. I must've spent several hours on it cumulatively. And a very big one is currently under the works: Renaming all folders of Karajan DG [240 Discs] from the default "CD 240" to "KARAJAN'S FINAL RECORDING - Bruckner's Seventh Symphony". [Yes, that is a real life example.] About 160 discs of renaming to go. _Oh_, _so fun! _

Easy peasy lemon squeezy after that. Just find anything you want through the meticulously [some might say persnickety] named folders in my library. Also invaluable is Everything - local search engine service.


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## Azol

Lord Lance said:


> Renaming all folders of Karajan DG [240 Discs] from the default "CD 240" to "KARAJAN'S FINAL RECORDING - Bruckner's Seventh Symphony". [Yes, that is a real life example.] About 160 discs of renaming to go. _Oh_, _so fun! _


That is why I use catalog software - as soon as I attach files to tracks in the catalog (which is easy, as the software scans the folders and attaches those automatically), I can rename everything in a couple of clicks using any naming model I could imagine.


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## bigshot

I never found album titles to be any use with classical music. The exact same CD might turn up in six different box sets, each with a different album title. I generally ignore the album and focus on joining tracks into complete works. I rarely play single movements from a symphony anyway, so it makes sense to make one file a single symphony or concerto. It also makes searching and sorting in iTunes very easy, and I can put my wireless media server on random shuffle by songs and it will create a really good radio station out of my collection.


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## Lord Lance

Album names serve no purpose. That is why you need folders, sub-folders, and sub-folder's proper file name.

Have you tried AIMP3's Advanced Tag Editor, Azol?

Also, I suppose you edit the file's properties to perfection? Proper album name, artist and file name? I don't invest that much time into it. Rather, only folder names and/or tracks' name. The folder naming and branching make searching very clear. Using players with large libraries makes searching tedious. Not when you have it all well segregated~


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## Albert7

Lord Lance said:


> Album names serve no purpose. That is why you need folders, sub-folders, and sub-folder's proper file name.
> 
> Have you tried AIMP3's Advanced Tag Editor, Azol?


ITunes does this all automatically when I import the disc so I don't really have to worry all this time.


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## Azol

Lord Lance said:


> Album names serve no purpose. That is why you need folders, sub-folders, and sub-folder's proper file name.
> 
> Have you tried AIMP3's Advanced Tag Editor, Azol?
> 
> Also, I suppose you edit the file's properties to perfection? Proper album name, artist and file name? I don't invest that much time into it. Rather, only folder names and/or tracks' name. The folder naming and branching make searching very clear. Using players with large libraries makes searching tedious. Not when you have it all well segregated~


More than that, a proper catalog software does tag editing automatically, taking all the needed info from either online databases or your manual input. Then it would move all the tracks to the folder needed, in my case it follows a common pattern: genre\composer\work_name (year)\discnum\tracknum etc.
As a final touch, it adds the cover image as a folder.jpg file so you can see it in Windows Explorer.


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## QuietGuy

ptr said:


> I started building my catalogue/database in 1991-92 and at the time Filemaker was the best database builder software back them, I still use it as none of the pre-made software's I've checked out have given me the flexibility of building with filemaker. The only drawback is that I have to fill in all the information myself, but then, I'm quite OCD about this, not trusting anyone else to do it correctly!
> 
> /ptr


I've done several music databases in FileMaker. You're right; it's great software to use!


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## Musicophile

fjf said:


> I store music in folders, and I do not like the tagging thing. Too much work and does not keep albums complete (I must be a bit OCD). The only solution is to find a good file cataloging software. I used before CDCat, but it is old, not maintained and hard to install in MAC. Now I am testing the trial version of Neofinder. So far I like it. Works very well and finds you everything fast.


Sorry, but I disagree. Tagging correctly is better than any folder system, as the information is stored in the files and can never get lost. Agree it is A LOT of work though. It's worth it in the end, because once done well, you profit from it all your life. I have every single work in my very large library available at a click. Computer audio is amazing for this.


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## Albert7

Musicophile said:


> Sorry, but I disagree. Tagging correctly is better than any folder system, as the information is stored in the files and can never get lost. Agree it is A LOT of work though. It's worth it in the end, because once done well, you profit from it all your life. I have every single work in my very large library available at a click. Computer audio is amazing for this.


Indeed accurate embedded album art and tags are crucial for the file... you can import into iTunes or throw onto Android and it will make sure that it is all good no matter which the music files reside.


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## GraemeG

I don't have any 'digital' files: everything is on LP or CD.
I wouldn't be prepared to digitize anything until I'd worked out the best way to tag things to start with.
And then how do you listen to stuff? Tiny little earbuds? Crappy PC speakers? Nah, hopeless.

But with ~1000 CDs & LPs, including quite a lot of 'bumper boxes' acquired in recent years, something more than just alphabetical storage on the shelf was needed.
So, a simple excel spreadsheet with 10 columns: Composer / Genre / Work / Soloist / Ensemble / Conductor / Format / Label / Cat No / Recording Date / Text field for notes.
Easy stuff.
Although, it's approaching 3200 lines...
cheers,
Graeme


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## bigshot

GraemeG said:


> Ihow do you listen to stuff? Tiny little earbuds? Crappy PC speakers?


My music library resides on a Mac Mini media server that streams CD quality music to every stereo in the house. I can turn music on and off in different rooms and select tracks from my iPhone. I'm old enough to be a luddite, but I sure am glad that I'm not one!



Musicophile said:


> Tagging correctly is better than any folder system, as the information is stored in the files and can never get lost. Agree it is A LOT of work though. It's worth it in the end, because once done well, you profit from it all your life. I have every single work in my very large library available at a click. Computer audio is amazing for this.


This ^^^

If you clean up the Gracenote tags as you rip, and you are consistent about it, it isn't difficult and you end up with the most flexible and powerful library of music imaginable.


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## Albert7

bigshot is on point with me here. iTunes just works and except for the rare time when it crashed my PC with a previous update, everything else is smooth sailing.

paired with Apple Music this combo is dangerous.


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## Lord Lance

Azol said:


> More than that, a proper catalog software does tag editing automatically, taking all the needed info from either online databases or your manual input. Then it would move all the tracks to the folder needed, in my case it follows a common pattern: genre\composer\work_name (year)\discnum\tracknum etc.
> As a final touch, it adds the cover image as a folder.jpg file so you can see it in Windows Explorer.


Oh, those tagging are horrible. The naming is all wrong and the pictures don't always match and the spaces are improper. Bleh.


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## Albert7

Lord Lance said:


> Oh, those tagging are horrible. The naming is all wrong and the pictures don't always match and the spaces are improper. Bleh.


Auto tagging from where?


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## bigshot

Some people think the tags come from the program themselves. They don't realize that the program is tapping into an online database that is crowd sourced. iTunes uses Gracenote, but there are others as well. I use Gracenote and I follow the established tagging conventions for classical music. Whenever I tag something that hasn't been tagged before, I submit my tags so Gracenote becomes a better resource for everyone.


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## Lord Lance

Albert7 said:


> Auto tagging from where?


Well, I've used CUETools. CUETools uses different sites. They offer two to three album suggestions.


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## bigshot

CUETools doesn't use Gracenote, I believe. Gracenote is the biggest tagging database by far, since it's the one used in iTunes.


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## Albert7

Lord Lance said:


> Well, I've used CUETools. CUETools uses different sites. They offer two to three album suggestions.


Ah it is no wonder that you have to retag everything. ITunes forever!


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## Grizzled Ghost

The problem with iTunes though is that it is increasingly oriented toward facilitating impulse purchases and monthly subscription plans for clueless teens. It does not try to support the serious music collector, and seems to lose important functionality with each new release.

As things stand, I have to ignore most of the user interface and work in Songs mode under the Playlists tab to access my very rich collection of playlists while seeing the info I care about. I choose the columns I want in the column browser and in the main screen area, and fight with iTunes as it tries to change them back to what it thinks I want.

I'm particularly peeved that in the newest iTunes (12.2.1) the lame-brained UI designers at Apple added a one-inch blank area across the top of the interface for playlists which does absolutely nothing. It looks ugly as heck, it takes away a significant chunk of real estate on my laptop screen, and it serves as a constant painful reminder to me that Apple does not care about how I want to use iTunes. 

After some playing around I found out that I can link pictures of zebras and whatnot to my playlists, but who cares about this nonsense? They took away reasonable access to the album artwork a few releases ago and now they give me zebras?

It is getting harder and harder to use iTunes to manage my music collection. I hate the fact that Apple effectively forces me to upgrade iTunes every year or so. I fear that sooner or later iTunes will be worthless for anything except buying the latest Taylor Swift album.


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## fjf

If you use MAC and have a local copy of the music try http://cogx.org/. It is a very simple player, but does it well.


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## bigshot

That won't help the tagging problem though. If someone chooses a different way to tag than the standard, they are always going to be swimming upstream.


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## ptr

bigshot said:


> That won't help the tagging problem though. If someone chooses a different way to tag than the standard, they are always going to be swimming upstream.


Life is about swimming upstream, only dead fish follow the stream! (an old saying from the north!)

/ptr


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## fjf

bigshot said:


> That won't help the tagging problem though. If someone chooses a different way to tag than the standard, they are always going to be swimming upstream.


You are right. But as I said above, I hate tagging. I like listening to CDs/Vinyls, but hate to handle the physical discs and organizing them. I rip them, put the Flacs in a folder with a description, and I use Neofinder to locate them by keywords. Each folder is a disk, and can be played easily using Cog. Works for me. And I am free from Apple, Google and Amazon.


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## bigshot

ptr said:


> Life is about swimming upstream, only dead fish follow the stream! (an old saying from the north!)


Where would humanity be without everyday aggravations and annoyances!



fjf said:


> I rip them, put the Flacs in a folder with a description, and I use Neofinder to locate them by keywords.


You can't do smart playlists with that system! And smart playlists are the most powerful tool there is for organizing music libraries.


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## fjf

Nah I try to decide myself what to listen. Married men dont have much more freedom than that :lol:


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## leroy

I use windows media player and its online application for finding album info which works about half the time. The other half I'll either write the info myself i.e. create a folder name and name each track, or if I'm not being lazy I'll use audacity to create the file tags directly. One of the benefits of the latter method is you can edit out ridiculously long empty spaces that show up on the end of tracks sometimes. Once that's accomplished I just create windows media player play lists and port them to my Squeezebox for play on my stereo system.


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## Musicophile

bigshot said:


> That won't help the tagging problem though. If someone chooses a different way to tag than the standard, they are always going to be swimming upstream.


If only there were a decent standard...


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## Lord Lance

Albert7 said:


> Ah it is no wonder that you have to retag everything. ITunes forever!


I hope you know the difference between re-tagging and what I do. Don't worry, I've seen them all, least of all deplorable services like iTunes. Two thumbs down!


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## bigshot

Musicophile said:


> If only there were a decent standard...


There is a standard on Gracenote. I generally have to adjust tags on less than 10% of the music it tags for me.

The best function in smart play listing is the ones involving play count and last played date. I talk to a lot of people with large music collections who admit they really only listen to about 5% of their collection because they keep pulling the same disks off the shelf all the time. With smart play listing, my entire library is in circulation. I don't have any unplayed music that I am "waiting to get around to". As I play, I use my iPhone to tag favorites with the star ratings, and to flag tracks that I never want to hear again for removal. I have smart playlists that organize kinds of music into logical groups, give priority to my five star favorites and then bring underplayed stuff to the top so I can uncover new five star favorites. It's extremely powerful and as I go, my music library keeps getting better and better. Always something I like. Always something new. I cycle my iPods the same way.


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## Grizzled Ghost

I also do a lot with playlists in iTunes:

1) one or more playlists for playing music

2) smart playlists for new additions, recently played, neglected

3) smart playlists splitting the collection up by play count - at least since the last reset - these can then be sorted by album rating for example - over time play counts should be a good reflection of how much I like a particular work, right? - random play really messes this up though

4) smart playlists splitting the collection up by album rating - I also did some iTunes tweek letting me give albums and tracks half stars - e.g. 3 1/2 stars or 4 1/2 stars

5) a large group of playlists including one for each composer for whom I have more than 3 hours of music - these can be manually arranged by composition date (with repeats pushed to the end) in case I want to play through a composer's oeuvre in chronological order

6) a group of playlists splitting the collection by date of composition - by decades after 1800, larger periods earlier - requires putting year of composition in the date field for each track - a lot of work but very rewarding - does anyone else do this?

7) a group of playlists splitting the collection by label - these are manual playlists, but I have one playlist which tells me which music I haven't yet filed (here and elsewhere)

8) a group of manual playlists splitting composers by nationality - supported by an automatic "to file" playlist - my most recent addition

9) a group of manual playlists splitting the collection by date added - manual playlists because at one point I had to rebuild my library and lost the original acquisition date info

10) a group of playlists dividing collection by album v long album v short album v composite album v partial albums and single tracks

11) a few other odds-and-ends playlists - eg Schiff's lectures on Beethoven interspersed with his performances of the piano sonatas

At one point I tried to do something clever to help me keep track of "duplicates" - i.e. different performances of a particular work - including help deciding which performance I liked best - didn't get too far because I find AB comparative listening difficult and tedious.

Bigshot is right that "smart playlists" are key. I also take advantage of the fact that iTunes lets you treat a "folder" of playlists as if it were a playlist itself. For example, all the "by label" playlists are in a folder. The smart playlist which tells me which albums need to be filed just shows all classical tracks not already in said folder. Easy peasy.

But again, I feel very vulnerable to the whims of Apple, which has shown little interest recently in supporting serious collectors like us.


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## fjf

Grizzled Ghost said:


> But again, I feel very vulnerable to the whims of Apple, which has shown little interest recently in supporting serious collectors like us.


You never know when the next itunes update is going to destroy everything completely 

I refuse to let Apple be in charge of my music.


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## bigshot

Grizzled Ghost said:


> I also do a lot with playlists in iTunes:


OOO! Lots of useful ideas there! Thanks!


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## shadowdancer

Grizzled Ghost said:


> I also do a lot with playlists in iTunes:
> ...
> ...
> But again, I feel very vulnerable to the whims of Apple, which has shown little interest recently in supporting serious collectors like us.


Great post. Thank you for that.
The "each composer playlist" option, I use mostly for gadgets synchronization.
I find rather annoying that Apple doesn't allows to sync music to the gadget by composer.

Just as a complement of your nice post: 
for composers which I have a lot of hours, I split the composer's playlist by genre.

Haydn Symphonies
Beethoven Strings
Mozarts Piano Sonata
Beethoven Piano Concerti
Bach Cello

and so on...

I achieve that easily due to a very personal tagging schema.


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## bigshot

You can do that with normal tagging, but you would need to join tracks to make each work a single file, instead of each movement.


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## Albert7

I just added PonoMusic World software to my list now.


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## fjf

I've read that the PonoMusic World is to play music with some sort of external pono player. Is this the case?.


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## Lord Lance

Oh my good Lord!

Auto-tagging music software are _fantastic!_

Thank you, MusicBrainz Picard!


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## Albert7

fjf said:


> I've read that the PonoMusic World is to play music with some sort of external pono player. Is this the case?.


PonoMusic World can load music not just onto your Pono but also any USB mountable DAP or Android phone. It's the FLAC equivalent of iTunes.


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## michaels

PonoMusic world is a partial fork of JRiver Media Center, the tool I use for playback. I use iTunes with no organization on top of the same file directories that JRMC creates via rules based on the scheme I've chosen, and Yate for my fancy tagging needs. 

I also realize that there's a fundamental issue with classical music digital classical music. No getting around that without insane time spent tagging music. In turn, I focus on the things I use when selecting something to listen to:
Performers
Conductors
Orchestras/Ensembles
Work
Movement
Genre: Sub-genre (e.g. Chamber Duos)
Instruments (featured... e.g. Violin Concertos)
Collection/Album

River allows me to ask and get answers in the form of a filtered view of my music based on ANY way I like to traverse this information. My current favs:
Conductor-->Composer-->Work-->Ensemble
Composer-->Genre-->Work-->Album Artist
Artist-->Genre-->Album
Hires music-->Genre-->Artist-->Album

Can't do that with pure filesystem even with tagging.

Note that I still use iTunes to load up my iPhone on top of this filesystem because I refuse to let it "Organize" my library. I also don't use their streaming offering because... well... I don't care about pop music enough to pay for it.


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