OK Chris,

Do I have it right this time?

By the way, not to nitpick, but:

- is a hyphen; and -- is a dash.

David

The staccato on La was particularly effective, and the Grand Pause at the begining equally so!

Hi David,

I didn't know Rachmaninov wrote that scale....

Anyway, I saw the screenshot Chris took earlier and this attempt now is getting closer. Below is a screenshot of how it looks in my Windows Explorer (which btw, if you are using a PC, then you should have Windows Explorer too).

The file name is correct except for showing one too many mp3. You don't need to type that into your file name - it comes up automatically. So you should name the file:

rachmaninov-scale-april

After this, you need to fill in the Contributing artist, the Genre, the Year, and the Title. Again, please see the information about that in the note we put up at the top of this forum.

Hi Monica,

OK, aside from Chris' dash meaning hyphen, here are a couple of other points I'd mention in the sticky write-up. I knew that the mp3 suffix is always attached automatically by the format converter programs, as that's the chief purpose of using them. But the write-up here in ALL of the examples shows the mp3 suffix, implying that the poster must add it, which is not the case at all. I suggest you consider taking those suffixes off the examples, as it's a bit misleading in my opinion, or a source of confusion, and ultimately duplication. The other thing is that on adding year, composer and genre, the language of the post says filling in that information is "recommended", meaning optional, not mandated. Probably you should change that word to "required". In AVS Audio Converter, I can add year and genre; however to get the tag layout the way you want it, I had to load that entire tag into the composer field because in my even earlier attempt, when I split that out into their separate fields, it didn't work. But the composer is already displayed as we see on this screenshot, so that should be adequate, yes?

Probably when I read stuff I take it way too literally. But still if the directions pertain to technical processes, then they need to be precise. Just my opinion. Anyway, tomorrow I'll try one more run to see if it can be completely ironed out.

I use FireFox 9 as I like it far better than IE 9. When you're in IE, what do you click on at the home page there to get that display attached here?

Thanks.

David

I never knew they were different things. We'll change the text on that.

It is not misleading at all. It specifies what the name should be, not how you should achieve that. It is your responsibility to deal with any funky tricks of your software, like adding suffixes or not displaying known suffixes so you may think you still need to add them.

Yes we might as well do that. Never good to give people a choice. I don't care about the genre, it's always Classical, and the composer should already be in the title, but year is very handy for sorting purposes, and we might want to use that one day.

Nope, that is not adequate at all. Attached image shows how it should look like in the Windows details pane. In red are the tag you should have provided (for some reason this pane does not show the Composer tag). I have no idea why this has to be so difficult in AVS converter. A converter may not be the optimal tool for this, maybe you should download one of the free mp3 tagging programs.

We are not describing a technical process ! Only specify what the result should be, and I think that is clear and unambiguous (except for the hyphen-dash confusion).

I'm still not sure where Monica gets that screen from. Probably specific to Windows 7, I have only Vista. My screenshot is the Detals pane of Windows Explorer. I don't think you can see these details in a web browser (but I could be wrong, maybe there is such a plugin for Firefox)

Perhaps the following remarks will be of some help, David.
I disagree. It doesn't imply that you must add it, it merely implies that it should be there (in much the same way as if you upload pictures, their file names should end in the jpg suffix), irrespective of whether whichever program you use to generate the file appends it automatically or not. In any case, you got that part right in your initial attempt.
I don't think it should be changed to "required". The meaning of the instructions seems quite clear, that use of those particular tag fields really is optional. Although it is required to provide the composer name, the requirement is that it should appear as part of a composite string (of prescribed layout) in the title field, and because it is there already, there is no particular need for it also to appear in the composer field. Indeed if the name appeared in both fields, there might arise a need for the PS processing software to check that they agree, which just makes things more complicated. The reason all this information should be packed into the title field is that this is the one which most media players display while playing the music, and that is therefore the most convenient place for the PS processing software to look for it.
Well, you are meant to load that entire tag value into just one field, only it should go into the title field, not the composer field. You were able, in AVS, to put stuff into the title field, since you successfully did so with your original Medtner file, although the value you put in was just "1-1". You also filled in the composer field as "Medtner" and the artist field as "April". By the way, as I understand it, the recommended value to put into the artist field is not just "April" but "David April", and the value you should have put into the title field is something like "Medtner - Eight Mood Pictures Op. 1; No. 1: Prologue".

In your scale example, you inserted the correct value "Rachmaninov - Scale, Op. 1, No. 2", but it should have gone into the title field instead of the composer field.
When they were talking about "explorer", they didn't mean IE ("Internet Explorer"), they meant Windows Explorer, which I think (not being a Windows user myself) is just the system's ordinary file browser.

As for things being required or optional, let me clarify that once more.

The only information I actually use, and absolutely NEED to be correct, are the filename and the Title tag.
All the other stuff is "nice to have" in this stage, and despite it says some of it is mandatory, I don't really care whether it's
there or not. However if you are going to do tagging at all, why not humor us and do it properly.

Let me also remind everybody again why correct names and tags are important. Maybe this should be added to the 'rules' page.

1) I have a number of scripts and programs running on the server, creating dynamic pages on the site, which rely on
name and title to conform to to the rules. Any deviation, and we may get strange pages on the site tags, or at worst these
programs may crash and cost me hours to debug. I'd rather do something else.

2) The better everybody does this, the less work and aggro it is for the admins. I do not like having to find out opus numbers,
key signatures, correct the filename, etc.

3) Filling these tags correctly and consistently is a great help in organizing your own (and others') recordings in a program
like iTunes, which lets you sort on an arbitrary value. I could not manage my own collection without it. I use the year field
in particular to wheedle out my old recordings.

4) Listeners will/may see the ID3 tags in their players, even if they stream them directly off the site. So this is part of the PS
visual experience.

I'm sure these was something else but I can't remember what it was now

Even when I was running Vista I had the same Windows Explorer and it looks mostly the same as yours does.

@David, it's not an Internet browser like Firefox, or Internet Explorer. It's part of the Windows system. You should have it on your computer if you use a PC.

@Chris - did you make the changes on the 'rules'? I put them in a couple places....

Yep it's probably the same thing, they just shuffled it around a bit.


Nope, I did not change anything.

I wish I was clever enough to make a nice Upload screen that would take care of all the tagging and naming rules. Be rid of these discussions once and for all....

Hi Monica, Chris and rainer

Thank you for those further explanations. It brought much clarity. I appreciate your patience! I'm sure others will benefit from reading this thread as well.

Brace yourselves: Either tonight or tomorrow I'm going to submit another test. If I pass, maybe a bottle of Veuve Clicquot would be in order.

David

Ok, David, we're ready. Bring it on!


Who is it for? You or us admins? Ok, both you and us admins. Might be a little hard to pass the bottle though...haha

Hi Monica,

I was thinking that the Veuve Clicquot brut would have to be loaded into the Composer field.

David

Can you stuff a big bottle of Lambrusco in the 'Comments' field for me ? We don't use that and there is lots of space

For himself of course. It would be bribery to offer admins an incentive for passing what amounts to an exam. Most improper!
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Away ittlelay iberybray illway otnay urthay anyoneway...