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[Dorsai]

I currently manage two separate libraries; each on its own computer. Library 2 is a copy of Library 1 with a couple of modifications and is only used to sync to external devices (AK 120, Pono, iPod Classic, Olive One). One modification (prepending track # to file name) can be implemented at time of sync; however, the other modification (replacing content of 'Artist' field with content of 'Album Artist' field) does not seem to be able to be implemented on sync. If I had a way to do this, I would no longer have to maintain two libraries.

Example field values: 'Album Artist' = "Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers", 'Artist' = "Art Blakey; Lee Morgan; Curtis Fuller; Wayne Shorter; Bobby Timmons; Jymie Merritt". The reason I have to make the switch is because most external devices do not support 'Album Artist' as an organizing/filtering field.

Ideas?

[blgentry]

I'm assuming that in library 2, you are doing an expression to change [Artist] to [Album Artist (auto)]?  Probably with a single expression that changes all of them at once?

I can think of two ways to do this.  Both have their down sides.  Let's see what you think.

A.  Make a new field called [Artist Saved].  Before you do a sync, perform the following operations on all files to be synced:

1.  [Artist Saved] = [Artist]
2.  [Artist] = [Album Artist (auto)]

Then Sync.  Then:

[Artist] = [Artist Saved]

Done.

B.  Make the field for [Artist] always contain the equivalent of [Album Artist].  Make a new field that holds the real artist name.  Something like [Artist Individual] or [Artist Real].  This would require you to change your views around to use that new field as the field you show for the individual artist on tracks.

Honestly this second method seems like it might be problematic.  You'd want to experiment with it using just a few albums in a temporary library to play with to see if it's even viable.  Method A seems more straight forward.

Brian.

[BryanC]

I would like to see more flexibility in the filenaming scheme during handheld transfers. We have unlimited control over the directory naming scheme, but as far as I can tell the filenaming scheme is hardcopied from File Location>Audio>Filename Rule. Like Dorsai said, you can append a prefix to the filename by including it in the directory structure, but it's not possible to do anything more exotic than that.

I use a dumber than most mp3 player that doesn't recognize directory structures and plays straight through tracks in alphanumeric order. I'd like to create a more advanced filenaming pattern so that I can create pseudo-playlists in lieu of real ones or directories.

[Dorsai]

Thanks for the response! I'll play around with both solutions a bit to see which works best for me.

Ideally, MC will someday offer more flexibility when it comes to modifications on sync.