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[hit_ny]

Matt said :

When setting Album Artist (auto), it works like this:

If there is an album artist, set it to the new value
Otherwise put the new value in artist

How bout if there is no Album Artist then set Album Artist INSTEAD of Artist.

This allows you to use "Album Artist (auto)" as a replacement for the Artist and Album Artist columns.

This can still function as is.

-Take the artist ( is its the same for all tracks and makea that the Album Artist)

Does this makes sense at all ? Have i left anything out

[jimpmc]

Aren't you really just describing editing the Album Artist field?  Why not just edit that one directly instead of using the (Auto) field?

[Matt]

I hardly ever fill in a custom "Album Artist."

However, I "Album Artist (auto)" everywhere to remove the clutter of mix CDs. (it shows (Multiple Artists))

In these cases, changing "Aerosmeth" to "Aerosmith" should change the artist because I'm not using "Album Artist".  (and who'd want "Aerosmeth" as the artist and "Aerosmith" as the "Album Artist"?)

Does that make any sense?

[hit_ny]

However, I "Album Artist (auto)" everywhere to remove the clutter of mix CDs. (it shows (Multiple Artists))

Exactly, its main use for me anyway is for compilation albums and its what i choose to view in panes as well.

So how bout this for logic...Matt

If the Album is Multiple Artist, then changing Album Artist (auto) will change/write to Album Artist only.

otherwise it can write to Artist field.

Aren't you really just describing editing the Album Artist field?  Why not just edit that one directly instead of using the (Auto) field?

we are talking about changing the Album Artist (auto) in the pane..sometimes u get the correct spelling, capitalisations  or need to modify the Album Artist (auto),

the way it stands currently, if u change this in the panes, forgetting its Album Artist (auto) instead of Album Artist, you will in effect set all the various artists to the Album Artist....which hould not be allowed.

Of course then ..u need to select each album, look in the action window ans select Album Artist and rename that. If the same Artist did several albums, you need to manually change each one in a similar fashion.....Pain!!!!

[Matt]

So how bout this for logic...Matt

If the Album is Multiple Artist, then changing Album Artist (auto) will change/write to Album Artist only.

otherwise it can write to Artist field.

Yeah, that's better.

Next build when setting Album Artist (auto), it'll work like this:

If there is an album artist or it's a multi-artist CD, set "Album Artist"
Otherwise set "Artist"

Thanks for helping!

[jleerigby]

So how bout this for logic...Matt

If the Album is Multiple Artist, then changing Album Artist (auto) will change/write to Album Artist only.

otherwise it can write to Artist field.

Yeah, that's better.

Next build when setting Album Artist (auto), it'll work like this:

If there is an album artist or it's a multi-artist CD, set "Album Artist"
Otherwise set "Artist"

Thanks for helping!

I disagree with you for once Matt.  Correct me if I'm wrong but the way it has worked in the past is that Album Artist (Auto) is a calculated field that displays the contents of Album Artist unless Album Artist is blank in which case it works out the Album Artist by reference to each track on the Album.  In other words Album Artist (Auto) is a calculated field and, to be consistent with other calculated fields it's value is derived and should not be directly editable.

[Matt]

to be consistent with other calculated fields it's value is derived and should not be directly editable.

Several calculated fields are editable.

Like Filename (path) of Date (month) for example.  The only thing that determines whether they're editable is whether it'd make sense (and be possible) to edit and save changes.

[kiwi]

I guess that I'm not following why you would want to have "Album Artist (Auto)" be editable.  

kiwi

[Matt]

As long as you can edit Album Artist (auto), you don't need to show the Artist column or Artist pane, but you can still tag your files.

[JustinChase]

I'm not sure I understand the specifics of this thread, so sorry if this sounds naive, but I do have a question/suggestion.

I would love it if the Artist Album (auto) field could be automatically updated for albums that have already been ripped.  I have many multiple artist CD's ripped and would prefer not to see every one of the artists listed in my Artist sort tree (which I use because the Artist Albut (auto) tree does me no good now).  If there is some way to have MC re-evaluate my library and (auto) update this filed to reflect 'Multiple Artist' if more than a couple of tracks have different artists listed, that would make my life much more satisfying.

Thanks

[Matt]

I'm not sure I understand the specifics of this thread, so sorry if this sounds naive, but I do have a question/suggestion.

I would love it if the Artist Album (auto) field could be automatically updated for albums that have already been ripped.  I have many multiple artist CD's ripped and would prefer not to see every one of the artists listed in my Artist sort tree (which I use because the Artist Albut (auto) tree does me no good now).  If there is some way to have MC re-evaluate my library and (auto) update this filed to reflect 'Multiple Artist' if more than a couple of tracks have different artists listed, that would make my life much more satisfying.

That's how it works.  Try it.

Just make sure your albums are properly tagged, and that you keep each one in it's own directory.

After that, everything is automatic. (but can be overridden by manually entering something for "Album Artist")

[JustinChase]

That must have gotten fixed since earlier versions of mc 9.0.?

Very nice.  It took me some time to figure out how to use the view scheme in the 9.1.? version, but I think I have it figured out.

I did notice one thing though, any albut with the title "Greatest Hits" shows as a (Multiple Artist) album even though it is the greatest hits of only one artist, i.e. Janis Joplin - Greatest Hits lists as a Multiple Artist CD.  Other than that, it works great.

thanks!

[Matt]

I did notice one thing though, any albut with the title "Greatest Hits" shows as a (Multiple Artist) album even though it is the greatest hits of only one artist, i.e. Janis Joplin - Greatest Hits lists as a Multiple Artist CD.  Other than that, it works great.

Something else is wrong -- a missing track, misnumbered track number, or other files in that album's directory.

[JustinChase]

I'm not sure how a missing track, or wrong track number would confuse MC and make it think there were more artists, but I'll double check.

or other files in that album's directory.

How can I find this out?  I don't actually use directories, everything is on my e:\My Music directory.  If it actually needs albums to be in seperate directories, this would explain the problem.  It just sees 3 or 4 albums with the title "Greatest Hits" in this one directory and fills in (Multiple Artist).  If this is the case, is there any way to adjust the logic to not look at directories?

Thanks

[Deivit]

If you don't want to change your current structure and want to keep your music in a single directory what you can do is copy the "artist" to "album artist" using the "move/copy field" tool for all your "Greatest Hits" "Unplugged" "Best of" etc.

This way, these albums will not appear under "Multiple Artists".

[Wobbley]

I like Matt's idea.  I hate having to display the "Artist" column, and the "Album Artist" column and the "Album Artist (auto)" column just to make sure all of my files, especially my tons of compilations, are tagged properly.

Thanks, Matt.

Wobbley

[Matt]

How can I find this out?  I don't actually use directories, everything is on my e:\My Music directory.  If it actually needs albums to be in seperate directories, this would explain the problem.  It just sees 3 or 4 albums with the title "Greatest Hits" in this one directory and fills in (Multiple Artist).  If this is the case, is there any way to adjust the logic to not look at directories?

You can use "Rename From Properties" with [Artist]\[Album] as the directory rule to clean it up.

[JustinChase]

I can't think of any good reason (other than this situation) to use directories. It just seems like a waste of energy to force all the music into hundreds of directories.  Having everything in one big directory just seems more efficient (for lack of a better word).  If for some reason (like trying to see if I have a duplicate recording) I want to look at my files from within windows, it's WAY too hard to have to look through every directory and subdirectory to find a song.

Is it really hard to make the (Multiple Artist) search/logic not dependent on directories.  Wouldn't it be pretty easy to make a different field part of the criteria as to whether or not an album contains multiple artists, i.e. year and/or genre and/or most of the filename?

I guess after thinking about it for a while, that might be pretty tough.

I suppose I'll just have to live with a few artists incorrectly listed or manually update the field.

Can anyone give me a good reason to use directories (other than this issue)?

[jleerigby]

Having everything in one big directory just seems more efficient (for lack of a better word).  If for some reason (like trying to see if I have a duplicate recording) I want to look at my files from within windows, it's WAY too hard to have to look through every directory and subdirectory to find a song.

Do you keep all your clothes in one big drawer?

In your kitchen do you keep spoons, pans, tins, crockery all in one big drawer together?

And that makes things easier to find ?

BTW - MC's smartlists have the power to list duplicate files so you can tidy them up.  

If you want to find a specific track on your hard dive you don't need to go searching through all the directories.  From within MC you can right click and Locate> In Disk (External).  Or if you can just use the search function within Windows.

[jleerigby]

to be consistent with other calculated fields it's value is derived and should not be directly editable.

Several calculated fields are editable.

Like Filename (path) of Date (month) for example.  The only thing that determines whether they're editable is whether it'd make sense (and be possible) to edit and save changes.

Good point.  I stand corrected.

[JustinChase]

JLee, I see your point, and maybe using the search feature in MC would be easier, but I haven't tried it yet.  But, to answer you original question, no, I don't keep all my clothes in one drawer, but if I had a big enough drawer, I probably would.

Or look at it this way, I don't keep my pants in the bedroom, and my shirts in the kitchen, and my socks in the basement; it would be way to inefficient to find what I was looking for, I would know where they were, but it would be a pain to get any item. Having them in one dresser is the same to me as having them in one drawer; I know exactly where to look for everything, it's all in one place.  I keep my kitchen stuff in the kitchen, again all in one place.

I equate this to having all my music in e:\my music, and all my pictures in e:\my pictures, and all my videos in e:\my videos.

I just don't see the point in putting every album in a seperate directory, that would be like putting every different pair of socks or underware in a seperate drawer.  Way too hard to find an item, even though I know where it is, I still have to get there.

I have tried to find duplicates, but it didn't really work well in MC.  I will occasionally accidentally re-record an album I already have in MC.  Although I have some options checked somewhere (can't remember off the top of my head) that says to overwrite duplicates, MC just adds it to my library with a (1) on the end of the filename.  I could find no way to search for this anomoly and eliminate the dups.  Actually, i just remembered that once I accidentally was highliting many pictures to move to another location and accidentally moved my mouse while highliting, which copied all the pics to the same location, which led to the previously mentioned duplicates also.  What a pain to find and eliminate these files.

Anyway, if there is now a better way to find dups, I would love to know about it.

Thanks

[Deivit]

Do you keep all your clothes in one big drawer?

In your kitchen do you keep spoons, pans, tins, crockery all in one big drawer together?

Yes... and I use "Cloth Center 9.1" and "Kitchenware Center 9.1" to manage this stuff It's amazing what you can do with a smartlist of all your socks!!

Now seriously... I have a library of more than 60.000 tracks now and none of them are in artist or album directories... I have Media Center to manage my collection. All the files are carefully tagged so I don't need two ways of organizing it... Media Center does it for me.

[Matt]

We don't disagree that organizing (again) on the filesystem is a little redundant.  However, the album analyzer uses that info because there is really no other automatic way to know if albums with the same name in the same directory are one mix album or two separate albums.

Luckily it's easy to override mistakes made by the automatic logic by simply filling in the "Album Artist" field.  "Album Artist (auto)" always uses the "Album Artist" if its filled in, and then it's automatic logic second.

[haylo75]

Hi, I've been a user of MJ for quite some time and now MC -- by far the best media related software on the market.  I am having an issue with the way 9.1 displays the Multiple Artist albums in the Artist/Album tree.  8.0 displayed all my Multiple Artist albums under the heading '(mutliple artists)', which kept the Artist level of the tree very clean.  When I upgraded to 9.1 the '(multiple artists)' entry disappeared and now all the artists are broken out.  I've been reading this thread and am not exactly sure how to remedy the problem.

I tried naming the 'Album Artist' the same name for all tracks on one of my soundtracks.  Is there something I need to do to adjust the display method of the tree as well?  I'm no neophyte when it comes to using software, but nothing's jumping out at me.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Also, I'd like to add my 2 cents to the 'one directory or many directories' discussion.  I have a 15,000 track collection which I keep on a portable 120GB USB/FireWire hard drive.  From time to time I will take the drive to a friend's house and hook it up.  My collection is phsycally stored on the drive as it is logically displayed in the Artist/Album tree in MC.  In my experience, Explorer takes much less time too render a tree based Artist\Album\Track scheme as opposed to a dump of all files in a single directory.  If you don't do what I do with the portable drive then I can see the merits of using only one directory.  I haven't explored the directory naming utility in MC because I have ColdFusion script that does the file naming / directory / file moving for me.  I imagine it works easily though.  I guess it partly comes down to how 'type A' a person is!

Thanks again for a great piece of software!

Kerr