How to set up the genre and CD pictures from Mac Musique software ?
Answered
My music library has been set up in Apple Music application (previously iTunes). When I transferred it to my NAS for the BluOS library access, I could see some discrepancies:
- The genre (classical, jazz,....) is not the same (more genres in BluOS)
- Some CD album pictures appears in "Music" Mac app but not in BluOS
I will appreciate any advice how to get a "clean" configuration from the Mac Music app. to BluOS.
Thanks
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Official comment
You need to edit your metadata, unfortunately Apple are different with how they do things but it’s quite easy to fix.
I use an App called Bliss and it can edit not only Genre tags but also add missing artwork, there are many metadata editors available for all platforms. Bliss can edit the genre of an album very quickly and artwork can be automatically pulled from the Internet letting you select the best option.
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While I agree with the "Official Comment" I can empathize with the users questions. I have been using BlueSound for 4 years, having migrated from Sonos to be able to access hi-res audio files in my library.
zden, my library is over 7,000 albums now. and Mr Evans is correct, you are going to need to get a metadata editor and go through your album files. My experience:
- I personally use mp3Tag to edit metadata
- I have checked/edited the metadata on every album in my library,
- I edit album names, artists, genres etc. to ensure that the artist names, as an example are all correct and consistent spelling, these do vary from publisher to publisher
- I edit the genres to a generally reduced list, again many publishers use a very wide variety of genres, so I streamline what is used ...
- I edit the artwork to ensure that it is the correct size, and, as far as I can tell it MUST be either jpg or png .... some publishers use different formats, gif is but one example that will NOT display, based on my experience
Also, I think that it is very important that you manage the files within your library. It cam to my attention, recently, that BlueSound prioritizes album art files within the album folder OVER the embedded art. In my experience this caused numerous issues with art not displaying. Hence, at a minimum, my recommendation:
ensure that there is ONLY 1 art file contained within the albums root folder, along with the music files (flac, apple lossless etc.)
- this art file MUST be .jpg or .png format AND it if a jpeg file it MUST be called "cover.jpg" or "folder.jpg" ... or .png IF it is png file. And it MUST be of a size less than ??? 4MB, I am still not 100% sure.
- IF there are various resolutions or file types, which is often the case when purchasing music downloads Store the multiple files in a separate subfolder so as NOT to confuse BlueSound. I personally store ALL my artwork as embedded art and ALL other album art, line rnotes, pdf's etc in a separate subfolder within the album data.
BlueSound tells me that this is NOT as efficient as either eliminating the embedded art OR keeping the album art file, correct size/format in the root directory, BUT it has resolved the vast majority of the art display issues.
It has been my experience that managing the metadata of you music library is essential to avoid a number of issues. I hope that helps explain some things a bit more fully.
It does take time and effort ...
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Maybe you will find this article interesting: https://support.bluos.net/hc/en-us/articles/360000368827-Why-are-some-of-my-Album-Cover-Art-too-large-or-missing
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That is a helpful article/support doc, but it misses some important, in my opinion, issues:
- the size of the art file, while pretty clearly identified in the article identifies a pretty large range ... the user still NEEDS to check the size of any art file you keep in the music folder to unsure it meets the requirement, and that requirement is different if you are using Optimize artwork or not ... that can be confusing
- understanding that BlueSound prioritizes an art file .jpg, or .png OVER the embedded art is critical to know, the user MAY have embedded art that is fully compliant with the 600KB limit for embedded art, but the art file within the music folder MAY be different and that can cause art NOT to display.
- understanding that some publishers MAY use art files OTHER than jpg or png for embedded art, i.e. .gif, .webp etc. is important to check as it will not display properly ... this does happen when purchasing downloaded music.
- IF there are multiple copies of artwork in the music folder, of different formats/resolutions it MAY cause the artwork NOT to to display, even though the user has a correct size format option ... this appears to have been an issue, as described by BlueSound support, in my cases ... hence my decision to move art files etc to a separate subfolder to avoid possibility of confusion.
Personally I would like to see BlueSound update the tech support document referenced such that it provides a more complete explanation of the issues AND recommended actions to resolve ...
Thank you
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@zden
You mention mention "but not in BluOS", without indicating which platform this refers to. There are differences between iOS, Android, Windows and MacOS.
Besides the specific requirements for covers mentioned by others, there are longstanding bugs in the Windows and MacOS apps, preventing proper display of covers. These have been confirmed to be triggered by the presence of apostrophe ' or parentheses ( or ) in album title, album artists or artist. Possibly other triggers may exist as well.
My library has all the jpg png bmp webp pdf files in the same directory as where the music files reside, unless it is a multiple CD album. Every directory that contains music files, including multiple CD albums, also contains a cover.jpg, which complies with the BluOS restrictions (1200 pix 600 kB max).
I encounter no cover issues except those described in the Windows / MacOS bug.
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@Cris: My platform is MacOS Ventura one.
I will check one of the above proposed apps for rebuilding all the metadata and revert with my thoughts.
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