Kinsky & Minimserver - some new user questions

[whgmkeller]

Hi there. I am a new Linn DS Akurate user, and as such, I'm fairly new to Kinsky and Minimserver. I decided to see if I could find a better solution that iTunes and stumbled on Minimserver.

No there's a fine piece of work ! I am still in the early stages of exploring and don't understand all features yet, but I already love it ! Especially things like how you treat compilations (in a track that's part of a compilation, the menu shows a shortcut to the whole album - brilliant ! ).

I do however have some questions. Probably I'm doing something wrong...

Q1 - Genres as numbers
I use Kinsky to control my DS. When I browse my music (using Minimserver as the library), and browse by Genre, Kinsky shows up numbers such as (13). Not for all Genres, mind you, most are shown correct. iTunes shows the tracks correct.

Q2 - Style tag
I would really like to be able to use not only Genre but Style as well. So I configured - or tried to do so - Minimswrver to show an index for Style as well. But this index doestn't show up in Kinsky at all.

Any thoughts on this? Much obliged for answering.

Willem, Netherlands

[simoncn]

Hi Willem,
Welcome to the MinimServer forum, and thanks for the kind words!

(27-11-2012 16:55)whgmkeller Wrote:  Hi there. I am a new Linn DS Akurate user, and as such, I'm fairly new to Kinsky and Minimserver. I decided to see if I could find a better solution that iTunes and stumbled on Minimserver.

No there's a fine piece of work ! I am still in the early stages of exploring and don't understand all features yet, but I already love it ! Especially things like how you treat compilations (in a track that's part of a compilation, the menu shows a shortcut to the whole album - brilliant ! ).

I do however have some questions. Probably I'm doing something wrong...

Q1 - Genres as numbers
I use Kinsky to control my DS. When I browse my music (using Minimserver as the library), and browse by Genre, Kinsky shows up numbers such as (13). Not for all Genres, mind you, most are shown correct. iTunes shows the tracks correct.

This seems likely to be a tagging issue. What type of file is this (e.g., .mp3, .m4a/AAC, .m4a/ALAC, AIFF)? Did you use iTunes to tag the Genre?

Quote:Q2 - Style tag
I would really like to be able to use not only Genre but Style as well. So I configured - or tried to do so - Minimswrver to show an index for Style as well. But this index doestn't show up in Kinsky at all.

Any thoughts on this? Much obliged for answering.

Willem, Netherlands

Have you put any Style tags in your files yet? You won't see the index unless MinimServer has something to show in it.

If you have put Style tags in your files, what types of files are they (see above), and which tagging program did you use to do this?

Best regards,
Simon

[whgmkeller]

Hi Simon. You are quick ! Maybe we are in the same timezone or not too far away?

To answer your questions - I should probably have elaborated a bit more on my specific set-up. So, here goes.

* I am on a Mac, using Minimserver 0.63
* Since I'm on a Mac, I use Jaikoz as my main tagging application.
* My music resides on a ReadyNAS. Music is stored in two main dirs, being \HD Audio and \iTunes\iTunes Media\Music. MM server watches both main dirs.
I have organized everything in separate dirs per Artist, and separate dirs per Album within Artist.
* All tracks are in Apple Lossless format in m4a files (containers).
* I use iTunes and iTunes Match to make sure I have my music with me "at all times"

I do not have any info in Style tags yet. So that must be the reason that they don't show up in Kinsky. I am not sure however if Kinsky even supports a Style index ? And to make it worse, I have no idea which tag to use for Style - Jaikoz doesn't seam to support this tag...

Does this answer your questions?

Greetz, Willem

[whgmkeller]

Hey simon, haven't heard back from you anymore. I guess you must be quite busy.

But anyway, I'm still trying to get the Style tagging working. I'be seen some other users having the same or similar questions.

To my understanding, there is a ID3 tag TIT1 (I thin) that is used for "content grouping". Is this the field / tag that is used for Style? I guess there must be some sort of common understanding between tagging programs about which filed to use.
I have noticed that iTunes has a "Grouping" field - is this the same TIT1 field?

And if want to be able to browse on this tag/field, what indexTag should I enter in the Minimserver properties?

Hope to hear back from you - many thanks.

Willem, Netherkands

[simoncn]

(11-12-2012 21:01)whgmkeller Wrote:  Hey simon, haven't heard back from you anymore. I guess you must be quite busy.

But anyway, I'm still trying to get the Style tagging working. I'be seen some other users having the same or similar questions.

To my understanding, there is a ID3 tag TIT1 (I thin) that is used for "content grouping". Is this the field / tag that is used for Style? I guess there must be some sort of common understanding between tagging programs about which filed to use.
I have noticed that iTunes has a "Grouping" field - is this the same TIT1 field?

And if want to be able to browse on this tag/field, what indexTag should I enter in the Minimserver properties?

Hope to hear back from you - many thanks.

Willem, Netherkands

Sorry for the misunderstanding. In your previous post, you said that you didn't have any information in Style tags. This means that MinimServer is working correctly by not showing Style information, and I didn't realise you were waiting for a further response from me.

If you want to use a Style tag, you should add a Style tag to your files using a tagging program such as Mp3tag, and you should add Style to MinimServer's indexTags setting.

Please try this and see if it works for you. If it doesn't, I'll be happy to answer further questions.

[whgmkeller]

It must be me, but I just don't understand.

You suggest that I use a Style tag and add it in my files. But is this supposed to be a custom filed? Will I, by doing this, not introduce incompatibility with other music programs such as iTunes?

How does this compare to using the Grouping field, which IS described as a standard field/tag in the ID3 specs? I believe most music programs will be able to use this?

If I take the second route, which field should I enter in the indexTags field in the Minimserver properties?

Sorry if this takes up your time, but I would really like to understand what best to do to get this working.

Cheers, Willem

[simoncn]

(11-12-2012 21:42)whgmkeller Wrote:  It must be me, but I just don't understand.

You suggest that I use a Style tag and add it in my files. But is this supposed to be a custom filed? Will I, by doing this, not introduce incompatibility with other music programs such as iTunes?

How does this compare to using the Grouping field, which IS described as a standard field/tag in the ID3 specs? I believe most music programs will be able to use this?

If I take the second route, which field should I enter in the indexTags field in the Minimserver properties?

Sorry if this takes up your time, but I would really like to understand what best to do to get this working.

Cheers, Willem

You said in a earlier post that your music is stored in m4a files. These don't use ID3 tags, so any discussion of ID3 fields such as TIT1 isn't relevant to your situation.

There is an iTunes Grouping tag. This has been used by people for many different purposes. Its original purpose (apparently) was to group together multiple tracks from the same musical work, such as the movements of a symphony. (MinimServer uses the GROUP tag for this purpose.) Because the semantics of iTunes Grouping and MinimServer GROUP don't match exactly, MinimServer currently ignores the iTunes Grouping tag. (In an earlier version of MinimServer, the iTunes Grouping tag was mapped to GROUP, but this caused problems for some iTunes users.)

The best advice I can give you is my previous answer. You should be able to add a Style tag to an m4a file using Jaikoz and view it using MinimServer. As far as I know, this should work, but the only way to find out for certain is to try it.

If you try this with a test file, you'll also be able to see if it causes any problems with iTunes. I'm not an iTunes user, so I can't be sure how iTunes would handle a Style tag. My guess is that iTunes would ignore any custom tags that it doesn't recognise, but the only way to find out for certain is to try it.

[whgmkeller]

Okay, fair enough. I was under the impression that m4a also use ID3 tags, mainly because I am able to browse through my collection based on tags such as Genre, Artist and so on. I use Jaikoz to maintain the tags in my collection but unfortunately Jaikoz does not support a Style tag.

Am I correct in assuming that m4a also use some form of tags? Not ID3 but there must be some form of standardization I guess?

What I would love to know is how to enter information on the musical style (as a sub-genre) to my (m4a)files. Can you help me understand how I should do this? Is there a standard tag or something like that that I should use and that Minimserver (no abbreviations anymore :-) ) can understand and work with?

Simon, sorry if this takes up (too much of) your time.

Cheers, Willem

[whgmkeller]

I've looked at which tagging programme Jaikoz uses. This might be of interest for Minimservers as well.
See the link below for information:
http://www.jthink.net/jaudiotagger/

Cheers, Willem

[simoncn]

(12-12-2012 12:49)whgmkeller Wrote:  Okay, fair enough. I was under the impression that m4a also use ID3 tags, mainly because I am able to browse through my collection based on tags such as Genre, Artist and so on. I use Jaikoz to maintain the tags in my collection but unfortunately Jaikoz does not support a Style tag.

Am I correct in assuming that m4a also use some form of tags? Not ID3 but there must be some form of standardization I guess?

What I would love to know is how to enter information on the musical style (as a sub-genre) to my (m4a)files. Can you help me understand how I should do this? Is there a standard tag or something like that that I should use and that Minimserver (no abbreviations anymore :-) ) can understand and work with?

The official specification for the tags in m4a files is an Apple document titled "iTunes Metadata Format Specification". You can view it at this page or you can download it by signing up for an Apple developer ID (it's free of charge) and logging into the Apple developer site.

There are a few unofficial pages with some useful information. Some examples:
http://atomicparsley.sourceforge.net/mpeg-4files.html
http://code.google.com/p/mp4v2/wiki/iTunesMetadata
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exif...kTime.html
http://www.jthink.net/jaudiotagger/tagmapping.html (see the Mp4 column)

As well as predefined tags such as 'gnre' (genre) and 'trkn' (track number), m4a files can contain '----' atoms which can hold any tag name and value. This means that you can put a 'Style' tag inside a '----' atom, and MinimServer will read it from there.

A good tagging program will be able to write custom tags to m4a files in this format. If Jaikoz can't do this, you should investigate other options. Mp3tag is very good, and it can handle all common tagging formats (despite its name).

Quote:Simon, sorry if this takes up (too much of) your time.

Cheers, Willem

You're very welcome.