[vorbis] TAG Standard - ENSEMBLE/PERFORMER tags

[Craig Dickson]

Jared Sulem wrote:

> I've read through what I think is the entire thread and looked at the
> standard in its current incarnation
> (https://reactor-core.org/~djw/ogg-tags.txt).  I have only one major problem
> with the proposed standard at the moment.  The existance of both PERFORMER
> and ENSEMBLE tags.  I think this is describing the same type of data
> (ENSEMBLE = thing that performed the music, PERFORMER = thing that performed
> the music), except ENSEMBLE carries extra information that the data is a
> kind of plural.

Which is not terribly meaningful, really.

Your basic point has been made several times by others; since I happen to
agree with you, I'm glad to see another voice added to our chorus.

> I suggest depreciating ENSEMBLE, and use only PERFORMER.

I agree.

Off-topic pet peeve: The word you are looking for is "deprecate", which
means something quite different from "depreciate".

> A more useful tag may be BAND or GROUP (I think there may be a better name
> for this) which holds the identifier the people went under, to perform the
> piece of music.  This should be a singleton so that users (programs and
> people) immediately know where to look to easily find/display concise
> information on the performer(s) of the music and don't have to worry about
> which information is important (is that a minor backing vocalist or the main
> singer in that PERFORMER tag?) and how to display the important information.
> Examples of use:
> 
> "U2 and REM" (after all this is the identifier for the group of people that
> have performed "One" together)
> "Delerium"
> "London Symphony Orchestra".

Personally, I see no need to put all of the liner notes into the tags. I
really have no idea why anyone would want to list all the supporting
musicians (as in your "minor backing vocalist" example). The purpose of
tags is to allow players to display meaningful identifying information
about the files they play, and to provide enough information for someone
to track down the CD from which the track was ripped. Listing all the
supporting musicians (or the recording engineers, or all the people to
whom the artist gives special thanks and without whom this glorious work
of art would never have been possible) does nothing towards those ends,
and seems to me more like an attempt to make one's Vorbis collection
double as a searchable trivia database.

All you really need in the tags are the following:

(1) The principal performer(s), including the conductor for classical
    music and some large-ensemble jazz;

(2) The track title (track number is also nice, but not strictly
    essential except for reproducing the sequence of the album);

(3) The composer(s);

(4) The album title;

(5) The date of recording and/or original release;

(6) The record company's name;

(7) The CD's catalog number (which can be used to distinguish between
    the original release and subsequent, presumably superior,
    remasterings).

Anything beyond this is really just bloat, IMHO. Given all of the above,
you should be able to visit your local CD store (or online equivalent)
and buy the recording with high confidence that you are getting the same
recording (even the same digital mastering) that is encoded in the
Vorbis file.

Craig

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