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1800s not recognised in music player?

P

Phandroidog

Lurker
Hi All, I have a Samsung Galaxy S2, and am using its default music player. I have just started converting my mostly classical vinyl collection to MP3 files, using Audacity. One of the metadata fields in Audacity is Year. Dates in the 1900s come across fine, but those in the 1800s or 1700s are all lumped together under 'Unknown' years in the music player on the Galaxy S2. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks very much.
 
Obviously 1700-1800s can't be the date of the recording, unless you own a time machine or something. Audacity or the default music player on your S2 may be parsing the "year" field, and rejecting unreasonable numbers. The good news is that Audacity is FOSS and can be recompiled to fix this "feature" if you really want to. I don't know about the default music player on your S2 though. Have you tried other music players on the phone? Why are you using such old dates in the first place?
 
Hi Speed Daemon and thanks. I'm using the Year category so that I can choose music on the phone based on when the music was composed (not recorded). Neither Audacity nor the S2 music player seem to have good built-in options for "classical" music.
I have looked in Google Play for a different music player but haven't found any that sound particularly good for my needs, considering that my primary aim is to play files I've converted rather than purchased. Do you recommend any? Thanks again.
 
How about using the Genre option instead of year in Audacity. Something like "1800's Classical" "1700's Classical" then create a playlist using that info before you transfer it to your S2.
 
Hi dontpanicbobby (love your name!) and thanks, it's a good idea. The Galaxy S2 shows Genre. I was already using it more conventionally for Baroque, Classical, Romantic etc, but the year composed would be more telling and interesting. I'm glad I've just begun (only 26 records so far ...)
 
Phandroidog said:
Hi Speed Daemon and thanks. I'm using the Year category so that I can choose music on the phone based on when the music was composed (not recorded). Neither Audacity nor the S2 music player seem to have good built-in options for "classical" music.
I have looked in Google Play for a different music player but haven't found any that sound particularly good for my needs, considering that my primary aim is to play files I've converted rather than purchased. Do you recommend any? Thanks again.
Click to expand...
I'm waiting for VLC for Android to come out of beta.

Since you're making your own music files, you might want to consider creating an ID3v2 tag for year of composition, and leave the "Year" ID3v1 tag for what has traditionally been the original release year for the recording. MusicBrainz has a good guide for classical music tagging. I'd rather let other people sweat the tough decisions, and follow what they do, if you know what I mean. :D
 
Sounds like a variant of the Y2K problem, it's a Y1K8 or Y1K7 problem. The Samsung devs evidently don't listen to classical music?

I've got some classical MP3s myself, the years are actually set to when the recordings were made or released. I never created the MP3s, that's how they came.
 
IMO it's closer to the UNIX epoch than an actual bug. With ID3v1 tags, "Year" means the year of the recording. Ergo, a "recording date" that's before the invention of audio recording technology is kicked back as an error. Seems rational to me. :dontknow:

ID3v2 tags are the clear solution...IMO.
 
Isn't the UNIX epoch Janurary 1st, 1970?

I'm a big fan of the 1960s, I've got quite a few MP3s with songs from that era, some going back to using Napster 13 years ago. I've never had a problem with years in ID3 tags.
 
mikedt said:
Isn't the UNIX epoch Janurary 1st, 1970?
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Yes, that's correct.

Likewise, the phonograph epoch started in 1877. There are no audio recordings to play that were made prior to that date. As I mentioned before, the playback software may have a "sanity check" for the various ID3 fields, and reject any "Year" dates prior to 1900 or thereabouts.
 
Hi and thanks, Speed Daemon and Mikedt. I'm able to create new tags in Audacity before I export the file to MP3, eg for "Year Composed", but the tag doesn't subsequently show up as a category in Samsung's music player. Samsung's music player doesn't seem to be customisable. I'm looking for a different music player, perhaps Winamp as dontpanicbobby suggests. Mikedt, it's pre-1900 dates that aren't recognised, not pre-2000s. I think Speed Daemon is correct about the software rejecting those dates.
 
Phandroidog said:
Hi and thanks, Speed Daemon and Mikedt.
Click to expand...
You're quite welcome. Happy to help.

I'm able to create new tags in Audacity before I export the file to MP3, eg for "Year Composed", but the tag doesn't subsequently show up as a category in Samsung's music player. Samsung's music player doesn't seem to be customisable. I'm looking for a different music player, perhaps Winamp as dontpanicbobby suggests.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's no law making ID3v2 tags mandatory, so you're at the mercy of the software authors when it comes to support for advanced tags. Since Android is a "lightweight" platform, it's understandable that applications programs for Android will lack the extras.

I wish you luck in finding an Android player that does everything you want. It's possible that you may have to do without some features with Android apps though. Since (I presume) you already have date of composition in the ID3v1 "Year" field of many existing music files, you may be better off finding a player that doesn't reject the years that you want. I've looked all over and can't find any reason why the ID3v1 "Year" tag can't support any year A.D., from 0 to 9999. So it's gotta be the player. I still think that putting the year of composition in as an ID3v2 tag will be best in the long run, but it's your call. :)
 
Hi all, and thanks again, Speed Daemon. I'm afraid I don't know how to make an ID3v2 tag, but I found a pretty good solution to my problem! I downloaded the trial version of the Poweramp app (and will buy the full version when my trial runs out). Dates entered in the year tag in Audacity have come across fine, so I'm able to sort from Bach's 1720 violin concertos to Stavinsky's 1948 Oedipus Rex. I can't actually see the year unless I select an album and search on its Info/Tags, but I can live with that. I also haven't worked out how to limit music to a certain time frame. You can also do a couple of layers of sorting, eg Genre 'Piano Concerto' then Artist 'Mozart' in Poweramp. Thanks again.
 
FYI Phandroidog, Audacity and some other "full featured" music management apps already use ID3v2 tags by default, and don't even write ID3v1 tags any more by default, although you can change the settings. This can be a pain during playback when my older PMP that only reads ID3v1 tags reports "no tags". I noticed that the other day on my coveted COWON X5, although it makes no difference to me because I use the directory hierarchy and file names to organize my music first and foremost. The way the controls are on my X5, that's the most efficient way to find what I want.

Obviously your methods are quite different than mine. :)

Have fun!
 
Try Winamp, and get the Pro if you like it. The EQ is irrelevant if you have decent quality speakers/headphones. Winamp also has a good selection of web radio including some nice Classical Music ones. There's a Polish station specializing in early central european music and a couple of Bach stations.
 
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