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[syndromeofadown]

Duplicate albums annoy me because when I select their album thumbnail all versions play at the same time.
track 1 then track 1 then track 1 then track 2....
There are some duplicate albums I want, and many I don't.
Regardless of weather I want them or not there is just too many to go through and manually delete or rename.
So I instead modified my views to deal with them.
I made it so i no longer select an album and have MC play multiple versions at the same time.
track 1 then track 1 then track 1 then track 2....
I did this by creating a custom field Called "UniqueName"
It is a calculated field with this as its expression:
[Album Artist]  -  [Album]  (around 100 spaces) [filename (path)]

The view i use is panes with details grouped by [UniqueName]
Now duplicate albums are shown separate because they are located in different folders
Because there are so many spaces in the [UniqueName] field, the filename doesn't show up my screen.
Just the album artist and album are visible.

If anyone knows a better way to separate duplicate albums please let me know.
It would be nice if there was a view modifier called 'show duplicate albums separately'

[MrC]

How about grouping by Filename (path), or something like [bitrate], or other already existing, distinguishing field?

[syndromeofadown]

The field you group by is the field that appears in the header of the grouping.
It is also the what determines the order the groups are displayed.
I want to see album and artist not a file path.
The way i explained is the only way i can up with to display and sort by album while separating using filename(path)

[MrC]

Does this not work for you?

[BartMan01]

May be a stupid question, but exactly WHY do you have duplicate albums?  Are they exact duplicates or similar albums with the same name but different track lists?  When I have a non-US version of an album with a different track list I append the release country to the end of the album name like Queen Greatest Hits [UK].  When I have exact duplicates (I have the new 96/24k Moving Pictures BluRay and an older CD version), I use stacks and put the highest quality track on top.

[syndromeofadown]

WHY do you have duplicate albums?

Typically when i buy an album i get a CD with a digital download in 24/96 and mp3.
When the cd arrives i rip it to flac. I buy a lot of cds.
I have some albums on blu-ray and dvd-audio as well.
Then there are remasted and deluxe editions.
My entire family's music is in the same library so that also adds unnecessary duplicates.

I have a naming system i use but it is a work in progress.
I am consuming media faster than i can organize it.

My recent discovery of how to get it to display the way i want made things so nice i posted it here.


I will look into stacks to see how they work. i have never tried using them before.

[MrC]

Take a look again at the image (which I updated after posting).  If that works, I'll explain how to do it.  Note that Album, Artist and the Album's parent folder are being shown.

[BartMan01]

Makes sense on why you have the duplicates.  One common album naming convention for remasters is to add [Remaster] to the end of the album name.  With my Rush example from above, I have two albums in my library 'Moving Pictures' and 'Moving Pictures [96/24]'.  They are stacked with the tracks from the [96/24] version are on top.  Each song on that album actually has 3 song in the stack:  The 96/24 Stereo BluRay FLAC version on top, and the CD FLAC version and MP3 (for syncing to iTunes or streaming to devices that can't deal with FLAC) within the stack.  I also thought about throwing in the 5.1 mix tracks as well, but haven't taken the time to split them out to separate tracks from the BluRay rip yet.

MrC's example might work better if you actually want to see and choose from the various versions.  For me, I always want the highest quality version possible and stacks lets me get to that while still keeping the duplicate files there but hidden.

One thing I also use for duplicate tracks is the following from Marko:
http://www.theganghut.co.uk/mc/dupes/index.php
That lets me filter out my main views so that only one copy of exact duplicates shows for general playback, but for complete album playback I can still use/see all of the files on that album.  I take the concept a step further and have a custom 'Name (Base)' field that I use for filtering duplicates.  The Name (Base) field contains the raw track name, so 'Song', 'Song (Live)', 'Song (Alt Version)', and 'Song (Remix)' all have the same base name of 'Song'.

[rick.ca]

One common album naming convention for remasters is to add [Remaster] to the end of the album name.

I think that's a good example, because it illustrates what's true about all these albums. They're not literally duplicates.There's a significant difference between them—one which presumably justifies their being retained in the Library. They're different versions of an original album. In accepting that, most would find the practice of appending a version tag to the name of the album an acceptable solution. It keeps them separate—because they are separate.

If there are a large number of albums with multiple versions, however, it's easy to imagine how this may not be enough. The solution in that case is to record the version tag as a separate field. Albums would then be grouped by [Artist] - [Album] - [Version]. It will then be possible to filter a view according to [Version]. If care is taken to use consistent values, it can be used to permanently include or exclude versions from a particular view, select preferred types or highest quality versions from a pane, in smartlists, etc.

It seems nothing is currently distinguishing these different versions other than the file path. Therein probably lies an efficient solution to the problem. Each of these albums is currently in a different folder, but [Album] is shared with different versions. Unless those folder names are completely haphazard, the difference between them and [Album] might be a reasonable value for [Version]. The best case would be the folder name is already "[Album] [Version]" or something reasonably close. The worse case is it's completely haphazard, and then [Version] would have to be set to the folder name. But various techniques could then be used to massage those values into proper version values.

[Frobozz]

I have multiple versions of some albums, especially for some of my favorite albums that I like to collect and compare the different masterings.

What I do is add a descriptor in square brackets as part of the album name.  That keeps the different versions separate and allows me to easily see which version I'm looking at.  So for example:
Album [Bonus Tracks]
Album [Deluxe Edition]
Album [EMI]
Album [Capitol] [Bonus Tracks]
Album [Rhino] [Bonus Tracks]
Album [Amazon MP3]
Album [Remastered 2001]
Album [30th Anniversary Edition]

Etc.  Use whatever descriptors work for you.  The goal is to separate the different versions.  Be consistent so it's easy to group and organize.

It is possible to make a separate tag and use the database capabilities in MC to append the tag to the album title and accomplish much the same.  But that only works when you view your library in MC.  What if you transfer an album to a MP3 player or want to play your library in some other media player?  Then that special tag doesn't work.  So I add the descriptor to the album title to dumb things down so my naming system works outside of MC as well.

[MrC]

I think this is probably an important aspect of the OPs requirements:

Regardless ... there is just too many to go through and manually delete or rename.

[glynor]

Stacks might solve it and could be applied in an automated fashion.

When I get multiple versions of the same exact albums (usually digital downloads in multiple formats, such as download a MP3 now, get FLAC later), I stack them with the highest quality version on top.

Or I delete the crappier ones.