Managing playlists that span CDs

[Guest]

I used to know how to do this but can't find any link anywhere. Just taken delivery of the Gergiev Marinsky Das Rheingold. Two CDs...Acts 1 and 2 on CD1 and Acts 3 and 4 on CD2.

I can create a playlist for Acts 1 and 2 and in the correct order. Ditto for Acts 3 and 4. But Act 2 really segues straight into Act 3 and so I'd prefer to have one playlist for the whole opera. Trouble is if I select all the tracks and then create a playlist I can see no way of getting the tracks in the right order. Sorting by track number doesn't work because you end up with Track 1 of 14 followed by Track 1 of 15.

[Dave2002]

Presumably you are using a player, such as iTunes. Have you ripped the tracks to your hard drive?
Problems such as this crop up frequently.

You can put your own numbers on, but if you play around with the (mp3) tags you can probably figure out a way. May take some experimenting.

Stan Brown's pages may give some clues - http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/itunes.htm
I think that similar techniques work for other players too.

[johnb]

I rarely use playlists for LMS but I deal with operas by editing the tags, using mp3tag.

LMS is very picky about the CD Number tag: if the tracks are in the same folder that tag seems to be ignored.

Everyone has a prefered solution but I usually ignore the groupings on the CDs and copy the tracks for each Act into a separate sub folder. Then I edit the tags using mp3tag - setting the CD Number tag to 1 for all tracks, edit the Track No tag to run consecutively within each act and, finally, set the Album tag to, say, Wagner - Siegfried - Solti, Act 1, etc.

In your circumstances I would have Acts 2 & 3 in one folder and with a single Album tag.

[Dave2002]

I rarely use playlists for LMS but I deal with operas by editing the tags, using mp3tag.

LMS is very picky about the CD Number tag: if the tracks are in the same folder that tag seems to be ignored.

Everyone has a prefered solution but I usually ignore the groupings on the CDs and copy the tracks for each Act into a separate sub folder. Then I edit the tags using mp3tag - setting the CD Number tag to 1 for all tracks, edit the Track No tag to run consecutively within each act and, finally, set the Album tag to, say, Wagner - Siegfried - Solti, Act 1, etc.

In your circumstances I would have Acts 2 & 3 in one folder and with a single Album tag.

john

I tend to use iTunes for ripping, and for fiddling around with the tags. I think I have this set up in a way which is compatible with LMS (I ticked a box somewhere ...) but now I'm not sure. It usually works, but you have alerted me to the possibility that it perhaps won't work in all situations. It hasn't popped up as a major problem so far, though that doesn't mean it isn't a "feature" of my set up. I would probably just go back to using "push" mode direct from iTunes, for example using my Powerbook Pro, if I had difficulties with LMS. What I do is to get things working in iTunes, which does sometimes require some (maybe considerable) playing around with tags, then I hope that there'll be consistency across other systems.

Where I have to do more work is where I have more than one version of a piece with several movements/sections (to distinguish between versions), and also where the artists change across sections - e.g Beethoven's 9th, and many operas - particularly where the "automatic" tags generated from on-line databases are more or less consistent! This could very well be a problem with the Wagner CDs mentioned.

[Resurrection Man]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I also appreciate the comments re LMS as I'd never have thought to consider that aspect. I know that I can retag etc but I was hoping more for a quick-click type solution.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I made a single playlist of the entire Solti Ring, by renumbering the tracks of the last 13 CDs. A bit laborious, but well worth the effort.