Multidisc albums with more than one artist

[zebra]

I have a 3 disc album called AlbumX. All files from the first two discs have the same artist and album artist (ArtistX). Some files from disc 3 have a different artist (ArtistY) but all files still have the same album artist (ArtistX). Minim shows then two albums:

- AlbumX with artist ArtistX (files from disc 1 and 2 are merged)
- AlbumX with artists ArtistX and ArtistY (files from disc 3)

According to the user guide there should be only one album because the mergeFolderAlbums property is set to true and all files have the same album artist. Is there anything wrong with my configuration?

Code:

AlbumArtist:Remixer
albums=120, Remixer=60
...
Remixer:Albumkünstler,Artist:Künstler,Genre,Date:Jahr
[all].sortValue.ignoreThe,Album.sortTags={Album, Artist}
...
mergeAlbumFolders=true
...

[simoncn]

(19-10-2013 21:28)zebra Wrote:  I have a 3 disc album called AlbumX. All files from the first two discs have the same artist and album artist (ArtistX). Some files from disc 3 have a different artist (ArtistY) but all files still have the same album artist (ArtistX). Minim shows then two albums:

- AlbumX with artist ArtistX (files from disc 1 and 2 are merged)
- AlbumX with artists ArtistX and ArtistY (files from disc 3)

According to the user guide there should be only one album because the mergeFolderAlbums property is set to true and all files have the same album artist. Is there anything wrong with my configuration?

Code:

AlbumArtist:Remixer
albums=120, Remixer=60
...
Remixer:Albumkünstler,Artist:Künstler,Genre,Date:Jahr
[all].sortValue.ignoreThe,Album.sortTags={Album, Artist}
...
mergeAlbumFolders=true
...

The problem is the aliasTags setting AlbumArtist:Remixer. This prevents MinimServer from seeing the AlbumArtist tags in your files and using them to do album disc merging.

[zebra]

Is there a possibility to merge multidisc albums correctly without removing the album artist "workaround" via the remixer field and without changing the tags of the files?

[simoncn]

(20-10-2013 11:02)zebra Wrote:  Is there a possibility to merge multidisc albums correctly without removing the album artist "workaround" via the remixer field and without changing the tags of the files?

Please explain what you mean by the album artist "workaround" via the remixer field. What is the reason for doing this?

[zebra]

Many of my albums have more than one album artist. When I do not apply this workaround Minim will complain about multiple album artist values and albums with multiple album artists are not shown when browsing in the library via album artist.

[simoncn]

(20-10-2013 16:53)zebra Wrote:  Many of my albums have more than one album artist. When I do not apply this workaround Minim will complain about multiple album artist values and albums with multiple album artists are not shown when browsing in the library via album artist.

If an album is tagged with more than one album artist and more than one artist, it isn't possible for MinimServer to merge the tracks of this album across multiple folders, because there is no album artist tag or artist tag that MinimServer can use to identify which tracks belong to this album instead of belonging to some other album that might have the same album name.

[simoncn]

(20-10-2013 16:53)zebra Wrote:  Many of my albums have more than one album artist.

Can you give an example of an album that needs to be tagged with multiple album artists as well as being tagged with multiple artists? For this example album, what are the artist tags and what are the album artist tags?

[zebra]

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.

[simoncn]

(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.

[DavidHB]

(20-10-2013 21:39)simoncn Wrote:  ... 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.

A multiple artist compilation can have a 'dominant' artist, in which case that artist should be tagged as the Album Artist for the whole album (and other artist details entered as appropriate in the artist tags of their respective tracks). If there is no such 'dominant' Artist, then Album Artist needs to be tagged with a place holder such as '<Various Artists>', to preserve the integrity of the album as described by Simon. I cannot see that, in practice, there can be any other case (but I am willing to be enlightened ).

I accept that there is an issue when Control Points display Album Artist data when they should be displaying Artist data for particular tracks. But that is not really a MinimServer problem. There is a limit to the amount of mis-tagging (or changes to MinimServer settings) that can sensibly be used to work around Control Point limitations, as anyone who shares my frustration that the Composer is so often identified by default as the 'Album Artist' on classical music tracks will agree.

David