Good afternoon
I would like to flag my most loved artists & albums with relational RATING.
I learned, that relational field are possible for a defined list of fields: [artist], [album], [series], [album artist (auto)], [composer], [genre].
I learned, that [artist] is data type "list" and [album artist (auto)] is data type "string".
I learned, that an "relational artist fields relate to the first artist only" (see footmark (1))
I try to keep metadata of my audio files organized by MusicBrainz (MusicBrainz.org). By doing so the work I "invest" in each album is shared with all users from MusicBrainz and I take advantage of the work other users did. MusicBrainz uses the id3 tags ARTIST and ALBUM ARTIST by default. And - sadly - there is a
conflict between MusicBrainz and JRiver MC:
MC defines [album artist (auto)] as a string with one value. Even if [album artist] includes more than one value the algorithm just takes the complete string "as it is". But MusicBrainz includes multiple values, especially for classical music. With the existing algorithm the link between specific albums and specific artists get lost - or - even worse: the artist somehow "disappears" if she/he is not listed elsewhere (see Exemple03: The album artist Henrik Schwarz disappears from the album artist view).
Exemple01[album artist] = "Glenn Miller & His Orchestra" generates [album artist (auto)] = "Glenn Miller & His Orchestra", a relational rating field based on [album artist (auto)] is related to "Glenn Miller & His Orchestra"
Exemple02[album artist] = "Vivaldi; Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz" generates [album artist (auto)] = "Vivaldi; Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz", a relational rating field based on [album artist (auto)] is related to "Vivaldi; Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz"
Exemple03[album artist] = "Bugge Wesseltoft & Henrik Schwarz" generates [album artist (auto)] = "Bugge Wesseltoft & Henrik Schwarz", a relational rating field based on [album artist (auto)] is related to "Bugge Wesseltoft & Henrik Schwarz"
Exemple02 and Exemple03 may illustrate the problem. The algorithm generates artifacts - pseudo artists who don't exist and the information "this album relates to this artist" is lost: If you look up for Bugge Wesseltoft, the album "Duo" is not listed....
Second problem: related rating based on [album artist (auto)] generates wrong data: The rating for specific artist values (like "Freiburger Barockorchester") are not changed as the algorithm doesn't align this album with other album of "Freiburger Barockorchester".
Third problem: It is possible to define a custom library field (data typ "list") to organize album artist and to trigger a customized categories view with all album artists. BUT
- the rating for artist no longer works correctly as it is not possible to relate rating to custom fields
- the view no longer uses artwork from the folder artist (most likely as the view no longer works with the library field [album artist (auto)]
- the relational rating must be enabled for n artist (multi-value) which it isn't ... most likely
I would like to suggest to consider Musicbrainz as the gold standard for metadata. I would like to suggest to consider to improve the metadata interpretation by JRiver MB instead of asking MusicBrainz to reorganize their database. And, actually I honestly believe the MusicBrainz systematic is closer to reality than the way JRiver MC is handling the metadata "album artist".
QUESTION:Has anyone an idea how to generate proper artist rating (relational rating)?
A way forward - how to solve the problem?
I guess the first two problems can be solved by
- allowing relational fields for custom fields
- allowing to define custom fields for which JRiver MC is looking up stored art work in a specific folder (same name as the custom fields-name?)
With this two changes the default system stays untouched.
I guess the third problem is more demanding. I guess in theory it is possible to have not only a column with different values for album artists, but to add a second column, which associates this specific "artist value" to a "specific rating value" (like 5 stars). To assist the user I would suggest that the view not only shows the name of the field but also the "artist value".
You are still reading....
Thanks for your help.
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Wiki on library-fields including relational:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Fields (1) see Reply #4 in
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,70785.msg477884.html#msg477884