Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mlundy57]

Does anyone know how to set/change a primary key in MC 17.0.189? Whenever I rip or download albums with multiple artists, MC organizes them into separate albums. For example, when I downloaded and imported Ray Charles "Genius Loves Company" instead of one album with 12 tracks I ended up with 12 albums with one track each.

How do I (1) combine these tracks into one album in the MC library and (2) prevent this from happening in the future?

Thanks

[syn-ack]

I don't think that is typical behavior. Do you have this occurring on multiple works?

[mlundy57]

Yes. Anytime there are multiple artists this happens. It is like the Album/Artist field is being used as the primary key instead of the Album field. I am assuming the library functions like any database where sorting is done on primary and secondary keys.

[syn-ack]

Multiple artists? You mean each song has several artists in the artist field? If so, you need to sort by album artist rather than artist.

[mlundy57]

I want it to sort by album so that all the songs on an album are grouped together under one entry instead of multiple entries.  The problem is I don't know how to make it do that. When an album is ripped in or downloaded all the tracks are grouped together in a single folder for that album on the hard drive. But when I import the folder to MC it shows up as multiple album entries. For example, with the Ray Charles album I mentioned earlier. when I go to Audio -> Genre -> Jazz the album cover shows up 12 separate times, each one with only one track. I want the album cover to show up one time with all 12 tracks in it just like it does when all the tracks have the same artist.

[mlundy57]

Multiple artists? You mean each song has several artists in the artist field? If so, you need to sort by album artist rather than artist.

No, I mean each song has a different artist listed (various artists). For the Ray Charles album one song has Ray Charles and B.B. King, another has Ray Charles and Bonnie Raitt, another is Ray Charles and Elton John, etc.

[syn-ack]

Keep the Album Artist field the same across the album, and use the Artist field for the individual artists. Typically people use Various Artists in the Album Artist field, then the respective individual artists in the Artist field.

[mlundy57]

Thanks, that works.

Wish there was some way to control that upfront during the import process or as user defined default settings rather than having to rename the fields individually. For one or two albums at a time it is not too big a deal but if I were importing my entire collection it would be a real chore.

[syn-ack]

Excellent, glad that worked for ya...  

I am somewhat OCD when it comes to tagging and album art. I use a separate program that allows mass changes to both tags and filenames. First thing I do when I get new music is use it to rename the files/folder structure, then strip all the tags, and then recreate them (some based on the file/folder structure, which is simple having renamed all the files/folders... others such as genre I manually specify then apply to the entire album at once). The program is called Tag&Rename.

I get most of my album art from www.albumartexchange.com. They don't have the largest collection, but they have the highest quality.