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[JONCAT]

I store certain genres' multiple artist albums in specific folders so as to have pareticular view schemes for them.

In order to utilize the Tiles I have been editing some of the Album Artist (auto) fields of artists who I would like to show up in the Tiles instead of being "buried" in the respective Multiple Artsits tiles that I have set up by editing the fields. So my less common and less-listened to artists stay tucked away in the M.A. tiles and it cleans up the Tiles ( U Roy & The Wailers, U Roy & Alton Ellis, U Roy & etc..... = U Roy) I do want to easily view & explore. This works well because you any songs in regard to any type of perceived relationship, from a Multiple Artists album into one Tile.

Anyway....
The Panes view cannot properly display this information whereas the Tile view can. In Panes there are albums thumbnails for every various incarnation of the album that has a different Album Artist (auto) entry.

Is there a way to allow the Statistics to pull it's Artist - Album stats from the Tile view. Statistics>Overview gives the proper amount of albums, but if one tries to make an Artist - Album list there are redundancies reflecting the Panes view e.g. I end up showing 3,000+ albums when I have 1270.

thanks,
Dr. C

[JONCAT]

Also quick question:

I just sorted through my Multiple Artists albums that have put in a specific folder. I edited Album Artist (auto) to change that field and leave Artist the same.

I t now appears that when editing albums that are NOT Multiple Artists albums I have to edit the Album Artist field exclusively; if I use (auto) it changes the Artist field.

Is this normal behavior because of the different nature's of multi albums as opposed to albums that are the property of one artist?

Dr. C

[marko]

[album artist (auto)] is not really a field you should edit directly.

If the [album artist] field is populated, [album artist (auto)] will mirror [album artist]

If [album artist] is empty, and you have a single artist album, [album artist (auto)] mirrors the [artist] field

If [album artist] is empty, and you have a multi-artist album, [album artist (auto)] is filled with (multiple artists)

For the last scenario to work as described, all the tracks must be in the same folder, have the same [album] and different [artist] fields.
So, if you wish to control the contents of [album artist (auto)], use the [album artist] field.

[Alex B]

Dr.,

As marko said, you are not supposed to edit the Album Artist (auto) field at all. If you edit it, it changes the field from where it got the content in case the value is not "(Multiple Artists)".

You should add an album artist manually only with the Album Artist field. The Album Artist (auto) field  uses automaticaly that value. If the automatic value is OK (e.g. with a single artist album) then you don't need to make manual edits.

In MC the Album Artist field is used only for overriding the auto value when needed. The Album Artist (auto) field should be used for anything that shows up (view schemes, searches, filename templetes etc).

Anyway....
The Panes view cannot properly display this information whereas the Tile view can. In Panes there are albums thumbnails for every various incarnation of the album that has a different Album Artist (auto) entry.

Is there a way to allow the Statistics to pull it's Artist - Album stats from the Tile view. Statistics>Overview gives the proper amount of albums, but if one tries to make an Artist - Album list there are redundancies reflecting the Panes view e.g. I end up showing 3,000+ albums when I have 1270.

Besides a common album name, the tracks included in an album can have only one Album Artist (auto) field value in MC. If you have more, then you have split the album to separate albums.

Please recheck the album rules from MC help or from the thread where I posted them.

On my library the stats show a correct album amount and the panes view and tile view have the same items.


BTW, you could have continued the previous thread. It would be more useful for other users if they could see the earlier discussion.

[JONCAT]

I'll copy or request this be copied to the previous discussion.

Question:

If I want to overide the (auto) field for an artist that is on a (Multiple Artist) album, I edit the Album Artist field. Then the (auto) field changes to that artist's name. We're not really "overriding" anything. We should have the ability to sort in Tiles/search/etc. by Album Artist (auto)....split multi albums up for organizational purposes but have them retained by MC as multi albums for purposes of statistics.

I probably have an incomplete understanding of this so I will do as you suggested and read the Help again and find that previous thread.

thanks!
Dr. C

[marko]

Question:

If I want to overide the (auto) field for an artist that is on a (Multiple Artist) album, I edit the Album Artist field. Then the (auto) field changes to that artist's name. We're not really "overriding" anything. We should have the ability to sort in Tiles/search/etc. by Album Artist (auto)....split multi albums up for organizational purposes but have them retained by MC as multi albums for purposes of statistics.

I probably have an incomplete understanding of this so I will do as you suggested and read the Help again and find that previous thread.

thanks!
Dr. C

The key is [album artist (auto)]

take the example below:



I've added Jools Holland to the [album artist] field. Without it, MC would make this a (Multiple Artists) album instead of a Jools Holland one.

If I'd used [artist] for the panes instead of [album artist (auto)] then each of these artists would be listed, but not jools holland. I do not use the artist field very often, if at all in viewschemes, mostly using it for exclusive, manual searches.

[Alex B]

In this screenshot I have selected two DJ Ferry Corsten's albums. "Passport" is a DJ mix album, but "Right of way" is a solo album and the only artist is Ferry himself. "Passport" had originally (Multiple Artists) in the Album Artist (auto) field, but I wanted to file it as Ferry's album.

The statistics are correct for these two albums.

[JONCAT]

Alex -  I see, but did you make that DJ mix album ALL Ferry Thorsten? I assume you did, but even if you have not it would show up as one album in the instance you illustrate.

The problem arises when I want to split a multi-artist album up so that I can see ALL tracks by an artist in Tiles view.

If Prince Buster has a few tracks on a mix album that is buried (in Tiles Albums view) in (Multiple Artists) or whatever Album Artist (auto) field I have created, those tracks are NOT listed under the Tile for the Artist, Prince Buster. They remain "buried" in the mulit-artist album.

So I wanted to change some of the Prince Buster tracks to have, Prince Buster as the Album Artist (auto) field so they will be added, and not the other esoteric artists, to the Album Artist (auto) Tiles view.

This way I don't have the default Artists Tiles view with 1,000's of Artists of whom I only have a few tracks as they are spread out over hundreds of multi-artists albums. I don't have a default Album Artist (auto) view which excludes any artists who may be popular to me & have tons of tracks, but are found ONLY on mulit-artsist cd's. I have a modifed Album Artists (auto) view that incorporates particular Artists's tracks from multiple artist cd's. In the same light I have to go in a modify the Artists' names when they happen to be a little different to further "clean up" this view. e.g. Bob Dylan & The Band, Bob Dylan & The Dead = Bob Dylan.

The trade-off, unless there is another way to do this, is the stas problem mentioned earlier.

www.catuccio.net/Clipboard01.jpg

thanks,
Dr. C
 

[JONCAT]

IF you have a giant library certain artists may appear only once in your library with one or two songs but overall, all combined they contribute an excessive amount of these artists which you want to for album continuity sake but viewing your Artists field becomes overwhelming.

So in choosing Album Artist (auto) you get to weed out these artist by labeling the Artist Album field which "reports" to the Album Artist (auto) field (when filled in).

Either way you cut you are stuck by MC in two ways

 Whether you choose Artists or Album Artist (auto) to represent your view scheme, you end up breaking up Various Artists albums. In Album Artist (auto) for instance, all of these albums fall under (Multiple Artists), so when you browse to a Tile, Bob Dylan for example, any songs on Multiple Artist albums are not displayed. So the workaround is to go into those albums and rename the Album Artist field for Bob Dylan's songs; in doing so the album is now assigned to both Bob Dylan, and statistics are inccorect. (My curiousity lies in whether or not MC could add to Bob Dylan's albums a tile of all the items (songs) found in the (Multiple Artists) field..by using something similar to the search function how it finds ANY instance of the entry - this would be great as it seems rather unintuitve that MC does not now do so).

Using the Artists view scheme would avoid this but I really dislike this view scheem for reasons mentioned above, and also because you can not maintain any unique Artist names
or duets. Many old records have mispellings or various spellings that would be nice to maintain for posterity and the use of the Album Artist field could group the various Artists fields as one...except Artist view scheme by default displays the Artist field! The workaround has been mentioned to fill in this information, such as duets, in another field, but with various spellings and monikers
it seems like all this adds up to a lot of legwork for the user.

MC is, as far as archiving is concerned in regards to the statistics, not perfect...I'm not complaing...the system I have outlined works great for me but the statistics get screwy; I just wanted to clear up my previous comments and hopefully stimulate some ideas. Many thanks to Marko & Alex B for initially enlightening me as to the differences between the Artist Album (auto) fields and the like. You two are definitely essential reading for the rest of us.

v/r
Dr. Cilantro