Album View-Compilations

[GOCUS]

Hi Support

In album view Compilation Albums are showing as a separate album for each artist

I’m sure there is a way to combine a compilation album with multiple artists into one view in albums, but I don’t know how.

Any help appreciated.

[simbun]

The most compatible way I've found to group compilation albums is to ensure that both the AlbumArtist and Album tags are populated and share the same values. For me that's storing 'Various Artists' in the AlbumArtist field.

You'll also want to make sure that the MinimServer configuration option mergeFolderAlbums is set to true.

[simoncn]

mergeFolderAlbums is only needed if the tracks of the album are split across different folders for the different artists. For example, iTunes organises its library in this way.

[simbun]

(25-03-2023 15:12)simoncn Wrote:  mergeFolderAlbums is only needed if the tracks of the album are split across different folders for the different artists. For example, iTunes organises its library in this way.

Admittedly since I've been using an album id to represent "album" I haven't had to understand all this complexity, but doesn't the iTunes layout match with what they're seeing, one compilation album per artist?

My assumptions are that AlbumArtist is empty and mergeFolderAlbum=false.

If I remove AlbumArtist from a compilation album (with files stored under one folder per disc), no matter how many discs I have I still have them grouped by album, albeit with a concatenated list of the artists as "AlbumArtist".

If however I split that compilation disc across individual artist folders then I see one album per artist. If I add AlbumArtist='Various Artists' then that does group them back to an album but only where there's more than one disc.

I forget how complicated this can all be! I'm sure you're right I just can't see what I've missed :-)

[simoncn]

I'm sure your logical analysis is correct and I was not intending to contradict you. I posted because others will be reading this thread now or at some time in the future who don't have exactly the same situation and they might assume that mergeFolderAlbums should be set to true without understanding when this setting is appropriate.

[simbun]

That makes total sense, as I should have explained why I thought it was necessary!

[GOCUS]

Thanks for the reply.

So does this mean adjusting the metadata for the file?
Trouble is the files are already downloaded and ripped via XLD to my NAS. Not sure how to amend the metadata to various artists after it has been downloaded.

[simbun]

Hi Gocus,

From your description I've assumed a certain file naming scheme, but given you're using XLD (not iTunes) I'm beginning to doubt that, so before we offer advice could you please confirm how your files are stored, specifically, how the tracks belonging to a compilation are stored. Typically they'll all reside under a single parent folder, with subfolders for each disc.

The most common file naming convention is:

Code:

AlbumArtist/Year - Album/DiscNumber/TrackNumber - TrackTitle.m4a

This will be stored on the File Naming tab in XLD Preferences.

Typically for compilations AlbumArtist is set to 'Various Artists' but an alternative (again from iTunes) is to have a compilation flag set, could you confirm what approach is being used?

I'm afraid I'm not on a mac so my ability to talk you through these steps is limited.

[GOCUS]

Just to let you know that Merge Folder did the trick.
I had deleted Minim Server 0.8 to upgrade to 2.2.
When I checked properties of 0.8 version Merge Folders was ticked.
In 2.2 it was not.

Simple fix in the end.

[simoncn]

This happened because you deleted 0.8 before installing 2.2. If you had installed 2.2 without deleting 0.8, mergeFolderAlbums would been been enabled in 2.2. I am pleased you have it working now.