I’ve made some modifications to my library views and tags, but I am still not quite where I hoped to be. Since my last post …
I selected Artists>View>Customize View and removed everything except “Artist” and then I selected Albums>View> Customize View and removed everything except “Album”.
For every track in every album, I’ve made sure there is always a value assigned to every Album, Album Artist, Album Artist (auto) and Artist tag.
The value in my Album tags (which is album name) is always the same across all tracks in the album, and this is true whether the album is a “single artist” or a “multiple artists” album. In contrast, the “single artist versus multiple artists” distinction makes a difference when it comes to how I've edited Album Artist, Album Artist (auto) and Artist tags.
For a “single artist” album the value in the Artist tag (i.e., the name of the artist) is always the same across all tracks, but for a “multiple artists” album the value in the Artist tag varies by track with the name of the artist that’s associated with that particular track.
The value in the Album Artist and Album Artist (auto) tags is always the same across all tracks in any album, but when it’s a “single artist” album that value is the name of the artist whereas if it’s a “multiple artists” album then that value is something arbitrary and generic such as “multiple artists.” In my library, I’ve chosen to use the word “Compilation” for the Album Artist and Album Artist (auto) tags associated with all tracks on all my “multiple artists” albums.
These refinements in my library views and my tagging have produced exactly the results that I wanted when I use JRiver on my laptop; however, when I use the Gizmo app on my tablet the results are not quite the same – at least not with respect to the handling of the “multiple artist” albums.
When I access the Artist directory with Gizmo, “Compilation” shows up as one of the artists listed. When “Compilation” is selected, the result is a list of my albums that have multiple artists. When any of those albums is selected, the result is a list of the tracks on that album. In other words, when using Gizmo, the artist names associated with the individual tracks on my multiple artist albums are completely lost (which is not the case in JRiver itself).
Is there something that I can do differently so that the Artist and Album directories in Gizmo will behave the same as they do in JRiver or is what I’ve described here just something that’s due to a limitation in the Gizmo app for which there is no workaround at present?