Multi-disc DiscSubtitle sorting

[timster]

I have just discovered how to use the DISCSUBTITLE to group multi-disc albums together but split them into discs. Brilliant.

I have a request though. I have as an example Nirvana Nevermind in two formats. One is a CD rip (one disc), the other is a 4-'disc' MP3 Deluxe download I got from Amazon.

At the moment this is being shown under Nevermind as 5 albums. Would it be possible for Minim to treat all discs with the same DISCSUBTITLE as one? ie. I have tagged the CD as CD, and the others as Super Deluxe MP3, so it would be nice to see just the 2 albums.

[antonmb]

Hi Timster,

The way this should work is you tag the entire album with one name for the album title followed by the disc number, then each disc can have a different subtitle. As an example, I have an album by John Print titled "The Singing Mailman Delivers" which has 2 discs, one a studio recording and one a live concert recording. I have it tagged like this:

Disc 1:
ALBUM: The Singing Mailman Delivers (Disc 1)
DISCNUMBER: 1
DISCNUMBERTOTAL: 2
DISCSUBTITLE: Studio Performance - August 1970

Disc 2:
ALBUM: The Singing Mailman Delivers (Disc 2)
DISCNUMBER: 2
DISCNUMBERTOTAL: 2
DISCSUBTITLE: Live Performance - November 1970

In Kazoo this shows as one album with two discs, each with it's own subtitle and individually selectable below the main album.

Is this what you're looking for?

[timster]

Thanks Anton. I didn't realise Minim would group the albums together if the album titles were different. I will try it tomorrow. Just thinking though, I'd have to name the 4 discs that are part if the super deluxe mp3s all disc 1? Or can they all be "Nevermind (Super Deluxe)" and still be grouped with "Nevermind"?

[antonmb]

I guess I would treat what you have as two albums: “Nevermind” and “Nevermind Super Deluxe.” I would then tag the album titles of the discs within Super Deluxe as follows:

Nevermind Super Deluxe (disc 1)
Nevermind Super Deluxe (disc 2)
Etc.

Each disc should be tagged as 1 of 4, 2 of 4, etc. In this scenario you don’t need to add a disc subtitle unless you want to add some specific description to each of the discs, for example discsubtitle for 1 might be “original album”, for 2 might be “bonus tracks,” and so on. If you don’t add a discsubtitle each disc will simply show up as it’s number: disc 1, disc 2...

[simoncn]

DISCSUBTITLE and DISCNUMBER both apply only within an ALBUM. They can't be used to group discs across ALBUM boundaries.

When merging ALBUMs, album names ending with "(disc n)", "[disc n]" and ", disc n" are treated specially and do not identify different albums if the rest of the album name is the same. See this section.

[timster]

Thanks Simon, that's what I thought. It is fairly straight forward for most albums that have different versions, as long as there is only one disc for each version. I think what I'm wanting is beyond that, when one or more of the versions of the album consists of multiple discs. I actually only have one of these, Nevermind.

Nevermind has two versions - CD (1 disc), and Super Deluxe (4 discs). The CD is DISCNUMBER 1/1, and DISCSUBTITLE is tagged "CD". The Super Deluxe are DISCNUMBERs 1,2,3 and 4/4, and all have DISCSUBTITLE "Super Deluxe MP3".

This actually works with Asset, which I have set to show separate discs. So it shows Nevermind (the CD) as a separate and then the 4 super deluxe discs, labelled ", Disc 1" etc. I don't know how it does this to be honest, because with Minim amalgamates both the CD and disc 1 of the super deluxe together, even though DISCSUBTITLE is different. FYI, I originally had the CD tagged as disc 5 to get around this, but it's not actually correct. So if I can't have all the Super Deluxe discs together, can Minim separate two albums that share name and disc number, but have different disc subtitles?

Or, will have to have two album entries for Nevermind - the CD and the Super Deluxe as separate entities as anton suggests, or got back to labelling the CD as disc 5?

[simoncn]

It is an error to have two different DISCSUBTITLE tags for files that are part of the same album and have the same DISCNUMBER. MinimServer checks for this when the conflicting files are in the same folder but there is currently no check for this when the conflicting files are merged from different folders into the same album disc. I will add this check in the next update.

I hadn't expected that anyone would use the same DISCSUBTITLE for different discs of the same album. This should work OK. The DISCSUBTITLE value is purely cosmetic and doesn't affect merging etc.

At present, you are trying to have two separate discs in the same album, both numbered as disc number 1. This isn't possible with MinimServer and you will need to tag the CD as either a separate album or disc number 5.

Another approach that you might (or might not) find useful is to tag the CD as part of the multidisc album but without any DISCNUMBER or DISCSUBTITLE. This effectively creates a "disc 0" that is shown before disc 1 in the multidisc album browse view.

[timster]

Thanks Simon. Maybe I am misunderstanding how discsubtitle is used. I can see how multi-disc albums could have each disc subtitled so they are split in the multi-disc album view (which is very good). But I was kind of hoping it could be used to similarly split different versions of the same album. Maybe that's not it's intention.

So I've rethought my tagging strategy for albums like this, with different versions and multiple discs. I tried setting the album's CD version disc-number and subtitle blank as suggested, but this created two albums called Nevermind (luckily they don't share album art), rather than a disc 0 in the multidisc album view for a single album. So I have made the CD disc 5, subtitled CD, and re-subtitled the super deluxe discs to include their disc numbers. It did work with the same disc-subtitle, but that was pointless if they were still split by discnumber.

I wonder if discnumber/subtitle could be used for versioning as well, and as I hoped? So that all versions of the same album can be grouped together under one album entry, but separated by the subtitle? They could have different disc numbers if necessary, but my original point remains - would it break anything for Minim to group all tracks in an album (in multidisc album view) by discsubtitle, and then sorted by discnumber/track?

[simoncn]

DISCSUBTITLE is just a way to give a friendly title to a numbered disc of an multidisc album as a substitute for Disc 1, Disc 2, etc. It is a standard tag, not something invented by MinimServer.

I understand your suggestion but I don't think using DISCSUBTITLE as a way to group related albums together is consistent with its intended purpose. For this, something like an "album set" concept (as discussed in some previous threads) would be more suitable.

[timster]

Got you. Discsubtitle isn't appropriate, it's more an albumsubtitle really. Is the album set concept something doable with current tag schemes?