Posts made by silver-sun

@DrBrightside Sorry -- that I couldn't tell you. Your pay grade is obviously higher than mine. I have used DB Browser a few times to make simple changes, but you're really in the weeds. I hope the backup database works.

I'm pretty sure the volume slider behavior is hard coded. Is there no point down the chain, i.e., computer master volume, system preamp, powered speaker volume, etc., where you could tweak the volume?

If you are using Linux, the database can be viewed with DB Browser for SQlite, which should be in the repository (It is on Linux Mint.). It's pretty daunting, so edit with caution.

What I would try first is to use the database backup file, 'strawberry.db.bak', found in ~/.local/share/strawberry/strawberry. If that was made before your debacle, you might have a chance of restoring your playlists.

Rename your corrupted db file to strawberry.db_old. Make a copy of the .bak file and rename it to strawberry.db, and give it a go. Good luck.

I'm pretty sure that Strawberry sorts by metadata. A song needs a track number, independent of the file name. The suggestion of renaming files numerically is a good idea. Organizing your album folders alphabetically, by song name, runs counter to the way albums are presented -- which is numerically, by track number.

Right click on a song and select "Edit track information". There should be a number in the "Track" field at the right. Don't change anything yet, until you figure out the root of your problem, but if there is no number, that might be of concern.

Hope that helps.

Some time ago I created a custom icon set, per instructions in the wiki, using .png icons. I would like to create a new set using .svg icons if possible.

It looks like Strawberry can handle .svg icons for some portions of the application, as I select "Use system theme icons" in the "Appearance" settings -- and my system uses Papirus-Dark, which has .svg icons. The sidebar, however, persists in using the original Strawberry icons.

Using the QT configuration tool (qt6ct), I am able to make my Strawberry look pretty nice in Linux Mint, but it won't do anything with the sidebar, and the stock Strawberry icons look so old and dated. Hence, my plans for a full alternative icon set.

So, would I be wasting my time by creating a .svg icon set? And if I can't use .svg, are there any plans to support .svg fully in the future?

I find that the best way to handle this is to use the "Album Artist" tag.

For albums that don't have the exact same artist name for every song, (but are not "Various Artists" compilation albums) put the name of the primary artist there.

Then, in the "Group By" setting, select one of the options that sorts by "Album Artist". It seems that with this configuration, albums that don't have an "Album Artist" entry will still be sorted by "Artist".

While one could use the "Album Artist" tag for all albums, I only use it for exceptions, like the example given in the original post.

Side Note (regarding compilations, aka "Various Artists":

For compilations, while some prefer to use "Various Artists" as the "Album Artist" entry, I prefer to check the "Compilation" checkbox instead, and leave "Album Artist" blank. Strawberry honors that tag, and will create a "Various Artists" heading in the library.

This is a hold-over from my years of experience with iTunes, which uses that "Compilation" tag. This may not be a universal solution, but in Strawberry, at least, it works for me.

A bit of a shot in the dark here, but maybe try switching the ALSA plugin to hw instead of pcm. That's the setting I use with my DAC, but that turns everything over to an "exclusive mode". If hw works, then try switching back to pcm, if that's what you prefer. It couldn't hurt to restart your computer between changes. That's all I've got.

To follow up on my testing, I did not have good results setting Strawberry volume slider to 50 percent, if that, indeed, equates to -3 dB.

70 percent seemed better to my ears. Computer master volume remained at 100 percent. DAC is connected to my computer via USB.

Incidentally, on further reading about this topic, the term(s) used is "intersample peak clipping", or "intersample overs".

If you are using Strawberry in Linux I can probably help. You would need to install qt6ct, which is the Qt6 Configuration Tool, if it is not already installed in your system.

With this utility you can choose what themes, icons, fonts, etc., that you wish your Qt applications to follow. Strawberry is built using Qt6.

I use Linux Mint, which uses GTK as its graphical toolkit, so this is what I have to do, and it works very well. The app appears as "Qt6 Settings" in my application menu.

If your Strawberry is installed as a Flatpak, I don't think the above method would work. I use Strawberry installed as a system package.

If you are using Windows or Mac, sorry, I don't have any advice. Good luck!

@rlkeeney Thank you. I'll experiment with the 50 percent value. I actually haven't noticed any audible artifacts on my system. This is more out of curiosity, to see if I notice any difference.

It is my understanding that when playing music files in Strawberry from a computer through an external DAC (using ALSA), bit-perfect output requires both the computer volume and payer volume to be set at 100 percent. The music volume is then controlled by the system components; in my case, a preamp.

There are claims that at 100 percent (software) volume, some clipping may occasionally occur, due to the behavior of the DAC reconstruction filters.

It is suggested to try reducing the (software) volume -3 dB. (This may vary, but is a good place to start.) This is a compromise, of course, but if it works it may actually sound better; so it is claimed.

Strawberry's volume setting indicates percentage, not dBs.. So what would be the equivalent percentage value to achieve -3 dB reduction?

I don't believe such a guide exists, at least not on the Strawberry Wiki.

I can offer a few basic suggestions for a beginner.

1. Strawberry plays music in playlists. No matter what the source of the song, it will always open in a playlist. Playlist management is too lengthy to get into here, but you can create, label, save and "favorite" playlists.

2. Strawberry can play from any folder on your computer by selecting "Files" in the sidebar.

   If you go a step further and point Strawberry to a folder in Settings > Collection, it will show the songs as a "library" when selecting "Collection" in the sidebar.

   I would hold off with using anything that says "Organzie Files" at first. (There are naming and sorting options that you may want to consider.)

3. Go through all the settings, slowly and methodically. Make a note of your changes so you can revert if necessary.

4. Use the tool-tip notes by hovering your cursor over icons, etc.

   And use your right click to display the many options available.

I prefer to have Strawberry use only embedded artwork for the collection. And for the most part, it works very well. Where issues arise is when the album's metadata contains multiple album covers.

I will occasionally include an alternate cover when tagging the songs. For example, sometimes the CD cover is different than the original release that I am familiar with, so I will use the original cover, but include the actual cover in the tags as an alternative.

From my observations in the tag editor, Kid3-qt, the songs will use the first cover listed, i.e., "1 of 2", as the embedded cover. (This is the cover that is shown in the thumbnails of my file manager.) This is also the behavior in iTunes, with which I am long familiar.

Strawberry, however, appears to display the embedded cover with the largest file size, regardless if it is listed as "1" or "2" in the tag editor, so sometimes the album shows up with the "wrong" cover.

I would like Strawberry to force the use of embedded covers, and to use "Cover 1" by default.

Since Strawberry does not appear to support multiple covers in the built-in editor, I'm not sure if this is a bug report or a feature request.

P.S. -- My "Save Playlist" dialog is set to save as .pls format. If you click on the button at the lower right, just above the "Cancel" and "Save" buttons, you can choose what playlist file type you want. I noticed you were working with m3u, which is one of the options.

There is a toolbar at the top of the playlist pane. Look for "Save Playlist" and "Load Playlist". Clicking "Save Playlist" will allow you to save the playlist as a .pls file to whatever folder you choose. When you want to call up that particular playlist, you can click "Load Playlist". Select the playlist you saved previously and it will open in a new tab on the right of the tab row. (Note: Focus does not automatically jump to the newly opened playlist; you have to select it.)

It appears to retain the original track order. If you alter the playlist, just save it again and overwrite the previous one; or give it a different name and save it separately. Dynamic updating, I don't believe is possible in Strawberry.

OK, that's a lot to chew on, and I will declare at the outset that I don't have an answer to your problem, but FWIW, here are some thoughts.

First of all, Strawberry only displays certain tags -- the list you see when you right click on the column headers. It is only capable of displaying one comment per song, so I doubt multiple comments will work. Perhaps the "0" value displayed is a result of Strawberry trying to do something it can't. (just a guess).

I question the attempt to use Strawberry to organize podcasts. Strawberry, I believe, is strictly a player and organizer for music files. The podcasts you download may come with tags that are appropriate for podcast apps, but probably not for Strawberry. "Description", I think, is a tag that is used with podcasts, but Strawberry does not even display that tag.

For my podcasts, I use a separate podcast app, like Kasts, and prior to that, I used Clementine (for podcasts only) after I had moved on to Strawberry for music files. One thing nice about Clementine is that it labels the downloaded podcast files with the date of release. Kasts does not include the date in the file name. To be clear here, I am talking about the file names in the file manager; not within the actual podcast app.

The downside of using a podcast app, especially if you download episodes, is that if you want to move the podcast files out of their respective apps, all the organization provided by the apps' databases is lost. So, I can see why one might like to use a music player to organize them. But to do that, the podcasts need to be tagged just like songs, and that might be tedious to do.

If you are seeing iTunSMPB tags, that tells me these files originated from Apple. That tag is for gapless playback, and at least some newer Strawberry installations, including mine, are having problems with that tag. (At the end of a song, it will repeat a snippet of music before moving to the next track.) I wound up just deleting the iTunSMPB tags, which are of no use to Strawberry. If you have a need to use iTunes and Strawberry with the same files, I don't know what to tell you. I should state here that my files are m4a (AAC) files. Not sure if there are problems with mp3 files.

As to why the comments field is "pulling" from the iTunSMPB info, I haven't got a clue. That is strange.

I hope you find something useful in the ramble above. But I really think that a lot could be solved by using a separate app for podcasts. Good luck!

This is just a guess, but I'm wondering if your artwork from iTunes is stored in an iTunes artwork database; readable by your iPod, but not something that Strawberry can read. I think that if the artwork was embedded in the files, you might be able to see it.

As I recall, you can save artwork a couple of different ways in iTunes. I have always preferred to embed the artwork, where it becomes a part of the metadata, and travels along with the audio file wherever it goes. Takes a bit more storage space, however.

Sorry, I can't test this right now, as I don't have access to an iPod.

@synth_mania

I agree, your expected behavior would be the perfect way. But since this is an operation that's not a day-to-day thing, how about a kludgy workaround? Organize your songs alphabetically, and transfer in several smaller batches, based on letters of the alphabet, e.g., A-F, etc.

@paul2berry

I would have to do some experimenting to see how compilations are affected, but I am wondering what type of sound files you are dealing with.

When I was playing around with "original year", I noticed that it did not work with mp4 type files, such as those Apple uses (ALAC as well). FLAC seems to support that tag just fine.

I don't know if this is a Strawberry issue, or something inherent in mp4.

I wish I has something more helpful to add, but I figured I'd at least share the little experience I do have with the "year"/"original year" tags.