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[evo-no-revo]

I am very new here, plus not super computer savvy either.

I am importing different versions of same albums.  I have a vinyl rip version of Dark Side of the Moon.  Then I have a redbook cd rip version.  They both have different file names but they show up under the same album name in the library.  So, now I have two versions of each song under one album.  I can't seem to get them to import under two separate albums by the same name.  You can't listen to the album unless you want to hear each song twice.

Is this changed through the tag??

Here is an example of two files under same album.

C:\Users\Christopher\Music\Music\FLAC\Pink Floyd\1973 - The Dark Side Of The Moon (Vinyl MFSL UHQR 24Bit 96kHz)\01. Speak To Me.flac

   
C:\Users\Christopher\Music\Music\FLAC\PinkFloydDiscog\Dark Side of the Moon (MFSL)\01 Speak To Me.flac

[Frobozz]

Media Center is grouping the albums together by what's in the Album tag.  If two versions of the album have the same Album tag the files are going to get lumped together.  A solution is to give each version of the album its own unique Album tag.

For example, for my versions of DSOTM the Album tags I have are:
Dark Side of the Moon [Capitol 7 46001 2]
Dark Side of the Moon [MFSL]
Dark Side of the Moon [Remastered Doug Sax 1992]
Dark Side of the Moon [SACD] [Redbook]

I have used a unique name inside of square brackets to differentiate them.  They get grouped as separate albums without getting mixed together.

You'll need to get creative in searches to easily select the files for each album to be able to re-tag them.  The easiest way may be to go to the tree view on the left side of Media Center and browse by Files [Audio >> Files >> navigate by directory].  That way you'll be able to select all the files in a directory and change the Album tag to something unique.

[dcwebman]

This has been a problem for me too when I get two versions, an Explicit version and an Edited version of a CD. Same solution is to append something like (Explicit) at the end of the one. It is a royal pain trying to tag and get cover art for them though. The get cover art option looks ONLY for the exact name so I have to rename the album, get the cover, and then rename it back. The cover art option needs the ability to edit the album name searched. If an album name isn't found, being able to type in a search could find the one you want.

[evo-no-revo]

Perfect!! Thanks much,

Cheers,

Christopher   

[Alex B]

It is a royal pain trying to tag and get cover art for them though. The get cover art option looks ONLY for the exact name so I have to rename the album, get the cover, and then rename it back. The cover art option needs the ability to edit the album name searched. If an album name isn't found, being able to type in a search could find the one you want.

I have requested this a few times. A similar function is already nicely implemented in the "Lookup Movie Info From Wikipedia" tool.

[Bill S]

evo-no-revo,

For me I think of this situation as the same album but with different versions.  So rather than combining version information with the album title, which effectively causes each version to be treated as a different album, I added a couple of fields to hold version information:

  Version    (Version of the album)
  Ver Year   (Year this version was released)


I then organize/group my albums in my views and schemes first by  Year - Album, then followed by  Ver Year - Version.  For example:

  1972 - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars
     1981 - MFSL 1-064 [Needledrop]
     1994 - Ryko RCD 80134 [Au20]
     2003 - EMI 521900 2

To play I first select the album and then the desired version of the album.  I organized it this way because to me this more closely matches the data structure (album and version of the album).  Of course this is just IMO and the other suggestions are just as valid.  

[221bBS]

Over the years I have stopped using the default fields as my primary fields. Instead I have been using custom fields with expressions to organize most of my collection. With Albums I use the following fields...

Album: Base
Album: Performer
Album: Edition
Album: Version
Album: Remastered

Disc #
DiscTitle

Two custom date fields using the expression from

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=57562.0

Date: Released
Date: Version

When I group my albums in the main view I use all the fields as follows..

[Date: Released (Year)]: [Album: Base] [[Album: Performer]] [disc [Disc #]: [DiscTitle]][[Album: Edition]] [Album: Remastered] [[Album: Version]]  <[Date: Version (Year)]>

Date: Released (Year) & Date: Version (Year) are calculated fields using Date: Released & Date: Version

Basically an album would look like this...

1994: Best of Joseph Haydn [Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra feat. conductor: Herbert von Karajan] [disc 2: Symphonies] [Japanese]

1994: Best of Joseph Haydn [Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra feat. conductor: Herbert von Karajan] [disc 2: Symphonies] [10th Anniversary Edition] [Remastered] [Japanese] <2004>

I've set the expression up so that Date: Version (Year) only appears if is doesn't equal Date: Released (Year)

The way I organize my entire collection is a bit complex but it gives me greater control over my data 

[MusicHawk]

Variation on the stated ideas:

I add to the album title an extra classifying term if necessary to make the title unique: [British], [MONO], etc. Of course this messes up album cover lookup, so I do that first. Or I temporarily change just one track, locate the cover art for that track, then copy+paste it into all tracks. OR (usually) I get the cover art some other way (very few of my albums seem to be in MC's database).

Even more important in my library is to handle variations in TRACKS of the same song name and artist. Some performers did the same song several times, or there are different mixes of even the same session (Beatles are notoriously different mono vs. stereo), different edits, etc. I don't want to alter the song name because it won't group properly "by Name". So I added a separate field just below Name (RecVer). It's normally blank, but when necessary it has a terse term to identify the particular recording version (RecVer). It might be VER1988 to distinguish from VER1991, or STUDIO vs. LIVE. Or VER1 vs. VER2. Or ALT. Or a BRITISH. Or MONO vs. STEREO. Or MIX1 vs. MIX2. Or whatever.

Then -- final piece -- the track file naming expression adds RecVer (if non-blank) to the end of the file name, prefixed by a tilde, so I have a locked-down, controlled file name (rather than let MC assign (1), (2), etc, which isn't stable).

So I might end up with multiple tracks of same artist, same song, different RecVer, that the expression names like this:
beatles - help ~mono.flac
beatles - help ~stereo.flac
beatles - help ~movie.flac
etc.
(Regardless of capitalization in tags, I force all file names to lowercase to avoid problems with different platforms and operating systems.)