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[akira54]

Hi,

I have been using MC for many years and originally mainly for video, usually in Theater View. Over the last year I have started to use the audio option more and more and ran into a number of issues that are kind of spoiling the experience for me. In terms of sound and sound quality I have no complaints whatsoever and am very impressed with what MC can do but when it comes to displaying what music I have I am absolutely stumped by how I either fail to get it or the program does not do what it promises.

Example 1: Recent Albums
If I go to Audio and click on Recent albums, I expect to see recent albums, but I do not. In fact I completely fail to understand the order in which the albums are listed, but recent rips they most certainly ain't! Some of the first albums shown as recent rips were ripped years ago!

Example 2: Album display
MC in all its wisdom (which I fail to understand) splits up my Albums so that I often end up with multiple albums all containing only a few (often only 1) song. How do  play all the songs in a single album without having to click on each "Album". I know it has something to do with tags, but I do not want to re-tag thousands of albums. Is there no way of simply setting up MC so it will show all songs belonging to a single Album using ONLY the Album name?

Any help to solve these problems would be much appreciated. I have been struggling with this since MC21.

[Spike1000]

I do not want to re-tag thousands of albums. Is there no way of simply setting up MC so it will show all songs belonging to a single Album using ONLY the Album name?

It still would be worth looking at the Album Artist tags for your 'problem' albums as the problem you're seeing is caused when they are different within for a given album. This only usually occurs in compilation albums (The fix here is to use Various or Various Artists for the Album Artist Field).

If you can understand how/why this is happening you can prevent happening in the future.

Spike

[akira54]

I may not have been very clear in explaining, so I'll try again. What I am trying to discover is:

1. How can I make MC sort Recent Albums using the date when I ripped an album (I use dbPowerAmp to rip)?

2. Due to the fact that there is no standard yet (if ever) for tagging classical music I have used Album artists for extra info about performers, allowing me to reserve the Artist field for the main performer/soloist. This "works" for Sonos but not for MC. Retagging all that is not feasible, so all I would like is the option to display my albums based only on Album title (and then sort them according to some other criteria like Artist or Genre). Is that too much to ask? Surely all this info is in the database already?

[akira54]

It still would be worth looking at the Album Artist tags for your 'problem' albums as the problem you're seeing is caused when they are different within for a given album. This only usually occurs in compilation albums (The fix here is to use Various or Various Artists for the Album Artist Field).

If you can understand how/why this is happening you can prevent happening in the future.

Spike

Hi Spike,

Our postings crossed. I tried to explain why changing the Album artist field is not feasible. It isn't just the size of the job with over 37000 tracks to consider, but also the fact that I would lose valuable information.

[ferday]

unfortunately your way doesn't make sense.  what if you have two albums with the same name?  what about albums with many artists?

you have to define an album with two variables, and MC uses [Album] and [Album Artist]

to tag all your files in 10 minutes or less:

create two custom tags, temp1 and temp2 (or whatever)
select all files and "tag"
in temp1 field, type =[Artist]
in temp2 field, type =[Album Artist]

in [Artist] field, type =[temp2]
in [Album Artist] field, type =[temp1]

now you've swapped your artist and album artist, and the album views should work again.  always test with a few files so you understand what you are doing, then you can do them all at once.

for the record, there are Composer tags, soloist tags, etc. and you can create any number of tags to store your data, rather than use a tag that is already in use for something else, by everyone else.

i don't have a "recent albums" view in my Audio, i probably deleted it years ago if it was a stock view.  so i'm not sure how the view is set up to try and help you...

[blgentry]

Audio > Recent Albums appears to just be an albums view that is sorted by [Date Imported].  You probably want to change that sorting to [Date Created], since that would be your ripped date.  Click the header in that view where the down arrow is and you'll get a menu.  Sort By > Date Created .

That will probably do it.

Brian.

[akira54]

You are right, my suggestion would create problems for albums with the same name, but with just short of 40,000 tracks that will only happen a few times in my collection, whereas in the present set up I end with hundreds (possibly even more) of albums that are unworkable. Yet I see your point, but why combine Album with Album Artist and not with Artist? Even better: why not let the user decide ... there are plenty of fields in the database to choose from. The problem is that to this day we do not have a properly defined set of tags for music (or images for that matter) that conforms to a global standard and defines what each field is supposed to be used for. So we all try to make the best of it.

Albums with many artists are precisely why I am having this problem with MC. As I explained I have tended to put those in the Album Artist field while reserving Artist for things like the main soloist (in classical). That way I can look for all the works by a particular artist in Sonos (which ignores the Album Artist field altogether), otherwise I would end with such artists as "Murray Perahia" (solo works), "Murray Perahia/London Symphony", "Murray Perahia/Berliner .." etc. This also shows why swapping the Artist and Album Artist fields would only make things worse for me.

I use Composer tag all the time, but I am not aware of soloist tags and such. I guess these are specific to MC? Unfortunately MC is not the only program I use, there is Sonos and (unfortunately) iTunes too.

[akira54]

Audio > Recent Albums appears to just be an albums view that is sorted by [Date Imported].  You probably want to change that sorting to [Date Created], since that would be your ripped date.  Click the header in that view where the down arrow is and you'll get a menu.  Sort By > Date Created .

That will probably do it.

Brian.

Thanks Brian,

Just to be clear ... I was talking about a fresh install of MC22 not using a previous library or anything else for that matter, so it is the default "Recent Albums" provided by the programmers that I am using and which decidely does not show recent albums. Am I the only one who would love to have a look at some of the last albums I ripped? Brian, I had already tried your suggestion but it does not appear to work as expected. Just to make sure I tried it on a fresh install again. By clicking the "header"  I presume you mean "Albums" with the down arrow? If so, I am afraid no "Date Created" option is listed there. I looked for that last night too and ended up customising "Recent Views" but I am out of my depth there. I find the whole views things to be extremely confusing. For one, what role do Views play in the way one's data is displayed and even more importantly, where can I configure such views?

[akira54]

Ok, so perhaps the default Recent Albums doesn't work, so I tried defining a view of my own. "Add Library View" > choose "Recent Albums" from the list of options. The result is different from the default but it still does not show my recent albums, in fact it appears to sort my albums according to title (default sorts by Date Imported) as Brian already noted.

Trying to be clever I customised this newly created Library View and added Date Created to Album. The result is a disaster. With the order set to descending the most recent album dates from 31/10/2016, the next 3 from 31/01/2014, the next from 31/01/2012, so it appears to be sorting on days first 31, 30, etc. Moreover it shows not Albums but every individual track, since they were all created at a slightly different time.

PS. All of this applies to Windows; you do not want to know what happens in OSX because despite following the identical procedure to Windows the results are dramatically different.

[Spike1000]

This also shows why swapping the Artist and Album Artist fields would only make things worse for me.

I think it may actually make things much better. . .
Tagging:
The Artist field supports lists: "Chet Atkins; Mark Knopfler" is two list items
Album Artist is singular: "Chet Atkins; Mark Knopfler" is a single item.

The artist field supports lists so handles multiple artists properly. Album artist treats multiple different artists as single entries (I think this is the root of your problem).

Semicolons certainly work as separators but other things like double\single slashes may work too but I'm not 100% sure.

Try an experiment with one of your troublesome albums.

Spike

[akira54]

Thanks Spike. The problem is trying to juggle more than one system (Sonos, MC and iTunes) each of which has its own demands. What is the point in going through a lot of trouble with MC to do it as you suggest only for Sonos to give me the so-called artists that I mentioned before (in your example I would end up in Sonos with artists like "Mark KnopflerChet Atkins". Ofcourse I could swap the two fields as suggested earlier but then but that would not solve anything.

[blgentry]

I presume you mean "Albums" with the down arrow? If so, I am afraid no "Date Created" option is listed there.

That's correct.  See the attached screen shot showing what I see on my Albums view that I use.  This is a customized Albums view that I use.  But the sorting options are always the same.  Notice "Custom" down at the bottom.  That gives you access to all fields in the database for sorting.

Regarding your new view, I don't know why it wouldn't sort correctly.  Maybe you should show us your view and then show the date created on an album or two.

Brian.

[ferday]

But it is "accepted standard" to use Artist as the song artist, and Album Artist as the...album artist. 

It's used by iTunes, Foobar, WMP, etc

Sonos is the one doing it wrong.  Unfortunately this is translated into problems for you and many others as there are numerous threads on the net about it

since Sonos doesn't read album artists tag anyways, then make a custom tag "album performers" and swap the album artist info into that one (so you don't lose it) and then copy the artist info into album artist.  This way Sonos will stay the same but MC should better file your albums

[akira54]

That's correct.  See the attached screen shot showing what I see on my Albums view that I use.  This is a customized Albums view that I use.  But the sorting options are always the same.  Notice "Custom" down at the bottom.  That gives you access to all fields in the database for sorting.

Regarding your new view, I don't know why it wouldn't sort correctly.  Maybe you should show us your view and then show the date created on an album or two.

Brian.

Thanks a lot Brian, this has solved the problem. The only thing that bugs me is the interaction with the menu. When I go to custom, I can indeed add Date Created as a custom option, but how do I select it? No tick mark appears next to it nor does anything happen when I click on it. With the regular options the sort option chosen is clearly marked.

[blgentry]

When you do a custom sort, the field name or names appear under the custom sub-menu in the box next to Add.  That's how you know they are sorted on that field.  Then, when you click on sort again, you'll see that there are no check marks next to any field.  This tells you that it's a custom sort.  When you then click on custom, you'll see the field name or names.

I agree that this isn't very intuitive and could probably be improved by showing a check next to custom, or some other method.

Brian.

[Spike1000]

See the attached screen shot showing what I see on my Albums view that I use.

Brian,
quick question do you use a custom field for the sample rate in your thumbnail text? Yours is in kHz (44.1) where as mine is in Hz (44100).

Spike

[blgentry]

^ I use a fairly complicated expression for my thumbnail text.  You might notice that my Artist name and Album name will use 2 lines if one line isn't long enough.  I use custom fields for that.

The last line, showing sample rate, etc uses this expression:

Code: [Select]

(if(isequal([File Type],MP3,1),<font color="FF0000">,)[File Type]if(isequal([File Type],MP3,1),<//font>,) if(compare([Sample Rate],>,44100),<font color="00FF00">,)[Bit Depth]bit math(formatnumber([Sample Rate])/1000)kHz/<//font>)
This is so that MP3s show up in red, while high sample rate files show up in another color.  ...and the last little bit there divides the sample rate by 1000 so that I can display it in kHz, since that's how I like to see it.

Brian.

[Spike1000]

Nice work!

Spike