Mutliple Artists Sort Values

[GavinB]

Hi Folks

I know I can (and do) add multiple Artists by using the ; separator, and that I can do the same for the Artist Sort field. But do I need to include artists that don't need the sort specifying?

Examples...
Mark Ronson; Lily Allen gets Ronson, Mark; Allen, Lily

Mark Ronson; Kasabian - I could put Ronson, Mark; Kasabian but do I need the Kasabian part in the sort value.

What about multiple artists that don't need any sorting at all?
Oasis; Kasabian - I'd assume I wouldn't need anything in this case.

Thanks in advance.

Gavin

[simoncn]

MinimServer doesn't use the ; character as a separator between multiple values for a tag. It sounds like this is something your tagging program is doing.

In most cases there is no need to specify an ArtistSort value if you want to use the Artist value for sorting. The only situation where this is needed is a sorted artist following an unsorted artist.

For example, this is OK:

Artist = Mark Ronson; Kasabian
ArtistSort = Ronson, Mark

but this is not OK:

Artist = Kasabian; Mark Ronson
ArtistSort = Ronson, Mark

because Ronson, Mark would be used as the sort value for Kasabian (values matched in order of appearance). You would need to specify this:

Artist = Kasabian; Mark Ronson
ArtistSort = Kasabian; Ronson, Mark

[simbun]

Out of curiosity I tried it with some FLAC files.

Given MinimServer maps Artist to ArtistSort based on position, you'd need to create empty tags (if your tagging tool and file format supports it) where appropriate to maintain that relationship e.g. if Artist B had a sort value of B it wouldn't need to be specified, but to ensure that Artist C mapped to its sort value of A you'd still need to create an empty tag for B (which is possible in foobar and Mp3tag):

Code:

Artist:     A; B; C
ArtistSort: C;  ; A

To test I used the following data:
Track 1

Code:

Artist:     A;B; C;D; F; G;H
ArtistSort: B;A; D;C;  ; H;G

Track 2

Code:

Artist: E

Track 3

Code:

Artist: A

I was expecting an order of : B, A, D, C, E, F, H, G
I got: B, A, D, C, E, G, F, H

It looks like MinimServer (or the library that reads the metadata) ignores empty tags, so Artist F was attributed a sort value of H, then G -> G and H -> H (as it wasn't specified).

You could possibly work around that by placing all the artists that don't need a sort value at the end of any multi-value tags (I haven't tried that) but it starts to get really messy.

Personally I always supply Sort values.

[simoncn]

MinimServer ignores any "empty" tag values, so these results are as I would expect.

[GavinB]

<< MinimServer doesn't use the ; character as a separator between multiple values for a tag. >>

I was a bit confusd by this - it certainly seems to work - then you both use it in subsequent posts.

Your info is very useful and (fortunately) matches what I've been doing.

[simoncn]

When you do tagging, you use a tagging program to write tag values into the audio file. If you tag a FLAC file with artists Kasabian and Mark Ronson, the following tags are written into the file:

ARTIST=Kasabian
ARTIST=Mark Ronson

The artist value you type into your tagging program to make this happen is:

Kasabian; Mark Ronson

Your tagging program removes the semicolon and writes the two values shown above. Some tagging programs use \\ instead of semicolon to separate the artist names and some tagging programs allow you to type each name separately.

Whichever approach is used by the tagging program, MinimServer sees two separate tags when it reads the file and does not see ; or \\.

[GavinB]

Excellent - all clear!

[GavinB]

Quick follow up to this one...
How can I see the values of tags that Minim sees in a file?

[mminga]

(30-07-2024 11:32)GavinB Wrote:  Quick follow up to this one...
How can I see the values of tags that Minim sees in a file?

I use MP3 Tag (see sceenshot).
You can also check the tag by an editor (see screenshot), but you must not change there anything, elst the file may be corrupted!