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[LETRA]

Hello. I wish that JRiver don't unify different versions of the album (16 and 24 bits). I have tried a couple of solutions found in the forum but I need to have the "expand complete albums" switch activated in the library view because I organize the views by publisher and sometimes some tracks of the album don't carry the publisher tag. How can I do it? Is there any solution?

[blgentry]

In Albums view, the rule for MC is that it groups albums by album name.  So if your 16 bit and 24 bit version of an album both have the exact same album name, they will be considered the same album.   "unified" as you put it.  I kind of like that word choice actually. 

One solution is to change the album name of one of them to something like "Dark Side Of The Moon (24bit)" or "Dark Side Of The Moon (DVD-A)", or something else that makes sense for it.

Another way is to change your albums view to group your albums using both the [Album] field and another field like [Bit Depth].  That would automatically separate albums out based upon the properties of the files themselves.  But then you would end up with:

Dark Side Of The Moon - 16
Dark Side Of The Moon - 24

...or something very similar depending upon how you define your view.

You could also make a custom field for this to contain identifying information for the album.  I called mine [Album Info].  My Albums view groups albums based on [Album Artist (auto)], [Album], and [Album Info].  In the [Album Info] field, I put things like "SACD" or "DVD-A" or "Mobile Fidelity".  So it can contain all kinds of information about different versions of the same album.

But...  (you knew this was coming right?) ... It's not perfect.  Because JRemote ignores all of this grouping stuff and does it's own!  So if you use JRemote (or other remote views) this might not work for you.

Because of the JRemote problem, I gave up on the (somewhat) elegant solution above, and just rename Albums to include information that identifies the particular album (like adding DVD-A to the title).  Simple is simple and it works well with all of MC's interfaces.

Our member here @ferday has a huge number of different versions of the same album.  I can't remember what his final solution was.  I'm not sure if he will read this or not.  You might PM him or start a thread about this on the Windows forum where he will be more likely to see it.  As will other knowledgable members.

I hope that helps.

Brian.

[LETRA]

Thank you very much Brian for your complete response. There are several solutions that work but without the "expand albums" modifier. I have two thousand albums in 24 bits and I can't change everyone's name. One solution would be some kind of parameter that limits "expand albums" to the bit depth or, at least, to the path (24-bit albums are in a different hdd). Perhaps this parameter could be implemented or an expression that allows it.

Thank you.

[blgentry]

I'm not clear on what you are doing with "expand albums" or why.  All of my albums in my views show as I want them to without using expand albums.

What happens when you do not use expand albums?
Is that part of this 16 versus 24 bit grouping problem or is it separate?

Brian.

[wer]

Letra,

Brian's solution works perfectly, and changing the Group By setting of the view, as he suggests, would be the most flexible and least "invasive" solution.

But if you want to modify the Album names, you can in fact do that all at once:

Select the tracks you want to change the album field for, and paste this into the Album field in the tag window:
=[Album] - [Bit Depth]

That will change all the album names according to that rule in one step.  Try it first by pasting it into the comment field (or some other unused field) to see if you like the results.  It would also be possible to only change the 24 or 16 bit files, by using an IfElse expression.

Regarding what you refer to as "expand albums" I guess you're talking about in Smartlists.  Modifying your Album names may be the only way around some of the limitations there...

-Will

[LETRA]

I'm not clear on what you are doing with "expand albums" or why.  All of my albums in my views show as I want them to without using expand albums.

What happens when you do not use expand albums?
Is that part of this 16 versus 24 bit grouping problem or is it separate?

Brian.

I use "expand albums" because some of the albums have different publisher tags on one or the other tracks. For example, an ECM disc is labeled on several tracks such as ECM and on other tracks such as "Jan Garbarek Ltd".

I have been able to create rules to show only 16-bit ECM and 24-bit albums. But for albums not to be incomplete with only the 16-bit "ECM" tracks (missing those with "Jan Garbarek Ltd." publisher in the same album) I use that modifier.

"Expand albums" does not support parameters. For my suggestion that the parameter "bit depth" or "path" can be added when we create the rule.

[LETRA]

Letra,

Brian's solution works perfectly, and changing the Group By setting of the view, as he suggests, would be the most flexible and least "invasive" solution.

But if you want to modify the Album names, you can in fact do that all at once:

Select the tracks you want to change the album field for, and paste this into the Album field in the tag window:
=[Album] - [Bit Depth]

That will change all the album names according to that rule in one step.  Try it first by pasting it into the comment field (or some other unused field) to see if you like the results.  It would also be possible to only change the 24 or 16 bit files, by using an IfElse expression.

Regarding what you refer to as "expand albums" I guess you're talking about in Smartlists.  Modifying your Album names may be the only way around some of the limitations there...

-Will

I participate with the help of the Google translator and I don't know if I can explain the matter correctly. There are several solutions that work, but without the "expand albums" parameter (in the previous message I explained why that parameter is necessary).

"Expand albums" I do not use in smart list. I use it in library view. I have library views organized by publishers.

But the "expand albums" rule does not support parameters such as "path" or "bit depth."

[wer]

I understand what you mean now, the picture helped.

The "expand to complete album" search functionality is the same functionality I was referring to regarding Smartlists.

To use that functionality the way you want, you would have to change the album names.

However, it is not necessary to use "expand to complete album" for the view you are creating, IF all your files have the "Editor" tag filled properly.

The purpose of the "expand to complete album" modifier functionality is that if your search matches only one (or some) of the tracks in an album naturally, the modifier also returns all the other tracks in that album.  If you filled out the Editor/Publisher field properly for all the files, the "expand to complete album" would not be necessary.

Copy the Editor/Publisher tag to the other files in the album, remove the "expand to complete album" modifier, and you will be able to get the results you want using the method Brian provided.

[blgentry]

Ah, I think I've got it now.  Letra, you have a metadata problem.  I believe you can fix that problem very easily.

As an example:

1.  Go to your Publisher view showing Publisher = ECM
2.  Now you see a list of albums and the albums have all the songs in them, even the songs with the wrong publisher.
3.  You want them all to have Publisher = ECM right?  So, highlight all albums (edit > select all).
4.  Open the tagging Pane.  (Edit > Tag) . You will see the Tagging Pane open on the left.
5.  Go to the tagging pane and find Publisher (or maybe it's called Editor in your native language).
6.  Click on the value to the right of this field which probably says "Varies".  You will see a list.  In this list will be ECM. Select ECM.  Now click somewhere else.

After you do this, the Publisher (Editor) field for all of these albums and all of their songs will be ECM.   You can do this for each of your Publishers and then your metadata will be correct.

I would try this on one album as an experiment so you can see how it works.   Then do a few albums at once.  If that works, then do all the rest for ECM.  When that works, do all albums for each publisher.

You can probably get all of this done in a short time assuming you have only a few publishers.

Once your metadata is all correct you won't need expand albums anymore, and you can use MC more fully.

Brian.

[LETRA]

Hello Brian & wer,

I've been testing all night yesterday with your solution. It is valid in 99% of cases and, for lack of a better idea, is the one I will choose for now. Still there are two problems. There are albums that have two publishers. In jazz it is very common that there is an original publisher and a reissue in a parent publisher. The second problem is that every time I add new albums in 24 bits I will have to repeat the process. And I have more than 22,000 albums and dozens of publisher library views. Therefore, I would ask you to consider the possibility of adding that pair of parameters to "expand complete albums" (path & bit deep).

Thank you very much for your help and we will continue to fight with JRiver because it is the program with the best sound and greatest capabilities.

[blgentry]

1.  I am not a JRiver employee.  I'm just a customer, so I have no input on adding features or functions to the product.

2.  If your albums have two well defined Publishers, I would suggest that you build a second library field to hold that other publisher data.  Or construct a new publisher field that can hold both publishers and let you use that data how you want in your views.  This concept of organizing by "publisher" is not familiar to me, so I'm guessing at what you want.  My guess is that you like to look at everything that a particular music production company has released.  That's quite different than how I am used to looking up or browsing my music collection, so I'm not sure what would be important to you when browsing that way.

3.  Adding new albums is easy.  You just edit the meta data one time for each album.  I have to wonder why your existing albums only have the publisher set on one song though.  Is this a mistake from the publisher?  Or is this a mistake you made a long time ago when you started?  Either way, adding Publisher to new albums should be very fast as you can do the whole album with one click.

4.  You have 22,000 albums and 30 to 50 publishers.  That would mean 30 to 50 operations like I described in order to write the correct publisher field to every song in every album.  It's work, but it's not all that much work.  After you do it one time, it's done forever.  As discussed above, doing it for new albums is very fast and easy.

Ongoing metadata maintenance is part of having a music collection.  In fact, it's what makes a collection usable. 

Brian.

[wer]

Neither Brian nor I work for JRiver.  We're just users who are trying to help you.

There are albums that have two publishers. In jazz it is very common that there is an original publisher and a reissue in a parent publisher.

Then create an additional library field named something like "Reissue Publisher" and put the original publisher in one field and the reissue publisher (if any) in that field.

The second problem is that every time I add new albums in 24 bits I will have to repeat the process.

This isn't a real problem.  It's just normal maintenance.  You're complaining about having to make sure the metadata for a new album you add is accurate and tagged correctly.  That's your job as the curator of your collection.

MC makes it easy to edit your tags on an automated basis, including changing a tag on 20,000 files in a single step.  You also have to option to make fields "relational" so that editing the tag for one track in an album sets that value for all tracks. (Google "jriver relational fields")

You need to use these tools to ensure your collection is tagged correctly.

Good luck...

[LETRA]

Neither Brian nor I work for JRiver.  We're just users who are trying to help you.

Then create an additional library field named something like "Reissue Publisher" and put the original publisher in one field and the reissue publisher (if any) in that field.

This isn't a real problem.  It's just normal maintenance.  You're complaining about having to make sure the metadata for a new album you add is accurate and tagged correctly.  That's your job as the curator of your collection.

MC makes it easy to edit your tags on an automated basis, including changing a tag on 20,000 files in a single step.  You also have to option to make fields "relational" so that editing the tag for one track in an album sets that value for all tracks. (Google "jriver relational fields")

You need to use these tools to ensure your collection is tagged correctly.

Good luck...

I have been using JRiver for many years. Thank you for your probably well-meaning help but the advices you give is not very good and denotes a lack of information, understanding and empathy. Greetings.

[wer]

I have been using JRiver for many years. Thank you for your probably well-meaning help but the advices you give is not very good and denotes a lack of information, understanding and empathy.

Indeed, on your part.  The advice given was good for the issue as it was presented.  But apparently we're looking at a translated version of what you are saying, and you are looking at a translated version of what we are saying.  The fact that you either don't like or don't understand the advice doesn't make the advice wrong.  Perhaps I shouldn't bother to try and help you, but I am.  You might want to consider posting screenshots of how your files are tagged or find some other way to better illustrate what you think the problem is, or find a person to translate for you, or post in your native language to see if someone can help you that way.

[JimH]

Hello. I wish that JRiver don't unify different versions of the album (16 and 24 bits). I have tried a couple of solutions found in the forum but I need to have the "expand complete albums" switch activated in the library view because I organize the views by publisher and sometimes some tracks of the album don't carry the publisher tag. How can I do it? Is there any solution?

Just change the name of the Album.  Add "24 bit" or similar to those files.

[LETRA]

Just change the name of the Album.  Add "24 bit" or similar to those files.

In the end I will have to opt for that solution. Thanks for your help.

A greeting.