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[rhom]

hi,

MC 9.1.316

in the artist field what character is used as a delimiter for multiple artists on the same track to let it display in the media library under both artists?

ie a duet on a compilation cd for artist1 and artist2

i have tried several characters like the comma, semicolon and pipe but none of these appear to work.  or is there something else i need to do?

thanks
raymond

[JustinChase]

Great question.  I know of no such character, but if it does exist, I would like to use it.  Right now I just have them listed with commas, and they show up as artists just the way I have them entered.

I know that for the keyword field, semicolon is the delimiter (using version 10), but I never tried it for artist.

Just checked, does not work in v10 either.

Would certainly be cool if it did.

[Quisp]

You can't really do what you want to do the way you want to do it.

But you can get the result you want within MC. This question comes up at least once a month and has been answered many times in depth.

Basically, you need to create a new delimited field, copy the artist info and delimit with a semicolon. Then you can use this field instead of artist in your views.

Works great and if you make it part of your workflow, it isn't that big a deal. Just create a playlist where artists is blank and do a batch copy on the results from the artist field to the artists field.

[rhom]

Hi,

i did do a search for multiple artists before posting and nothing came up?

i also figured out what you said about using another field.  i entered the same artist info into People field and it just worked properly like you say (and like i wanted).

i tried to automate it by creating a new computed library field that equalled [Artist] but that doesn't work, looks like you can't have a computed list type field, just strings.  i did try making it the same as People instead, casuse that was a list, just to make sure, but it ends up back as one big string of artists instead.

maybe the developers could make the computed fields have data types as well so we can have computed lists?

thanks
raymond

[JustinChase]

Check the 'Keyword' field.  I know you can semi-colon delimit that field.  It works great.

I meant to copy its' format for your custom field.

[quang]

Hi,

I used '&' in artist field. Eg: with file "song 1" I wrote "artist 1 & artist 2" into artist field.

Then, there are not "artist 1", "artist 2" in scheme artist.  There's only row "artist 1 & artist 2".

Can I use '&' as delimiter ?

Thanks for interesting!

quang.

[GreggP]

I'm interested in finding a solution for this as well. If I understand this, the solution is to create a new field with a datatype that supports lists instead of just a string (which is the datatype for the ARTIST field). Then copy the ARTIST field to the new field with the list datatype.

So, what fields support lists?

And, if you have albums that include tracks with multiple artists (like Santana's Supernatural) is there an easy way to convert the string into a list? -- I'm assuming you have to manually update each track.

What about new albums added to the media library? When you rip the album, MC uses YADB to get the album info. Does YADB store multiple artists per track? If so, is there a set delimiter that will work during import?

For a good example of the type of functionality I'd like MC to support, take a look at the way WMP9/AMG handles multiple artists per track.

[JustinChase]

So, what fields support lists?

the Keyword field does, the delimiter is semi-colon { ; }

[JaysonG]

Will the artist field ever suuport lists?

really in the future it'd be cool if all fields did. It would save space on my pc for songs on more than one album I have.

[rocketsauce]

Will the artist field ever suuport lists?

really in the future it'd be cool if all fields did. It would save space on my pc for songs on more than one album I have.

The problem is that allowing delimited data in standard tag fields (like artist, album, etc) would most likely break compatibility with other software. While I think that delimited fields would be a great feature, I would rather have MC follow the various tag format specifications so that the tags are readable/editable no matter what program I am using.

Rob

[GreggP]

The problem is that allowing delimited data in standard tag fields (like artist, album, etc) would most likely break compatibility with other software. While I think that delimited fields would be a great feature, I would rather have MC follow the various tag format specifications so that the tags are readable/editable no matter what program I am using.

Have you ever looked at the way multiple artists per track are supported in Windows Media Player 9? They don't seem to have a problem with compatibility. Besides, MC is the only program I may need to use for managing my music. I can't see a reason to use any other tagging and editing programs. If the ID3v2 spec states that only one name is allowed in the artist field, it should be updated to handle a list. There are many tracks credited to 2 or more artists. It's about time the metadata reflected this. Anyhow, WMA doesn't have this limitation and I rip everything to WMA lossless. Could we at least get support for this with WMAs?

[mirdle]

Have the program developers ever given us a good answer to this recurrent question?  I too don't understand why in Windows Media Player this is implemented but not in MC.  All you have to do in WMP is enter a semicolon between artist names and then each name can be searched on and displayed individually.

[darichman]

As stated earlier, this topic gets brought up all the time here.

So, what fields support lists?

You can check this yourself. Go to Tools --> Options --> Library
Click on any of the fields, press edit and look at data type. Technically, any field supports lists through MC, it's just that J River doesn't allow us to edit some of the default fields (like Artist & Genre). Any user created (custom) field, however, may be set to a delimited list ( ";" is the delimiter, not "&")

So as others have stated, there is a workaround (just create custom list field and use the copy fields function) but I believe this is clumsy and unnecessary when there is an easy fix: just let us change the data type for artist/genre etc IF WE WANT TO. I don't see any value in having to duplicate information inside the tag.

The problem is that allowing delimited data in standard tag fields (like artist, album, etc) would most likely break compatibility with other software.

Not true. Current ID3 tags don't store lists. It's up to the software to recognise a delimiter and construct the list. I think windows media player uses "/". So if my artist is stored in the ID3 tag as Bob / Fred, I will get two separate list entries in WMP, whereas in MC, I get "Bob / Fred" as a single entry.

If MC allows us to delimit default fields, I can enter "Bob; Fred" as my artist and get two separate list entries. Compataibility with other programs wouldn't be severed, the field would just show up as the single entry "Bob; Fred" in other media players.

Have the program developers ever given us a good answer to this recurrent question?

No, I don't think a satisfactory answer has been provided by development staff. I think it's about time this happened though.