Comments on clasical music metadata, Tidal and supported file formats

[Ludwig (Ludwig van Marbach)]

(You veered off course from the original thread, perhaps a mode like @carl might feel the need to chop up my answer and start a new thread(s).)

[quote=“Tatifan, post:22, topic:3050, full:true”]
Having many problems importing cds from the Artur Rubinstein Complete Album Collection. Albums get split up (I can’t figure out a way to combine them). I’m trying to be consistent in tagging, and as simple as possible. The identification feature is hopeless, and even using file data is not working. Of the 8 albums imported there are 4 separate 2 cd “albums” with some tracks from a particular album stuck in different “album” and unable to move to the correct album. CD numbers within the collection are also often incorrect. I love your program when it works, but when it doesn’t, as happens often in these big classical collections there’s way too much work to try and fix the issue. I’m left with using Kodi and and their ipad remote in order to have any hope of seeing all items in folders correctly.[/quote]
I also own the Rubinstein Complete Album Collection (c.2000) and have all but one album within it identified - each volume (1-3CDs) of the collection being (by my preference) identified as a separate item. Rovi does not have the track lengths for many of them, which means you have to do it manually using the identification tool. Important here is to use the exactly correctly Rovi album title, otherwise they are impossible to find, because Roon finds so much other stuff which is wrong. The correct details are:

Artist: Arthur Rubinstein
Album: Rubinstein Collection, Vol. x

As in http://www.allmusic.com/album/rubinstein-collection-vol-60-mw0001827473

I have also a few discs from the new (c.2014) Rubinstein collection, and these are also fully identified. Let us know how you get on and which edition it is you have, and we can perhaps help you identify them.

Large box set issues

The lack of ape file support and cue sheet reading and decoding are other inconveniences, as I’m having to split many items and keep 2 copies on HDs.

Can’t really comment on that. I never used a system which wanted cue sheets, nor have seen much mention of ape files. I do know though that they require higher processing power to unpack than FLAC+CUE so if you’re going to use a cue based system, it doesn’t seem the best choice, unless you really like to stress your computer.

Large box set issues

Tidal has its own issues. Classical tagging is a disaster within Tidal, of course. But aside from cross searches working a ton better in Roon, one is still left with many items not showing up with any kind of logical performer based search.

Tidal classical tagging is indeed, poor. Roon are working hard to try to improve matters but it’s a complex job affecting millions of tracks, and any large changes have to be done carefully.

Large box set issues

IMHO, Tidal is so mismanaged, with so many defective tracks, and NO reaction from them except to report problems one by one (which never get fixed, so what’s the point?). I got a snippy answer here once that DG tracks that are defective in great numbers were to be re-imported and that they were at the mercy of the label…great, but am I supposed to spend all day reporting every track afflicted with flutter? Isn’t that the job with SOMEONE who has ears at Tidal, or is there such a thing? They REALLY need to address this.

The flutter on Universal (DG, Decca, Philips etc) tracks on Tidal is watermarking, I understood. See here: http://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark
Personally it’s just another reason why streaming services can only be a secondary source of music. I prefer to buy mine so that I am in control of it. YMMV.