Just a request for a composer field. I had posted this somewhere else, and was recommended to try here.
I understand that classical music metadata is a challenge, but the addition of a composer field would be a simple way to satisfy the majority of classical music fans. ITunes has this feature and I would love to escape ITunes. Honestly don’t care if you cannot pull down album covers, pictures of composers, the name of the bass trombone player, etc. Happy to assign a picture manually. The one thing I cannot do manually is the composer tag.
I have noticed other requests for conductor, ensemble, soloist, etc. and those would be nice. However, if I had to pick just one I think you would get the most mileage out of a composer tag.
I’ll buy a membership if you do it.
Thanks as always for a fine product, and best of luck.
Sorry to tell you but I requested this over and over again, others did so too. I think they don’t care, probably because listeners of classical music here are a minority. They won’t even respond in any way to you, at least in my experience.
Still, Plex in it’s current state is unusable for classical music.
Edit: Another month without the slightest sign of notice from Plex.
Please!!
I recently went from using Logitech media server and ipeng (great app for browsing large libraries, with a lot of different fields to choose from) (aging hardware, aging performances, etc…) to using plex with chromecast audios (it’s cheap and it’s fast !). And the only thing missing is the composer field.
It’s impossible for me, and probably a lot of users, to find anything without it. The album tag is not helping, if I search for “concertos” I’ll have hundreds of results for example. Also the artist tag is used for soloists, or conductors or something else. So the only way to find anything is the Composer field, if you search for “Johann Sebastian Bach” you’ll have a manageable list of albums.
I went this way to tag classical music because the composer field is recognized by a lot of programs (the most important one being iTunes) and thinking that I’ll have greater chance to listen to my classical music, without having to tag everything differently if I have to change program again.
Let’s hope that explaining the situation can help implement this feature !
Let me add my voice, too. A composer field is an essential field–really THE essential field–for classical and soundtrack collections. Serious collectors of any kind of music will use it, though. I’d even want it for my movie collection.
Every couple of years I try Plex again. It’s disappointing that there is still no composer field after all this time. I’ll have to stick with StreamToMe.
Another vote here for supporting a composer tag. It’s not a vote cast with much optimism though. Lots of competing software does support this, though I’m aware that neither Emby nor Kodi do.
I know Classical is a minority, but this really ought not to be too hard?
Thanks to anyone out there who is listening! I do love Plex - honest!
@apsofacto said:
Just a request for a composer field. I had posted this somewhere else, and was recommended to try here.
I understand that classical music metadata is a challenge, but the addition of a composer field would be a simple way to satisfy the majority of classical music fans. ITunes has this feature and I would love to escape ITunes. Honestly don’t care if you cannot pull down album covers, pictures of composers, the name of the bass trombone player, etc. Happy to assign a picture manually. The one thing I cannot do manually is the composer tag.
I have noticed other requests for conductor, ensemble, soloist, etc. and those would be nice. However, if I had to pick just one I think you would get the most mileage out of a composer tag.
I’ll buy a membership if you do it.
Thanks as always for a fine product, and best of luck.
Composer and conductor are already elements in the extended ID3v2 tag set used by mp3. It would be an easy to implement feature and the value for it usually can be found in the mp3 files!
Another feature that would be important for classical music is the distinction between works (pieces) and movements. A work like a symphony or a sonata usually consists of several movements. An Album consists of a number if pieces but sometimes single movements as well. Maybe hard to understand for someone not interested in classical music. But at least it should be possible to add more support for composers
Adding yet another - really frustrated! - voice to this request. I listen to many genres including a lot of rock and pop, but I play just as much, if not more, classical. I’ve only recently dowloaded Plex but have decided not to use it as yet, simply because this essential field for tagging classical music is missing. It really is not too much to expect.
As others have pledged, I would go for a premium account if it were just possible to have a composer field. Multiple fields for multi-movement works would be great - also perhaps ‘Artist 1’, ‘Artist 2’, etc. but I think, as all of this seems to have fallen on deaf ears, it’s a futile hope.
Maybe a classical music metadata plug-in could be developed, an option for the substantial number of people who need it. Should we petition the developers more directly, I wonder.
@Dean Bulgakov said:
Adding yet another - really frustrated! - voice to this request. I listen to many genres including a lot of rock and pop, but I play just as much, if not more, classical. I’ve only recently dowloaded Plex but have decided not to use it as yet, simply because this essential field for tagging classical music is missing. It really is not too much to expect.
As others have pledged, I would go for a premium account if it were just possible to have a composer field. Multiple fields for multi-movement works would be great - also perhaps ‘Artist 1’, ‘Artist 2’, etc. but I think, as all of this seems to have fallen on deaf ears, it’s a futile hope.
Maybe a classical music metadata plug-in could be developed, an option for the substantial number of people who need it. Should we petition the developers more directly, I wonder.
This is what plex have said most recently in a blog comment:
Chris C @afullmark: We’re definitely interested in improving music support even more and we know that tracking things like composers are important in a lot of cases. No specific details to share, but that area of stuff is definitely on our radar.
I’m new to Plex & i like the look & feel of it. The main reason i use it is to stream music via Chromecast to my TV. This works well & i don’t need to get into any geeky upnp/dlna server/controller configurations.
My music library is quite large (10TB) & diverse as far as genres are concerned… I manage the tagging via Foobar.
So much for the good stuff. Where PLEX fails badly is with it’s very limited search function & lack of support for music metadata especially in regard to Classical music. What is the point of creating a large database & then not providing the tools to extract & view the information.
Like many others i have an eclectic taste in music so it is not just a case of me being some old Classical music fogey.
I find it incredible that we even have to have the discussion here about the importance of including metadata like Composer, Conductor etc. Media Mangers like ITunes, MediaMonkey, Foobar have catered for it for years.
None of this is rocket science We’re only talking about standard database reporting & tags (albeit important ones when it comes to Classical music et al)
The response to this issue from PLEX along the lines “but that area of stuff is definitely on our radar”.simply tells me they have no idea.
PLEX - I think it’s time you let a few of the hipsters go & employed a some people who actually understand music - in all it’s forms.
I last wrote May 2016 about the lack of metadata for Classical music especially Composer & Conductor tags. I am disappointed that it’s apparently fallen off the radar.
C’mon PLEX your product is improving & i appreciate the changes but my vast Classical collection is not feeling the love.
approaching two years since then…no sight of the composers field. Is Plex dev group a party of 1 (j/k)? Anyways, I love this product, even with the glaring deficiencies (no “Search” in XBO especially). I’ve recommended it to friends, and many have adopted it. I’ll keep on the lookout for new stuff, I understand that MS development process for XBOX can be arcane and frustrating at times…
