I am aware that in now distant days, Audirvana adopted the “Make do” solution of using the “Grouping” tag as “Works” tag for classical music tracks, when no specific tags were available.
As far as I notice, that arrangement still lives on in the current versions, where Audirvana clearly assumes that any data included in the “Grouping” tag is a “Works” tag data and displays it regardless.
Using the “Grouping” tag for other purpose than explained above, I find myself with my Album view displaying tracks in an unwelcome fashion.
Far from me to criticise a clever workaround, but I must point out that its legacy feels unwelcome to anyone who has not adopted it.
I suppose that by now, many of us have taken the trouble to use iTunes’ or other Tag Editors’ possibilities to tag “Works” and “Movements” in music tracks, which opens the choice to display tracks either in a newer way or in the previous fashion.
Therefore I suggest, as a first step, an option be provided in the Settings to allow the cancellation of the legacy display of the “Grouping” tag as a “Work” tag in the Album view.
Going further, I would like to see Audirvana offer the an option to use the more recently adopted “Work” and “Movement” tags display Album views when the “Work” and “Movement” tags contain data.
I am quite conscious it is no mean feat in development terms, but I believe it would be a worthy and polished enhancement not only for Classical music listeners, but for Prog Rock and Jazz listeners too by whom such tagging could be welcome.
My only slight amendment is to this statement, “Therefore I suggest, as a first step, an option be provided in the Settings to allow the cancellation of the legacy display of the “Grouping” tag as a “Work” tag in the Album view.”
I would suggest the following… As a first step, an option be provided in the Settings to allow the complete cancellation of the display of the “Grouping” tag in all views.
searching for specific works should also be improved.
For example, when I type “summertime” to listen the famous gershwin / Heyward tune, I get the 108 titles from my collection matching it, even the song called “Once upon a summertime” or “Someone somewhere in summertime” from simple minds, which is not desired.
browsing by composer / works (as with Roon or the latest version of Asset UPnP) would be a nice feature.
To further you comment about your searches, I have recently realised that a search on a classical music conductor name did not return all the tracks where he was actually conducting. Apparently, only the tracks where he appears as an Album Artist are displayed.
The tracks of a compilation album where he was involved did not appear in the search result.
This, in turn made me notice that, in the Album view ranked by Album Artists, some compilation albums are not treated by Audirvana as most other compilation albums, and appear under the name of the first track Artist instead of being displayed amongst other compilation albums.
I have of course verified that the metadata of such albums specify they are a compilation.
I wish I could understand that loose end.
Just another one, I hear you say
So far, I’ve not encountered issues with searches as it is supposed to behave at the current time
my tag practice consist in adding the conductor as an ARTIST (multiple value). Even if the album artist is not the conductor, when I search for a specific conductor, all albums in which the conductor appears as an artist are correctly listed.
I’ve not tried to use only the CONDUCTOR tag without the ARTIST one.
+1 to the original OP request. I have just been tydying up all the tags in my nearly 2000 albums and making sure the ‘work’ and ‘movement’ tags were all correct (actually I used ‘Work’ and ‘Part’). then recently when using Audirvana to play an album I noticed some text in the little rose coloured bar under the album pic. It was text in French so easy to find when I examined the tags of the album and I found it in the ‘Grouping’ tag. Very few of my albums have anything in this tag and I just can’t face going through every one again adding ‘Grouping’ tags (it took me months the first time). So yes please to using ‘Work’ tag to find and play a specific work, and to group them nicely in any view. I would think the ‘Movement’ / ‘Part’ tag is less crucial as when the work is found within the album then associated tracks should display correctly, but I’m not sure. This is what makes Minimserver so nice to use when I use it as I can find a composer and go straight to a work I want to hear and only those tracks appear to play (or I can go to complete album from this search and play it in context).
I have never written that I used the “Conductor” metadata field because I don’t.
I have always used the “Artist” field to do so since I began storing my music digitally, more than twenty years ago. In my memory, there were not even “Album Artists” metadata fields at the time.
I have repeated and continuing experiences of what I describe.
I confirm that if a conductor appears in the “Artist” field of a track included in a compilation, that track will not be returned in the listing displaying the search result.
I can only speculate that Audirvana searches the “Album Artist” field rather than the “Artist” field, or searches the “Artist” field only partially, which will not return anything from compilation albums, since their is no content in their “Album Artist” field.
No such problem is experienced with Plex or iTunes while using the same file storage as Audirvana, either locally or NAS based.
Maybe someone would explain what exactly happens when Audirvana searches through the metadata. A better understanding could help adopt a better strategy in the use of the “Artist” metadata field.
