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[HedgeHog]

Hi,

Sorry if this may be a newbie question, I couldn't find any specific answers.

Anyway, I have some compilation albums that should display as various artists but the same album.  In one case, it's The Collection: An Adventure In Sound (hybrid SACD) from Audio Fidelity.  The redbook rip shows the tagged information properly and displays (multiple artists) for the album but individual artists per track all in one single album.  But the SACD ISO file shows one artist for the whole album.  If I try to copy the tagged info over to overwrite the artist field, it shows an album per track.

I noticed that there's a field called Album Type and the redbook shows Multiple artists (complete) and the ISO shows Single artist (complete).  I tried to change that value to Multiple artist (complete) but it never stays and always revert back to Single artist.  See attachments for example.

So the only way for me to display the ISO as a single album is to add Various Artists as the Album Artist.

What am I doing incorrectly so that both albums are showing as one album each?

Thanks in advance.

-Hedwig

[blgentry]

What do you want to see displayed differently?  Both albums show individual albums per track, but are grouped properly as full albums.  Do you want to see (Multiple Artists) on the album thumbnails display instead of Various Artists?  If so, just type that into Album Artist.

Brian.

[Efjay]

Speaking for myself, it would be nice (as I don't believe this can be done) to be able to keep compilation albums whole (I do so by having the Artist tag be the Artist name and the Album Artist tag be Various Artists) but have each Artists's songs appear in the Artist view. This would be particularly useful to have split albums appear for both Artists and play all of the album's tracks from both Artists. For now I split the split albums so that only the Artists's portion appears in that particular Artist's view.

[blgentry]

Efjay,

You probably know this but...

A.  In a Panes view, Artist lists all artists, regardless of whether they are the album artist or not.  So you can find them easily that way.
B.  In any view, Artists view included, you can type some of the artist's name into the search box and it will bring up matches as you type. When you find the artist you want, you can click on it and it will show you the albums that artist appears on.

Brian.

[HedgeHog]

What do you want to see displayed differently?  Both albums show individual albums per track, but are grouped properly as full albums.  Do you want to see (Multiple Artists) on the album thumbnails display instead of Various Artists?  If so, just type that into Album Artist.

Brian.

Hi Brian,

If you look at the Artist field, the top JPG shows MC automatically filling in "multiple artists" while the ISO album shows what I had to enter "Various Artists".  If I delete the Album Artist and just have the track's artists listed, it will display as many different albums. 

As an exmaple, I've deleted the Artists field to match and pasted the Name and Artist from the proper redbook album.  You can see each track has become its own album (uniquely identified by the track artist and the album name).

Hope this clarifies my question.  Oh, the reason, I would like to put (Multiple Artists) automatically is so the artists+albums view are sorted properly.  Otherwise, (Multiple Artitsts) for one album is on top and Various Artists is way down by the "V"s.

Cheers,
-Hedwig

[blgentry]

The answer is to cut and paste this into the [Album Artist] field:

(Multiple Artists)

That's it.  That will do exactly what you want.  Now, why doesn't this happen automatically for your ISO files?  I don't know.  Perhaps because the tracks inside and ISO file, which are not individual files, violate the "rules" for creating that (Multiple Artists) entry automatically.  Or perhaps it's because you've divided the ISO into two albums:  On multichannel and one 2 channel.

Either way, the answer remains the same:  Put (Multiple Artists) into the [Album Artist] field for those albums.  Done! 

Brian.

[HedgeHog]

D'Oh!  That was simple.  Weird that it didn't automatically do it for this one.  I wonder if the fact that the ISO contains both 2 and 5 channels tracks was the issue.  I named one ...[2CH] and the other ...[MCH].

Thx again!

Cheers,
Hedwig

[scolumbo]

Something that I discovered somewhat by accident, but it's another option for organizing SACD ISOs. Instead of naming the 2 channel and 5 channel tracks in the ISO as separate albums, create a view with "channels" as one of the criteria. When you select "2" it will display only the 2 channel tracks in the ISO for playback, or 5 (or 6) will display only the multichannel tracks. Of course, you can do this for a single album or your entire library.

I prefer this as a way to keep my ISOs organized as single albums while allowing me to have control of what is displayed and/or played back. This also allows me to quickly see the ISOs in my library that are multichannel for example.

[HedgeHog]

Thx for that tip.  Why didn't I think of that...feeling kinda dumb.

BTW, is there a way to add a field to the displayed info under the album image?  I've revised the sorting to include channels but instead of just showing "Artists - Albums" under the cover art, it would be nice to show channels too (or an expression like "if [Channels] = 2 then display 'Stereo' else display 'Mutichannel'".  Or something like it.

Cheers,
-H

[blgentry]

Go to the top of your view and click on the little down arrow to get a menu.  Thumbnails > Thumbnail Text

Now you'll see a dialog box that lets you type in whatever you want for thumbnail text.  You can put [Channels] in there if you'd like to see that info.

Brian.

[HedgeHog]

Thank you again, Brian.

Works perfectly (especially now that I found the Wiki on the expression language).


Cheers!

-H

[scolumbo]

HedgeHog,
Don't feel bad. I've been using MC for over two years after switching from another media organizer/player and I'm still finding options I never knew about, and different ways to organize and manage my media collection all the time.

The capabilities built into MC continue to amaze me. It's like a treasure hunt finding all the hidden gems. Fortunately, there is a very knowledgeable and helpful user community here and the program developers are more involved here than you would find just about anywhere else.

The tip from blgentry about editing thumbnail text is another new one that I will certainly want to experiment with. Thanks.

[HedgeHog]

HedgeHog,
Don't feel bad. I've been using MC for over two years after switching from another media organizer/player and I'm still finding options I never knew about, and different ways to organize and manage my media collection all the time.

The capabilities built into MC continue to amaze me. It's like a treasure hunt finding all the hidden gems. Fortunately, there is a very knowledgeable and helpful user community here and the program developers are more involved here than you would find just about anywhere else.

The tip from blgentry about editing thumbnail text is another new one that I will certainly want to experiment with. Thanks.

I've been running MC since version 18 (so just a year prior to your usage).  I never bothered doing much except replacing that awful iTunes.  I was tempted to go Roon/HQPlayer but so much $$$ for a desktop rig.  Perhaps, when I add a pricey DAC to my main system.


Anyway, here's the 3rd line I added in the Thumbnail Text.  Hope its syntax is proper and optimal.

IfElse(
    IsEqual([Channels],2,2), Stereo,
    IsEqual([Channels],5,2), Mutli-Channel: 5.0,
    IsEqual([Channels],6,2), Multi-Channel: 5.1
)

Thanks again to both suggestions!

-H

[Efjay]

Efjay,

You probably know this but...

A.  In a Panes view, Artist lists all artists, regardless of whether they are the album artist or not.  So you can find them easily that way.
B.  In any view, Artists view included, you can type some of the artist's name into the search box and it will bring up matches as you type. When you find the artist you want, you can click on it and it will show you the albums that artist appears on.

Brian.

Right, but unless I'm tagging things wrong, there is no viewscheme that will display a whole split album for all artists in each artist's album view. And since it feels like that sentence will only make sense to me, I mean:

Artist 'Band' has a split album with Artist 'Group', an album called 'Split'. If:

1. Album Artist is 'Various', all tracks will show in Various, but not for each Artist. Band and Group have all their tracks listed under Various
2. Album Artist matches each Artist, an Album viewscheme will only show the tracks pertaining to each Artist. Band shows Band's songs, Group shows theirs.

I'd like to be able to tag all of the tracks for both bands so that all tracks from Split appear under the album view for each Artist. And then be able to see that as well when using JRemote.

[blgentry]

I understand, but I don't know how to do that with MC.

I also don't see the utility since you can find what you want so easily with a search.  But hey, who am I to criticize how you want to see your collection laid out? 

Brian.

[scolumbo]

I've been running MC since version 18 (so just a year prior to your usage).  I never bothered doing much except replacing that awful iTunes.  I was tempted to go Roon/HQPlayer but so much $$$ for a desktop rig.  Perhaps, when I add a pricey DAC to my main system.


Anyway, here's the 3rd line I added in the Thumbnail Text.  Hope its syntax is proper and optimal.

IfElse(
    IsEqual([Channels],2,2), Stereo,
    IsEqual([Channels],5,2), Mutli-Channel: 5.0,
    IsEqual([Channels],6,2), Multi-Channel: 5.1
)

Thanks again to both suggestions!

-H

Works for me. The only change I made was to use "MCH" instead of Multi-Channel which fits a little better if I use smaller thumbnails. Thanks.

[Efjay]

I understand, but I don't know how to do that with MC.

I also don't see the utility since you can find what you want so easily with a search.  But hey, who am I to criticize how you want to see your collection laid out? 

Brian.

It's not really a matter of how I'd like things laid out. As it is, I can access all albums, splits or otherwise, by looking at each Artist's albums (I have their half of splits entered as an album.) Speaking, maybe only for myself, I would like if the program recognized a split album and made the whole album available regardless of which Artist on the album I view. I go to Band and the Band/Group split shows as it does under Group. If it is a 3-way split with Act, it would show for all 3.

I'm a metal fan so I own a lot of split albums....

[eddyshere]

For SACD I usually import the individual dsf's (after SACD extract) into MC. It's easier than handling and tagging the iso.

[ferday]

It's not really a matter of how I'd like things laid out. As it is, I can access all albums, splits or otherwise, by looking at each Artist's albums (I have their half of splits entered as an album.) Speaking, maybe only for myself, I would like if the program recognized a split album and made the whole album available regardless of which Artist on the album I view. I go to Band and the Band/Group split shows as it does under Group. If it is a 3-way split with Act, it would show for all 3.

I'm a metal fan so I own a lot of split albums....

metal fan here with a lot of splits as well

i would love for MC to respect the ; delimited a little more.  all of my splits are artist1;artist2 - i'd like for them to be easier to work with.