Merging Multi-Disc Albums

[gemi]

I have the following problem merging multi-disc albums:
- All tracks in all discs have the same ALBUM tag
- All tracks in all discs have the same ALBUMARTIST tag. However it is a list instead of a single value.
- Most tracks have the same ARTIST tag. This is also a list.
- One disc has tracks with a different ARTIST tag.

Now, the album is split on the different ARTIST tag.
If the ALBUMARTIST tag is a single value, instead of a list, everything works as expected.

It seems that ALBUMARTIST being a list causes the problem.

[simoncn]

MinimServer does not support multiple ALBUMARTIST tags (a list) for a file. All tracks in an album must have the same single ALBUMARTIST value (or no ALBUMARTIST value). If MinimServer finds multiple ALBUMARTIST tags or conflicting ALBUMARTIST tags, it removes them and writes a warning message to the MinimServer log. There is no problem with using multiple ARTIST tags.

[gemi]

That means instead of:
ALBUMARTIST=John Eliot Gardiner
ALBUMARTIST=Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

I should set:
ALBUMARTIST=John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

[simoncn]

Yes, that should work well.

[gemi]

The only issue is that while browsing the Artist tag, I get entries such that "John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique", instead of separate entries

[simbun]

(20-09-2025 18:00)gemi Wrote:  That means instead of:
ALBUMARTIST=John Eliot Gardiner
ALBUMARTIST=Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

I should set:
ALBUMARTIST=John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

You could concatenate the AlbumArtists together, though that will impact the AlbumArtist index and search, or you could remove one virtually using tagUpdate.

Using Foreverly as an example:

Code:

@ALBUMARTIST=Billie Joe
&MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMID=7d7779ca-8bb9-49ec-b843-f1ef38c35534
-ALBUMARTIST=Billie Joe

NOTE: If you don't have a unique album identifier you'll need to use multiple tags to identify the album; for example, album and date.

I prefer to keep the tag multi-valued as my secondary music solution (server and app), which I use primarily when away from home, does handle multiple AlbumArtists.

[simoncn]

(20-09-2025 18:26)gemi Wrote:  The only issue is that while browsing the Artist tag, I get entries such that "John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique", instead of separate entries

You can use the All Artists index to see the separate entries (assuming that you have both "John Eliot Gardiner" and "Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique" tagged as ARTIST).

[simbun]

Eliminating the secondary AlbumArtist results in their removal from the AlbumArtist index and search; however, you could display them in the album listing by creating a new tag to hold the collaboration; for example:

Code:

ALBUMARTISTDISPLAY=Bille Joe + Norah

You'd then use this tag for display purposes:

Code:

tagFormat: AlbumArtist.displayformat={$albumartistdisplay}

Giving you:
   

I use this approach to display artist collaborations:

Code:

tagFormat: Artist.displayformat={$artistdisplay}

   

[gemi]

I wonder, why everything works as expected, except in that particular case.

[gemi]

I know resolved to making a single line ALBUMARTIST, and removing "Artists" from browsing, leaving only "All Artists".