System v3.2 beta- Genre issues

[josh]

I've discovered some odd things regarding music Genres in v3.2 beta, some things I really hope Kaleidescape fixes before (or shortly after) the release of this version.

The list of genres is huge... and this is great. It sppears that the Genres tab only lists the 40 genres in which you have the most albums, but as you use the system, you find that there are at least 200-300 different genres. (I'd love to get confirmation that this is the algorithm used... i'm not sure yet, there may be a more complex way of determining which genres appear on the Genres tab and which remain hidden for discovery elsewhere.)

I can see the difficulty the UI engineers had... if the system listed all the genres in the Genres tab, it would be overwhelming and difficult to get to what you want. But this tradeoff means that it's extremely difficult to get to some of the more interesting genres and pull up albums you have that fit.

You can get to other genres by going into an album, going to its details page, choosing genres, and then seeing which other genres it appears in. Then you can pick one of those, and the system will now pull up its Genres detail page where you can now see what else you have in that "minor" genre. I found genres to explore like "Black Gospel", Memphis Blues, Chicago Blues, Chicago Electric Blues, Torch Songs, geographical genres like Canada and Ireland, Swedish Electopop... and literally hundreds more.

You can sometimes get to these genres by going to big genres like "Rock" or "R&B" and choosing "Related Genres"... but that doesn't reliably surface all the genres.

Suggestions:

1) I find it frustrating there's no way to do a "Show all genres"... in the Genres tab. I like the short "top 40 genres" list they have now, but maybe a checkbox should be there for "Show All Genres". It's actually more impressive to see the incredible wealth of detail in the genres DB.

2) There's no way to edit album genres. The web interface is strangely disconnected from the genre information shown on screen. I can't correct a bad genre in the DB. I find this to be a HUGE problem that affects the use of genre playlists.

Example: Diana Krall "The Girl In The Other Room" has 61 different genres in the DB Kaleidescape uses. That's no typo... it has good ones like Singer/Songwriter, Soft Rock, Jazz, etc., but it bizarrely also puts that album into Punk, Black Gospel, and Hard Rock! If I actually want an afternoon of Punk Rock and head out to the pool, I'd be pretty surprised when a Diana Krall song comes on, which it will.

The web interface does NOT list all 61 genres that the OSD interface shows for this album, it lists only R&B, Rock, Jazz, Blues. And we all know there's a really annoying bug that you can't easily edit album details, you have to start from scratch and RE-ENTER everything about an album.

There needs to be a way to edit an album's metadata... all of it. I want to remove "Punk" "Hard Rock" and "Black Gospel" from this album to stop it appearing in those genre playlists.

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3) There should probabably be an option for "Strict" artist playlists. I really like that when I choose an Elton John artist playlist, I get some Clapton cover songs and an Oleta Adams cover mixed in, and other tracks where Elton appeared on other albums, but sometimes I really do just want an Elton John songs list. I can't do this with Kaleidescape.

Again, I see the hard tradeoffs the UI team had to make... the interface could get overly complex if they provided every option that I'm sure they thought of.

But genre and artist playlists are going to be a VERY popular way to listen to music, and their appeal will be limited if you can't remove "wrong" albums or force a way to play only a particular artist's songs without hearing "related" songs.
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--josh

 

[rgbyhkr]

I can see where you're coming from, but I think the compromise they reached is ok. However, I'm all for any additional checkbox in the web UI preferences that would either limit the displayed Genres shown in the tab to the top 40 or show them all. By default though, for the average user, the top 40 is probably much easier for them to make use of.

The ability to go into an album's details and choose any of its applicable genres to see what other albums are in the same category is a nice way to still give fuller functionality while keeping the Genre tab "tidy". I can see the thinking - 40 genres is an awful lot for most folks so ones beyond that might better be assoicated via album. In other words, once you start getting into less common genres for an individual's collection, it's probably easier for them to think of an album they want to listen to then go to that album to find like titles based upon one of the associated genres. Again though, I'll always advocate for checkbox preferences to give advanced users more options.

As for your specific example, I'm not sure why yours shows so many genres. My copy of "The Girl in the Other Room" is a standard redbook CD and only shows 7 genres on the OSD in the album details screen. Now, it comes up in the K DB as "The Girl in the Other Room [DUALDISC]". I've mentioned to the K guys before that such results shouldn't appear either for album names or for track listings (my "Chicago" soundtrack redbook CD was identified as the SACD version and therefore has no track names) because DVD-A and SACD discs (even hybrid ones with a standard CD layer) aren't importable by the K's reader. I don't really care if the cover art has an SACD logo, but album name changes and track listing issues are a little annoying. As I've said before, I really wish they'd just give us a field to provide the appropirate AMG catalog number as that would seem to solve many of the misidentification issues. Weird though how yours has so many associated genres. Even a different pressing of the disc shouldn't really change what genres it is in unless that version has new material or was remixed.

Like you, I think music metadata field editing should also be allowable without having to re-enter all details. If it breaks the link with the main DB, fine, but leave me with something to start with. That's more in line with how changes to movie metadata works anyways. It should be consistent.

To be honest though, I still really don't use the K all that much for music. I have alternative solutions that sound just as good (lossless rips outputting to an external DAC) and provide me with more flexible controls. I have a SONOS solution but more and more I find myself just going back to iTunes with Airtunes through a few Airport Express units for my primary zones. They're all hardwired so bandwidth isn't a problem. The rips are ALAC, so sound quality is great and metadata along with album art is easily altered. iTunes is better than any OSD for sorting, playlist creation, management, searching, etc. Of course, it's best when you use a keyboard and mouse (vs. Front Row or another iTunes control app) but that's ok since I have wireless laptops. Obviously, I'm not their average user and that's ok. There's still nothing else out there that does for movies what K does. That's why I bought it and that't really what I care about. Music is just a bonus.

Jeff

 

[josh]

Great insight and discussion jeff, I like hearing your thoughts.

As for your specific example, I'm not sure why yours shows so many genres. My copy of "The Girl in the Other Room" is a standard redbook CD and only shows 7 genres on the OSD in the album details screen. Now, it comes up in the K DB as "The Girl in the Other Room [DUALDISC]". ..

That's weird... mine comes up as Dualdisc also, but has 61 genres. Doesn't yours look like this?:

Like you, I think music metadata field editing should also be allowable without having to re-enter all details. If it breaks the link with the main DB, fine, but leave me with something to start with. That's more in line with how changes to movie metadata works anyways. It should be consistent.

Jeff

I hope they're listening... that process to edit music metadata is really bad - all or nothing. And you're right, the movie editing is perfect - I can change a word, a rating, a cover image, without losing the DB-supplied info.
--josh

 

[rgbyhkr]

Josh,

My entry for that album on screen is very similar, but like I said only with 7 genres. That's really odd. Is that the only one where so many appear? You could try deleting it and re-importing just to see if it was some odd error.

Jeff

 

[josh]

no, i have several that did that... 3 different Diana Kralls did it along with some others... i figured it was something done either accidentally or on purpose by someone at the the record label or publisher. I assume that's who assigns or picks genres for albums, but i actually have no idea how that process happens.

 

[josh]

Some Kaleidescape engineers contacted me about the "Diana Krall" problems... turns out it's a bug in the software, not bad data from the music data service. They've been diagnosing it on my system and believe a fix is imminent.

That's exactly the reason companies like Kaleidescape look to have external beta programs... and nice to see they're monitoring these forums.

--josh