Library Organization Solution
Answered
Hello!
I am a brand new Bluesound user. I just bought the Vault 2i. I love the concept. It seems perfectly suited to music lovers like me who have spent the last 35 years amassing a large and carefully curated collection of CDs, who care about sound quality (the built-in DAC sounds great!) and who have reservations about Spotify and other streaming services based on sound quality and business model. I’m loading up my CDs and enjoying listening through the Vault.
The one glaring problem is library organization. From reading online, I know I am not alone in this frustration. It’s a maddening enough issue that it has me on the fence sending the Vault back before my 30 day money back period expires.
I am here to propose a simple solution.
But first a brief outline of a very massive problem (if you already feel my pain, skip ahead to the solution.)
THE PROBLEM:
- As we know, the Bluos library organizes itself based on the metadata it pulls from the magical database of all the albums in the universe (except for the approximately 5-10% that it fails to recognize or completely misidentifies. If you also take into account missing cover art or wrong cover art, that percentage rises as high as 20% in some sections of my collection). However, as we also know, that metadata is a complete mess. It’s far too inconsistent, inaccurate and wildly illogical to provide a useful system of organization. I cannot overstate the scope of this problem and the accompanying frustration.
- Perhaps for good reason, Blueos does not include the capability to edit metadata. They also seem unmoved by the many queries users have registered about that fact. Thus, the editing of metadata has to be done via a third party app with a process that is extremely tedious and time consuming. I’ve paid for two different apps and downloaded another for free. The first works excruciatingly slowly. The second works sporadically. The third, not at all. Even with the insane amount of time I have spent editing metadata, the inherent organizational problems are only slightly mitigated.
- The organizational problem is significantly magnified in a library that includes anything outside of the mainstream. My library ranges from basic mainstream pop/rock stuff to more obscure entries to many sub-genres of jazz, classical and world music.
-Classical: What an absolute nightmare. The artist might be tagged as the ensemble, the conductor, the soloist or something else entirely. In several cases, two discs of a double disc set will be tagged completely differently. None of the discs seem to be tagged with a composer despite the fact that most classical listeners organize their physical libraries by composer. When I look under “composer” in Blueos, I’ve got a few jazz artists and a rock producer. As for genres, the metadata has my classical collection split into 9 different genres so far. I would love it if they were all together under “classical” so I knew where to find them and so I could see my whole collection in one place.
-World: I won’t even talk about how many world music CDs the Vault failed to recognize (importing those same CDs into my computer through itunes is no problem). But speaking strictly organizationally, my vast collection of world music is now all lumped together as “world” (or, sometimes, annoyingly, “international”) and alphabetized by artist. On my physical shelf, I have it logically divided up by region, country and then genres within that country: Javanese Gamelan, Baliniese Gamelan, Hindustani Ragas, Carnatic Music, etc. It’s maddening to not have control over that.
4. Genres. I see that Bluesound has suggested using the “genre” category to browse a complex collection but this is totally impractical. After loading in 250 CDs I had already somehow accumulated over 40 different genres, each one problematically populated. It’s truly a mess. I’ve got an “Avant-Garde” and an “Avant Garde” (one of which contains an album Middle Eatern music and one of which contains a big-band album). I’ve got Indian music showing up in “Classical.” I’ve got Mahalia Jackson in ”Religious,” while the Staple Singers are in “Gospel.” Classical albums might show up as “Orchestral,” “Chamber Music,” “Concerto,” “Choral” “Symphony,” “Ballet,” and every once in a while, if I’m lucky, as “Classical.” I’ve got a genre called “Retrospective Pop,” which contains a single Bob Dylan album while the rest of his work sits in “Rock.” It filed a Keith Jarrett solo Album under “Bop.” I’ve got “Unknown” and “unknown” along with “Miscellaneous” and “miscellaneous.” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s ridiculous. It will take many months of editing genre tags in the metadata of hundreds of albums and to turn into something usable.
I could go on but, to put it simply, In the current system, we are at the mercy of the computer with little to no control over the organization of our music libraries--libraries which are very personal and reflect the idiosyncratic tastes of each user.
THE SOLUTION:
The metadata disaster is not Bluesound’s fault, but it affects Bluesound users and I believe there is a simple remedy that would address the majority of their organizational woes (while avoiding the necessity of editing metadata).
Bluesound simply needs to add a single category to the library sorting list--the one which currently includes albums, artists, songs, genres, playlists, composers, folders, favorites. This new category should be labeled “collections.” It should function somewhat like playlists but for albums instead of songs. Users would click on the three dots on an album, click “add to collection” and then create and name collections according to their wishes. Unlike playlists, the intention would not be to create play queues but simply to group albums for browsing purposes. This would give the user the same control over their digital library as they have over the organization of their physical shelves of CDs--perhaps with some advantages in that a single album could be added to multiple collections. For example I could file my Bill Evans albums in a broad “Jazz” collection that I create and also file it under my collection of “Piano Trios.” It’s almost like creating your own genres.
The potential applications for this are too many to list but just imagine…
- Classical listeners could create collections for every composer (that alone should win a lot of hearts) and/or sub-genres of their own choosing like “Baroque,” “Minimalist,” “Solo Piano,” “Opera,” etc.
- World music could be logically divided up into “Brazillian,” “Celtic,” “Afrobeat,” “Javanese Gamelan,” “Balinese Gamelan,” etc. just like it would be in a record store or on someone’s physical shelf Instead of all lumped together as “world” and alphabetized by artist.
- Sometimes you want to find the right album for a certain mood or function. You could create collections for “Mellow classical,” “Dinner music,” “Stuff Molly Likes,” “Piano Trios,” “Nap Time,” “Workout Albums,” “Make-out Albums,” “Old School Hip Hop,” “Vintage Bluegrass,” “Sunday Morning Listening,” Etc.
- A music historian could make collections for each year. An Indian music aficionado could make collections of Morning Ragas, Afternoon, Ragas, Evening Ragas, etc.
- Artists that record under multiple names could be grouped together in a single collection (for me that would allow my to file my Gillian Welch with my David Rawlings)
- Album art galleries--I’m imagining browsing classic Bluenote covers or the unified, minimalist aesthetic of the ECM label
- Alphabetization. I would never do this, but one could, if they were so inclined, make a collection for each letter of the alphabet and return some sense of proper alphabetization to the digital world--I mean, seriously? In the age of AI, a computer can’t alphabetize by last name or skip the word “the?”
Yes, I could do something similar with “playlists” but I don’t want to see songs, I want to see albums. I would wager that most of the people to whom the Vault appeals are album listeners rather than single song listeners. I want to be able to open a collection that suits my mood and browse album covers until I find one I want to put on.
Yes, you could also do something similar with “folders.” You could get your computer out, connect to the server and make a bunch of folders for yourself but you can’t see the album covers that way. Plus you wouldn’t be able to put an album in multiple collections that way.
The point is that this simple addition gives the power to the user and liberates them from the fickle whims of the metadata.
Please, I beseech the benevolent developers to consider this simple solution. I believe it would improve the user experience for the entire Bluesound community. If you need to make room, get rid of the “songs” category. I honestly have no idea why anyone would ever want to look at a list of 10,000 songs listed alphabetically.
Thank you for your consideration.
Eric Schopmeyer
Portland, OR
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Official comment
Hi Eric
Thank you for taking the time to write. Bluesound is not a music curation product and has never pretended to be one. It is simply a High-Resolution Playback System. In fact, when BluOS Creates a Local Library and Music Share, files are mounted as Read-Only.
This is because there a number of other third-party metadata products that are available that do a great job already.
That being said, you can already use Folder Browse to locate your lost content until you correct the metadata. Here's how; https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/204103476 -
Thanks for the quick response! I appreciate it (though I can't tell if this was just a form response based on my topic or a real human response.)
Just curious...Did you actually read my post?
I hear what you are saying about Bluesound being a High-Res playback system rather than a music curation product. However, in the case of the Vault, it seems like the whole concept is to replace the user's physical collection. That function inherently requires some degree of curation. It's an unavoidable fact that library organization is a major aspect of the overall user experience.
The solution I proposed is very simple and expressly avoids the necessity of editing metadata.
Thanks for the link. But I already know how to find my content and edit the metadata. It's just that that process takes on a truly maddening scope when you have a collection of over 1000 CDs with innumerable metadata problems. Plus, the third party products you allude to don't actually "do a great job", as I outlined in my post. But again, the proposed solution here is NOT for Bluesound to offer metadata editing capabilities (or mount anything other than "read only files", but to allow users to better organize their libraries without editing metadata.
Actually, the more I think about it, I realize now this was just an automatic form response and that my post wasn't actually read by anyone.
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Hi Eric
It was, I am here - Folder Browse meets those needs.Try it...
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Well, I stand corrected. Thanks, Tony. Good to know Bluesound has real people responding so promptly (on New Year's Eve, no less! What are we doing spending the holiday engaged in a user experience discussion!?) I hope you understand that it is not my intention to strike an argumentative tone. I am not an irate customer. I am overall happy with Bluesound and have been talking it up to people I know. I just think there is significant room for improvement in the realm library organization.
Yes, I understand the browsing by folder concept. I know how to do that. It sort of meets those needs but not in a very elegant way. I addressed that above:
Yes, you could also do something similar with “folders.” You could get your computer out, connect to the server and make a bunch of folders for yourself but you can’t see the album covers that way. Plus you wouldn’t be able to put an album in multiple collections that way.
In terms of user experience for a music lover/collector, the difference between awkwardly browsing a bunch of folders and file names and browsing a mosaic of beautiful album covers, is significant. I don't want the to feel like I'm opening a computer file, I want to feel like I'm putting on an album. I think the visual aspect of album covers is actually really important.
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do some one read this post? The answer from Bluesound team will be really interesting?
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Hi,
Eric explains very clearly what I need and what (I'm sure) a lot of users of BluOS desperately need.
Also, to add this terrific improvement to the functionality of the BluOS app seems very easy.
There is a category named "My Favourites" which does exactly whay we want. We just need the option to create several "My Favourites" and the option to rename them. That's all!
Please do it. For me it would be a game changer.
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This a brilliant idea and is desperately needed.
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Please see the official comment - Folder Browse is designed as an alternative solution until you clean or resolve your metadata issues. You will continue to have problems as long as you have bad metadata.
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Hey Tony, could you please explain what do you mean with bad metadata? Do BlueOS have any documentation how metadata should be made for this? witch delimiters are allowed?
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I was just about to buy a Bluesound Node and this post stopped me in my tracks.
I have a very varied, large collection of music, exactly like that described by Eric. It has all been ripped to FLAC files using MusicBee and I can find anything I want quickly (genre, artist, composer etc.). It also has a complete set of artwork.
I would enjoy the convenience of a high quality streamer, but, above all else, there's no point if I can't be sure I will always be able to find my music.
So the key questions are, has the development of the app over the last 2 years made this possible or, failing that, is there an app you would recommend that can?
Thanks
Terry Summers (Monmouthshire, UK)
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Hi Terry,
There haven't been any developments to address the concerns I listed in that post. It really seems like it would be so easy to just give the user a little more control over how stuff is organized in Bluos. Their response was that they are a "playback system not a curation system," which still makes no sense. If you have a product that can hold 2TB of music and essentially replace large physical collections of music, you can't ignore the curation function. You have to give some consideration about how the user will be able to organize and access those files.
All that aside, I still love my Bluesound system. The sound quality is excellent and it allowed my to put all my CDs away, freeing up a lot of space at home. It was a huge project getting my collection into the Vault and editing the metadata with a third party app (I use metadatics). It took several months and was very frustrating at times. But it was worth it. I bought the Node2i to connect to my upstairs stereo system so I can access my collection from there too. It's very convenient.
For me, the pros still outweigh the cons. However the it would be a huge upgrade if they would simply add the "collections" feature I proposed above. I'm no programmer but seems like it would be a very easy solution that would improve the experience for all Bluos users.
Hope this was helpful.
Eric Schopmeyer (Portland, OR)
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Hi Eric and thanks for your response (I will be splitting my personal email address). Yes, typical techies - so involved in the engineering (terry.d.summers) that they completely lose sight of what they should be trying to achieve - making it possible for us to find our music before listening to it! I had a look at metadatics, and you must be a Mac user, so that's not available to me, a PC user.
I think I'm going to spend a little longer looking at my options as it is not at all clear how I would move my library (similar to yours, but probably smaller - 44,000 files covering rock, jazz, blues, classical and world) (AToutlook.com) onto my Synology NAS. I've read countless posts on the MusicBee website, trying to find out how to do this, but they are equally incapable of keeping out of the weeds. The added problem with MusicBee is that it is exclusively a PC based app, so I could well lose all my metadata in the move to the NAS.
Thanks for trying with Bluesound. It's particularly off-putting that they don't see the problem.
Regards
Terry
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as it is not at all clear how I would move my library.....onto my Synology NAS
Bluesound devices will only read tags, so there should be no issue moving your library to a NAS. Nothing will get lost or altered.
Regarding artwork, there are some limitations covered here: https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/2002719260
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