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Listing multidisc albums with different composers - Uoppi - 14-08-2020 14:49

How can I display multidisc albums as ONE box set in the MinimServer albums list, when the composers differ across the discs? I'm using MinimServer on QNAP with BubbleUPnP Android (in case that it matters).

In other words:
- Brautigam's Beethoven piano sonatas box set shows up as it should: each disc is under one library entry (showing disc 01, disc 02, disc 03 etc.). I even managed to get both the main box cover art and separate cover arts for the discs (nice!)
- Heinz Holliger Edition: I see FIVE separate "Heinz Holliger Edition" library entries (based on the composer). For example, there is an entry "Heinz Holliger Edition - Tomaso Albinoni" where I can see "disc 03", "disc 04" and "disc 05" (which are exclusively Albinoni). I have no idea how to view the Holliger box set as ONE, i.e., so that all the discs display under one library entry.

Is there a tag that could be used? I actually don't mind having the discs split by composer when I'm browsing by Composer but even then, I would expect MinimServer to show an "View all album discs" or "Complete set" option, similar to the "Complete album" option.


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - simoncn - 14-08-2020 15:40

It sounds like the different discs have different ALBUM tags. You should make the ALBUM tags the same for all discs and add DISCSUBTITLE tags to describe the contents of each disc.

So instead of this:

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition - Another Person
DISCNUMBER=1

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition - Another Person
DISCNUMBER=2

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition - Tomaso Albinoni
DISCNUMBER=3

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition - Tomaso Albinoni
DISCNUMBER=4

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition - Tomaso Albinoni
DISCNUMBER=5

you would have something like this:

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition
DISCNUMBER=1
DISCSUBTITLE=Another Person - Disc 1

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition
DISCNUMBER=2
DISCSUBTITLE=Another Person -Disc 2

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition
DISCNUMBER=3
DISCSUBTITLE=Tomaso Albinoni - Disc 3

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition
DISCNUMBER=4
DISCSUBTITLE=Tomaso Albinoni - Disc 4

ALBUM=Heinz Holliger Edition
DISCNUMBER=5
DISCSUBTITLE=Tomaso Albinoni - Disc 5

There is no need to change COMPOSER tags as these are not involved in album and disc grouping.


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - Uoppi - 14-08-2020 16:07

The album tag was in this format:
Heinz Holliger Edition [disc 01: 01. Vivaldi: Oboe Concertos]

To be able to use separate cover art for each disc, I also added DISCSUBTITLE:
disc 01: Vivaldi: Oboe Concertos

What I tried next was only using "Heinz Holliger Edition" as the title (i.e., removing the [disc...] parts from the album name completely) and relying on DISCSUBTITLE only (because I don't know if you are supposed to use the [disc 01] and DISCSUBTITLE together or if they will conflict.)

With the above change, the album entries have gone down to 2 from 5. This time however - and quite unexpectedly - the albums are apparently listed based on the ARTIST NAME tag. The disc that has only one ARTIST NAME tag for the whole album is listed separately. The rest of the discs have several ARTIST NAME tags across different tracks and they are shown together. (See attachment)

EDIT: Something weird is going on. Just for testing, I re-inserted the [disc 01] suffixes in the ALBUM tags. Whereas previously it resulted in 5 different entries, I now see the same 2 entries as in the attachment. Somehow it appears that whether there are one or more ALBUM ARTIST and/or COMPOSER tags (who knows, maybe other tags too?), it can screw up the sorting. Discs that have multiple values (different composers/artists on different tracks), get grouped together as they should but those with a single value are listed separately. Could it be a bug because I'm completely lost with the logic?


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - simoncn - 14-08-2020 17:12

To get the discs merged as you wish, you should not use [disc 01] in ALBUM tags. Did you do a MinimServer rescan after adding these back? Without a rescan, the tag changes you have made will not be seen by MinimServer.

I can't tell from the screenshot you have posted whether these artist entries have been added by your control point or by MinimServer. Which control point are you using?

COMPOSER tags have no effect on album and disc grouping but ARTIST and ALBUMARTIST tags do have an effect. To be sure that the discs are all grouped together into a single album, it is best to set a single consistent ALBUMARTIST for all files on all discs. You can then do anything you want with your ARTIST tags.


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - Uoppi - 14-08-2020 19:22

(14-08-2020 17:12)simoncn Wrote:  To get the discs merged as you wish, you should not use [disc 01] in ALBUM tags. Did you do a MinimServer rescan after adding these back? Without a rescan, the tag changes you have made will not be seen by MinimServer.

Yes, I always make sure to do a rescan after any changes.

Quote:I can't tell from the screenshot you have posted whether these artist entries have been added by your control point or by MinimServer. Which control point are you using?

I'm using BubbleUPnP Android and MinimServer is on a QNAP NAS.

Quote:COMPOSER tags have no effect on album and disc grouping but ARTIST and ALBUMARTIST tags do have an effect. To be sure that the discs are all grouped together into a single album, it is best to set a single consistent ALBUMARTIST for all files on all discs. You can then do anything you want with your ARTIST tags.

I normally have all COMPOSERs on a disc tagged as a single ALBUMARTIST value (names separated by a semicolon). When troubleshooting, I also tried using a single consistent ALBUMARTIST value across all the discs but the problem persisted.

Come to think of it, I wonder if something in the way I handle COMPOSER and ARTIST in MinimServer's Properties are causing these issues. The thought occurred to me, because my issues seem related to those two tags. Please see the two attachments.


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - Uoppi - 14-08-2020 19:37

Okay, I got it working but ONLY if there are multiple entries (instead of a single consistent one) in the disc's ARTIST (Artist Name in Foobar2000) field. I.e., at least one track needs to have a different ARTIST value than the rest on the disc.

Sounds strange but I did confirm this by changing the ARTIST of one track on the disc that was shown listed separately in the screenshot in reply #3. Now when none of the discs have a single consistent ARTIST value, all discs are grouped properly under the same library entry. And also confirming what you wrote, that ALBUMARTIST needs to be one single value across all the discs.

Just wondering if it's got something to do with the way I've set MinimServer to display these tags. What I could do, is just add a blank space at the end of one track's ARTIST metadata, if the disc only has a single ARTIST value. But it feels like a hack. EDIT: Hmm, looks like I have "Ronald Brautigam, fortepiano" as the only ARTIST in his 10 disc Beethoven set and it's displaying properly so I'm at my wits end here.


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - simoncn - 14-08-2020 19:51

I don't see anything in your properties that could cause this issue. Also, I don't understand why having a consistent artist across all tracks of one of the discs would cause that disc to be listed separately.

It would be very helpful if you could post two screenshots: one where it is working correctly with inconsistent artists on all discs and one where it doesn't work correctly because of a consistent artist on one disc. In both cases, all files of all discs should have the same ALBUMARTIST tag.


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - Uoppi - 14-08-2020 20:15

In post #3 above, there's a screenshot where the separately listed album/disc has a single consistent ARTIST across all tracks.

In this post's attachment, there's a screenshot of where the issue is fixed by adding a single character ("1") at the end of the ARTIST field on one of the disc's tracks, resulting in the disc having multiple ARTIST values. (Hence displayed as "Iona Brown1".)

In both cases, ALBUMARTIST is a single global value across the whole set (composer names separated by a semicolon).

EDIT: What is interesting is that deliberately changing ARTIST to be dissimilar on one track in Ronald Brautigam's Beethoven 10-disc set does not cause any issues. Which makes me wonder if the sheer amount of metadata in the Heinz Holliger Edition's case is somehow a problem (versus just having one composer and one artist across the whole set, e.g. Beethoven + Brautigam).


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - simoncn - 14-08-2020 22:42

Thanks very much for this. Please check the MinimServer log for error messages and warning messages. For example, I would like to know if there are any messages about conflicting AlbumArtist values.


RE: Listing multidisc albums with different composers - simoncn - 15-08-2020 08:03

(14-08-2020 20:15)Uoppi Wrote:  In both cases, ALBUMARTIST is a single global value across the whole set (composer names separated by a semicolon).

foobar2000 uses a semicolon to indicate multiple values. Your use of a semicolon as this separator means you actually have multiple ALBUMARTIST tags in your files. MinimServer does not support multiple ALBUMARTIST values and resolves this conflict by ignoring the ALBUMARTIST tags and producing a warning message in the MinimServer log.

Because the ALBUMARTIST tags have been ignored, MinimServer falls back to ARTIST tags to identify disc boundaries. If all the artists on a disc are consistent, this disc is identified as an album. If the artists are not consistent, it appears that the disc is not identified as an album but is merged into the higher-level album set. I will investigate this behaviour in more detail (the code that does this is quite complex).

The solution for you is either to use some other separator character when tagging multiple composer names as the ALBUMARTIST value or to use a different tagging program that doesn't treat a semicolon specially when used in a tag value.

It is fine to have multiple values for ARTIST and most other tags, just not for ALBUMARTIST.