organising and retrieving info on classical artists/conductors
#1
Today I'm trying to get my 'artists' to appear in proper ship-shape condition on Kodi.

But, I wonder, what should I count as an 'artist' - is this something I have control over, and if so, how?

As with a few others here I have a few classical CDs to make sense of, for example, on one, conductor Valery Gergiev has been identified by Picard as one of the three album artists (along with the composer - Mahler, and orchestra - LSO).

If I'm including all the above under Kodi's 'artists' is this a decision that's just down to personal preference? Does anyone have recommended 'best practice' - e.g. would you recommend separating Gergiev off so he only appears under a 'conductors' node? (I'm happy either way really, I suppose it would be more logical to do this but am interested to hear views)

Also, Gergiev is unfortunately appearing in two places, both incompletely:

- under artists unflatteringly labelled under his musicbrainz ID (87b4252d-314b-4252-9cd3-44c08f3087b6 if anyone's asking)
- under conductors node labelled 'Valery Gergiev', but lacking any kind of bio, fanart, etc, all of which had scraped correctly to the above entry.

I should mention that I've created a NFO for the album and replaced the musicbrainz code with 'Valery Gergiev', however it seems to make no difference. I don't have 'prefer online sources' enabled.

Any help appreciated!

Tom
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#2
I don't use Picard, but I have been studying the MB classical style guide and updating my tags to be in conformance. Generally, that means:

1. Artist is composer
2. Album artist is a "credit" text string formatted as "Composer; performer, conductor" which is resolved via the "album artists" and "MBID album artist ID" tags into:
a. composer
b. primary performer (such as an orchestra)
c. conductor

3. Also the dedicated Composer, Ensemble/Band, and Conductor tags are added to match 2). Note that with this method, the composer, performer, and conductor will be shown in the main "artists" library node, and also in the dedicated "role" categories nodes.

4. The track title is formatted "work: section of work (such as movement)"

5. The album title is as listed on the physical media.

6. Any additional performers needed (such as soloists) are added via the performer tags in the "performer (role)" format.

On your specific case, first you have the problem that the "official" MB name for Gergiev is Валерий Абисалович Гергиев, but you are free to use your latin translation, as long as you are consistent and don't use the "prefer online" setting. Currently Kodi has no facility for "alias" so if you want to see both versions of the artist name you have to be sort of creative.

I see on MB a couple of Mahler symphonies and the album artist (MB calls this "release artist credit"
is given as : " Gustav Mahler; London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev". Here is where you need to be careful. You can put the album artist is shown, but need to use care with the "album artists" tag to be consistent (also the conductor tag). (Mainly make sure the name string to which you assign the MBID of 87b4252d-314b-4252-9cd3-44c08f3087b6 is the same.) If you want to also include alias do not also assign the same MBID to the alias.

Artist.nfo files are IMHO worthless in a classical music library, instead what works (for me anyway) is first, use an SQL tool to enter "last scraped" data for all artists and albums in the database (no way to do this in Kodi). Then create .xml file (same format as the artist and album nfo files, except you can include as many artist and album sections as needed in a single file, then wrap the whole thing in <musicdb></musicdb> tags. Finally use "import library" to update your database from the .xml file.

As an aside for Dave (on any one else) what I find using MB style, is that the strings for album title, track title, and album artist credit tend to be very long and typically overflow the space allotted for displaying the label in the UI, so end up scrolling and it's hard to see what you really are interested (in particular the actual movement or other section that is playing). It would be nice to parse the strings, though the same problems exist with in-string separators as in other string tags.

scott s.
.
maintainer of skin  Aeon MQ5 mods for post-Gotham Kodi releases:
Matrix see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Matrix release thread
Nexus see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Nexus release thread
Aeon MQ 5 skin and addon repo 11.1.0
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#3
hi Scott

thanks for helping out.

I'll have a go. I wonder, why wouldn't you use Picard, are there better options for this task (or for classical), in your view?
cheers
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#4
hi Scott

If you're able to comment, this has been helpful, in that:

- 'London symphony orchestra' has appeared with a great thumbnail, background and bio
- 'Valery Gergiev' has appeared with a great thumbnail, background and bio.

However, there is also an entry labelled 'Mahler' without any further details.

My guess is that the Musicbrainz entry should be 'Gustav Mahler', and because it's not, Kodi is not able to ID it correctly.

Does this sound right? Amending my Album artist tag (FLAC) to 'Gustav Mahler; London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev' does not seem to correct it, but perhaps in the Kodi scraper the MB id is being used, and that's resulting in 'Mahler'.

I've not amended anything on MB before... but perhaps amending this would help.. before I wade in would you kindly confirm if this sounds right to you?

nb I'm afraid you lost me from (and including) your discussion of "album artists" onwards (OK, so I note the point about nfo's, but I've not used SQL databases before). However your earlier steps helped me progress, for which I'm grateful.

Tom

EDIT: OK, 'Mahler' seems now to have self-corrected (somehow?), to 'Gustav Mahler' and so all is well .. (i've not made any amend on MB)

I'm finding similarly there's no thumb/bio for 'Dame Janet Baker' or 'Sir John Barbirolli', though presumably this is because it's looking on audioDB where none currently exist. I note thumb+bio both do on musicbrainz, so am interested that Kodi is not able to scrape these - perhaps MB is not intended to be used in this way however (or perhaps this is already on Dave's radar) ..

For now I'll assume my next step will be to source details such as these and contribute them to audioDB, so they can be scraped by Kodi.
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#5
(2017-05-08, 22:47)tOM_XB Wrote: I wonder, why wouldn't you use Picard, are there better options for this task (or for classical), in your view?

I have used MediaMonkey for many years to manage my music and music videos. I find it works best for me. Besides music, it syncs my tags for music videos and I have a script for it that generates music video nfo files so I can add them to Kodi library. But I also use mp3tag as it does a good job of fine-tuning tags (and MediaMonkey uses VBS scripting which I don't really know). So I just haven't played around with Picard or foobar2000.

(2017-05-09, 19:20)tOM_XB Wrote: hi Scott

If you're able to comment, this has been helpful, in that:

- 'London symphony orchestra' has appeared with a great thumbnail, background and bio
- 'Valery Gergiev' has appeared with a great thumbnail, background and bio.

However, there is also an entry labelled 'Mahler' without any further details.

My guess is that the Musicbrainz entry should be 'Gustav Mahler', and because it's not, Kodi is not able to ID it correctly.

OK so I did a quick test. As I wrote before, what's most important is for you to be consistent in your tagging, always use the same strings for any tag field and ensure only 1 MBID for any artist or album string (if you do not use the "prefer online info" which will replace your strings). So this is what I tagged for the first movement of Mahler's 9th (this is an adaptation of an mp3tag script Dave B wrote):

Mp3tag File Overview
5/9/2017

Title: Symphony no. 9 in D major: I. Andante comodo
File: Symphony no. 9 in D major I. Andante comodo.mp3
Artist: Gustav Mahler
AlbumArtist: Gustav Mahler; London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev
Album: Symphony No.9
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Performer: London Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra)
Discnumber:
Disc:
Track: 1
MUSICBRAINZ_ARTISTID:
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID: 8d610e51-64b4-4654-b8df-064b0fb7a9d9, 38712b4c-0fd4-4c65-8c7a-45676fecc973, 87b4252d-314b-4252-9cd3-44c08f3087b6
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMID: 4db3146d-2979-477b-af6d-a38761a94c62
Artists:
AlbumArtists: Gustav Mahler, London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev


build on 5/9/2017, with Mp3tag v2.81 - the universal Tag Editor - http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

These are APE tags in mp3 file, but I think they are identical to FLAC tags.

All 4 tracks scanned into the library. I then did an album refresh for the album (the universal album scraper used the album MBID from my tag to query). First time I got a "503" response from Musicbrainz (common) so I had to refresh again. Then I did artist refresh on Gustav Mahler, London Symphony Orchestra, and Valery Gergiev. Again, by virtue of the album artist MBIDs from the tags, universal artist scraper used the MBIDs to find what info it could.

You can turn on debug logging in Kodi prior to refreshing the scrape data and Kodi.log will show you what results were found.

For the bios here's what scraper returned for LSO:

Code:
12:36:47.289 T:7608   DEBUG: scraper: ParseTADBBiography returned <details><biography>The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), founded in 1904, is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. It was set up by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services. The LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. The orchestra underwent periods of eclipse in the 1930s and 1950s when it was regarded as inferior in quality to new London orchestras, to which it lost players and bookings. By the 1960s it had recovered its leading position, which it has retained subsequently.
                                            A self-governing body, the orchestra selects the conductors with whom it works. At some stages in its history it has dispensed with a principal conductor and worked only with guests. Among conductors with whom it is most associated are, in its early days, Hans Richter, Sir Edward Elgar, and Sir Thomas Beecham, and in recent decades Pierre Monteux, Andr&#x00e9; Previn, Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis and Valery Gergiev.
                                            Since 1982, the LSO has been based in the Barbican Centre in the City of London. It claims to be the world's most recorded orchestra, and in addition to making gramophone recordings since 1912 it has played on more than 200 soundtrack recordings for the cinema, of which the best known include the Star Wars series.</biography></details>

12:36:47.290 T:7608   DEBUG: scraper: ParseTADBLifeSpan returned <details><formed>London, England (1904)</formed></details>

You can follow it in the log file.

Here's how it looks in my skin mod:

Image

Image

Image

Image

scott s.
.
maintainer of skin  Aeon MQ5 mods for post-Gotham Kodi releases:
Matrix see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Matrix release thread
Nexus see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Nexus release thread
Aeon MQ 5 skin and addon repo 11.1.0
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#6
Hi Scott

Thanks your setup looks great. I like the clean look lent by the font choice. Mahler is appearing correctly on mine now too but I'll try your debugging tip for other artists/conductors. Very helpful. Cheers.
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#7
(2017-05-10, 01:52)scott967 Wrote: I have used MediaMonkey for many years to manage my music and music videos. I find it works best for me. Besides music, it syncs my tags for music videos and I have a script for it that generates music video nfo files so I can add them to Kodi library. But I also use mp3tag as it does a good job of fine-tuning tags (and MediaMonkey uses VBS scripting which I don't really know).

Ok, this got me interested in how you do your Music Videos (and what do you mean it syncs your tags)?

Currently I've hand created each and every Music Video .NFO file as I have found no other tool to make a decent one. At first I followed the guide (http://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files/Music_videos), but then I made it better (added a few more fields).

I know we've discussed this in the past regarding Music Videos, but could you post your step by step instructions on how you make .NFO files for Music Videos using MediaMonkey (and any plug-in needed to do so). Also, maybe post an .NFO output from a typical Music Video.

Nearly all my Music Videos are .MP4 (nearly 4000 of them) so being able to automate the process (and maybe make them better looking in Kodi), would be awesome.
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