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[mstulken]

This is the third time I am in need of support related to the Albums view in Audio for JRiver. If I could make a modest suggestion to the software team - please make it more intuitive to clean up files in this view. I just downloaded a file on my computer and its in my music section. All tracks are in one folder. JRiver found the files, but in the Albums view it separated the tracks into 4 separate album covers with parts of the whole album in the 4 sections. If I go to the Album name on the left side of the screen where all albums are listed in a column and click on this - all tracks are listed and the album name only shows up once. I tried going into the 4 identical album pictures and tagging all the tracks with disc# (all disc #1), but this doesn't make 3 of the 4 disappear. If I delete 3 of the 4, the file listing associated with the remaining album picture only shows the partial tracks that accompanied it in the first place. Can't you folks incorporate some ability to take tracks and cut and paste them into one album. I've tried various ways to do this including right clicks etc. but no ability to do so. Or maybe a merge command under the edit heading. This is really frustrating as I use the Album view with the picture of the album as my primary means of navigating through my music. I don't think I'm the first person to have difficutly with this.
Regards,
Mike

[rick.ca]

It helps to understand your Library is a database, not a hierarchical set of folders. What's shown as an 'album' is a grouping, not a folder. The logic that determines that grouping is necessarily a bit complicated—so it can correctly group multiple-artist as well as single-artist albums. If [Artist] for a set of files found in one folder (and being a complete sequence of [Track #]) varies, then the program will set [Album Artist (auto)] to 'Multiple Artists' and use this to determine the file set is an album (assuming all values of [Album] are identical). The user can override this by setting values for [Album Artist]—to display something that might be more appropriate than 'Multiple Artists'.

Unfortunately, this last capability means an album will be broken if inconsistent values are in [Album Artist]. This seems to be a very common issue, probably because other software has recorded values in that tag for some but not all files. I can't be sure that's the cause of your issue, but it's easy enough to check. Just display the files in a details view that includes columns for [Artist], [Album], [Album Artist], [Album Artist (auto)], [Track #] and [Filename]. That should reveal any problems. If it's a complete set of tracks in one folder, the problem will likely be fixed simply by deleting any values in [Album Artist].

[mstulken]

Thanks for your help. There was an additional space at the end of the tag on Album Artist Auto. Forgive my criticism, but this isn't something I would have expected to have to manually clean up as I'm not a database expert and don't want to be. I just want something that get's me listening to music as quickly as possible without alot of fuss. I like your product and its sounds great, but for laypeople this sort of item makes me believe you have a little ways to go to make this program more robust. As I previously suggested some more powerful editing features that would let me merge the two album covers and combine the files at my whim rather than sleuthing down inconsistent tags such as an extra space at the end of a tag makes more sense to me. Please consider these comments as constructive rather than just poking holes.
Regards,
Mike

[kensn]

The program can only function as good as the information you put into it. For the program to assume that the spaces were not intentional would be wrong. I appreciate the fact that the database points out flaws in tagging. I for the longest time thought my collection was impeccably tagged until I imported it into JRiver.

Once I corrected all my flaws and started exploring what the program could do, I found the program second to none, especially presenting my music collection in any way I could conceive.

Ken

[mstulken]

I appreciate your point of view from a database expertise background. But when a layperson gets confronted with these minor discrepancies and the program doesn't have the intelligence to over-ride these by analyzing things such as same album cover, same artist, same source file etc, then some easier to use editing features may be in order so that correction can be muscled into the way a user wants. This is the third time I've had a variation on this theme, and in each case I immediately looked unsuccessfully to the edit commands to find a way to merge files and get rid of the extra album cover.
Sounds like you folks aren't receptive to this.
Mike

[kensn]

Rick and myself are just users... Were not the folk that have anything to do with development, nor am I a database expert. We are just trying help. I just wanted to point out that for the program to function properly it needs good information.

An album may be a multi disc set with the same cover for 3 albums, I would not want those all heaped into 1 album. It is pretty simple to select all the tracks of an album and then type in the Album Artist Auto field with the same Name. I am not arguing the point that it is not clear sometimes, but if some people did want the albums to be split by the Album Artist Auto field, and then have the program heap them together would be wrong also.

There are a lot of great people here to help. I have not ever seen a more informational forum for any piece of software where the developers are responding to problems and requests daily as this one.

I am sure once you get to know the program you will find it hard to use anything else for your collection.

Ken

[mstulken]

Hi Ken, thanks for the info. I assumed the support people (as this is the company directed location for questions and problem resolution) such as yourself were employees or contractors for JRiver. It would strike me that those people would be a conduit to the software developers as they would be the first line of communication between customers and JRiver. And in a spirit of trying to improve a product  such comments would be of value. Nowhere was I debating that this is not a good product and having invested in getting this far I am not interested in competing products, but I am simply trying to feedback comments in order to make a good product better. Clearly as version 18 is developing there must have been some iterative process to capture customer complaints or suggestions. If you are simply a good person with empiracal knowledge of JRiver and are being helpful at no renumeration, I laud your efforts to help the ignorant masses such as myself and wish you a pleasant rest of your night, and I do thank you for your speedy help for my issue.
Mike

[kensn]

Thanks Mike,

I struggled a bit in the beginning, read a lot on the WIKI and just plain played around in the software to see what I could learn. I think the developers struggle everyday trying to assume what is best for everybody, all the users have different needs, hardware, and uses of the program. I have seen the problem you had poke its heads more than a few times in the forum from users. I will not speak for the JRiver people, but from what I have seen,  if there was a fix that would not comprise the software I bet it would of been implemented by now. Who knows, it may be up in a coming build....

Thanks for the conversation this evening, best to you,

Ken

[rick.ca]

Forgive my criticism, but this isn't something I would have expected to have to manually clean up as I'm not a database expert and don't want to be.

As you now know, you don't need my forgiveness. Besides, I think the criticism is well deserved. But not for the reasons you seem to believe.

Very few of us (and certainly not me) are 'database experts'. Nor does the essential design of the program assume any user is. But it is a database. And the program is already more powerful and robust than any other of its type. Most of these things are very straightforward, as long as things are presented to the user in way that makes clear what's going on. You didn't say (and I'm impressed you were able to spot trailing spaces as the culprit), but I suspect you could readily see the problem once you followed my suggestion. That understanding, along with ability to use some of the basic capabilities of the program, will put you in the position of being able to isolate and resolve such issues for any number of files with only a few commands.

I've suggested to JRiver this particular issue and some like it could be alleviated by providing some stock smartlist views the bring such issues to the user's attention and illustrate how they might be fixed. If there were a branch in the view tree Audio > Diagnostics > Split Albums, it seems likely to me you would notice it. If it displayed only 'split album' files and the columns I suggested you display, the pattern alone would suggest to most users what was wrong. Those needing help would be able to explain exactly what they were seeing (or post a screenshot) so more experienced users could help. I have no idea why, but it seems the suggestion has fallen on deaf ears.

Although you will be forever challenged by this, I encourage you not to decide the program is in any way designed for a level of expertise beyond what you're capable of. In time, you'll discover that which seems inaccessible is actually a straightforward capability that allows you to easily do what is very difficult or impossible to do in other programs. I won't claim it's easier to use than iTunes. But I find the most difficult software is that which is simply incapable of doing what I need it to do. The most difficult thing to do in MC is determine with any certainty what it cannot do.

[larryrup]

Hi.  I'd put myself is about the advance beginner category.  Keep learning new things, and have come across plenty of tips.  Until reading this, it was cumbersome at best putting albums together that were broken up for reasons I could not see.  Albums are determine by album artist?   That would be an easy change if so.  I came to MC (like many) from Itunes.  The presentation of my library there was just about perfect.  Not so after import to MC. I'm learning about Meta Data, how it's stored and where.  I see it's complicated.  Can you share the complication of looking at the Itunes DB during import and grabbing Artist, Album, Genre etc from there?  You could put in a switch in to let people do this or not.  That would be a big help for those who come from Itunes with large libraries.   Keep up great work.

LarryRup