Conflicting album artist values

[retraite]

Using Minimserver 0.5, I'm receiving in the log, a list of messages such as this

Warning: conflicting ALBUMARTIST values for file Classical/BBC Music/BBC Volume 1, No 4, Music for Christmas/04 Gombert, Ave sanctissima Maria, motet for 5 voices.flac
first conflicting value: BBC Singers
second conflicting value: Simon Joly, Bo Holten


From the information given in the minimserver log, the problem appears to relate to tagging on a number of my BBC Music albums. I have uninstalled version 0.5, reinstalled minim 0.31 and all is, on the face of it, working well again. The tagging information on the albums mentioned in the log appears without problem. The only element that seems to mark the albums warned about as different (when I have looked at the albums in mp3 tag) is the use of a double backslash to separate multiple artists, under the artist tag. I've not experienced any similar problems before. I thought that I understood the nature of tagging reasonably well, but clearly I was mistaken.

My PC is running Windows 7, 64 bit version.

Is anyone able to offer an explanation and a means resolving the problem?

[simoncn]

(19-06-2012 13:01)retraite Wrote:  Using Minimserver 0.5, I'm receiving in the log, a list of messages such as this

Warning: conflicting ALBUMARTIST values for file Classical/BBC Music/BBC Volume 1, No 4, Music for Christmas/04 Gombert, Ave sanctissima Maria, motet for 5 voices.flac
first conflicting value: BBC Singers
second conflicting value: Simon Joly, Bo Holten


From the information given in the minimserver log, the problem appears to relate to tagging on a number of my BBC Music albums. I have uninstalled version 0.5, reinstalled minim 0.31 and all is, on the face of it, working well again. The tagging information on the albums mentioned in the log appears without problem. The only element that seems to mark the albums warned about as different (when I have looked at the albums in mp3 tag) is the use of a double backslash to separate multiple artists, under the artist tag. I've not experienced any similar problems before. I thought that I understood the nature of tagging reasonably well, but clearly I was mistaken.

My PC is running Windows 7, 64 bit version.

Is anyone able to offer an explanation and a means resolving the problem?

This is telling you that the file is tagged with multiple ALBUMARTIST values (not ARTIST values). It's fine to have multiple ARTIST values, but you can only have one ALBUMARTIST value for the entire contents of an album. This is because the ALBUMARTIST value is a special value which is used to provide the artist information for the entire album (for example, when looking at a list of albums). This can be useful when you have a lot of different artists on a single album.

The Mp3tag double backslash is used to indicate multiple values. This is why you're only getting the problem where you have used double backslashes.

If you change these tags from ALBUMARTIST to ARTIST (and leave the double backslashes as they are), everything should be fine, without any warnings. You'll also get better indexing using the Artist and All Artists selections.

[retraite]

Thank you for your prompt and thorough response. However, I'm still a little confused, so would like to pose a supplementary question. Looking again in mp3 tag at the album I used as the example in my first post , the "Artist" column lists :

BBC Singers\\Simon Joly, Bo Holten

Under "Album Artist", the column lists:

BBC Singers

These are the same for all the tracks on the album.

So, as I understand your response, which recommends that I do what I already thought I had been doing, there should not be a conflict, unless I am misunderstanding the column classifications in mp3tag, (which, given my level of knowledge, is entirely possible). I do note that your response refers to "ALBUMARTIST" which is slightly different to the column name in mp3tag.

I would be grateful for any further thoughts you may have.

[psme]

Maybe a bit off topic, but I have a question on multiple ALBUMARTIST.

For example a album "Beethoven Cello sonatas No.1/3/5 Rostropovich Richter", there are 2 artists for all the tracks in the album, Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter. Shouldn't I tag the ALBUMARTIST as "Mstislav Rostropovich\\Sviatoslav Richter"?

[simoncn]

(19-06-2012 15:47)retraite Wrote:  Thank you for your prompt and thorough response. However, I'm still a little confused, so would like to pose a supplementary question. Looking again in mp3 tag at the album I used as the example in my first post , the "Artist" column lists :

BBC Singers\\Simon Joly, Bo Holten

Under "Album Artist", the column lists:

BBC Singers

These are the same for all the tracks on the album.

So, as I understand your response, which recommends that I do what I already thought I had been doing, there should not be a conflict, unless I am misunderstanding the column classifications in mp3tag, (which, given my level of knowledge, is entirely possible). I do note that your response refers to "ALBUMARTIST" which is slightly different to the column name in mp3tag.

I would be grateful for any further thoughts you may have.

In Mp3tag there are two versions of this tag: Album Artist and Album-Artist. One of them is displayed by default, and the other isn't. To get the other one to display, you need to select View -> Customize columns. I have set Mp3tag to display both of these.

MinimServer treats both these versions of the tag as being equivalent to ALBUMARTIST. It's very likely that the other version (not currently displayed by MP3tag) has the value

BBC Singers\\Simon Joly, Bo Holten

and MinimServer is picking this up as a conflict.

[retraite]

Hi

Firstly, thank you for taking the trouble to reply again so quickly.

I'm sorry to darken your digital doorstep again, but in my corner of South-West France, audio enthusiasts seem to be thin on the ground, so I have to seek advice where I can find it.

For that reason, I want to use the golden moment of lucidity in my day that comes between emerging refreshed from the swimming pool and crumpling into a toasting heap with an aperitif and the Guardian crossword, to ask another question.

I installed Minimserver 0.51 on my PC this morning without problem and made no other changes - at all. Out of curiosity I then looked at the log to find that all the "ALBUMARTIST" conflicts relating to my BBC Music Magazine albums have disappeared. I know not why.

I now have a different list of conflicts of which this one is a random sample

Warning: conflicting ALBUMARTIST values for album Classic CD - 28
on disc 1
first conflicting value: Gobbi, Callas, Orch La Scala, De Sabata
first conflicting item: Puccini - Tosca Acse la Giurata Fede"
second conflicting value: Grimaud
second conflicting item: Brahms - Klavierstucke Op. 118 - No. 6, Intermezzo in E Flat Major

the first conflicting value is the album artist, which after your response, I would now expect to see and know how to correct, but the first conflicting item is the title. The second conflicting value is Grimaud, again the album artist, but why would a one word name create a conflict? There are other Album artist entries in the same album, like "Suisse Romande Orch, Ansermet" which are apparently not causing a conflict.

I have also now loaded the 0.51 QPKG on to my QNAP 459 PRO II and seem to have the same conflicts on the log as on the computer . I should add that as a means of navigating my music collection, the server is doing a splendid job with Kinsky, presenting album and artist information and I look forward to doing more with it when the temperatures here drop to a level where being in the house becomes a more attractive option.

It is just that I would like to try to understand where I am making mistakes in tagging my collection and hope someone may be able to point me in the right direction.

[simoncn]

(20-06-2012 18:15)retraite Wrote:  Hi

Firstly, thank you for taking the trouble to reply again so quickly.

I'm sorry to darken your digital doorstep again, but in my corner of South-West France, audio enthusiasts seem to be thin on the ground, so I have to seek advice where I can find it.

For that reason, I want to use the golden moment of lucidity in my day that comes between emerging refreshed from the swimming pool and crumpling into a toasting heap with an aperitif and the Guardian crossword, to ask another question.

That sounds like a wonderful life!

Quote:I installed Minimserver 0.51 on my PC this morning without problem and made no other changes - at all. Out of curiosity I then looked at the log to find that all the "ALBUMARTIST" conflicts relating to my BBC Music Magazine albums have disappeared. I know not why.

That's very interesting. In 0.51, I fixed a small bug to do with ALBUMARTIST values for multi-disc sets. That must have been the cause of the problem.

Quote:I now have a different list of conflicts of which this one is a random sample

Warning: conflicting ALBUMARTIST values for album Classic CD - 28
on disc 1
first conflicting value: Gobbi, Callas, Orch La Scala, De Sabata
first conflicting item: Puccini - Tosca Acse la Giurata Fede"
second conflicting value: Grimaud
second conflicting item: Brahms - Klavierstucke Op. 118 - No. 6, Intermezzo in E Flat Major

the first conflicting value is the album artist, which after your response, I would now expect to see and know how to correct, but the first conflicting item is the title. The second conflicting value is Grimaud, again the album artist, but why would a one word name create a conflict? There are other Album artist entries in the same album, like "Suisse Romande Orch, Ansermet" which are apparently not causing a conflict.

This is telling you that in the album titled "Classic CD - 28", on disc number 1, you have two items with different values for ALBUMARTIST. In the track titled "Puccini - Tosca Acse la Giurata Fede", the ALBUMARTIST value is "Gobbi, Callas, Orch La Scala, De Sabata", and in the track titled "Brahms - Klavierstucke Op. 118 - No. 6, Intermezzo in E Flat Major", the ALBUMARTIST value is "Grimaud". This isn't allowed, because the ALBUMARTIST value must be the same for all tracks of an album.

MinimServer only tells you about the first ALBUMARTIST conflict for an album. After that, it gives up and ignores all ALBUMARTIST values on other tracks of the album. This is why the other conflicts aren't being reported.

Quote:I have also now loaded the 0.51 QPKG on to my QNAP 459 PRO II and seem to have the same conflicts on the log as on the computer . I should add that as a means of navigating my music collection, the server is doing a splendid job with Kinsky, presenting album and artist information and I look forward to doing more with it when the temperatures here drop to a level where being in the house becomes a more attractive option.

It is just that I would like to try to understand where I am making mistakes in tagging my collection and hope someone may be able to point me in the right direction.

I hope the above is enough to point you in the right direction. Could you send some of that hot weather over to southern England, please?

[simoncn]

(19-06-2012 16:54)psme Wrote:  Maybe a bit off topic, but I have a question on multiple ALBUMARTIST.

For example a album "Beethoven Cello sonatas No.1/3/5 Rostropovich Richter", there are 2 artists for all the tracks in the album, Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter. Shouldn't I tag the ALBUMARTIST as "Mstislav Rostropovich\\Sviatoslav Richter"?

No, you shouldn't. You should omit the ALBUMARTIST tag and you should tag the ARTIST for all the tracks as "Mstislav Rostropovich\\Sviatoslav Richter". When you view any of these tracks (or the complete album) in MinimServer, you'll see an artist value of "Mstislav Rostropovich, Sviatoslav Richter". This value will also appear in the Artist index. In the All Artists index (if you're using it), you'll see all these tracks listed under both "Mstislav Rostropovich" and "Sviatoslav Richter".

[bbrip]

Hi Simon
I am not sure wether your way of doing it is a defined "rule" but I m following a different approach. I use the ARTIST tag mainly as a 'display' field into which I type the artist-info exactly as I want to see it on the display of the Control point. Example:

"Anne Sofie Mutter, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan"

I then use ALBUMARTIST to tag the artist(s) using a last name, first name approach which makes it easier to find them back in the library (important if you got 7150 albums...) For the above:

Mutter, Anne Sofie
Berliner Philharmoniker
Karajan, Herbert von

May not be to the rulebook but meets my requirements best.

If I'd use the ARTIST tag, my control point displaying the artist info would look quite dodgy, probably like this:

"Berliner Philharmoniker, Mutter, Anne Sofie, Karajan, Herbert von"

not what I want to see ....

bbrip

[simoncn]

(22-06-2012 17:33)bbrip Wrote:  Hi Simon
I am not sure wether your way of doing it is a defined "rule" but I m following a different approach. I use the ARTIST tag mainly as a 'display' field into which I type the artist-info exactly as I want to see it on the display of the Control point. Example:

"Anne Sofie Mutter, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan"

I then use ALBUMARTIST to tag the artist(s) using a last name, first name approach which makes it easier to find them back in the library (important if you got 7150 albums...) For the above:

Mutter, Anne Sofie
Berliner Philharmoniker
Karajan, Herbert von

May not be to the rulebook but meets my requirements best.

If I'd use the ARTIST tag, my control point displaying the artist info would look quite dodgy, probably like this:

"Berliner Philharmoniker, Mutter, Anne Sofie, Karajan, Herbert von"

not what I want to see ....

bbrip

I'm curious to know which music server you're currently using that supports this way of using the ALBUMARTIST tag. I've been under the impression that the limitation of one ALBUMARTIST value per album is standard practice for music servers.

I can suggest two options for MinimServer:

1) Continue with your current scheme, but use another tag instead of ALBUMARTIST for the "last name, first name" tags.

2) Use separate ARTIST tags for the artist names (in "firstname lastname" order), and use the ORCHESTRA tag for the orchestra name. This will almost[*] display what you want on the control point, but it won't give you the ability to sort artists by last name. In a future release of MinimServer, I'm planning to add a "sort by last name" capability, which would display the artists in the index as "firstname lastname" but would sort them as "lastname, firstname".

[*] MinimServer currently displays Conductor/Artist/Orchestra, and I noticed that you prefer Artist/Orchestra/Conductor. It wouldn't be very difficult for me to make the order of these configurable.

Option 1) seems a much smaller change from what you have currently, and you can use it now without needing to wait for a future release. It should be fairly simple to use Mp3tag to automate the change from ALBUMARTIST to a different tag name.