Is there iTunes alternative that support multi-genre tagging?

[Truthfulie]

This feature is long overdue in iTunes, but I am not holding my breath any longer for them to implement. I still will be using iTunes since I'll need it for iPhone and iPad as well as iTunes Match for them. But when I am using my iMac, I'd like to manage my music for effectively.

I have a library with more than 10,000 songs, many of them are either cross-genre or hard to define so they require multiple genre tagging for me to effectively search & create genre-based playlists.

Another big plus would be ability to tag multiple artists as separate fields instead of cramming them all into one field, which makes sorting bit annoying.

Is there any music play on OS X that will do what I need?

 

[jdelgado]

This feature is long overdue in iTunes, but I am not holding my breath any longer for them to implement. I still will be using iTunes since I'll need it for iPhone and iPad as well as iTunes Match for them. But when I am using my iMac, I'd like to manage my music for effectively.

I have a library with more than 10,000 songs, many of them are either cross-genre or hard to define so they require multiple genre tagging for me to effectively search & create genre-based playlists.

Another big plus would be ability to tag multiple artists as separate fields instead of cramming them all into one field, which makes sorting bit annoying.

Is there any music play on OS X that will do what I need?

I looked sometime ago, but did not find anything useful. My implementation for this is use "general" Genre tags (Rock, Pop, Classic, etc), and use the comments to refine. For example, a song is Rock (Genre) and add in the Comment field strings like "Genre Hard Rock", "Genre Metal", etc. I can then build smart lists using a combination of the Genre tags and comments.

Hope the above helps.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I looked sometime ago, but did not find anything useful. My implementation for this is use "general" Genre tags (Rock, Pop, Classic, etc), and use the comments to refine. For example, a song is Rock (Genre) and add in the Comment field strings like "Genre Hard Rock", "Genre Metal", etc. I can then build smart lists using a combination of the Genre tags and comments.

Hope the above helps.

This is a COOL tip! Thank you. Redoing my iTunes and it's going to make it so much more useful to go through with that idea! I didn't even know we could use comments in smart lists!

 

[Truthfulie]

I looked sometime ago, but did not find anything useful. My implementation for this is use "general" Genre tags (Rock, Pop, Classic, etc), and use the comments to refine. For example, a song is Rock (Genre) and add in the Comment field strings like "Genre Hard Rock", "Genre Metal", etc. I can then build smart lists using a combination of the Genre tags and comments.

Hope the above helps.

Yes, that is one way to do it. But I think I've found more efficient way to do it, well at least for my uses and that is to use 'grouping' to tag sub-genre.

I use 'Songs' section of iTunes as it is most effective way for me to browse large library with its Column Browser at top. What I do is tag music with their general genre with 'genre' field and tag more detailed sub-genre with 'grouping' field. By doing so, when you select, say, Alternative genre, it will only show 'groupings' that is also tagged with Alternative 'genre'. So 'Hard Rock' and 'Punk Rock' will show under 'Rock' for example. It sort of gives you 'genre tree feel'.

Of course this doesn't fundamentally solve the problem. Music that mix Hip Hop and Jazz elements together can only be tagged as either Hip Hop or Jazz, which is why I wanted multi-genre tag. I know that this has been something users wanted for couple of years now, Apple just give it to us already.

This is a COOL tip! Thank you. Redoing my iTunes and it's going to make it so much more useful to go through with that idea! I didn't even know we could use comments in smart lists!

Consider my solution as well, if you are like me and like to use column browser.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Consider my solution as well, if you are like me and like to use column browser.

I've ended up using both. Great stuff!

And yeah, I see where you're coming from, RE: multiple genres. The grouping sorta helps with that, but then not really.