Post Reply 
 
Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
artist display format
06-11-2016, 23:47
Post: #1
artist display format
I’ve been struggling to set my artist display to show artists, composers, soloists, orchestra and conductor with each group separated by a semi-colon, and individual entries within the group separated by commas. The wrinkle is I’d also like to show a label for composer, soloists, & conductor. The display would look like this:

artist1, artist2; composer1, composer2, composer3 (composer); soloist1, soloist2 (soloist); orchestra; conductor (conductor)

Alternatively I’d be happy with slashes and commas as in:
artist1/artist2, composer1/composer2/composer3 (composer), soloist…etc.

The best I’ve come up with so far is the following:
Artist.displayFormat={$artist^^; ^, $composer^^ (composer); ^, $soloists^^ (soloist); ^, $orchestra$conductor^^ (conductor)^; }

This works fairly well except that specifying the semi-colon in the suffix leaves it showing whether there is anything following or not. So if there’s only an artist, it shows “artist; “. I’ve tried leaving the semi-colon out of the suffix and using slashes as separator, thinking that the default comma would separate the groups, but then I just get the groups running into each other: artist1/artist2composer1/composer2.

Is this possible, and if so, what am I missing?

Thanks as always for a great product.
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
07-11-2016, 09:57
Post: #2
RE: artist display format
You should put the semicolons as prefixes, not suffixes. Try the following:

Artist.displayFormat={$artist^^$composer^; ^ (composer)$soloists^; ^ (soloist)$orchestra^; ^$conductor^; ^ (conductor)}

This should do what you want as long as there is at least one artist. It also handles multiple orchestras and conductors (I have an album like this).
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
07-11-2016, 10:20
Post: #3
RE: artist display format
Thanks Simon. I tried that actually, but most of my classical has no track artist, only composer in the album artist field (and composer field as well). I then put soloists in the Soloists field. I used to have them in the artist field, but I do this because my portable player, like many, uses the Apple methodology and sorts first by track artist, then by album artist. So to find Beethoven on my Astell & Kern or iPhone, I leave the artist field blank so it will default to the album artist. Is there a better way?
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
07-11-2016, 10:54
Post: #4
RE: artist display format
If there is always a composer, you can use:

Artist.displayFormat={$artist^^; $composer^^ (composer)$soloists^; ^ (soloist)$orchestra^; ^$conductor^; ^ (conductor)}
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
07-11-2016, 12:34
Post: #5
RE: artist display format
Unfortunately that's back where I started. I have lots of popular music with no composer tagged, so I end up with the hanging semi-colon again.
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
07-11-2016, 13:54
Post: #6
RE: artist display format
(07-11-2016 12:34)antonmb Wrote:  Unfortunately that's back where I started. I have lots of popular music with no composer tagged, so I end up with the hanging semi-colon again.

What strikes me is that the Artist tag for your classical albums is empty. Can you not fill it to bring it in line with general recommendations and then work from there? Metadata tag tools like mp3tag will allow you to do this in under an hour, including testing.
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
07-11-2016, 22:44
Post: #7
RE: artist display format
(07-11-2016 13:54)Pepsican Wrote:  What strikes me is that the Artist tag for your classical albums is empty. Can you not fill it to bring it in line with general recommendations and then work from there? Metadata tag tools like mp3tag will allow you to do this in under an hour, including testing.

Thanks for the suggestion. I know I can change all my tags, but I like the power and selectivity that Minimserver provides the way I have my music tagged now. As for retagging, I'm not sure what "general recommendations" are for classical, since everything I've seen indicates that there is no clear consensus on classical tagging. I could copy the composer to the track artist, but then I'd have duplicates. It also seems counterintuitive to me to have tags available for Composer, Performer, Soloists, Conductor, Orchestra and Ensemble, only to load them into the track artist as I see it in many downloads from HDtracks and Qobuz. I'm quite happy with my current tagging, just trying to tweak the display a bit.
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
08-11-2016, 05:15
Post: #8
RE: artist display format
(07-11-2016 22:44)antonmb Wrote:  
(07-11-2016 13:54)Pepsican Wrote:  What strikes me is that the Artist tag for your classical albums is empty. Can you not fill it to bring it in line with general recommendations and then work from there? Metadata tag tools like mp3tag will allow you to do this in under an hour, including testing.

Thanks for the suggestion. I know I can change all my tags, but I like the power and selectivity that Minimserver provides the way I have my music tagged now. As for retagging, I'm not sure what "general recommendations" are for classical, since everything I've seen indicates that there is no clear consensus on classical tagging. I could copy the composer to the track artist, but then I'd have duplicates. It also seems counterintuitive to me to have tags available for Composer, Performer, Soloists, Conductor, Orchestra and Ensemble, only to load them into the track artist as I see it in many downloads from HDtracks and Qobuz. I'm quite happy with my current tagging, just trying to tweak the display a bit.

Hello antonmb, please could you tell me how you exactly tag your classical and popular music files? I am also struggling by this tagging thing, I have much more popular music but also classical.
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
09-11-2016, 06:39
Post: #9
RE: artist display format
(08-11-2016 05:15)erho Wrote:  Hello antonmb, please could you tell me how you exactly tag your classical and popular music files? I am also struggling by this tagging thing, I have much more popular music but also classical.

Hi echo,
Your first best option is to browse this thread, which has a wealth of information on tagging from people more proficient than me. If you're interested, I'm no expert, but this works for me:

Classical:
* Album Title: I stick as closely as possible to the original title as shown on the cover art but shorten composers to last name only.
* Album Artist: Composer's name (last name first as in "Hindemith, Paul”). Set to “Various Composers” when appropriate multiple on the same album
* Track artist: blank
* Composer: Composer’s name, reversed.
* Soloists: Any soloists.
* Conductor: Conductor
* Orchestra: All orchestras or ensembles like quartets, etc. I don't use the Ensemble field but you could do this for smaller groups.
* Chorus: Choir, Chorus - any vocal group
* Genre: all set to "Classical". Thinking of Style field for sub-genres, e.g. Baroque Chamber, Symphonic.
* Track title: show the work and the movement, delete any unnecessary repetition of album or soloists, etc.

Rock, Jazz, Pop, etc:
* Album artist: the main artist or group/band as listed on the album, not reversed. If more than one, e.g. “Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler,” “Doc & Merle Watson,” I list them that way. For compilation albums, Album Artist is set to “Various Artists.”
* Composer: composer if available
* Track artist: set to either the same as the album artist if it's only one artist or band, or multiple track artists added when they exist or for compilation albums. For example the album "Neck and Neck" by Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler is set up like this:
- Album Artist: "Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler"
- Track Artist:
- Chet Atkins
- Mark Knopfler
* Genre: standard large groupings like Rock, Jazz, Folk, Celtic, etc. I try to avoid too narrow genres like Swing, Bebop, Post-bop, etc.

All:
* Year: user only, no month
* Grouping: box set names
* Description: I set this field with the year and month acquired the album, in the format “YYYY-MM,” for example 2016-01 or 2016-11. In the IndexTags in Minimserver properties I’ve added “Description:Recently Added,” which indexes by this field and displays it as “Recently Added” so I can browse my library by when albums were added and find recent acquisitions easily.
* For multi-disc sets, add “(Disc 1),” “(Disc 2),” etc. to the end of the album title, also make sure the Disc Number and Total Discs fields are populated.
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
09-11-2016, 09:29 (This post was last modified: 09-11-2016 09:33 by erho.)
Post: #10
RE: artist display format
Thank you very much, will try your settings. How do you sort your albums for popular music without name reverse?
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
Post Reply 


Forum Jump:


User(s) browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)