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[durufle]

80% of my collection is classical music. Is there anyway to get JRiver to display the value from the Composer tag when there is nothing present in the artist tag?

[wig]

80% of my collection is classical music. Is there anyway to get JRiver to display the value from the Composer tag when there is nothing present in the artist tag?

You could copy the composer tag over to Artist for those tracks. Just do an artist search for  'Unknown Artist'. Then use Tools -> Library Tools -> Move/Copy Fields to copy the Composer tag info over to Artist.

Another option would be to customize the display to use the Composer tag instead of Artist. Just right-click on the display and choose Customize Display. There are two display options (Main and Alternative) so you customize, say, the Alternative one and leave the other standard.

[leezer3]

The best way to do something like this is through a calculated field
Create a new field, and name it something like 'Artist/ Composer'
Change it to the calculated data type, and use an expression something like the below; I think this should work off the top of my head:

Code: [Select]

=if(isempty([Artist]),[Composer],[Artist])
Finally, replace all your viewschemes to use the new field and go. I'd note that this requires a slight extra step when tagging, in that you can't tag a calculated field directly, but IMHO that's neither here or there.

-Leezer-

[durufle]

You could copy the composer tag over to Artist for those tracks. Just do an artist search for  'Unknown Artist'. Then use Tools -> Library Tools -> Move/Copy Fields to copy the Composer tag info over to Artist.

Another option would be to customize the display to use the Composer tag instead of Artist. Just right-click on the display and choose Customize Display. There are two display options (Main and Alternative) so you customize, say, the Alternative one and leave the other standard.

That second options works (for the now playing area), but what about list view -- ie. I have it showing, a thumbnail and details/tracks for each album, and the header for that still shows artist..

[Frobozz]

For classical music I've found it easier to just go with the flow (path of least resistance) and add the composer as the artist.  Yeah, the composer isn't the artist.  But software like MC and other media players and all of the various portable players expect that there be an artist and expect to sort by artist.  So I fill in the artist field with the composer to keep them happy.

In general I try to follow the Classical Style Guide from MuiscBrainz for what fields to fill in, how to do album titles, how to do track titles, and other style issues for classical music.  Their style guide works well and works well with MC, other players and portables (like my iPod).  I don't follow the style guide exactly.  I deviate as it suits me.  I use the MusicBrainz style guide as a general guide.

For the album title I give the album a sensible name and add the primary performer/conductor in parenthesis at the end

So, as an example
Album: Bach Concertos (Hilary Hahn)
Artist: Bach
Composer: Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685 - 1750)
Conductor: Hilary Hahn - violin / Jeffrey Kahane - Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon / 474 199-2 / 2003

I do need to go through at clean up my conductor and performer tags for all my classical albums.  Right now I lump a lot in the conductor field (it's easily searchable, so it's not a big deal).  I should separate that out one of these days.