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  #1  
Old May 4, 2008, 10:17 PM
Muzza Muzza is offline
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Default Tagging question: arrangements

So, say you have a track composed by someone, and that track has been arranged by another person. Is it proper etiquette to (tag&rename speaking) put the original composer in the "Composer" field and the arranger in the "Artist" field? A pretty simple question, but it's something that's been niggling at me for some time now. =/

Here are two examples:

This shows a track that has not been arranged/has been arranged by the original composer.

This shows a track that has been arranged by a person who is not the original composer.

All is good, yes? The "Original Artist" field is ignored? =X

(Oh, and moderators, perhaps this thread could be given a generic title such as "Tagging queries" or something, and could become a sticky? I know it would get used hardly ever, but I think it'd be convenient to a certain degree, in case people needed help tagging.)
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  #2  
Old May 10, 2008, 11:34 AM
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I was in the same dilemma recently, so I started going the way you described. However it's still unclear. The way I see it, that's a good approach if the arranger has made significant changes to make the song sound quite different from the original composition (like in remixes), but what if the arranger's role was not that noticeable (like when arranging music for a port of game e.g. Raiden AC -> Raiden PSX) and it sounds basically the same but with better instrumentation?
And yet another one: what if you have a performer, arranger and composer, all different persons?
I think I would ignore the arranger if his role wasn't that big. But I still don't know what I'd do otherwise.
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  #3  
Old May 11, 2008, 02:30 AM
Muzza Muzza is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kewing Darksun View Post
The way I see it, that's a good approach if the arranger has made significant changes to make the song sound quite different from the original composition (like in remixes), but what if the arranger's role was not that noticeable (like when arranging music for a port of game e.g. Raiden AC -> Raiden PSX) and it sounds basically the same but with better instrumentation?
Yeah, I'm under the impression that if the soundtrack is classified as an arrange album, emphasis should be placed on the arranger in the tags. However if it's a port like you said, with simple arrangements of improved synth, I hardly think that's important enough to warrant tag space.

Can anybody else chime in and help us out?
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  #4  
Old May 11, 2008, 05:03 AM
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Secret Squirrel Secret Squirrel is offline
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I tend to stick it all in the artist field, because the other fields don't get displayed very often. For example, I use these formats

Vocalist / comp: Composer, arr: Arranger
Composer / arr: Arranger

I get the feeling that the id3 tagging standard was created to mostly satisfy the requirements for tagging Western rock/pop/etc bands, so it's really lacking when dealing with VGM (and doesn't conform to the Japanese style which designates Lyricist/Composer/Arranger/Performer for most works.)

By the same token, my biggest tag-related problem with services like LastFM is that they are artist-centric, whereas soundtracks are album-centric. The only way to rectify that would have been to put the album title in the artist or track title tags, but that's unwieldy and it's too late for that. One example to see the limitations -- if you saw the track Stage 1 by Capcom Sound Team, there's no way to figure out just what that is.

So yeah, tagging is an issue with which we're just not going to be satisfied.
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  #5  
Old May 11, 2008, 11:14 PM
Muzza Muzza is offline
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Too true SS, too true. I like your format, but I think I'll stick to what I've become accustomed to. It's up for debate though, as to which format is the best/most universal.

Would love to hear some other opinions on this, even though SS's informative post is hard to counter!
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  #6  
Old May 12, 2008, 11:35 PM
Muzza Muzza is offline
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Pardon for the double post, but something else just came to mind:

For soundtracks like FFX OST, with 3 different composers, is it proper to but the specific composer for each track under "Artist", leaving the "Composer" field blank? Or is putting all three names in the artist field for all tracks, and placing the specific composer's name in the composer field correct?

=/
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  #7  
Old May 13, 2008, 03:38 AM
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I think it's much preferable to put the specific composer for each track, instead of listing them all, no matter where you do it.
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  #8  
Old May 13, 2008, 03:57 AM
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Mmm, thought that was how it went. Thanks for the clarification.
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  #9  
Old May 13, 2008, 05:32 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muzza View Post
For soundtracks like FFX OST, with 3 different composers, is it proper to but the specific composer for each track under "Artist", leaving the "Composer" field blank? Or is putting all three names in the artist field for all tracks, and placing the specific composer's name in the composer field correct?
Considering the Artist field is the only one which is ever actually used to pull artist info from (by audio players, last.fm, etc) you should put the specific composer(s), arranger(s), performer(s) who worked on that track (and whom you want to attribute credit for the track to) in that field.

Since the Composer field serves no such purpose I personally don't tend to use it, but if the person in the Artist field is not the composer, you could use it I guess. Though an included .nfo file could take care of such things as well.
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  #10  
Old May 13, 2008, 11:26 PM
Muzza Muzza is offline
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Yeah I usually include bundles of information in .nfo files in case there isn't one already. I noticed that in Windows Media Player 11, which I use to listen to my music, when I play a track with a composer and arranger ("Artist"), both pieces of information pass through at the bottom left of the screen. That's really convenient for me, at least, so I might just stick to my current tagging regime.
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  #11  
Old May 14, 2008, 02:13 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
I tend to stick it all in the artist field, because the other fields don't get displayed very often. For example, I use these formats

Vocalist / comp: Composer, arr: Arranger
Composer / arr: Arranger
I used to do that until very recently, although in a much less clear and ordered manner. I've seen that the apporach I've been trying this past week is somewhat confusing so I guess I'll stick to your method, SecretSquirrel (although I still like using the composer tag). The artist tag may get a bit too crowded some times, but it's still better that way.


I hate albums with lots of composers/arrangers but no specific credits for each track....
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  #12  
Old Jan 20, 2009, 09:24 AM
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JumboMaverick JumboMaverick is offline
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As a person who has agonized over this very issue for eons it seems, I am currently using what I feel to be the "correct" way to tag VGM. It's certainly not the easiest or the most convenient way, but to me the ARTIST tag is fundamentally wrong and shouldn't be used period. How I do things is I used foobar and create the following tags:

ARRANGER
COMPOSER
REMIXER
PERFORMER
VOCAL
GROUP
etc... and fill in accordingly to individual songs.

The ARTIST tag rarely appears in my digital music, and this requires some tweaking of foobar to get things to display properly. It may or may not be more work then necessary, but I do feel this is correct.
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  #13  
Old May 16, 2010, 07:00 AM
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I want to reopen this old post since I'm not sure how to use the "Album Artist" tag. Generally I use this form:

"Artist Album" > "Various Artist" on most albums (especially VGM compilation)
"Artist Album" > "name of the band" for others like Doujin or GSM (ex.. Minibosses, Alfh Lyra).

Since I'm reorganize all my digital VGM archive, I would like to know your opinion.
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  #14  
Old May 17, 2010, 08:10 AM
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I tend to tag on case by case basis, but as a general rule of thumb, if arrangement is significant enough I'll plop the arranger in the artist field, but if it's just an instrument upgrade, I'll probably use composer as an artist.
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  #15  
Old May 15, 2011, 09:32 AM
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Is there a program that create extra tags (for example ARRANGER, PERFORMER, REMIXER) for lossless rips?
I use Tag&Rename but it seems assigne only base tags, but it would be crazy create one by one, track by track.
suggestion?
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  #16  
Old May 15, 2011, 09:38 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by depa View Post
Is there a program that create extra tags (for example ARRANGER, PERFORMER, REMIXER) for lossless rips?
I use Tag&Rename but it seems assigne only base tags, but it would be crazy create one by one, track by track.
suggestion?
Mp3tag? It supports a few lossless formats, now.... You can select multiple tracks to add them tags, and the last time I checked it allowed to download some info from database(s) such as VGMdb [you might need to install a script for this].
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Last edited by ilef; May 15, 2011 at 09:50 AM.
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  #17  
Old May 15, 2011, 10:32 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ilef View Post
Mp3tag? It supports a few lossless formats, now.... You can select multiple tracks to add them tags, and the last time I checked it allowed to download some info from database(s) such as VGMdb [you might need to install a script for this].
But from what I know the Mp3Tag software allows only "normal" tags (artist, comment, year, composer, ecc...) and the vgmdb utility save exactly the form displayed on the database

Quote:
Catalog Number
Release Date
Publish Format
Release Price
Media Format
Classification
Published by
Composed by
Arranged by
Performed by

is it right?

Last edited by depa; May 15, 2011 at 10:54 AM.
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  #18  
Old May 15, 2011, 10:42 AM
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Yes, you're right, I suppose that what you want is not yet possible, at least with VGMdb.... If I understood correctly, you want a software that adds such fields and automatically fills them with the proper "value(s)"? Well, in such case I believe the database owners/managers should first have all the desired information stored on the servers in the form of downloadable tags, for this to work. Softwares can ease the tagging-pain a lot, but they can't do everything on their own.

For now, we're stuck with partially-manual tagging. I'm not too annoyed by the way things work now, I like to take my time with the tagging, checking if I made any errors, it's not like I've a gun pointed at my head =D
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Last edited by ilef; May 15, 2011 at 10:56 AM. Reason: Removed a bit of text
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  #19  
Old May 15, 2011, 11:00 AM
depa depa is online now
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Yes exactly, I search a software that allow to create an extra tag field and to give a value but probably still doesn't exist.
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  #20  
Old May 15, 2011, 11:05 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by depa View Post
Yes exactly, I search a software that allow to create an extra tag field and to give a value but probably still doesn't exist.
I'll write it in italian, to be a bit more clear, my english isn't that good:

Software in grado di fare cose del genere già ci sarebbero [Mp3tag e Tag&Rename, anche se di quest'ultimo non sono sicuro, non avendolo mai usato], ma devi anche vedere in quali "forme" son salvate certe informazioni sul database... La medaglia ha sempre due facce: se non vi sono informazioni per le singole tracce e, soprattutto, non sono memorizzate in un certo modo sul server, non c'è molto che puoi fare a riguardo di un processo automatizzato via-software [a meno che, ovviamente, non ti crei script di tagging specifici per ogni singolo album ]. Per il momento VGMdb ha "solo" un campo Note, con tutte le informazioni salvate a mo' di blocco testo e gli Scan.
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Last edited by ilef; May 15, 2011 at 11:18 AM. Reason: Typo
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  #21  
Old May 15, 2011, 11:41 AM
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Ok, tried Mp3Tag it works
Now I ask you, are there audio software that displayed extratags? I use winamp but it does'nt show them on the player window.

IN ITALIAN:
Ok Mp3Tag me mi crea i campi extra perfetto, ma ci sono sofware che aprendo una canzone mi leggono tutti i metadati compresi quelli extra? Io uso il winamp, ma sulla schermata del player non li mostra, ma solo dalle proprietà del file.
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  #22  
Old May 15, 2011, 12:21 PM
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Hmmm... Non conosco software in grado di fare una cosa simile, e penso che sia meglio così, anche per una questione di memoria richiesta dall'ipotetico programma... Se i riproduttori si dovessero mettere a elencare compositori delle tracce, chi l'ha arrangiata, chi l'ha remixata, chi suona il determinato strumento.... Mi sembra un riempire inutilmente di dati la playlist X_X Forse è il caso di lasciare a Cesare quel ch'è di Cesare? Per controllare con calma certe informazioni esiste la finestra della proprietà, e nella maggior parte dei player la visualizzi senza interrompere la riproduzione
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  #23  
Old May 15, 2011, 01:18 PM
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Ok chetu sappia con Mp3Tag si può scegliere l'ordine di scrittura dei metadati?
L'impostazione base non mi piace
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  #24  
Old May 16, 2011, 05:58 AM
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You should be aware that tagging isn't actually a feature of the file format (MP3, FLAC, AAC, Vorbis, etc.) but of the tagging format itself: ID3v1, ID3v2, Vorbis comment, APEv1, APEv2

The tag format dictates what you can store in it and how it is stored.
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