Improving iTunes for classical music, adding metadata/tags

I've been using iTunes forever and have generally been happy with it. My biggest problem is dealing with the tagging system for classical music. I like the setup in Audirvana Plus that includes tags for ensemble, conductor, soloist, etc. but Audirvana is also more than I'd like to pay right now and I update my iPod frequently.

Any suggestions for plugins or modifications for iTunes that allow me to add/edit the metadata tags? I'm willing to put in some work for this. Otherwise I might just save up for Audirvana.

 

DavidMahler had a pretty interesting setup on Head-Fi. He was using it with Front Row on a Mac mini, which I believe gets all of its info from iTunes. Let me dig up the post and link it for you.

 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/518613/my-music-server

 

Thank you! That's a very impressive set up. I'll have to play around with something like that.

 

Here's what I do:
1. Use album artist for the primary artist on the "album" (typically I choose Conductor for orchestral works, Soloist for Concertos & Ensemble for Chamber)
2. Use artist for all the artists on the track (e.g. for a piano concerto: Soloist; Orchestra; Conductor)
3. Use grouping for the work
4. Use composer for composer

What does this enable?
1. Top Level Sorting/Grouping by Composer, Primary Artist (as defined by your tagging)
2. Smart Playlists and "Search" for those in #1 and:
a. based on a "Work"
b. based on any artist (e.g. conductor in a concerto, orchestra in symphony)

Some important notes:
* Be dogmatic about artist & composer name standardization and NEVER have more then one Album Artist entry in the same field without considering the consequences of a new album artist defined as a concatenated version of the 2+ you put there.
* I almost never use "compilation" unless it is truly a compilation where no one artist spans the majority of content.
This approach struggles with small ensembles of great soloists (Ax+Ma+)
* If you consider work important for grouping and sorting, then swap Artist with Grouping from my scheme (e.g. grouping=Soloist; Conductor; Orchestra & artist=Work) and keep using Album artist for the primary artist. Think VERY carefully about this. It must be universal for classical music to make sense and there are plenty of cases where you'll have only one copy of the work and many artists combinations.
* Mobile listener? If this is not flexible enough for you and you listen on the go with a DAP or Phone, then you'll want to do something within an even more restrictive structure as many DAPs do not allow composer grouping (e.g. Fiio) while the iPhone music app does. Many put the composer in Album artist, primary performer in the artist, and what I suggest for the artist field they put in comments.

 

Good lord you have a lot of time on your hands. I just feel in the mood for Whatever on the Blue Danube River or whatever the feck it's called and scroll down for a bit and then play it. Do no worrying when listening, just listen.

 

Quite the opposite, I use Yate and script everything possible... And I don't add/change what I don't care about.

If you have a large classical collection, it can be a PITA to find the versions of Mahler's 3rd by conductor (I have 12 different Mahler 3rd performances that I've kept over the years, some by the same conductor at different points in their careers) if you don't take like this. It is only because I have done this tagging that I can tell you this or decide what version to listen to.

If, on the other hand, if your classical is of the "Dude! Blue Danube" sort, then this is not relevant to you in the same way that "Night in Tunisia" performed by different ensembles is irrelevant. Surely there is little relevant difference between Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie! Just listen

 

I guess I'm a visual learner since I identify albums by their artwork. I've got a few albums of the same thing, I think it's Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. They're all recorded twenty years apart so they're sorted automatically from oldest to newest. Itunes does everything I need cause I'm lazy.

And sure I can tell the difference between Miles and Diz! If you can't keep up no matter what, it's probably cause it's Gillespie! Sure, Miles did some bebop, but nothing like Dizzy! That reminds me.. I need to start piling up money for all the Gillespie I can afford..

 

Mike.S, I love that but don't know how to script all of that.

I've given up on iTunes, a lot of music I've ripped myself and there's no artwork, or the tags are inconsistent with the rest of the library. Instead I use Audirvana Plus, their search function is simple but effective and searches by tag. Other than that I do organize my file directories by composer and work, for the Mahler 3 example I would title each folder Mahler 03 followed by performer. In Audirvana I would just search "Mahler" and go to Sym 3 and then could scroll to the specific recording. The only time I have to change tags is if it's missing the composer.

 

Audirvana is my desktop client of choice as well! I use iTunes for populating my iPhone & X5 via Dapper.

I would never allow itunes to "organize" my library! For directory organization I use genre at the first level, and under Classical I have Composer, Performer, Conductor, Ensemble, & Compilation because that's the way albums are constructed. Tagging allows me to find Mahler's 3rd across album/box set boundaries.