Screenshots
This section sets out what the results of the tagging scheme should look like, using Muso and Squeezebox touches.
- Muso will display the original album in "CD insert" format, together with all the supplementary data from last.fm etc.;
- The sleevenotes (if stored as pdf) will be accessible on the Muso desktop, and via the remote so you can view them on your iPad while you listen.
- Muso (on the desktop) will allow you to drill down and search the library for whatever you want;
- The Squeezebox Touches (or whatever you are using to play through) will display all the relevant information about the playing track;
- You can use the “additional browse modes” in LMS 7.9 if you wish.
The actual effort to rip each CD is fairly low, provided you use a decent ripper and SongKong and/or Picard, although much depends on the quality of metadata available on the Internet. To improve the quality of metadata for you and others, I strongly recommend registering with MusicBrainz. Editing metadata on MusicBrainz is not particularly complex, although you do need to read the style guidelines and follow them.
Here is a typical album. The Muso screen looks just like the CD insert. Notice how tracks are grouped by works, with “subheaders” used for intermediate work descriptions where appropriate:
Note that:
- This is the album screen, there are other views available;
- The currently playing tack is highlighted;
- The tracks are grouped into works (with sub-groups and additional text if applicable);
- The sleevenotes can be accessed by clicking on the “sleevenotes (PDF)” text. (I scan these, if necessary, on my iPad. Increasingly, pdf sleevenotes are available electronically from the publishers.)
- To the right are links to “More by this Artist”, “You might also like” and (off-screeen) Wikipedia, LastFM and MusicBrainz.
On the SB touch the display will be similar to the Squeezeplay one on the PC shown below.
The information shown here is quite limited, but iPeng on the iPad will show more details. The SB touch (and squeezeplay) can be fixed to show more information by using the Custom Clock plugin - see later.
The next screen shows the Muso display for a slightly different album:
Note the use of sub-headings to divide the Four Seasons. Note also that Kennedy’s instrument is shown, as well as the name and instrument of his co-soloist in the concertos for 2 violins. The sleevenotes are available as before.
By using the custom clock plugin on the SB touch, the display looks like this:
Here the Title and Artist list are scrolling.
The next example shows how (using the Classical Extras plugin for MusicBrainz Picard), the original language of the works can be shown with the track titles used to provide a translation:
One final example, with a variety of composers, arrangers and performers. Note that arrangers are described as such in the Composer tag – e.g. “Arr. Michael Lewin”.
When SongKong or Picard has been used to provide the MusicBrainz metadata, Muso will provide links directly to MusicBrainz, For example, clicking "Album Page" under "MusicBrainz Pages" on the screen above will give you this:
From here you can explore all the highlighted (blue) links. In terms of the richness of information for the minimum of effort, I think it takes some beating!