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[Madien]

Hello !

I have difficulties to link/group tracks of the same album. I have 12 covers for one album instead of only one.
Each track is from a separate artist.

How can I link these 12 tracks so that I have only one cover ?

Many thanks in advance for your help
Madien

[tcman41]

set album artist tag to all the same name

TC

[haralson]

Hello, Madien ...

I'm sorry you're having trouble, but I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who is experiencing the problem you described. On 27 November I posted an enquiry about it ("Managing Albums and Playlists"). 41 people have read it, but nobody has responded.

Maybe it will help if I cite an example:

I downloaded the classic Getz/Gilberto jazz album from HDtracks. It has eight tracks, which appear in the usual order. I imported the album into MC15 as a Playlist. The eight tracks appear and play in the proper order when I use the "Playlist" mode. HOWEVER, when I look at the album in the "Audio" mode, it is broken down into four (4) different categories, all of which have exactly the same title. The first category includes tracks 1, 2, 4 and 6 (in that order); the second includes tracks 3 and 8 (in that order); the third category includes track 5, alone; and the fourth includes track 7, alone. MOREOVER, the four categories are represented by four (4) identical album covers when viewed in that mode.

I have tried in vain to identify unique wording in the album name, artist name, filename, you name it, but I can find no distinguishing content that might explain this bizarre behavior. I have one album with twenty-seven (27) tracks. Yep. I get twenty-seven (27) identical album covers!

Won't someone at JRiver please take pity on Madien and me and help us solve this strange puzzle?

THANKS !!

[JimH]

You can always add track numbers to any group.  Select what you want.  Right click.  Library Tools/Fill track numbers from list order.

Excellent choice of music.

[haralson]

Jim ... Thanks for your response. I tried it, and the tracks in "Audio" flipped into chronological order.

But I still have four (4) different (but idential) album covers for the Getz/Gilberto album and eleven (11) different (but identical) album covers for my Mahler 8.

WHY do the tracks separate in such a seemingly inexplicable manner? What can I do to make the Getz/Gilberto album and the Mahler 8 album behave like "ordinary" albums ??

[rick.ca]

WHY do the tracks separate in such a seemingly inexplicable manner? What can I do to make the Getz/Gilberto album and the Mahler 8 album behave like "ordinary" albums ??

I almost responded to your original post. "I have learned that I can create two or more different Playlists containing the desired tracks, making sure to rename the 'Album' in each Playlist so that it represents the content I selected" sounded like a sure way to cause the problem. Obviously, you can't have one album with different names. But when you said, "...all of the files that are "out of control" have identical album names, so the album name does not seem to be the determining factor," I decided I didn't understand what you were talking about.

I suggest you study the wiki topics Multiple Artist Albums and Album Artist and Album Artist (Auto). Make sure you understand exactly how the program decides what files constitute and album and how it manages multiple artist albums. In doing so, forget about playlists. Sort of. Do bear in mind that if you change the value of Album in a playlist, it changes the value of Album for the file. That may be the cause of your problem.

I'm not one to advise you how to organize classical music, but I'm sure using playlists is not the right method. For my modest and infrequently used classical collection, I find I relate more to composers and their original works than I do the performers. So, while I've recorded Composer, Conductor and Orchestra in many cases, I chose to record Artist = Composer. I can then group a view by Artist (rather than Album). If I do group by Album, the multiple artist albums are properly handled (i.e., the albums are complete, with an Album - Artist of '(Multiple Artists)'). But that's just my choice—you can record whatever you like as Artist. Keeping the files of an album together requires only that Album be the same value. If you tag the files consistently with values for Composer, Works, Movements, Conductor, Orchestra, Soloist...whatever, you can then use any or all of those categories in a view and for selecting items to play. You may still want to save some selections as playlists, but you shouldn't be depending on playlists to provide you with necessary views of your collection.

[Vincent Kars]

I have one album with twenty-seven (27) tracks. Yep. I get twenty-seven (27) identical album covers!

If Album Title and Album Artist are the same, might it be something simple as that you are using a detail view?

[csimon]

To both Madien and Haralson...

MC displays items in its views according to how the views are set up.

If you go into Customise Views you will be able to see what tags are being used for each view step.

The incorrect splitting up of an album is almost certainly to do with incorrect entries in the tag of one particular view step, or the view step is inappropriate for what you want it to do.

One of the most common causes is when there are different artists across the tracks on a single album, even if all tracks have the same album name and the same album artist.  The issue here is that the view step is using Artist, not Album Artist, to sort by.

MC will group all tracks with the same criteria (tags) under one album icon, but if any of those criteria varies then the album will be divided up, categorised according to the different criteria.

[haralson]

Thanks to all of you. Based upon your observations and advice, I have solved the multiple album problem. I hope Madien will find it helpful, as well.

All along, I suspected there must be a field -- somewhere -- containing data that explain the multiple groups and album displays. Indeed, the culprit was "Album Artist", a field that did not appear by default on my screens. Once I found it and selected it, I immediately saw that it contained distinct information by which MC15 sorted the music files into separate groups (and album covers). I don't know why manufacturers/publishers feel compelled to include so much metadata (maybe it's a legal requirement), but I don't need it. So I deleted all of the superfluous text, and the separate groupings disappeared. So did the duplicate album covers.

Now that I understand this field exists, I will be able to control the data to organize my collection to suit my needs.

Rick.ca, I understand why my first post confused you. I was so confused, myself, I was unable to express the problem clearly. I've been cataloguing classical music for many years using Composer, Orchestra and Soloist as my primary criteria. Now that I've discovered "Album Artist", I will be able to manipulate the data and make the software work for me, rather than against me!

[rick.ca]

Indeed, the culprit was "Album Artist", a field that did not appear by default on my screens.

This may have been the "culprit" of your confusion, but it's also part of a pretty fundamental and well-designed feature. You're very likely to run into this sort of thing again. Most of us have had multiple experiences of the program's bizarre behaviour, only to discover we've stumbled over the brilliant implementation of a feature we hadn't yet realized we needed.

[tcman41]

as stated in the second post in this thread, album-artist is almost always the culprit

Added tip, highlight all the tracks that you are having trouble with, select show all tags in the action window and compare between tracks, it is almost always album-artist.