nekura,
Let me give you my take on your situation, and I have the same. This was my rational:
I buy a CD that is actually 3 CDs, and each CD is mixed by a particular DJ. For instance, "Renaissance Worldwide:Singapore" has 3 CDs, and each CD is mixed by a different DJ, David Morales (Disc 1), Dave Seaman (Disc 2), and BT (Disc 3). So, my first dilemma is "Do I fill in the 'Album Artist' tag with 'Various Artists' for all tracks on all CDs, and then put the individual song artists in the 'Artist' tag field, or, for each CD, do I put the DJ's name (i.e. David Morales) as the 'Album Artist', still using the individual track artist details in the 'Artist' field? I decided to use the DJ's name in the 'Album Artist' field instead of 'Various Artists'. Once that's solved, I then ask myself, "Do I rip the first CD and call the Album 'Renaissance Worldwide: Singapore (CD 1)', and the same for CDs 2 and 3 (only changing the CD #), or do I just rip all the tracks from all the CDs and name the album 'Renaissance Worldwide: Singapore'? After all, the album title is 'Renaissance Worldwide: Singapore', not 'Renaissance Worldwide: Singapore 3-Disc Set', so I don't include the CD# in the 'Album' tag field; I rely on the differences in 'Album Artist' to indicate to me the songs that are on different discs. The reason that I chose to not use the CD# in the 'Album' tag field is because I couldn't see it on the iPod when I scrolled through 'Albums' anyway. So, on the iPod, I just scroll to 'Renaissance Worldw...' and I know I've selected all the tracks on the CD, but they don't play in order unless I have renumbered the tracks in Media Center before porting the songs to my iPod. So, after I rip the CDs, I have to go back and renumber the tracks on Discs 2 and 3 (in this example) so that the track numbering for disc 2 picks up from where disc 1's track numbering left off, and disc 3's track numbering picks up from where disc 2's track numbering left off, so I end up with one album called 'Renaissance Worldwide: Singapore' with about 40 tracks on it, instead of 3 different albums (which are really the same album), each with 12+ tracks on them. But, I guess all this depends on the definition of 'Album'. Does 'Album' mean all the songs that are on a CD, or does it mean a collection of songs contained within one package (which would include the 2 or greater disc sets that you and I are having trouble with). Another problem, inherent in all of this is that, again in this example, I have chosen to let the 'Artist' tag field contain the track artist's name, and 'Album Artist' contains the name of the DJ or DJs that selected and mixed the tracks for the album (discs). When I copy the songs over to the iPod, the 'Album Artist' field does not get copied (of course), but instead the 'Artist' field does. And this is correct; MC should copy the 'Artist' name over as 'Artist' to the iPod as there are many more single-artist albums than there are multiple-artist or "mixed" CDs (in the average person's collection of MP3s). But, I usually have no idea who the track artists are on "mixed" CDs, much less can I remember them when I want to hear the songs from the album when listening to mu iPod, and even further, even if I could remember who the track artists are, I could never remember the ordering of the tracks such that I could play the tracks in their correct order. It would be nice if the iPod plugin would copy the 'Album Artist' field to the iPod instead of the 'Artist' field if MC detected the presence of a value (and the value was the same for each track) in the 'Album Artist' field for all tracks associated with an album. That way, I could scroll through 'Artists' on the iPod, and find, say, 'David Morales' and then pick the 'Renaissance Worldwide: Singapore' from the album listings under his name. Then, it woudln't matter that the iPod only shows a certain number of characters in the album title and I can never differentiate between 'Album Title (CD 1)' and 'Album Title (CD 2)' (for longer album titles). Here's another, slightly different, example that I have just thought of. I have an "album" called 'Renaissance Anthems', which is comprised, again, of 3 CDs. However, each CD has it's own name, "At The Bar" (CD 1), "At The Club" (CD 2), and "At Home" (CD 3). So, each CD has it's own name, but all the CDs are part of an Album called 'Renaissance Anthems', so what do I enter into the 'Album' field for each CD? For example, for the first CD, should I enter 'Renaissance Anthems: At The Bar' as the album title, and apply the same methodology to the other 2 albums' naming conventions, or should I use 'Renaissance Anthems' for the 'Album' value for all tracks on all CDs, and enter the CD title in the 'Comment' field or 'Notes' field for each track so I can still (through a search, etc.) identify each individual CD if I need/want to? In this case of this last example, each track has it's own artist, but there is no main DJ (or DJs) associated with the album, so I would use 'Various Artists' in the 'Album Artist' field.
I could go on and on, because I have many unresolved tagging dilemmas for which I am always actively seeking solutions, suggestions, ideas, etc.
Let's keep this thread going here or somewhere else and maybe we (and others) can come up with a definitive guide for tagging MP3s...
Cheers,
Wobbley
Author
Topic: IPOD SUPPORT (Read 41870 times)