# Why don't music player makers get how classical should be played?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Every music player without fail, seems to think that I only should listen to the third movement of beethovens 5th symphony, from rhapsody, to spottily to, iTunes, to windows media player. I get that the "popular" music doesn't split its songs into multiple tracks, can you imagine smells like teen spirit split into 20 second segments, and then only be allowed to listen to one on shuffle? I was just wondering if there was a steaming service out there that didn't just play a 20 second part of a variation without telling me what it was or who it was by?


----------



## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Pandora now has a complete works station for Classical that plays exactly what it says.


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I've spent thousands of hours getting iTunes arranged to work properly - and at this point my iTunes library is a work of art. It ought to be on display somewhere for people to admire. It sounds like I'm joking or something, but I'm not. I have a beautiful iTunes library.


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I have run into a similar problem when I rip CDs to my hard disk with Windows Media Player. Rather kindly, it connects to the web to find the information about the CD and the tracks on it, and when it then rips the tracks, they get relevant file names. Or at least, that is how it is supposed to work.

Alas, very frequently, the information that the software gets from the web is completely and utterly wrong. And it is impossible to correct it too. I have tried changing the file names, but the software simply automatically changes them back to what they were. 

Another frustrating problem is the names of the folders in which the files are put. Instead of, say, a folder titled "Beethoven - Symphony no 9", the software very frequently names the folders after the performers, so now if I want to listen to that symphony I have to remember which orchestra performed it, Or who the conductor is. Or the soloists. Or the company that manufactured the CD. Or whatever the heck else the software decided to use for the name of the folder. And once again, try to change it, and the software either changes it back, or even worse, rearrange my entire music library so that tracks from other folders now suddenly appear in the newly renamed one, and entire multi-movement works are thus dismembered.

In short: I HATE it when machines think on my behalf. Artificial intelligence is a myth; artificial stupidity and insanity the sad reality.


----------



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I'll have to try pandora out, currently I use itunes but I can't hear things I don't own, in a way I wish , since I don't own a radio.


----------



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

I use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) a free to use, open source 'audio grabber' for ripping CDs. EAC allows you to categorise and list your tracks as you like them, and its web-sourced information is often accurate (!).

I use Foobar 2000, also free to use, as my audio player. Foobar's "user interface" is very flexible and you can customise it to suit your own requirements. You can certainly organise track names etc. quite easily, once you get the hang of it. This does work extremely well - I've been using it for the past 2 years. I convert EAC's .wav file output to flac files for storage - these are compatible with Foobar.

I must admit, though, I did get my tech-savvy teenage son to customise Foobar on my PCs.

My Foobar 2000 interface looks like this: click on the image to expand it


----------



## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

The original question? The companies generate a LOT more business through other types of music.  

It's business. Better leave it the way it is, or else they might get mad. :lol:


----------



## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

GreenMamba said:


> Pandora now has a complete works station for Classical that plays exactly what it says.


That's wonderful. Would you be willing to explain how to find the station, for those of us who only know how to start up Pandora and type in an artist name?


----------



## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

hreichgott said:


> That's wonderful. Would you be willing to explain how to find the station, for those of us who only know how to start up Pandora and type in an artist name?


In Search, type in Classical Complete Performances. I actually saw an ad for it, but that's its name.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

You could always buy CDs.


----------



## badRomance (Nov 22, 2011)

That's why I digitize my own CDs, use a CD service to fill in some tags, and then edit all the tags with Tag&Rename to suit my needs.


----------



## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

The only major downside to digital, as I see it, is the fact that there are brief lapses between each track. This is especially noticeable if you're listening to long stretches of music that are spread across multiple tracks, such as a Wagner opera. You pretty much have to go with a CD in these cases...I don't see any other way around it.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Celloman said:


> The only major downside to digital, as I see it, is the fact that there are brief lapses between each track. This is especially noticeable if you're listening to long stretches of music that are spread across multiple tracks, such as a Wagner opera. You pretty much have to go with a CD in these cases...I don't see any other way around it.


Itunes plays tracks without gaps. If it segues naturally, you won't hear a pause.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

In answer to the question posed in the title of this thread: It's probably because they aren't terribly concerned with the peculiar needs of people making up two to three percent of the music market. Let's face it: We're the wrong demographic, as they say.


----------



## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> You could always buy CDs.


Or pay for spotify. it saved me a fortune.


----------



## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

BurningDesire said:


> Itunes plays tracks without gaps. If it segues naturally, you won't hear a pause.


You can tell that I use Itunes all the time, can't you?


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Celloman said:


> The only major downside to digital, as I see it, is the fact that there are brief lapses between each track. This is especially noticeable if you're listening to long stretches of music that are spread across multiple tracks, such as a Wagner opera. You pretty much have to go with a CD in these cases...I don't see any other way around it.


You have to set your player to gapless playback. Most players have this feature.

To solve a lot of the problems mentioned in this thread, I rip my own CDs, not letting the web label them. I use Media Tagger to append track information. For downloaded mp3 files, I go through the same process, renaming the file to fit a standard file naming I created for myself and I delete anything resembling a track number (because some software likes to sort by track number). I also delete genre, because I don't like to pigeonhole art. Tracks that are supposed to be gapless I concatenate in Audacity so that they become one file. That way they still work on random play. It's a little bit of extra work, but I find it very relaxing.


----------



## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

This issue isn't actually only relevant to classical music though. Some very popular records like Dark Side Of The Moon or Abbey Road suffer from the same thing, sadly.


----------



## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

I found that Google Music is an amazing service for classical music. It lets you upload your tracks, so they are also stored in the cloud and it is less likely that you will miss it, and stream directly from the web. Also it has an All Access service for $10/month that is like Spotify and have almost every album that I search for available for streaming. It also has radios. I love it.

ps: this is NOT a paid post!


----------



## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Piwikiwi said:


> Or pay for spotify. it saved me a fortune.


I for one definitely do not pay for Spotify... and yet, it may well COST me a fortune with "plays" of my music coming over whelmingly from Spotify. I mean it really depends on which side of the equation you stand (or play or pay) - don't you think?


----------



## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I listen to Pandora's classical music all the time and I didn't know about that station (the one that plays complete multi-movement works instead of just single movements). What's it called (I will search for "complete works classical" and the like)?


----------



## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I ripped a Rostropovich CD (from his complete EMI recordings) using ITunes, and Saint-Saens's 1st cello concerto got mislabelled as his 2d cello concerto. They had the correct key and tempi for the 2d concerto, and I think the correct opus number for the 2d concerto, it was just completely the wrong piece! The boxed set of CD's did not include the 2d concerto at all. I don't know if he ever recorded it for EMI or anyone else.


----------



## Andrei (Sep 11, 2013)

TurnaboutVox said:


> I use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) a free to use, open source 'audio grabber' for ripping CDs. EAC allows you to categorise and list your tracks as you like them, and its web-sourced information is often accurate (!).
> 
> I use Foobar 2000, also free to use, as my audio player. Foobar's "user interface" is very flexible and you can customise it to suit your own requirements.


I'm another Foobar and EAC user. Neither of these are what you would call slick. EAC is accurate in ripping and I am also surprised in its accuracy when downloading Tags, cover art and lyrics. Foobar is worth it if you put in a little effort. It has heaps of optional components such as playing from a Ram-Disk or Wasapi support for better performance.


----------



## campy (Aug 16, 2012)

iTunes user here. I import all my music as 1 work = 1 "song".

For operas, it's 1 act = 1 "song".

If I acquire the music as separate movements, I put them together with Audacity. I'm no audiophile, so any degradation of fidelity by making a new mp3 out of 4 old ones doesn't bother me at all.


----------



## gHeadphone (Mar 30, 2015)

TurnaboutVox said:


> I use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) a free to use, open source 'audio grabber' for ripping CDs. EAC allows you to categorise and list your tracks as you like them, and its web-sourced information is often accurate (!).
> 
> I use Foobar 2000, also free to use, as my audio player. Foobar's "user interface" is very flexible and you can customise it to suit your own requirements. You can certainly organise track names etc. quite easily, once you get the hang of it. This does work extremely well - I've been using it for the past 2 years. I convert EAC's .wav file output to flac files for storage - these are compatible with Foobar.
> 
> ...


I do the same, i really cant recommend EAC enough

Turnabout, i love your foobar layout. Im having difficulty with my filters, i was hoping to select a genre for example on my filtered results, any idea how to do that?

Thanks


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

My iPhone and iPod classic does gapless playback without a single issue for my purchased classical albums.  So no issues so far, knock on wood.


----------



## marie01 (Apr 21, 2015)

I am currently using Sound Radio (on Android).
It plays radio from internet, from many style (rock to classical)
In classical, there are about 150 radios from all over the world!

I am not sure if I can give the Google Play link here, so, I'don't 
Just ask me if you don't find it!

(ps: sorry for any mistake, I am french!)


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

iTunes plays my classical music just perfectly every time.


----------



## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

This is how I have my Foobar2000 set up. The listings are automatically generated based on the metadata of the albums/tracks you have in your library.

*Instructions*

*1.* Download SimPlaylist and SimPlaylist Manager.

*2.* Open up Foobar2000. Go to File > Preferences. Click Components on the left pane and click the "Install..." Button. Browse to your downloads folder and select the SimPlaylist zip. Repeat the process for the SimPlaylist Manager zip. Click Apply and restart Foobar2000 when prompted.

_(I'm assuming from this point that you already have an Album/Composer/Date list along the side of the window which displays its contents in the main window, similar to this. If not, you'll either have to modify the instructions accordingly or go to View > Layout > Quick Setup and select "Album List + Visualization".)_

*3.* Go to View > Layout > Enable layout editing mode

*4.* Right click the main playlist where all the tracks are listed and select "Replace UI Element". In the window that pops up, select "SimPlaylist" and click OK.

*5.* Go back to View > Layout > Enable layout editing mode to disable it.

_(If you want to get rid of this playlist setup, all you have to do is repeat steps 3 to 5 and select "Playlist View" instead of "SimPlaylist" in Step 4.)_

*6.* Go to File > Preferences and click SimPlaylist in the left pane. Add three new custom columns and set them up like so:











```
$iflonger(%performer%,1,%performer%,%album artist%)
```


```
$right(%title%,$sub($len(%title%),$strstr(%title%,': ')))
```


```
$ifgreater($strstr(%title%,:),0,$left(%title%,$sub($strstr(%title%,:),1)),'('Misc.')')
```
*7.* Next, go to Groups in the left pane, which should be just under SimPlaylist. Set it up like so:










Right Click in the Presets pane and click "Add New". Name the new preset "Classical works", ensure that it's selected, and set everything up as it appears in the image.


```
%DATE% - %ARTIST% - $ifgreater($strstr(%title%,:),0,$left(%title%,$sub($strstr(%title%,:),1)),'('Single pieces')'),ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ - $iflonger(%performer%,1,%performer%,%album artist%) - %ALBUM% - %DISCNUMBER% - %TRACKNUMBER%
```


```
$ifgreater($strstr(%title%,': '),0,$left(%title%,$sub($strstr(%title%,': '),1)),'Misc.')
```


```
$iflonger(%performer%,1,%performer%,%album artist%)
```
*8.* Go to the "Album List" option, and add a new View (you can call this whatever you want)











```
%<DATE>%|%ARTIST%|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', K. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', K. '),$len(', K. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', K. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', D. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', D. '),$len(', D. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', D. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', B. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', B. '),$len(', B. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', B. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', R. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', R. '),$len(', R. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', R. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', S. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', S. '),$len(', S. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', S. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', W. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', W. '),$len(', W. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', W. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', Op. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', Op. '),$len(', Op. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', Op. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', Hob. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', Hob. '),$len(', Hob. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', Hob. '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', BWV ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', BWV '),$len(', BWV ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', BWV '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', HWV ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', HWV '),$len(', HWV ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', HWV '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', WWV ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', WWV '),$len(', WWV ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', WWV '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', WoO ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', WoO '),$len(', WoO ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', WoO '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', RV ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', RV '),$len(', RV ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', RV '),9)) , ' ' )]|[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', Perger ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', Perger '),$len(', Perger ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', Perger '),9)) , ' ' )]|$iflonger(%performer%,1,%performer%,%album artist%)|%ALBUM%|%DISCNUMBER%|%TRACKNUMBER%
```
This will automatically display all of your music in the order: Year of composition, composer, opus/catalogue number, performer, album, disc number, track number. To add a type of cataloguing that isn't already listed in the code, you just need to add this to the code, directly after "%ARTIST%|", replacing the "X." with whatever catalouge letter/name you want:


```
[$if( $strstr(%TITLE%,', X. ') , $substr(%TITLE%,$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', X. '),$len(', X. ')),$add($strstr(%TITLE%,', X. '),9)) , ' ' )]|
```
*9.* Go to "Display" and enter the directory where you want to store images of composers:










*10.* Press OK. Go to the album list on the left of the window and select the view you set up in step 8. Select a year from the list that shows up.

*11.* Right click the Playlist header (a menu which contains Columns and Groups should show up), and set everything up how you like it.

-----

If all went well, your library should be displaying similarly to the first image. All of the codes I've posted are assuming that your tracks are formatted in a certain way (which is meant to be standard for formatting classical music, but very few publishers seem to actually adhere to it in reality):

The Title should be "X No. X in X mxxor, X. xx 'Title': I. xxxx" (this includes all of the spaces, commas, etc.). So for instance "Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K. 457: I. Molto allegro", "Don Giovanni, K. 527: La ci darem la mano", "Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 'Pastoral': IV. Allegro: 'Thunderstorm'" etc.

The artist should be the name of the composer, the album artist (or performer tag, if the file format supports it) should be the name of the performer(s), the date should be the year of composition.

If your library is formatted differently, or if you want works to display in a different manner, you'll have to modify the above codes accordingly.

-----

It's not the easiest thing to get set up, so hopefully I've made everything clear. Let me know if you have any questions/problems.


----------



## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

As I've said before, I use j.river media center 20, sort my files exactly as I've tagged them:









Tagging is everything and most online tag-databases (even professional) are woefully inadequate! Mostly use dBpoweramp as a ripper/converter for my audio-files,works a dream even if You have to pay a few bucks for both!

/ptr


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I have a Sansa Clip and it gives me no trouble, but I never use shuffle. Shuffle is made for pop music, not classical, unless you want to splice all your pieces into one long track. Can you imagine a 68 minute track for Beethoven's Ninth? I don't care to do that. I find with classical I have no desire to shuffle but always listen to a work with purpose.


----------

