Albums with multiple album artists are not shown when browsing e.g. by album artists

[zebra]

When I browse my collection by album artist (using BubbleUPnP) albums that have more than one album artist are not shown.

But when using the default view for all albums for browsing these albums are shown.

My configuration of MinimServer is attached as well as the tagging data from a title of an album that has more than one album artist.

[simoncn]

(17-11-2012 15:41)zebra Wrote:  When I browse my collection by album artist (using BubbleUPnP) albums that have more than one album artist are not shown.

But when using the default view for all albums for browsing these albums are shown.

My configuration of MinimServer is attached as well as the tagging data from a title of an album that has more than one album artist.

MinimServer doesn't allow multiple values for the AlbumArtist tag. If you select 'Show log' from MinimWatch, you'll see a number of warning messages telling you that these conflicting AlbumArtist tags have been ignored. The tracks have been added to your library, but without any AlbumArtist tags.

As an alternative, you can use multiple values for the Artist tag, or you can create a new custom tag (such as "Main Artist") and use multiple values for this tag.

The AlbumArtist tag is limited to a single value because this tag represents the overall artist for the whole album. This "album artist" value is used in various contexts for grouping tracks belonging to the same album. This is consistent with how other servers and control points treat the AlbumArtist tag.

[Dieter Stockert]

I understand the reason. But I'm not happy with it. I read in the FLAC specifications that we are encouraged to use multiple tags. So I think every music server and every control app should allow and support unrestricted multi tagging and has to find other ways for such purposes like grouping etc. It may look like an easy way for now but I think it's not good for the long road.

[bbrip]

Ya, there have been long disussions on this here on the forum but I understand this is just not part of the "protocol" so it wont happen.

There are workarounds like putting the multiple Artists in a "Soloist" tag. If you define that as IndexTag in Minim, it gets picked up as a field with Songbook Lite, Kinsky and the likes.

But of course Soloist is not a standard tag so it may create some issues with CP's that only handle standard fields...

Not an easy solution around I guess

bbrip

[zebra]

I'm now using BARCODE for storing the information about several album artists. It's the only unused tag that has the same name in Vorbis and ID3 tags when using JAudiotagger.

[bbrip]

(18-11-2012 16:34)zebra Wrote:  I'm now using BARCODE for storing the information about several album artists. It's the only unused tag that has the same name in Vorbis and ID3 tags when using JAudiotagger.

Maybe time to change to mp3tag - about the only tagging software working according to the rules. Jaikoz certainly isnt.

[zebra]

(18-11-2012 17:17)bbrip Wrote:  Maybe time to change to mp3tag - about the only tagging software working according to the rules. Jaikoz certainly isnt.

I wrote a small Java programm for tagging the music files directly on the NAS.

[simoncn]

(18-11-2012 16:34)zebra Wrote:  I'm now using BARCODE for storing the information about several album artists. It's the only unused tag that has the same name in Vorbis and ID3 tags when using JAudiotagger.

You can use the ID3 TXXX tag for any Vorbis tag name. MinimServer will read and interpret this tag correctly. Getting some tagging programs to write it correctly can be more of a challenge.

[Oliviander]

(17-11-2012 16:49)simoncn Wrote:  

(17-11-2012 15:41)zebra Wrote:  When I browse my collection by album artist (using BubbleUPnP) albums that have more than one album artist are not shown.

But when using the default view for all albums for browsing these albums are shown.

My configuration of MinimServer is attached as well as the tagging data from a title of an album that has more than one album artist.

MinimServer doesn't allow multiple values for the AlbumArtist tag. If you select 'Show log' from MinimWatch, you'll see a number of warning messages telling you that these conflicting AlbumArtist tags have been ignored. The tracks have been added to your library, but without any AlbumArtist tags.

As an alternative, you can use multiple values for the Artist tag, or you can create a new custom tag (such as "Main Artist") and use multiple values for this tag.

The AlbumArtist tag is limited to a single value because this tag represents the overall artist for the whole album. This "album artist" value is used in various contexts for grouping tracks belonging to the same album. This is consistent with how other servers and control points treat the AlbumArtist tag.

As I just stumbled upon that very problem, when setting up minimserver for the first time.
I would gladly read in the Users Manual a chapter about all the Tags that have a special use or special Restricitions.
(I mean Tags that are used even if not appearing in the index list)

I have a large flac collection and tagged it completely with multiple
albumartists when applicable (Works well with asset upnp and lies within the Vorbis Comments Stadard).

As the Error still occurs when i delete the albumartist tag from the index list, I would like to know the consequences for not updating this
tag to the expected format.

Obviously I can access the albums as a whole and therefore
I can not see the restricitons you mentioned.

So I'm not sure whether I should retag my whole collection,
or just leave the AlbumArtist tag exluded from the index list ?

[simoncn]

(09-03-2013 10:09)Oliviander Wrote:  As I just stumbled upon that very problem, when setting up minimserver for the first time.
I would gladly read in the Users Manual a chapter about all the Tags that have a special use or special Restricitions.
(I mean Tags that are used even if not appearing in the index list)

I have a large flac collection and tagged it completely with multiple
albumartists when applicable (Works well with asset upnp and lies within the Vorbis Comments Stadard).

As the Error still occurs when i delete the albumartist tag from the index list, I would like to know the consequences for not updating this
tag to the expected format.

Obviously I can access the albums as a whole and therefore
I can not see the restricitons you mentioned.

So I'm not sure whether I should retag my whole collection,
or just leave the AlbumArtist tag exluded from the index list ?

MinimServer uses the AlbumArtist tag as follows:

1) For grouping tracks or discs together into albums, except in the special case where all tracks for an album are in the same directory

2) For creating the Artist index: any albums tagged with AlbumArtist have the AlbumArtist value placed in the Artist index instead of the album's Artist values

3) For sending to the control point in responses to browsing queries. Some control points (e.g., Kinsky) use this tag to group playlist tracks into albums.

4) As a regular tag for indexing, if it is included in indexTags

By removing this tag from indexTags, you are disabling 4) but not 1) 2) and 3). It isn't possible currently to disable 1) 2) or 3), or to disable the warning messages.

The tags that MinimServer reads even if they don't appear in indexTags are ARTIST, ALBUMARTIST, ALBUM ARTIST, TITLE, ALBUM, GROUP, TRACKNUMBER, DISCNUMBER and DISCSUBTITLE.

In the next release of MinimServer, there will be a new "tag alias" facility that would enable you to define (for example) MAINARTIST as the alias for ALBUMARTIST. This would disable MinimServer's special handling of 1) 2) and 3) above. You could use the existing tag index display renaming facility to display the index choice for MAINARTIST as the name AlbumArtist if you prefer to see this when browsing. This might be the combination you are looking for.