Classical Music and Asset UPNP Server

[trickydickie]

With a growing collection of classical music I’ve been looking at tagging for this genre for some time and how to best present them in Asset so I can easily locate music.

It’s easy for non classical as generally I use Album Artist as my way in and occasionally genre but classical seems a lot more complex.

I’m finding that for classical I often wish to locate a work by choosing composer first and then via the composition name, e.g. Symphony No. 1 in C major. It’s quite likely though that there will be more than one copy of the same work!

Inspired by playing around with tags and trying out Minimserver I think I have come up with a good solution for Asset users which I’ll share below. I generally prefer Asset as I find it faster, like the upstream album art and only really want to run one server.

Tagging

I’m tagging all albums with a consistent composer name. I prefer the format Surname, Firstname. i.e. Brahms, Johannes

I’ve added (or more correctly adding!) a Composition tag to each track. The composition is the name of the work. E.g.

Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

Each track in the symphony will be a movement and will be named accordingly, e.g.

• Symphony No 1 in C major - Adagio molto-allegro con brio
• Symphony No 1 in C major - Andante cantabile con moto

Etc.

This has the effect of allowing all the movements to be associated with one work.

I’m also trying to use the orchestra and conductor tags where known.

Asset Configuration

So the challenge was how to get Asset to display this logically. It requires some configuration but this is what I did.

• Setup a separate instance of Asset for classical music. Once done point the watched media folders to just the classical music. Recent versions of Asset allow multiple instances
• Get Asset to recognise the new Composition tag. To do this edit the MediaDatabaseFields5.txt file for your chosen instance. Add the following to the end of the file

Composition,0,NVARCHAR(150)

• Edit the browse tree to add the following (using the text editor). I placed this at the top of my browse tree

Composer{a_to_z}{no_track_list}
Composer\Album
Composer\Artist{a_to_z}{no_track_list}
Composer\Artist\Album
Composer\Composition{a_to_z}{no_track_list}
Composer\Composition\Album
Composer\Conductor{no_track_list}
Composer\Conductor\Album
Composer\Genre{no_track_list}
Composer\Genre\Album
Composer\Orchestra{no_track_list}
Composer\Orchestra\Album

• Restart Asset and you will see a new browse tree that will allow you to select a composer first and then you have a choice by Album, Artist, Composition, Conductor, Genre and Orchestra

It’s not as smart as Minimserver but I like the speed and consistency of using just Asset.

I’d be interested in seeing how others do this and whether there are improvements to be made.

[Mike-B]

Thanks again Richard, a highly detailed post & something that would be nice to keep if we had a FAQ for Asset.
Its on my ‘to-do’ list.

[daniel]

trickydickie

This is the first task of many “to-dos” I’ve chosen to tackle. I’ll try to get up to speed with your process, before bothering you again. But first, what is the browse tree and where can I find it?

Thanks,
Daniel

[daniel]

I have stumbled into a new realm… a bit trickydickie!
My brain is already screaming “don’t drink the kool-aid!” But I just can’t resist this temptation. Quite simply, I must indulge.

Under the Composer triangle, it show a rudimentary “root”. I guess this is the start of Lesson 1.

Any help is appreciated!
Daniel

[trickydickie]

The ‘browse tree’ is the structure that the server presents to your control point (Naim app). It determines the path you navigate. This path can be configured within Asset.

Assuming you are using a NAS version of Asset you find it in Asset when you click on the configure link.

Once in the configuration page you go to the bottom of the page and will find a ‘Browse Tree’ heading. There are 2 options to either use a tool to configure it (‘Edit Browse Tree’) or you can use the second option (‘Edit Browse Tree as plain text’) to directly edit the configuration file. I did the latter and you can replace the Composer section of the browse tree with the example in my post to give a richer experience when browsing by composer.

Note: My method does involve adding a non standard metadata tag to the music (Composition) and instructing Asset to use this tag.

Richard

[daniel]

Asset Configuration

So the challenge was how to get Asset to display this logically. It requires some configuration but this is what I did.

• Setup a separate instance of Asset for classical music. Once done point the watched media folders to just the classical music. Recent versions of Asset allow multiple instances
• Get Asset to recognise the new Composition tag. To do this edit the MediaDatabaseFields5.txt file for your chosen instance. Add the following to the end of the file

Composition,0,NVARCHAR(150)

I cannot locate the MediaDatabaseFields5.txt file

Thanks, Daniel

[trickydickie]

On a QNAP the file should be located in

/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/Asset/data/.dBpoweramp/uMediaLibrary-v4/1

You will need to use a tool like WINSCP to access the file system

On my system the CACHEDEV1_DATA directory was actually CACHEDEV2_DATA for some reason.

[simon.pepper]

As an Asset user (& fan) I will consider re-tagging Classical work in this way, however this the view you can get with Roon

Sorted by Composer, then by Composition, then by Conductor, which then listed the Orchestra and the performance date (the recording).

Just saying there is another way.

[trickydickie]

Simon

That is very impressive!

I’ve just started a trial of Roon, it’s been on my to do list for a while.

Whilst I cannot stream to my NDS I can do to my Muso QB’s X 3 and also we have a Yamaha MusicCast receiver connected to the conservatory system.

Just getting to grips with it. Initial impressions are very good, it certainly enriches the experience. I can see why people enthuse over it. Had a few glitches playing to the Muso but this maybe that Roon is busy as it has only just indexed the albums. I have installed on a 8gb Qnap (Intel 64 bit) with an external SSD for the database. It all seems very quick and smooth.

May I ask, if you have Roon why are you still using Asset?

[poulisgr]

Thanks @trickydickie! I had tried to play with similar ideas but had not gone that far. Of course the Roon view looks terrific as well

[simon.pepper]

That’s a good question - it was there before I had a Roon playback path (I was using Roon on my laptop to purely manage my library & as a Beta tester prior to launch and was given a good deal).
My usage of Roon just sort of evolved - it wasn’t until I had the UPnP Bridge working properly & Roon 1.5 did I treat it as my main playback path.
For me Asset runs on a RPi, so a small case alongside the UltraRendu & LPS1, so can be maintained as an alternate/fallback path, no need to deprecate that path, just yet I suspose.

Plus I am still part of the Beta test group for the Naim App, not there has been many recent releases to test and very little new functionality for the Classic range when used with 3rd party UPnP servers.