Multidisc albums with more than one artist

[simoncn]

(21-10-2013 11:54)DavidHB Wrote:  .... the Composer is so often identified by default as the 'Album Artist' on classical music tracks ....

Which control points do this? I don't think I've come across this, but perhaps I haven't been looking carefully enough.

[DavidHB]

(21-10-2013 12:15)simoncn Wrote:  

(21-10-2013 11:54)DavidHB Wrote:  .... the Composer is so often identified by default as the 'Album Artist' on classical music tracks ....

Which control points do this? I don't think I've come across this, but perhaps I haven't been looking carefully enough.

This is not AFAIK a Control Point problem. It is a problem with online databases of tagging data we use when ripping discs. As often as not, the default data loads with the composer name showing in the Artist and Album Artist tags; the artist data is then either absent or included in Album or Track names.

I seem to recall reading that some at least of the metadata standards allow what to me is a misuse of the artist tags. But, from the point of view of the classical music enthusiast, it is still a mess, and, with each such messy album, work is required to sort it out.

The Control Point issue I identified was the display of Album Artist where Artist would be more appropriate. I am sure I have come across this, but have just checked Kinsky and Bubble DS , and both are well behaved in that regard. Both seem to have a rooted objection to showing composer data (even on 'now playing' type displays), but I'm wandering off the point ...

David

[zebra]

(20-10-2013 21:39)simoncn Wrote:  

(20-10-2013 18:08)zebra Wrote:  What speaks against checking whether all files with a common album name and different discmumber tags have the same album artists in the same order? Alternatively Minim could offer a configuration option for specifying the fields that should be considered for merging.

Supporting multiple album artists for an album or changing the way merging works would be a major design and implementation change. The code in this area is very complex already, and I don't think it would be a good idea to add more complexity unless there is some use case that can't be handled with the current implementation. This is why I asked for an example of an album that needs to be tagged with multiple artists and multiple album artists.

This album (http://www.lalalandrecords.com/WyattEarp.html) is shown twice (disc 1+2 and disc 3) because on disc 3 there are some cues by another composer. The album artist is the same for all files but because of the "workaround" the album artist in not visible.

The "workaround" is necessary because other albums in my collection have multiple album artists (e.g. "The Dark Knight" soundtrack with album artists "Hans Zimmer" and "James Newton Howard"). Without this workaround these albums would not be shown when browsing by album artist.

[simoncn]

(21-10-2013 20:56)zebra Wrote:  This album (http://www.lalalandrecords.com/WyattEarp.html) is shown twice (disc 1+2 and disc 3) because on disc 3 there are some cues by another composer. The album artist is the same for all files but because of the "workaround" the album artist in not visible.

The "workaround" is necessary because other albums in my collection have multiple album artists (e.g. "The Dark Knight" soundtrack with album artists "Hans Zimmer" and "James Newton Howard"). Without this workaround these albums would not be shown when browsing by album artist.

Thanks for this information. I've looked at both these albums. For "Wyatt Earp", I couldn't easily find out which artists or album artists are different on disc 3 from discs 1 and 2. You mentioned another composer for disc 3, but the composer isn't the same as the album artist or artist.

From the iTunes listing for The Dark Knight, it seems that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are the artists on all the tracks of this album. What is the problem with tagging these as artist names instead of album artist names?

[zebra]

(21-10-2013 21:49)simoncn Wrote:  Thanks for this information. I've looked at both these albums. For "Wyatt Earp", I couldn't easily find out which artists or album artists are different on disc 3 from discs 1 and 2. You mentioned another composer for disc 3, but the composer isn't the same as the album artist or artist.

All files have the album artist "James Newton Howard". All files from disc 1 and 2 and most files from disc 3 have the artist "James Newton Howard". On disc 3 there are also some files tagged with artist "Brad Dechter" (some source music used in the film, written by the orchestrator).

(21-10-2013 21:49)simoncn Wrote:  From the iTunes listing for The Dark Knight, it seems that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are the artists on all the tracks of this album. What is the problem with tagging these as artist names instead of album artist names?

All the files are tagged with "Hans Zimmer" and "James Newton Howard" as artist but also as album artist because usually I browse my music collection via the album artist (= film music composers). If I browse my collection by artist I would also have many other artist in the artist list (from songs, source music, music "inspired by" or whatever).

[simoncn]

(22-10-2013 19:32)zebra Wrote:  All files have the album artist "James Newton Howard". All files from disc 1 and 2 and most files from disc 3 have the artist "James Newton Howard". On disc 3 there are also some files tagged with artist "Brad Dechter" (some source music used in the film, written by the orchestrator).

For this case, the current MinimServer behaviour of merging by AlbumArtist would do exactly what you want, except that you have aliased AlbumArtist to something else and this prevents MinimServer from using your AlbumArtist tags to do the merging.

Quote:All the files are tagged with "Hans Zimmer" and "James Newton Howard" as artist but also as album artist because usually I browse my music collection via the album artist (= film music composers). If I browse my collection by artist I would also have many other artist in the artist list (from songs, source music, music "inspired by" or whatever).

For this case, you will need to continue to use tagAlias to rename your multiple AlbumArtist tags to something else. To enable correct merging, you would also need to add some other tag that you can alias to AlbumArtist. This other tag would be used for merging purposes only and wouldn't appear in the index.

For a future release of MinimServer, I am considering adding a new capability to create a default value for the AlbumArtist tag (and possibly other tags) from other tag values in the same file. You could take advantage of this by doing the following:

1) Use tagAlias to rename your AlbumArtist tags to something else, for example MainArtist.

2) Use the new default value capability to create an AlbumArtist value from an ordered sequence of your MainArtist values. For The Dark Knight, this would create a default AlbumArtist value of 'Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard'.

3) These default values would enable both the above albums to be merged correctly, assuming that all the tracks of the album have the same sequence of AlbumArtist tags in the same order.