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[p7389]

With all these (wonderful) bonus discs you get, you get a lot of tracks tagged like "Most of the Time (Alternate Version #2)", etc. I'm slowly forming the intention to do something about this eyesore for, partly, aesthetic value, and partly, due to the scrobbling stats at Last.fm (listening to this alternate version should count towards a listen of "Most of the Time", I think).

So what I am thinking is creating a new database field (or use the comment field) where I put this information that otherwise would appear inside the parenthesis. In MC this field could be set to display right after the title. I like the idea. Anyone else doing something similar? It would be *really* great if MC could officially support something like this, in the respect that when syncing to a device, this extra field is merged into the title in the ID3-tag. (Not vital though.)

[MusicHawk]

I struggled with this, because there are many ways that a given song by a given artist can be recorded multiple times: Alternate version, alternate take, later remake, album version vs. single version, long version vs. short version, live version (maybe several different live versions), etc, etc.

I created a custom field RecVer -- Recording Version. In my views it is right next to the Name field. If I have two or more versions of a song title ("Name") I add something to RecVer. My convention is all-caps, no spaces, so it might be VER1, VER2 or ALT1, or LIVE or LiVE1, LIVE2, LIVE3 or REMAKE or LONG, SHORT, or whatever. I try to use consistent terms though that's not absolutely necessary.

One benefit is that I can build or sort a view based on Name and all recordings of the song will be grouped together, whether they are live or alternate takes or whatever. That makes sense because they are the same song. If the Name values had parentheses or other junk added, they wouldn't be seen as the same song. Separating Recording Version from song Name gets rid of the problem (basic database design says to not mix different types of data in one field).

But... There can be a problem renaming files if the formula includes Name because multiple tracks will have the same Name value. I don't want to leave it to MC to handle this, because it only does in some situations. So my Rename formula appends the RecVer value, if not blank, to the name. If I have given a different RecVer value to each version of a track that has the same Name, the files will always have unique names, an important goal. (I always rename to be unique rather than relying solely on folders.)

[p7389]

Thanks for your insight into this! It will be very helpful (especially that last bit... and the first bit...). I will definitely adpot some of the things you mentioned when I work out my own system.

[p7389]

I've started; let me update you on what I am doing.

Custom field: Recording version, list field, containing such things as ALTERNATE;ACOUSTIC;OUTTAKE;LIVE;ETC:, but also DUPLICATE which will be good to have in tagging collections that contain a couple of rare tracks but mostly just stuff that's elsewhere.

And, a revelation: another custom field: Associated Album - so stuff tagged with OUTTAKE or LIVE gets its associated album in this field... I foresee greatness in this! I will extend it to proper live albums later too, I think. This field will be a deafault search field.

There is a lot of work to be done here, but I think it will be worth it.

Thinking about some other reforms too... An original artist field for covers...

[dcwebman]

I guess I just took the easy way out and used the Comment field since it's a drop down and limited in text anyway. Longer info I put in Notes.