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[HTPC4ME]

I'd really like to be able to accomplish this.

is this something that's being contemplated?

Thanks for any info.

[MP101User]

This was talked about last time I was active on here (MC12).
So I'm assuming it's not a priority and won't ever happen. A shame for my tagging: I ended up making my own "Artists" and "Composers" fields, but this is a messy workaround...

Mark.

[MusicHawk]

I assume the argument against modifying Genre and Artist tags is that it would break compatibility.

I did the same as @MP101User, long-ago. There's no particular reason not to, since the only negative is "not compatible" but altering standard fields would also be "not compatible".

Here are the main custom multi-value fields I use for music:

Keywords (actually a standard field that is extremely useful). -- Contains a list of the multiple genres and other categorizations (mood, style, main instrument, decade, and  more) that might apply to the track

Artists -- Contains a list of all the artists on the track (lastname, firstname to sort usefully)

Composers -- Contains a list of all the composers of the song  (lastname, firstname to sort usefully)

I am very happy with the result.

I use several other custom fields but they are not multi-value (such as: RecVer for Recording Version to distinguish between multiple recordings by the same artist of the same song; RecType for Stereo/Mono/Rechanneled); ChartPos for Chart Position; custom field Rank since I avoid standard field Rating due to its lack of "oops changed it" protection).

Having evolved the above fields, I use two standard fields for unique needs:

Artist contains the exact original recording artist text, so that is what displays during playback. This might vary from recording to recording, so it's nice to preserve the exact wording of the original. Separately, the custom field Artists has a consistent version of every artist so they group and sort reliably.

Genre is used for the broadest of categorization, such as Pop, Classical, Jazz. This works because Keywords further categorizes by all the sub-genres that really matter. I do this so I can store each such Genre in a different folder, which makes it easy to copy them where I need them (since MC doesn't have a simple "copy selected tracks" option).

[gappie]

i agree with musichawk, i guess the problem lies for instance in the ripping and the copy and sync tool where the filenames depend on artist and sometimes genre. i would not care if it would be a list, but would not use it. because of this:

Artist contains the exact original recording artist text, so that is what displays during playback. This might vary from recording to recording, so it's nice to preserve the exact wording of the original. Separately, the custom field Artists has a consistent version of every artist so they group and sort reliably.

 
gab

[MP101User]

This all makes sense.

In my case, I play my music, most often, on Squeezeboxes. The Logitech software accepts a delimited list in Artist, and other fields, and does what you'd expect with it. I think it would be good if MC did the same - but I accept that it's not a priority.

Mark.

[gappie]

This all makes sense.

In my case, I play my music, most often, on Squeezeboxes. The Logitech software accepts a delimited list in Artist, and other fields, and does what you'd expect with it. I think it would be good if MC did the same - but I accept that it's not a priority.

Mark.

you have an other option. use artist as a delimited list, so like bach;ensemble modern. now make a new library field, call it artists, make it a delimited list and save it and close options (this step is important). now open that new library field again, change the artists field to calculated and enter

Code: [Select]

[artist]&datatype=[list]into the calculated field.
now in your views or everywhere use artists instead of artist, except for changing the values. artists will behave as a limited list.
the same can be done for genre.

 
gab

[MP101User]

Thanks Gapie. That's exactly what I've done.
I have an Artists and a Composers field.
I think I have to copy them from Artist and Composer, manually, every so often.

It's a workaround - and one that I can live with...

Mark.

[Vincent Kars]

I use the People tag as it is one of the very few supporting multiple values.
As the bulk of my collection is classical, I simply need multiple values.
Nothing as inconvenient as having
Gideon Kremer
Gideon Kremer/ Martha Argerich
Gideon Kremer/ Olaf Mustone
Martha Argerich
Martha Argerich / Harnoncourt / Gideon Kremer
Harnoncourt / Gideon Kremer
Etc.
It is one of the very few things I miss after migrating from WMP to MC
WMP accept single values for Artist but multiple for contributing artist.

[gappie]

Thanks Gapie. That's exactly what I've done.
I have an Artists and a Composers field.
I think I have to copy them from Artist and Composer, manually, every so often.

It's a workaround - and one that I can live with...

Mark.

no.. then you have not done what i said. artists is a calculated field it only picks the value from the artist field, and does so automatically. no reason to update. its just to make the values putted in the artist field behave as a list field in mc.

 
gab

[Vincent Kars]

artists is a calculated field it only picks the value from the artist field, and does so automatically.

Think I will say goodbye to the 'people' tag as indeed a calculated one solves my update problem.
Thanks

[gappie]

Think I will say goodbye to the 'people' tag as indeed a calculated one solves my update problem.
Thanks

the important thing is to save the field first as a list field before making it calculated. its a hidden feature that you need. it sets the format for the calculated field.

 
gab

[Vincent Kars]

Followed the instructions exactly as in your post
Works perfectly

[gappie]

Followed the instructions exactly as in your post
Works perfectly

great.. 
it sounds like a workaround but it works really well i guess.

i just searched for a post about it, where someone made a nice combination of artist and additional artist, and let it all come together in a calculated artists list field..

 
cant find it


 
gab

[Vincent Kars]

This works to:
Replace([artist],//,;)&datatype=

Maybe ListBuild to combine tags?

[gappie]

This works to:
Replace([artist],//,;)&datatype=

Maybe ListBuild to combine tags?

guess making an additional artist field as list. and listcombine them works
or just

Code: [Select]

[artist];[additional artist]&datatype=[list]would bring one far..

nice what list can do to a post huh.


for me the solution using an artists field separated from the artist field is what works the best. mc has so many options to shape the lib to your liking/needs. 

 
gab

[MusicHawk]

Which method is "best" depends on the user's priorities, of course. So to be clear on why my use of Artist and Artists are different:

Artist = exact article text from original recording. It could be something like "Joe Blow & The Blabbers with Orchestra and Chorus". This preserves exactly what the original record said, so this text is shown during playback. If the same artist did another recording with a slightly different artist name, that track would have that name, such as "The Blabbers featuring Joeseph Blow and Sally Silly".

Artists = standardized list of the one or more artists on the track, in my case lastname,firstname, something like "Blow, Joe;Blabbers". The second example track would be "Blow, Joe;Blabbers;Silly, Sally" This lets me have views and sorts that use Artists to put all recordings by an artist together, no matter how they are stated in Artist.

Therefore, I value having different fields and would never use Artist to simulate a list.

Same with composer info, where it's nice to have the longish Composer text, and separately a standardized Composers list. This is especially helpful for multiple composers, and when some songs are collaborations and some are not, and especialy when colloabation combinations vary. The Composer field might be "Lennon and McCartney". The Composers field would then be "Lennon, John;McCartney, Paul".

[MP101User]

Thanks Gappie - and sorry for being a bit dense earlier.

I've tried what you suggested and it looks like it will work great.

It also looks (at first glance) to be possible to edit my calculated Artists field and the update appears in the Artist field. Better than I expected.

Thanks,

M.

[gappie]

Thanks Gappie - and sorry for being a bit dense earlier.

dont worry, i know the feeling.  
i hoped it would work for you. ofcourse its a workaround.. but there are enough pros and cons at this subject. and until the time the weight gets at your side, it might be enough not to get bothered by it tomuch.  

 
gab

[HiFiTubes]

I implement semi-colon delimited as the Hawk does for the same reasons, so many variations, permutations, and mispellings need to be preserved in the Artists field.

Also using a Custom Artist field which mimics 'Artists'....this also allows you to sort much better in that a view can be set up to avoid having many artists Tiles buried only in Multiple Artists (and you don't have to view 1,000's of esoteric artists found on those same comps).

hifi

Which method is "best" depends on the user's priorities, of course. So to be clear on why my use of Artist and Artists are different:

Artist = exact article text from original recording. It could be something like "Joe Blow & The Blabbers with Orchestra and Chorus". This preserves exactly what the original record said, so this text is shown during playback. If the same artist did another recording with a slightly different artist name, that track would have that name, such as "The Blabbers featuring Joeseph Blow and Sally Silly".

Artists = standardized list of the one or more artists on the track, in my case lastname,firstname, something like "Blow, Joe;Blabbers". The second example track would be "Blow, Joe;Blabbers;Silly, Sally" This lets me have views and sorts that use Artists to put all recordings by an artist together, no matter how they are stated in Artist.

Therefore, I value having different fields and would never use Artist to simulate a list.

Same with composer info, where it's nice to have the longish Composer text, and separately a standardized Composers list. This is especially helpful for multiple composers, and when some songs are collaborations and some are not, and especialy when colloabation combinations vary. The Composer field might be "Lennon and McCartney". The Composers field would then be "Lennon, John;McCartney, Paul".

[Vincent Kars]

Having learned the trick from Gappie, I now have 2 calculated fields
This one gives me all the words used in any of the tags

Code: [Select]

Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace([Album Artist];Replace([Artist],[Album Artist]);
[Composer];Replace([Conductor],[Album Artist]),//,;),/ ,;),/,),.),;;,;)&datatype=[list]
This one all the people involved

Code: [Select]

ListBuild(1,;, Replace(Replace([Composer],//,;),/ ,;), Replace(Replace([Conductor],//,;),/ ,;),
Replace(Replace(Replace([Album Artist],[Artist]),//,;),/ ,;), Replace(Replace([Album Artist],//,;),/ ,;) )&datatype=[ list]
I combine them in a view, for each word the people having this word in their name.

[HiFiTubes]

Screenshots?

Having learned the trick from Gappie, I now have 2 calculated fields
This one gives me all the words used in any of the tags

Code: [Select]

Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace([Album Artist];Replace([Artist],[Album Artist]);
[Composer];Replace([Conductor],[Album Artist]),//,;),/ ,;),/,),.),;;,;)&datatype=[list]
This one all the people involved

Code: [Select]

ListBuild(1,;, Replace(Replace([Composer],//,;),/ ,;), Replace(Replace([Conductor],//,;),/ ,;),
Replace(Replace(Replace([Album Artist],[Artist]),//,;),/ ,;), Replace(Replace([Album Artist],//,;),/ ,;) )&datatype=[ list]
I combine them in a view, for each word the people having this word in their name.

[Vincent Kars]

More details can be found on my website

[HiFiTubes]

Vincent,

I'm not really well-schooled on what you are doing.

I have followed your notes but I don't see how this collates together all the instances.

What fields are you using in the pictures you show?

I see how the expression collects entries/people in various fields but I'm not clear on how to collect, under one Artist, all the projects they are involved in.

I like the Expression to pull composer etc. from tags and may use that, but currently I view a Custom Artist delimited view and manually populate the field with meta-name for an artist (e.g. "The Band" in the custom artist field may be applied to artists like Richard Manuel & Rick Danko, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Levon Helm & The RCO All-Stars, etc.)

I'm guessing, but haven't yet figured out, what your method points to is I could simply extrapolate the data in a delimited field to a unique entry/Tile. Would I use the [artist]&datatype=

for this?



thanks

[Vincent Kars]

I'm not really well-schooled on what you are doing

Neither am I

I think I made things more complicate than needed.
I kindly invite you to try the following on your own collection.

Most of the time the problem is spelling/conventions
For a computer Bing Crosby and Cosby, Bing are to different entities
I try to solve this by parsing the tags in such a way that each word becomes an entry in the list

Words
ListBuild(1,;,Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace([Album Artist];[Artist];[Composer];[Conductor],//,;),/ ,;),/,),.),;;,;))&datatype=

[Album Artist];[Artist];[Composer];[Conductor]
This concatenate the tags and adds a delimiter

,//,;),/ ,;),/,),.),;;,;))
Replace a couple of delimiters (/,. space) by the delimiter for the list.

Full name
Now that I have all the words e.g. Crosby, I like to know where it originates from.
Replace(Replace([Album Artist];[Artist];[Composer];[Conductor],//,;),;;,;)&datatype=

Same tags now I only replace the slash by a ;

Then I make a custom view “Words”,fields:
Words
Full name
Song

Hope this helps

[/list]

[darichman]

A friend and I developed a convention a while back for handling multiple artists. I'll post it here on the off chance some-one finds it useful? As usual, this is just one way of doing things - I find it works very well.

Field Definitions

[Artist]
    •   The primary artist by which the track is recognised
    •   This is usually the band or primary vocalist
    •   This is the composer for classical music and for film/television/game scores without a primary vocalist
    •   See also “Differential use of primary [Artist] field” below
[Album Artist (Auto)]
    •   This is an uneditable field which the program uses to group albums by artist
    •   If more than one value for [Artist] is contained within the album, will be set to (Multiple Artists)
    •   Will automatically inherit the [Album Artist] field if that is populated
[Album Artist]
    •   A manual override for [Album Artist (Auto)]
    •   Useful for albums with more than one artist, but which are still recognised by a particular artist
            o   Eg. 2Pac: The Rose that Grew from Concrete was a collaboration of various artists but is still attributed to 2Pac, so [Album Artist]=2Pac   ,   not (Multiple Artists)
[Featuring]
    •   Used for artists who feature or guest star in a track but are not a primary artist
[Composer]
    •   The original composer of the music
    •   For classical music, I use the format last name ● first name as it is usually easier to remember “Mozart” than “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” when scanning the alphabetical list
    •   The reason a comma is not used is because this is used as a list delimiter
[Lyricist]
    •   Person who wrote the lyrics
[Conductor]
    •   The conductor of orchestral performances
[Soloists]
    •   Individual musicians or instrumentalists
    •   Role may be appended in parentheses
          o    [Soloists]=Artur Rubinstein (Piano)
    •   Multiple performers may be listed using semicolons as delimiters
          o   [Soloists]=Andras Fejer (Cello);Karoly Schranz (Violin);Roger Tapping (Viola)
[Vocals]
    •   Names of the individual vocalists in a band or performance
[Band]
    •   The name of the band or musical group, as opposed to individual artists
    •   Sometimes the backup band for a primary vocalist
[Orchestra]
    •   Name of the orchestra or ensemble
[Chorus]
    •   Name of the choir or chorus
[Artist Roles]
    •   Used for tracks from movies, shows or theatre to designate the name of a character or role
[Artist Alias]
    •   This field can be populated with an alternate name for an artist, when an artist may be recognised by more than one name
    •   Eg The Bees, a UK band is known as A Band of Bees in the US


Fields in Blue above are standard string fields which do not support lists
    •   [Artist]=2Pac, Ice-T, Ice Cube
Fields in Red are list fields and support using semicolons to separate artists
    •   [Soloists]=Lisa Beznosiuk (Flute);Simon Standage (Violin);Trevor Pinnock (Harpsichord)

Multiple Artists & Delimiters
The ONLY delimiters used for listing multiple artists in any ‘artist’ field are commas (, ) and semicolons (; )
 “ & “ and “ / “ will be treated literally and should not be used as delimiters
    •   Fred/Mary/Sally will be treated as a single artist “Fred/Mary/Sally”
    •   AC/DC will be treated as a single artist “AC/DC”
    •   Simon & Garfunkel will be treated as a single artist “Simon & Garfunkel”
    •   Sarah, Mary & Gary will be treated as two artists “Sarah” and “Mary & Gary”
            o   The comma is a delimiter, the ampersand is not
    •   Note this will not work well for you if you like to format [Composer] as Last Name, First Name as the comma will be used as a delimiter

Differential Use of Primary [Artist] Field
Start at 1, if doesn’t meet criteria, move to 2 etc.
1.   Tracks which are primarily classical in nature and recognisable by composer, whether appearing in film or pop culture or not:

“Polonaise in F♯ Minor Op. 44” by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Artur Rubinstein
    •   “Composer” is entered into [Artist] field in first name last name format
        o   [Artist]= Frédéric Chopin
    •   “Composer” is entered into [Composer] field in last name - first name format
        o   [Composer]= Chopin - Frédéric
    •   The “Performing artist” is entered into the [Soloists] field, role may optionally be appended as a suffix
        o   [Soloists]=Artur Rubinstein (Piano)
    •   Filename is in the format
        o   Multi-disc album
               1-01. Frédéric Chopin - Polonaise in F♯ Minor Op. 44
        o   Single-disc album
               01. Frédéric Chopin - Polonaise in F♯ Minor Op. 44
        o   Miscellaneous track
               Frédéric Chopin - Polonaise in F♯ Minor Op. 44

2.   Tracks in which are recognised primarily by artist, whether appearing in film or not:

“Ghetto Gospel” by 2Pac, featuring Elton John
    •   “Artist” is entered in the [Artist] field
        o   [Artist]=2Pac
    •   Featuring artists are entered in the [Featuring] field
        o   [Name]= Ghetto Gospel
        o   [Featuring]= Elton John
    •   Filename is in the format
        o   Multi-disc album
               1-01. 2Pac - Ghetto Gospel (feat. Elton John)
        o   Single-disc album
               01. 2Pac - Ghetto Gospel (feat. Elton John)
        o   Miscellaneous track
               2Pac - Ghetto Gospel (feat. Elton John)

3.   Tracks appearing in a film or TV show, and which are primarily recognised as such (and not by a featuring artist or classical composer). These are usually ‘score’ tracks, otherwise vocalists are used as the primary artist

“Gift of a Thistle”, composed by James Horner, featured in the film “Braveheart”
    •   The film or track’s “composer” is entered in both the [Artist] and [Composer] fields
        o   [Artist]=James Horner
        o   [Composer]=Horner - James
    •   The name of the film or TV show is entered into the [Movie] field
        o   [Movie]= Braveheart
    •   The movie title is used to prefix the filename:
        o   Multi-disc album
               1-01. Braveheart - Gift of a Thistle
        o   Single-disc album
               01. Braveheart - Gift of a Thistle
        o   Miscellaneous track
               Braveheart - Gift of a Thistle

Examples

'Act II No. 11: Duett - Bewahret euch vor Weibertucken' from "The Magic Flute" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
    •   [Artist]=Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    •   [Composer]=Mozart - Wolfgang Amadeus
    •   [Conductor]=Michael Halász
    •   [Orchestra]=Budapest Failoni Chamber Orchestra
    •   [Chorus]=Hungarian Festival Chorus
    •   [Lyricist]=Emanuel Schikaneder

'Concerto (for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord) in A Minor BWV 1044 ("Triple Concerto") I. Allegro' by Bach:
    •   [Artist]=Johann Sebastian Bach
    •   [Composer]=Bach - Johann Sebastian
    •   [Conductor]=Trevor Pinnock
    •   [Band]=The English Concert
    •   [Orchestra]=English Concert Orchestra
    •   [Solists]=Lisa Beznosiuk (Flute);Simon Standage (Violin);Trevor Pinnock (Harpsichord)

'All I Ask of You' from "The Phantom of the Opera", composed by Andrew Lloyd Weber and performed by Steve Barton and Sarah Brightman:
    •   [Artist]=Steve Barton, Sarah Brightman
    •   [Composer]=Andrew Lloyd Weber
    •   [Lyricist]=Charles Hart
    •   [Vocals]=Steve Barton;Sarah Brightman
    •   [Artist Roles]=Raoul;Christine
 
Combined Artist Field

Create a new custom expression field [Artists]

Code: [Select]

=replace([Artist];[Arranger];[Composer];[Conductor];[Featuring];[Lyricist];[Soloists];[Band];[Artist Alias];[Vocals];[Orchestra];[Chorus];[Artist Roles],/, ,;)&DataType=[List]
This can be used in any views / panes as desired. Listcombine achieves the same result as far as I'm aware

In a similar way to Vincent's idea (ie appending the role of the artist in the piece) - you can build an expression with the approach:
    •   [Artist]\Primary Artist;[Arranger]\Arranger;[Composer]\Composer;   ... etc
    •   This can build a nice list of artists with the performance role nested underneath. I have found it can be very slow though, so I don't use it routinely.

I then use a big massive rename function to sort out all of the above, plus single/multi-disc albums, non-albums, genres, coverart etc, but it uses so many custom fields I doubt anyone could make sense of it!

[HiFiTubes]

I do like the one that pulls all tag info from typically buried fields (at leats for me) like Composer etc.

I'm happy with my semi-colon delimited special field for now and I checked it out again now that my system is rebuilt, and it's doing what I want.

I'm still interested in what you are doing and still not sure about it exactly.

With regard to the Bing Crosby example, are these two different tags in tow different tag fields? Or on two seperater files?

I manually compile the differences found in mispellings and I'm not clear on how much tagging your are doing before your system works, if that makes sense.

Neither am I

I think I made things more complicate than needed.
I kindly invite you to try the following on your own collection.

Most of the time the problem is spelling/conventions
For a computer Bing Crosby and Cosby, Bing are to different entities
I try to solve this by parsing the tags in such a way that each word becomes an entry in the list

Words
ListBuild(1,;,Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace([Album Artist];[Artist];[Composer];[Conductor],//,;),/ ,;),/,),.),;;,;))&datatype=

[Album Artist];[Artist];[Composer];[Conductor]
This concatenate the tags and adds a delimiter

,//,;),/ ,;),/,),.),;;,;))
Replace a couple of delimiters (/,. space) by the delimiter for the list.

Full name
Now that I have all the words e.g. Crosby, I like to know where it originates from.
Replace(Replace([Album Artist];[Artist];[Composer];[Conductor],//,;),;;,;)&datatype=

Same tags now I only replace the slash by a ;

Then I make a custom view “Words”,fields:
Words
Full name
Song

Hope this helps

[/list]

[Vincent Kars]

With regard to the Bing Crosby example, are these two different tags in tow different tag fields? Or on two seperater files?

Both are possible.

You might have an artist Bing Crosby and a artist Crosby, Bing
This is a bit hard to detect if you use the artist view.
Then you might also have an Album Artist, a composer a etc.
You won’t see them in the Artist view.
Combine all the fields you do think relevant and parse it so you get the single words.
Now you get 1 entry say Crosby, expand it and you will find
Crosby
-   Bing Crosby
-   Crosby, Stills and Nash
-   Crosby, Bing
-   etc
A simple trick to detect inconsistent spelling in more then 1 tag

[HTPC4ME]

sorry ive just made it back here.. ive taken the plunge and decided to replace genre with keywords which works great.. now i can have music in multiple genres(keywords)

One question i'd like elaborated on... if i switch artist to artists.. will that give me the same benefit as keywords. meaning  when i tag joe blow feat. joe suck - song name... and i goto artists will that song name show up under artists joe blow and joe suck?

thanks

[MusicHawk]

>> if i switch artist to artists.. will that give me the same benefit as keywords. meaning  when i tag joe blow feat. joe suck - song name... and i goto artists will that song name show up under artists joe blow and joe suck?

Yes. But you'll have to create / customize a view. I use a custom List field Artists to list all the artists (that I care about) on a particular record. I have a view, Artists. The first column is Artists (my custom field), grouped by 1 so I get A, B, C, etc. The second column is Artist, not grouped, so within each letter I get a list of all the artists whose name begins with that letter.

In my Artists field I use Lastname, Firstname, which I find helpful. And I am careful to always enter the name consistently, even if somewhat inconsistent on actual recordings.

For example, one track has this in the Artists field: Beatles;McCartney, Paul.
In the view tree I see this (along with lots more):
  B
    Beatles
  M
    McCartney, Paul

Note that I get two entries in the Artists tree but there is just one database record. This is one of the powers of the List type field.

That said, there are limits on what MC provides to manipulate a List field so be sure you experiment before committing to a large project. (I periodically suggest that JR look for ideas at Lotus Notes, the king of list field flexibility; it has some wonderful List functions.)

[HTPC4ME]

could someone guide me step by step please on how to change all my Artist fields to Artists for Audio and Videos.

It Would Be Greatly Appreciated.

[dcwebman]

Unless I'm missing something, whenever I import new songs, I use Right-Click - Library tools - Move/Copy Fields. Select Source as Artist and Destination as Artists with Action being Copy. This handles the vast majority of files.

The next part is manual that I'm aware of. Look for all those songs saying "featuring" and add those featured artists into the Artists field, then rename the Name of the song.
I then use the Rename, Move, & Copy Files feature to Rename with the Filename rule being "[Artists] - [Name]".

[HTPC4ME]

Thanks DC, But What Are My Steps Please For Making the Artists Field?

[MusicHawk]

To create a custom field follow these steps. This will create custom field Artists as a List-type (multi-value field):

1. Options (Ctrl+O)
2. Library & Folders
3. Manage Library fields...
4. Add New Field
5. New field name: Artists
6. Display and Display (plural): Artists
7. Flags: Audio (also listing other data types is up to you, on reason if you'll use Artists only for audio tracks)
8. Data: User data: Data Type: List (semicolon delimited)
9. Edit Type: Standard
10. Store values in tags: check box
11. OK

The field is now created. To access it, you must diddle with the Tag window and/or at least one View design.

To add the field to a View, right-click the column heading row and select field Artists. You can then drag the columns to the desired order. Once Artists is in a view you can add/edit Artists values directly in the view.

To access Artists in the Tag window, select the upper-left Tools icon. Choose either Show Tags in Current View (presuming you are in the view that has the Artists column), or Show All Tags (not recommended because you'll end up working with a long list of tags, most of them not what you need for a music library).

To put multiple artists into the custom Artists field, separate them with semi-colon ; character. Don't include any spaces around it or the spaces will end up as part of the Artists names, goofing up sorting, and grouping/matching. For instance, this: [Johnny Cash;June Carter] not this [Johnny Cash ; June Carter] (the square brackets represent the field bounds, don't enter them).

I put names into my Artists field as Lastname, Firstname, like this: [Cash, Johnny;Carter, June]. Doing this lets me have an Artists view that lists all artists alphabetically Lastname, Firstname, so I end up with separate view groups for Cash, Johnny and for Carter, June and for every other name in every track that where I used Artists -- which is every track in my library, since I always put Lastname, Firstname into Artists, whether one or many names for a track. It's a very cool feature of MC that a view can expand a List type value into multiple virtual records.

[HTPC4ME]

Got The Artists Created

Is there a quick way to select all audio\video (Music Videos) and delete all the artist tags, and transfer them to artists? how would one do this? basically i think i need a rule if artist move to artists? but not sure how i would accomplish this.

Thanks So Much For the Steps So Far.. Your A Life Saver!

[HTPC4ME]

think i figured it out move\copy fields.. guess 186,000 files is to many. tee heehee.. will have to take chunks...

Gotta Say i'm impressed, just tried 54,000, (then for testing purposes) Tried 76,000 Highest i got before a cpu drain\JRiver crash was 97,000 files to tag.

is it possible to remove artist from tags completelly? meaning when i goto tag window it will never show an option to tag artist? if so i'd like to remove genre as well. Basically is it possible to use show default tags, but shut off artist, and genre so they never show?

Also i've gotten all views, theaterview, webplay, webremote, media tree, smartlists, and playlist set to artist's now... I'm wondering now that ive seen more of the customization\views, if i NEED TO change (by making a Customized view) artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto) TO artistS\album (auto) and album\artistS (auto) as well? or will those automatically work as they are... artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto).

Thank You.

[Vincent Kars]

is it possible to remove artist from tags completelly? meaning when i goto tag window it will never show an option to tag artist?

You can clear or even remove these tags but I wouldn’t recommend to do so.
This are standard tags used by almost any media player.
The moment you move a song to e.g. a portable you have a problem.

What I do:
All tagging is done using standard artist, genre, etc as if they support multiple genres.
My Artists and Genres are calculated non editable fields.
These I use in the views.

If you use the standard tags this way
-   works on any other media player
-   multiple ready

[HTPC4ME]

ok thanks for the info.. so basically i should go back through and choose copy and not move for all artists and keywords?

also Also i've gotten all views, theaterview, webplay, webremote, media tree, smartlists, and playlist set to artist's now... I'm wondering now that ive seen more of the customization\views, if i NEED TO change (by making a Customized view) artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto) TO artistS\album (auto) and album\artistS (auto) as well? or will those automatically work as they are... artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto).

Thank You.

[HTPC4ME]

Bump Please

I'm wondering now that ive seen more of the customization\views, if i NEED TO change (by making a Customized view) artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto) TO artistS\album (auto) and album\artistS (auto) as well? or will those automatically work as they are... artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto).

Thank You.

[HTPC4ME]

and again... bump please

[gappie]

the problem is xtacbyme that there is only one person who can answer that question, and that is you. what do you want to get out of mc. you could start of course by copying one of your favorite views in standard view (just drag it to the audio root, it will ask copy or move), and start changing the view to AtistS. see if it is better.

i use Artists for everything, because it makes sense the way i organized my library, and artist has its own important value for me.
its an other tag though, so mc wont know about it... you must change the views if you want that yourself.
have fun..


 
gab

[HTPC4ME]

artists works great gappie.. love it. my concern is the artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto) do those need to be changed TO artistS\album (auto) and album\artistS (auto) as well? or will those automatically work as they are... artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto).

[MusicHawk]

Not exactly an answer, but maybe an idea:

I don't use any (auto) fields -- I removed them from my views -- because I want to be in total control. I use stock fields Artist and Album, and custom field Artists. I use stock Genre but also Keywords for my real genres (since many recordings fit into multiple genres). And I have a few other custom fields.

I found it simpler and more stable to not have MC do any manipulation of my main fields. The stock (auto) fields still exist, I just never see or care about them.

[gappie]

artists works great gappie.. love it. my concern is the artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto) do those need to be changed TO artistS\album (auto) and album\artistS (auto) as well? or will those automatically work as they are... artists\album (auto) and album\artists (auto).

i think musichawks answer is right on the spot. when you start to use a field like that and it gives all the things you want the (auto) field is not that interesting anymore. i still use it in views for under the album thumbnails and in smartlists to get what i need, but thats it. the views are based around the new atistS. and when you get that going it can be really satisfying... its one of the most important features of mc (i can only think of one or two others, besides that it plays nearly anything media), a database that you can shape 'nearly'   the way you like. so use the standard fields only when you NEED them..

 
gab

[HTPC4ME]

ok thanks guys.. yeah i had all my theaterviews for audio set up as album\artist (auto) will remove those and custom make them with artists.

Appreciate it guys

[gappie]

ok thanks guys.. yeah i had all my theaterviews for audio set up as album\artist (auto) will remove those and custom make them with artists.

maybe one of the things that might interest you in thv.. one difference between artist and artists for me is that, for instance the next artist tag
the bill frisell quintet
the new bill frisell quartet
bill frisell sextet
Bill Frisell & Vernon Reid
are artist for me but set as artists as bill frisell (and the last one to Vernon Reid;Bill Frisell). but as artist as in the small list. now when you make a view in thv it can be an idea to make a
artists > album artist (auto) >album
view.
the nice thing of thv is that when there is only one choice it will skip that view. so in most case it will go artists>album, but where it might be interesting, where there are different artist tags, it stops there and give an other choice with all directly under the OK button..

just an idea about how i use it..

 
gab

[HTPC4ME]

interesting.. i'll try that with a few artists and see how it pans out.. thanks

[HTPC4ME]

ok just ran into something... when i autoimport it automatically puts the artist into the artist tag.. can i make it automatically put it into the artistS tag? or will i have to fill in artistS in my tags everytime manually?

Thanks

[MusicHawk]

Auto Import, CD track lookups, and the like, only know about standard tags, which get put into standard MC library fields. If you want any of those values in custom fields, you mainly do it manually or via expression-based fields.

Usually, I just let the tags happen per whatever is already in the files, whatever comes from the online lookup, etc. Then in Recently Imported I rework the tracks to have my preferred tag/field values. Then I run my custom Rename/Move expression which changes folder names, file names, and the actual drive per my reworked tags. Then I remove the tracks from Recently Imported, ready for the next batch.

The only annoyance is that I need to see my custom fields in Recently Imported, but this view normally has only standard fields. It's possible to add them but at times MC has reset the view to just the standard tags. I wish it was reliably sticky. The workaround is to save the custom playlist design (Recently Imported is technically a playlist), then if customization disappears, load the custom design.

[dbdog]

 

[dbdog]

Hmmm...I tried creating a genres field using your [Genre] & datatype = [ list ] string but it only shows me the first value, not the second and third etc. So if my genre tag is "folk; folk rock" the songs will only show up when I select "folk" and not also under "folk rock." Am I doing something wrong? Sorry for the noob questions but maybe I'm dense too.  ?