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[ssands]

I've decided that I want my albums sorted with the article "The" placed after the band name. Thus, "The Who" are found under "W" for "Who, The".

I am ripping my CD collection to my NAS using MC. But, my CDs are showing up automatically as "The Who" even though I had manually changed earlier albums to "Who, The".

I recall this being covered elsewhere, but searching on the word "The" would be fruitless.

I ask the experts to whom this is an old, solved problem.
Thanks in advance.

[glynor]

MC displays, and sorts on, whatever tag is entered in the [Artist] field (or whatever field is in question, but you asked about Artist names).  So, if you rip one disc, and give it [Artist]="The Who" and another and give it [Artist]="Who, The" these will show up as two separate artists.  This is important to understand.  MC only "groups" fields in Categories and the Panes which have exactly matching content (it isn't case sensitive though).

The best way to accomplish what you want is to NOT actually name the [Artist] tag "Who, The" but to name them "The Who" and enable: Tools > Options > Tree & View > Ignore Articles.  Then, artists named "The Who" will be filed under W, and "The Beatles" will be filed under B, automatically inside MC.  If needed, you can also edit the custom list of articles (which includes things like Las and Das which might cause English-speakers minor headaches), which is in the same spot in Options.

You can, if you wish, tag them all as "Who, The" but that makes it look ugly within MC (and whole swaths of filenames will end up with commas and stuff in them).  And you end up "fighting the system" (you have to re-tag everything manually from the automatic lookup systems).  I prefer, whenever possible, not to "fight the system".  It might not be much work now, but ongoing maintenance is the bigger time-sink.

However...

If you are referring to how they are stored on disk, then it isn't so simple.  When you use MC to rename files based on tags, then it'll use the real tag name, and Windows Explorer (or the Finder in OSX) does not ignore articles, so they'll both sort under T.

I use a special field in the Rename, Move, and Copy Files tool when organizing audio files on disk that generates letter-folders, as is described here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92425.msg636368#msg636368

(Keep reading, the bit you want is in the second post, but the whole thing is relevant.)

[ssands]

Awesome, thank you, Glynor!

What I want is the Ignore Articles option.
Will implement now and fix up my ugly "Who, The" tags. (Unfortunately there are more of those, but I'm willing to slog thru and do it).

[glynor]

Takes seconds if you do it in the Panes in MC.


Click to embiggen.

[ssands]

Very cool. Still much to learn.

Here's another one if I may.

I also want to sort by last name, so I'd find Lou Reed under "R" and not under Lou.

Is there an easy way to do that?

And perhaps illogically, I'd sort Jethro Tull under "J" since it's the bands name and not any living individual.

Any tricks for this scenario?

[AndyU]

Another  way of solving both the "Who, The" problem and the "Lou Reed" problem is to use the "Artist Sort" tag and/or the "Album Artist Sort" tag instead of "Artist" and "Album Artist" tags. These tags are usually present on the cds, and ripping software like dBpoweramp will rip them. So you would have "Who, The" and "Reed, Lou" as Album Artist Sort tags. Unfortunately MC doesn't seem to rip these tags, even if you add them to the Library. Possibly worth entering them manually, because using such Sort tags gives you absolute control over where artists end up. Like getting Quincy Jones at the top of Q if you want! There are similar "Composer Sort" tags, which can help with classical music organisation.

[AndrewFG]

My favourite one is Ludwig van Beethoven // Beethoven, Ludwig van // van Beethoven, Ludwig // Beethoven, van, Ludwig, .. but using ArtistSort is the answer.

[AndyU]

My favourite one is Ludwig van Beethoven // Beethoven, Ludwig van // van Beethoven, Ludwig // Beethoven, van, Ludwig, .. but using ArtistSort is the answer.

If there were recordings on which Beethoven appeared as an Artist, I wouldn't be too worried about where they sorted to ..

Why doesn't MC rip the xxSort tags?

[AndrewFG]

If there were recordings on which Beethoven appeared as an Artist, I wouldn't be too worried about where they sorted to ..

I tag my classical tracks with AlbumArtist = Composer and Artist = (list of artists who played that recording)

Why doesn't MC rip the xxSort tags?

I think the xxSort tags are left empty so that each person can make their own choice about how they want such things to be sorted. If they were pre-filled then some people may be happy whereas others may be pissed.

BTW I think you only need to enter xxSort on those tracks which are exceptions; if the xxSort tag is empty it sorts on the xx field itself, but if xxSort does have a value it sorts on that field...

[AndyU]

I tag my classical tracks with AlbumArtist = Composer and Artist = (list of artists who played that recording)

I think the xxSort tags are left empty so that each person can make their own choice about how they want such things to be sorted. If they were pre-filled then some people may be happy whereas others may be pissed.

BTW I think you only need to enter xxSort on those tracks which are exceptions; if the xxSort tag is empty it sorts on the xx field itself, but if xxSort does have a value it sorts on that field..

Not sure I follow you. Composer Sort, Album Artist Sort and Artist Sort aren't in MCs standard set of library fields. So I can't see how they are used to sort the the xx field itself. And I can't see where the "if empty.." logic is (unless obviously you write it yourself). But the xxSort tags are (usually) on cds themselves, and DBPoweramp at least will rip them. IME they are mostly pretty sensible, and even the most perverse user would only want to override them occasionally. To me it is a pity that MC doesn't rip them; if it did, many threads like this wouldn't be necessary!

As for making Beethoven an Artist - presumably to work round the limitation of something that doesn't properly support the Composer tag - well, I just couldn't do that!

[glynor]

MC supports the Composer tag. I'm confused by some of this...

[glynor]

Read:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92092.msg633937#msg633937

[AndyU]

Read:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92092.msg633937#msg633937

If MC ripped ComposerSort in the first place, as dBpoweramp does, there would be no need for much of that complexity. Same for Album Artist Sort, and Artist Sort. And indeed Album Sort, SoloistsSort and ConductorSort.  These are standard tags which usually have useful values. They can just be ripped. MC doesn't see them. Pity imo.
 

[glynor]

I am NOT a fan of the xSort fields, and I don't think Matt is either.

They seem, to me, a hacked workaround to limited clients that can't sort on whatever field you want (ala iTunes).  I don't understand what benefits it provides.

Besides, if you want it, it takes a few seconds to set it up yourself.

[ssands]

So, just to reiterate.

Glynor, are you suggesting to just re-work the [Artist] field to something like this, for example? [Reed, Lou]

When I do this, MC sorts it properly but it shows up as Reed, Lou.

Not sure how I would get it to sort properly (ie, the way I want it), and still display as Lou Reed.

BTW, I appreciate everyone's help on this.

P.S. I do understand the idea behind the ArtistSort field...just wondering what is already in MC that I can use, before I add a field like that.

[glynor]

When I do this, MC sorts it properly but it shows up as Reed, Lou.

Not sure how I would get it to sort properly (ie, the way I want it), and still display as Lou Reed.

Yes.  If you want it to display one way and sort the other, then you will need to sort on a different field, such as [ArtistSort].

There are a few ways to do this.  You can, of course, just create the [ArtistSort] field as a String type field, and tag them manually.  I believe if you do this, then MC will automatically import any embedded [ArtistSort] tags (in newly imported files) that are pre-existing.

If I wasn't lazy, and cared about this, that's not how I'd do it, though.  Of course, I don't do it at all, but if I did, I'd make:

[ArtistSort] - String type field
[ArtistAutoSort] - Calculated field
[ArtistSortToggle] - Integer field (with allowed values of only 0 and 1)
[ArtistNameSwap] - Calculated field described here

Then, I'd do an expression for [ArtistAutoSort] that:

* If [ArtistSort] is NOT empty, outputs the contents of [ArtistSort]
* If [ArtistSort] is empty, and [ArtistSortToggle] is > 0, then output the contents of [ArtistNameSwap]
* If [ArtistSort] is empty, and [ArtistNameSwap] is 0, then output [Artist]

Then, set your Media Views and whatnot to sort on [ArtistAutoSort].

That way, all files would import and just sort on the contents of [Artist] by default (because [ArtistSortToggle] would always "start off" set to 0 for newly imported files).  If, it happens, the file does have a valid [ArtistSort] field, then it'll use that.  If not, and it is a typical "proper name" (as in Tori Amos, as opposed to Pink Floyd) then you manually tag [ArtistSortToggle] to 1 (which is quick and easy to do), and they'll "magically" sort as the reversed name.  And, lastly, if you encounter an oddball case where you need to sort on something completely different (a custom sort order, to handle things that [ArtistNameSwap] doesn't handle correctly) then you can just manually tag [ArtistSort] and it'll always use that.

[AndyU]

Thats hardly "a few seconds" work Glynor, even for someone with your skill in writing MC expressions!

My suggestions would be to:

a) add a new  field "Artist Sort" (the space is important) to MC

b) fix the "Artist Sort" field of all your historical rips manually, or using whatever MC programming ability you have.

c) use this "Artist Sort" field to sort the views you want to sort

d) rip subsequent cds with DBPoweramp, having taken care to check that Options > Metadata > Options > Artist Sort is checked. It is ime faster than MC anyway and, at least in this instance, seems to do a more complete job of ripping tags.

e) put a request in the "Possible MC20 new features" thread for MC to rip these xx Sort fields since they are often on cds and some people would find them useful.

Same goes for Album Artist Sort and ComposerSort.

[Castius]

Glynor that is a great post!
You should put that on the wiki.

[glynor]

Thats hardly "a few seconds" work Glynor, even for someone with your skill in writing MC expressions!

I never claimed my way would take only a few seconds.

Adding your own [Artist Sort] field, however, takes only a few seconds.  That's why I don't get why some people get bent out of shape about the default field list.

My suggested way is better than just doing that though, as it involves way less manual tagging over the long-term, at the cost of a little more initial setup time.  It still wouldn't take that long, and that expression isn't super complex.  If you couldn't figure it out, ask and a bunch of people here could handle making that and you'd just have to copypasta it.

Though, it is good to know the [ArtistSort] tag needs to be [Artist Sort] instead.  I didn't bother looking that up.

[AndyU]

I never claimed my way would take only a few seconds.

Adding your own [Artist Sort] field, however, takes only a few seconds.  That's why I don't get why some people get bent out of shape about the default field list.

My suggested way is better than just doing that though, as it involves way less manual tagging over the long-term, at the cost of a little more setup time.

Adding your own Artis Sort field may take a few seconds, but populating it usefully using your strategy takes a lot longer - and few people would have the skill to do so.

Since it's often on the cd in the first place, would you not think it is a lot simpler to rip it? That would be a lot better than nothing for the folk that want to make use of it.

A 'good' solution though would involve a separate table relating Artists and Artist Sorts, but alas the world of cd tags is in the Dark Ages of First Normal Form.

[glynor]

Adding your own Artis Sort field may take a few seconds, but populating it usefully using your strategy takes a lot longer - and few people would have the skill to do so.

Populating it by typing manually takes a lot longer.

And if you do it that way, you're doing it forever for whatever files you import.  I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that whatever databases out there have this tag, are probably all full of "incorrect" information (because some people aren't going to know how to tag it right, and others may disagree and prefer Tori Amos to sort with T instead of A).  So that's probably not a super-time saver either.

Selecting all of the artists you want to reverse at once and typing the number "1" into a single field a single time seems a heckuva lot quicker to me.

As far as skill, I think people can learn better ways.

If they implement something automatic, I'd much rather see them implement something like I suggested above.  But, this also gives me pause because it is "hidden functionality".  You tell it to sort on [Artist] and it actually sorts on something else?  That's terrible, and will lead to all sorts of confusion and issues.

So, you can't do that, so instead you have to sort on the new [ArtistAutoSort] field, which means all the default Media Views have to change, and it is one more question ("why don't they sort the way I expect and what is this weird field?") we have to answer here 8000000 times.

So, I don't think any of it is a slam dunk.  Especially since I'd estimate that the vast majority of people just want a straight alphabetical [Artist] sorting.  It amazes me constantly too, but I know that a lot of people DO NOT prefer last-name-first sorting, even in things like Contacts lists.  Our default Outlook/Exchange setup at work does that (displays Firstname Lastname, but sorts by Lastname, Firstname), and people call all the time to figure out how to change it.

All changes break someone's workflow.

[AndyU]

Populating it by typing manually takes a lot longer.

But if you'd used dBpoweramp to rip you wouldn't have had to populate it manually because it will have been ripped in the first place.

And if you do it that way, you're doing it forever for whatever files you import. 

Not if you keep using dBpoweramp, or MC rips the Artist Sort tag that is already on the cd.
[

I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that whatever databases out there have this tag, are probably all full of "incorrect" information (because some people aren't going to know how to tag it right, and others may disagree and prefer Tori Amos to sort with T instead of A).  So that's probably not a super-time saver either.

Those record companies that do provide the tag are reasonably consistent. Have you looked? Any rip where you disagree can be overrides in a similar few seconds to the pane editing post you made above.

As far as skill, I think people can learn better ways.

I doubt many users of MC have the desire or motivation to learn to use regular expressions nested inside other expressions to achieve something that is available on the cd.

If they implement something automatic, I'd much rather see them implement something like I suggested above.  But, this also gives me pause because it is "hidden functionality".  You tell it to sort on [Artist] and it actually sorts on something else?  That's terrible, and will lead to all sorts of confusion and issues.

Not proposing that at all. Just proposing that the Artist Sort field is populated when a cd is ripped, and that folk can use it to Sort by if they want to, in the same way they can use any other field to sort any view with. Of course, an even nicer implementation would allow a mapping table somewhere.

[glynor]

I don't disagree with any of this:

Not proposing that at all. Just proposing that the Artist Sort field is populated when a cd is ripped, and that folk can use it to Sort by if they want to, in the same way they can use any other field to sort any view with. Of course, an even nicer implementation would allow a mapping table somewhere.

Maybe I'm confused, but ARTISTSORT is not part of the CD-Text (MMC-3) standard set of 16 tags.

I believe the source of that information for your rips is an online database, not information burned into the discs by the manufacturer, though I could be wrong.  I'm not sure, honestly, as I don't own many spinning plastic discs and the ones I still have were ripped ages ago.  But, more importantly, what is the level of consistency when you buy content online in this field?  Does every application do it differently, slightly, so MC would need to have a complex set of field-matching logic?  If it is often part of CD-Text, what spec are they using?  Do different manufacturers use different specs and field names?  If it is database only, then YADB probably doesn't contain that field, which means it would have to be user-filled if they add it, which means it'll get junked up with all kinda of crap pretty quickly.

I don't know these details, so I don't know how difficult or useful it would be to implement it.

I can say, that the entire [xxxSORT] solution seems like a kludge because it requires repeating information in a separate, manually updated, field.  I'd much rather have something like I described above.  Or, well, I would except I like to see them displayed the way they sort.  I set my contacts lists to work the same way on my devices.  It "annoys" me when something displays one way and sorts another because of "hidden information".  So, I just make [Artist] "name swapped" where appropriate.  That's me, I can see it the other way, but you can do this because MC's field system is so flexible.

With the [Artist Name Swap] expression trick I explain in the other thread, this is simple and takes seconds to do whole swaths of artists.  I just add them to a "Swap these Names" playlist I made as I notice them in everyday use.  Then I open this list every so often and do Control-A and the =[Artist Name Swap] trick.  It doesn't take much effort at all to keep it under control.

If you, or the OP, would like me to make the expression I described for you, just ask.  I'm too lazy to do and test it if no one is going to use it.  I'm sure a bunch of other people here could make that expression too.  It isn't a particularly complex example.

[dtc]

I do not think any automated solution  to [Artist Sort] works all the time. Just as an example, what do you do with an album with artists Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, where both get equal billings. I have more by Ella than Louis, so I want it listed with other Ella albums.  If someone had more Louis albums then they might want to have it listed with his albums.  I have a handful of albums like that. So I need a system that has an automatic way to swap names, but also allows me to enter a value manually.

I find that using  MrC's epression works but I also need a way to override it easily.  So, as discussed here, following 6233638's suggestion, I added a manual field that if a value is input into it overrides the calculated field. Most of the time the calculated field works fine, but it is also easy to override it if you want to.  So,the logic I use to get the [Artist Sort] field becomes

1) Calculate [AA Name Swap] per MrC's's expression.

2) Created a field named [Artist Sort Manual]

3) For any album I want to manually edit the artist to sort by, I simply enter that into the [Artist Sort Manual] field, otherwise I leave it blank.

4)[Artist Sort] then becomes if(isempty([Artist Sort Manual],0),[AA Name Swap],[Artist Sort Manual]) or
                                  FirstNotEmpty([Artist Sort Manual],[AA Name Swap])

I find that 90%+ of the time, the automatic logic works fine, so I only have to do occasional manual entries. I like this approach because I do not think that any automatic calculation  will work for all artist names.

[glynor]

Yeah, that's basically another "version" of my suggestion above.  And, if you prefer to use the Album Artist functionality in MC (I also don't use this) then 6233638's post shows you how to modify the [Artist Name Swap] expression to use [Album Artist] instead.

I agree that no system can possibly be fully automatic.  It just comes down to the fact that the "problem set" is too big, and a computer is not going to be able to divine user intent.  I have, in my sorting system, a relatively arbitrary rule regarding "bands" that are named like:  Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers.

My "rule" goes like:

* If all of the tracks I have (or the vast majority) by Lavay Smith are all by her and her skillet lickers, then I keep the band name unaltered (the same as you would for Pink Floyd), and sort on "L" (using that example).
* If I have a variety of tracks, some her solo, and some with a few different Lavay Smith and her something something somethings, then I rename the whole lot as [Artist] = "Smith, Lavay" and copy the existing Artist data over to [Band] (so it remains searchable that way).
* I never do "Smith, Lavay and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers" like an animal.

How can an algorithm figure that system out?  It'd have to be hard-coded, and not everyone agrees with those rules.  Until AI gets way better, we have to settle and do something manual in any case.

Another tip: If you do implement some version of this, consider making the [Artist Sort Toggle] and/or [Artist Sort] fields Relational keyed off of Artist.  That way, you only have to tag a single file of a particular artist correctly, and then all matching future tracks by the same artist will automatically get the sort properly.

[ssands]

Another tip: If you do implement some version of this, consider making the [Artist Sort Toggle] and/or [Artist Sort] fields Relational keyed off of Artist.  That way, you only have to tag a single file of a particular artist correctly, and then all matching future tracks by the same artist will automatically get the sort properly.

First of all, thanks to everyone for contributing their thoughts and ideas. Lots of interesting approaches. I'm inclined to implement Glynors approach, but I had a question regarding the above quote.

Does MC have relational capabilities? I was under the impression it is flat and thus I would need to tag each file, which really isn't too big a deal, but just wondering.

As far as the expression, I thought Mr. C's expression handled it, or perhaps I'm missing something???

[glynor]

Does MC have relational capabilities? I was under the impression it is flat and thus I would need to tag each file, which really isn't too big a deal, but just wondering.

Yes, it does have limited relational field types.  You can make a given user-created field relational by [Artist], [Album], or [Series].


Click to embiggen.

[ssands]

Well, I had no idea! Thank you! Now to implement. Tonights project!

(Finally getting around to ripping my 1000 or so CDs)...

[ssands]

So, I implemented the scheme above, and it works, but my view still shows the name as "Reed, Lou".

I wanted it to sort under "R" for Reed, but display under the stack of albums as "Lou Reed"

There a way to do this, isn't there?

[dtc]

So, I implemented the scheme above, and it works, but my view still shows the name as "Reed, Lou".

I wanted it to sort under "R" for Reed, but display under the stack of albums as "Lou Reed"

There a way to do this, isn't there?

Sort by Artist Sort, display Artist.

[ssands]

Sort by Artist Sort, display Artist.

Thank you! I'm just gonna write that last request of mine up to way too many nights up 'till 2am. That was just kind of obvious, wasn't it? Still, much appreciated!