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[avid]

Is there an existing tool, plug-in, external utility or script that I can use (or hack) to set the "album artist" property on all my tracks?

What I think I want is to pass over all my music:
  For all albums:
    If every track on the album has the same artist:
      Set "album artist" for all its tracks to that artist
    Otherwise
      Set "album artist" for all its tracks to something like "Multiple Artists"

The rationale is to be able to use "album artist" as the first sorting key. The (auto) variant seems to give me lots of artists with just one track on a single compilation album - not what I want. I will find those tracks instead from a different album-based view scheme.

The alternative would be for me to code up a simple C++ app using the COM interface. I assume that this is pretty easy, as I have done quite a lot of development using the WMP9 object model, and I would hope there are similarities. Can anyone recommend a good "library manipulation" example I caould use as a basis?

Or maybe I am just going about this the wrong way and need to think more laterally. Opinions welcome.

Thanks

Brian
     

[StiX]

  For all albums:
    If every track on the album has the same artist:
      Set "album artist" for all its tracks to that artist
    Otherwise
      Set "album artist" for all its tracks to something like "Multiple Artists"

It's not totally clear how your proposed way will be better than regular [Auto Album (auto)] field-function. For Albums of "Compilation" Release Type with only 1 single track (if I understood you correctly) you would need to manually change the Album Artist to (Multiple Artists) or "Various Artists" to designate such tracks, as this can't be automatically determined neither way. You should understand that [Auto Album (auto)] uses both [Artist] and [Album Artist] fields.

[avid]

Ah - I see the point your are making (this is what I meant by "need to think more laterally"). It is a far easier job to change the "Album Artist" fields of compilations than it is to set it for all the other single artist albums. And this is a job that would be reasonable to do manually. THEN, I can safely use "Album Artist (auto)".

My understanding of "Album Artist (auto)" is that it uses "Album Artist" if it is set, and then otherwise "Artist". I have never actually seen this behavior documented, though I have looked! Can anyone confirm it?

Thanks

Brian

[risingdamp]

Album artist (auto) will use album artist if set otherwise it will attempt to determine whether the album is a multi-artist album and use the name of the single artist or '(Multiple artists)'.  In otherwords album artist (auto) should do everything you need with little manual intervention.

I suggest you create a temporary view scheme showing all tracks where with album artist (auto) = (Multiple artists).  Then review all items to see if they really are (Multiple artists) and update the album artist field if they are not. 

An example of where you might do this is if you have a single artist album where just one or two tracks are duets with a guest singer.  You would probably want to overwrite the album artist field so it's not deemed to be Multiple artists.

Going through your whole library and explicitly setting album artist for every album kinda defeats the object of the very handy functionality that album artist (auto) gives you.

[avid]

Well,

That's very good news that "Artist Album (auto)" *should* do what I want. I could not believe that I would be the only person that wanted this view.

However, it does not seem to work for me! See the two screen shots:
and

Should this happen?

Brian

[Rob L]

There are reasons why you might want to set the album artist specifically for compilations though - for instance, I want all my compilations to live in the "Various Artists" folder. But apart from that, I think Album Artist (Auto) works fine for me.

The screenshots you've tried to link to don't work by the way - reading this thread causes my browser to prompt me for a username and password for your website!

[avid]

The screenshots you've tried to link to don't work by the way - reading this thread causes my browser to prompt me for a username and password for your website!

Aaaarghh! I'll find somewhere else to put them. Thanks for the heads up.

But the gist of my understanding now is that "Artist Album (auto)" *should* do what I want, and if it doesn't, then it is probably a bug of some sort. I am happier with bugs - they tend to get fixed. But if I am not "going with the flow" of how MC is meant to be used, then that would be more of a problem for me.

Brian

[avid]

OK - images fixed. Thanks again for the heads up and thanks to the moderator for clearing up behind me!

Brian

[StiX]

The situation you depicted is very strange. I tried to find such a bug, but I couldn't. What are you seeing in Info Panel? What is the value of the "Album Artist (auto)" field there?

[avid]

The situation you depicted is very strange. I tried to find such a bug, but I couldn't. What are you seeing in Info Panel? What is the value of the "Album Artist (auto)" field there?

A picture is worth 1000 words:



Brian

[skeeterfood]

Quick question:  Are all the files from this album in the same directory?  I believe that somehow feeds into the calculation...

-John

[avid]

OK - I've got it now. Thanks everyone for the help.

The issue was that this was the first compilation I had ripped using MC11. As I mentioned earlier, I am in the middle of migrating the music part of my moderately complex HTPC setup from WMP to MC. Most of my library had been ripped with WMP.

Anyway, MC's default directory for a ripped CD is "[Artist]\[Album]". And this placed each of the ripped files in a separate directory. And this (as john pointed out) affects the "Album Artist (auto)" calculation. So I have changed my ripping options to  "[Album Artist (auto)]\[Album]" and re-ripped and all is now well.

So I now have a working library. Thanks yet again.

But does this indicate that the default option is not ideal??

Brian