Bug 95960 - amarok should use "performer" tag in files
Summary: amarok should use "performer" tag in files
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: amarok
Classification: Applications
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Gentoo Packages Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Amarok Developers
URL:
Keywords:
: 109184 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-12-29 03:05 UTC by tgnb
Modified: 2006-09-01 15:45 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Version Fixed In:


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Description tgnb 2004-12-29 03:05:26 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.3.2)
Installed from:    Gentoo Packages

There are several cases where the "artist" tag in an audio file is not enough to properly identify the song.

Various Artist cd's (eg: Various Artists - Cigar Lounge)
DJ Mixes (eg: Paul Oakenfold - Traveling Without Moving)
Classical Music (eg: Mozart - Litaniae Lauretanae BVM in B flat)

In each of these cases it would be equally important to know who the performer or track artist is as well as the composer or album artist.

Therefore it would be great if amaroK would equally support both the artist and performer tags :)
Comment 1 Ian Monroe 2005-03-09 07:51:23 UTC
http://www.id3.org/frames.html has a nice list of the surprisingly large amount of id3 tags. If we were to support the more esoteric tags (like performer) we would have to find a way to do it without making things confusing for folks who just want the basics.
Comment 2 Max Howell 2005-03-10 01:19:19 UTC
I'd love to add support for Disc#. And this also seems like a good plan. I hope someone will help me add it to 1.3.
Comment 3 Duke 2005-04-26 21:46:05 UTC
I'd also like to see full support of the ID3v2 specification.  I find that it is largely underused by most (if not all) applications.

One suggestion to alleviate confusion for the average user would be to have an "advanced" button in the ID3 tag dialog.  When clicked, a new, tabbed, dialogue could come up with all the tags grouped as they are in the following document: http://www.id3.org/id3v2.4.0-frames.txt

The aforementioned dialogue could also have a configuration for the tags one would like displayed in the track listing columns.

I'd really like to take advantage of the tags for things like "featured" artists, and remixes.  The TPOS (part of a set) tag would be great too.  Also, multiple genre support would be cool.
Comment 4 Duke 2005-04-26 21:47:04 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 5 Ian Monroe 2005-04-27 06:46:05 UTC
Apart from taglib not giving easy-to-use access, is that there is no id3 dialog, just general a tagging dialog for ogg, flac and whatever taglib might support in the future. It would be confusing to have the dialog change based on the file format. Both issues make support for it problematic, though not impossible.
Comment 6 Duke 2005-04-27 07:12:59 UTC
Actually, taglib does give easy-to-use access to all ID3v2 frames.  Check out http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/taglib/api/classTagLib_1_1ID3v2_1_1Tag.html

TagLib::ID3v2::Tag provides the necessary functionality to make use of the entire ID3v2 specification.  There are methods for adding any frame (not just the 'standard' ones), and there are others to generate lists or maps of frames in an mp3 file.

I suppose we may have different interpretations of "easy-to-use".  The functionality is available, anyhow.

To make it less confusing for the user, you could keep the existing tag dialogue which I assume uses  TagLib::Tag (the generic tag interface which is portable between formats).  On that dialogue however, an "advanced" button could be added which will call up a more advanced tagging dialogue.  The advanced dialogue could be different depending on the given file format.  I think this would prevent any confusion.
Comment 7 Duke 2005-04-27 07:15:36 UTC
I should say, it would prevent any confusion amongst average users who aren't interested in the more advanced tagging features.

I would assume those users that are interested in advanced tagging would understand the necessary differences between the format-specific advanced dialogues.
Comment 8 Ian Monroe 2005-04-27 07:27:54 UTC
The day after we add an 'advanced' window, a bug will be filed to have the tags available as a playlist column. I personally wouldn't see the point of them otherwise, outside of perhaps creation of smart playlists. And then some of the columns would be editable for some tracks, but not others. Its already confusing enough that amaroK can play m4a, wmas etc. but not view/edit their tags.

I imagine there's some functionality common to all current and planned formats (ogg, mp3, flac, m4a I guess) that might be possible to add (like maybe disc number?).
Comment 9 Alexandre Oliveira 2005-07-17 00:24:57 UTC
*** Bug 109184 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Isaac Puch Rojo 2006-01-13 01:25:20 UTC
Info about ogg tags: http://xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html und vorbiscomment (Vorbis Tools). 
I think the "PERFORMER" are avaliable on id3 und ogg. Maybe on the other formats, i dont now. Im agree whit the "advanced" option avove. Performer are very usefull. 

I wiss a multiple artist suport in ogg tags. 
Comment 11 Ian Monroe 2006-01-13 07:42:41 UTC
Now that we have an "artist" and a "composer"... what exactly is a "performer"? 
Comment 12 Isaac Puch Rojo 2006-01-13 10:32:32 UTC
ok, from vorbis doku:
"ARTIST
    The artist generally considered responsible for the work. In popular music this is usually the performing band or singer. For classical music it would be the composer. For an audio book it would be the author of the original text.
PERFORMER
    The artist(s) who performed the work. In classical music this would be the conductor, orchestra, soloists. In an audio book it would be the actor who did the reading. In popular music this is typically the same as the ARTIST and is omitted."
Comment 13 Martin Aumueller 2006-01-13 11:11:15 UTC
This means: if a Performer tag is present (classical music), we should
use this as artist and ignore the artist tag (as this should tend to
agree with the Composer tag). Right?

On 13 Jan 2006 09:32:33 -0000, Isaac Puch Rojo <puchrojo@tzi.de> wrote:
[bugs.kde.org quoted mail]
Comment 14 Isaac Puch Rojo 2006-01-13 12:16:30 UTC
There is only an artist-tag and a performer-tag. There is no composer-tag. Artist and composer are the same.  

In classical music is important to know both, the artist and the performer. I try to give a example:
CD : "BEETHOVEN
      FÜR ELISE, EROICA-VARIATIONEN OP.35 
      ALFRED BRENDEL"
would be in ogg-tag:
artist-tag:    "Ludwig van Beethoven" -> The composer
performer-tag: "Alfred Brendel" -> The pianist
album-tag:     "Für Elise, Eroica-Variationen OP.35"

If only one could be shown, than it should be like it is now, only with the artist. But I think for classical music it is important to see the composer (the artist) and the performer (the interpret). 

Another example:
Harry Potter as audio book:
artist-tag: "J. K. Rowling" ->  the author of the original text.
performer-tag: "Jim Dale" -> the actor who did the reading
album-tag: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

Wrap-up: There should be one tag more: the performer-tag.
Comment 15 Ian Monroe 2006-01-13 18:04:09 UTC
Ok, we already have the composer tag. So performer is redundant with artist.
Comment 16 Isaac Puch Rojo 2006-01-13 23:52:14 UTC
Sorry Lan Monroe, but i dont really understand. I search in amarok doku for "composer", I search in "Edit Track Information" and I dont see any composer tag. I only see the "Artist". Could you gime me a example how to save the information from my last post in amarok. Thanks for all
Comment 17 Mark Kretschmann 2006-01-14 00:29:52 UTC
On Friday 13 January 2006 23:52, Isaac Puch Rojo wrote:
> ------- Additional Comments From puchrojo tzi de  2006-01-13 23:52 -------
> Sorry Lan Monroe, but i dont really understand. I search in amarok doku for
> "composer", I search in "Edit Track Information" and I dont see any
> composer tag. I only see the "Artist". Could you gime me a example how to
> save the information from my last post in amarok. Thanks for all


Lan was referring to 1.4-SVN.
Comment 18 Mats Ahlgren 2006-06-21 20:08:32 UTC
I move to reopen this feature please, as currently AmaroK only supports Artist and Composer tags.

> ------- Additional Comment #15 From Ian Monroe  2006-01-13 18:04 -------
> Ok, we already have the composer tag. So performer is redundant with artist. 

I'm firmly convinced performer is not the same as the artist. The two examples given by Isaac illustrate this clearly.

Why we can't put the composer in the artist field:
If you try to make the artist the same as the performer, then all your albums composed by the same person (and I bet the majority of them are) won't work with the contextual browser (which groups albums by artist). Why? Suppose you have an album of video game songs, which often have a composer but no identifiable performer. Tagging them all with the proper composer and no (or different) artists makes the context browser unusable (nothing shows up because albums are identified by name *and* composer).

To make the example more concrete, if it wasn't already:
1) Take an album by your favorite artist
2) Change the metadata of one of those songs: change the artist's name to Bob
3) Look at the context browser: the song is no longer in the same album
This is why putting the performer in the artist field is impossible.


Ideally, AmaroK should support at least a composer, performer, *lyricist* (quite common), and maybe arranger tag.


(Also, I don't believe adding these important tags will cause "tag bloat." If the devs are worried about tag bloat, methods to alleviate it have already been discussed in this thread it seems -- and I also have a few ideas.)

(Also, note that Artist isn't redundant with Composer either! Currently, I'm listening to a song sung by Faye Wong, composed by Jim Lau, arranged by Alex San, with lyrics by Lin Xi.)
Comment 19 Duke 2006-06-21 21:59:13 UTC
Have a look at the following tags from the id3 v2.4 specification (which is specific to mpeg, I think):

TCOM: Composer
TEXT: Lyricist/Text writer
TIPL: Involved people list
TMCL: Musician credits list
TOLY: Originial lyricist/text writer
TOPE: Original artist/performer
TPE1: Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)
TPE2: Band/orchestra/accompaniment
TPE3: Conductor/performer refinement
TPE4: Interpreted, remixed, or otherwise modified by

Say for example you had a copy of track "X", a composition written and performed by Beethoven; in this case that specific mp3 file would specify Beethoven for tags TCOM, TMCL, TPE1, and TIPL.  Now say Brendel made his own recording of composition "X" and you have a copy of the recording (call it track "Y").  In this case, you'd specify Brendel in TMCL, TPE1, TIPL, and Beethoven in TCOM, TOPE, and TMCL (but not TIPL because Beethoven had no involvement in the -recording- of track "Y".)

When you apply tags you have to do so from the reference point of a specific track (or recording.)  If the artist/performer/composer/whatever for that particular recording is not the original, there are tags to specify who was.

One of my favourites above is TPE4 for remixes since I have a lot of electronic music.  Be nice to be able to display that tag too.
Comment 20 Ian Monroe 2006-06-21 22:37:26 UTC
Rather then support esoteric ID3 tags, we will be implementing (probably in 2.0) arbitrary labels. This should cover most use cases.
Comment 21 Mats Ahlgren 2006-06-22 01:32:03 UTC
------- Additional Comment #20 From Ian Monroe  2006-06-21 22:37 -------
Rather then support esoteric ID3 tags, we will be implementing (probably in 2.0) arbitrary labels. This should cover most use cases. 

Awesome! Can't wait. =)
(Make sure to let people invoke them from the OSD interface...)
Comment 22 Arne Babenhauserheide 2006-09-01 15:45:24 UTC
Arbitrary ID3 Tags would be great! 

I sorted all my songs in MacOSX via id3 tags not avaible in amarok, and since I don't want to do all the sorting again, I need to be able to read out the tag for sorting into smart playlists.