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[mwheelerk]

This subject is not really a problem for me but more of a curiosity.  JRiver is my primary tool but I do maintain iTunes for various reasons.  I have noticed that the total album count in JRiver and iTunes for my library are different.  iTunes shows 2,170 albums and JRiver shows 2,198 albums.  My curiosity is to why there is a difference in the album count.  I can also see the Song total in JRiver and I thought I could see the song total in iTunes to compare that but for some reason, at least this morning, I can't figure out the view that will give me that number.

My thoughts have been that JRiver and iTunes handles the Album count differently.  I'm thinking that iTunes may count album titles and where I have multiple album titles of the same name, for instance Greatest Hits, that it counts as a single title and that JRiver is providing a more accurate count in the method that it uses.

Any ideas on why this might be and if you maintain both JRiver and iTunes do you experience the same anomaly?

Thanks

[blgentry]

The big factor I can think of is compilation albums.  If the tags aren't set up correctly, MC will break a compilation album into one album per artist.  So a compilation with 10 artists will show up as 10 separate albums.

Look through your collection in MC and see if you can spot any albums with identical covers.  Or do searches to try to find some compilations and see how they are being handled by MC.

Brian.

[mwheelerk]

The big factor I can think of is compilation albums.  If the tags aren't set up correctly, MC will break a compilation album into one album per artist.  So a compilation with 10 artists will show up as 10 separate albums.

Look through your collection in MC and see if you can spot any albums with identical covers.  Or do searches to try to find some compilations and see how they are being handled by MC.

Brian.

I don't believe I have any compilation albums. I don't have any "various artists" albums. In the case were their might be a primary artist of an album and a guest or featured on on a track or two that is originally shown as a compilation I prefer to edit metadata so that Artist is just the primary artist and then edit the song title to [featuring or with Featured Artist Name].

[blgentry]

Hmm.  If you're really curious, make an alphabetical list in each and move down the list until you find the difference.  Or export those lists and analyze a little more automatically perhaps?  Just an idea.

Brian.

[mwheelerk]

Hmm.  If you're really curious, make an alphabetical list in each and move down the list until you find the difference.  Or export those lists and analyze a little more automatically perhaps?  Just an idea.

Brian.

I'm still curious. I did notice one thing. The total album count within JRiver Audio>Panes is different than in a master Smartlist I created where the only criteria is Media is Audio.  That is where I was comparing album totals with iTunes. When compared with in JRiver Audio>Panes the album title difference drops to six. Total song counts and total size of libraries match.

[mwheelerk]

The minor mystery continues but I have narrowed it down a bit.

Right now I am seeing three different total album counts:

1. iTunes with 952 Artists and 2184 Albums
2. JRiver (Audio>Panes) with 953 Artists and 2186 albums
3. JRiver Smartlist>Master with 2211 albums

I have yet to be able to identify the one artist and two album difference between between iTunes and JRiver.

I thought I had the reason between the differences in the JRiver Smartlist>Master and the other two but the numbers don't quite match.  I looked at album titles of the same name by different artists thinking the Smartlist may have handled those differently than the other views.  I discovered I have 19 Album Titles with different Artists that total 42 total albums where 17 of those have 2 Artists and 2 of those have 4 artists sharing the same title.  Thinking that the Smartlists were counting the shared titles albums individually and that iTunes and JRiver might be counting those shared titles as a single album title the difference would be 23 more albums listed in the Smartlist.  But, the totals in iTunes and JRiver other views show a difference from that count of either 27 or 25 titles so that theory is off by 2 to 4 titles.

This purely nonsensical and a curiosity at this point as no apparent performance is effected but still its the type of little mystery that keeps me thinking until I possibly discover the reason for the differences.

[blgentry]

Maybe you've got something strange going on where you have different album artist fields on some songs in the same album?  I think MC would then call those different albums in some contexts.

Have you looked through the stock smartlist for incomplete albums?  All it does is use [Complete Album] "is" False .  So it's easy to build your own if the stock one is missing.

Brian.

[mwheelerk]

Maybe you've got something strange going on where you have different album artist fields on some songs in the same album?  I think MC would then call those different albums in some contexts.

Have you looked through the stock smartlist for incomplete albums?  All it does is use [Complete Album] "is" False .  So it's easy to build your own if the stock one is missing.

Brian.

Now I'm getting determined to figure it out.  I did the smartlist as shown above.  I found 2 albums that each had a duplicate song on them.  I deleted the duplicate song and now I have a 2 artist and 2 album differential between the two libraries which both pull from the same file location.  I am thinking I have an issue with 2 albums that the artist or album artist sort is incorrect (has mixed listings) and that is generating the additional Artist/Album count.

[blgentry]

Here is a smartlist definition that will look for any song where [Artist] is different than [Album Artist (auto)]:

Code: [Select]

[Media Type]=[Audio] [=isequal([Artist],[Album Artist (auto)],0)]=0
Use the Import/Export button at the lower left of the smartlist editor and just paste in the definition.  Maybe this will help you track down the offending album or files.

Keep in mind that you can also use these expressions to create new views.  A Panes view with this expression will show you a nice list of artists and albums that match the criteria and of course let you select them to see details.  This is sometimes much easier than a giant smartlist, which is harder to navigate than a panes view.  Also note that you can use these expressions as saved searches in a Pane.  So you can develop groups of these that you can use all in the same view when trying to find things like this.  I use several saved searches like this in various maintenance views like my Cover Art Review view.

Brian.