Various Artists on Compilation Albums

[Spoon]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

Try a Rescan (Refresh All) so you can be 100% certain the tags are re-read.

[wilro15]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

Thanks for your help so far Spoon. Unfortunately even after a rescan, I still see "Various Artists" - even though the files themselves don't say that anywhere! Something (I don't know what) is putting the value in.

[wilro15]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

I've done some more testing by trying out Allegro Media Server - this correctly shows track artist on compilations. So I have tried different clients and different server applications, only Asset has the issue.

Is this being looked at? Is a fix for this likely soon?

[Spoon]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

For the next release yes. Many of these other media servers do not use album artist so are a step backwards on well tagged libraries.

[wilro15]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

Ok thats great. Do you know approximately when the next release is due?

[Spoon]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

It is difficult to say at this stage.

[Niko]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

I've done some more testing by trying out Allegro Media Server - this correctly shows track artist on compilations. So I have tried different clients and different server applications, only Asset has the issue.

Is this being looked at? Is a fix for this likely soon?

Hi there,

let me inform you about some strange behaviour of the album artist tag, which is similar to as you indicated, but there are some details which make me think that the problem is not with Asset.

My actual equipment is as follows:
- Renderer: Naim Uniti 2
- Control point: Naim n-Stream and/or Asset Control
- CD ripped with dBpoweramp Release 14.4 to WAV with compilation tag = 1
- using dBp's Edit ID-Tag function in Win Explorer shows Album Artist tag = Various Artists (don't remember whether this was added automatically at ripping time or later ...)
- Asset UPnP Release 4.3 used on a Win 7 notebook pointing to a shared folder on a Synology DS-1512, which is not defined as containg media files (to avoid indexing by Synology)
- Asset UPnP Release 4.3 used on a Mac mini pointing to exactly the same shared folder as the Win 7 notebook (to show possible differences due to different file system)
- both Asset versions are registered, additional container 'Album Artist / Album' was added in both Asset versions (to see behaviour of Album Artist with different contents)

And here is what I did:
- at the beginning I experienced the same behaviour as shown in post *1 under this thread when playing a track of this album using Naim's n-Stream
- as suggested by Mr. Spoon in his post *21 under this thread, I verified that the compilation tag was set to 1, but then found that Album Artist contained the words 'Various Artists'
- so I tried the following to get rid of the contents of this tag's content:
= replaced text string by 1 blank -> separate album artist (blank) was shown in Album Artist / Album container unter letter '*' (at the beginning before 'A')
= replaced text string by chr$ 255 (ASC 'FF') -> similar appearance as with blank
= deleted all characters -> 'Various Artists' still there
= removed tag Album Artist with dBp's Edit ID-Tag function -> tag Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' still there (!!!)
= removed tag Album Artist with dBp's Batch converter -> tag Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' still there (!!!)
= tried the same with all album tracks -> same result as above
= removed Album Artist using Windows Explorers 'Properties' and then 'Details' panel:
== bottom text shows 'Remove properties or personal informations" - selecting this opens a further panel
== select 2nd choice radio button ('remove the following properties from this file') and check Album Artist
== pressing OK button closes this panel, focus gets to previous panel, all property fields disappear for part of a second, and then Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' is still there !!!
= copied files of this album directly to the Win notebook's disc and tried removing Album Artist tag with all methods described before -> content 'Various Artists' still there !!!
= shared Win notebook's disc, mounted it on another Mac, installed actual dBp's beta and tried to remove Album Artist tag remotely -> tag on Win notebook still unchanged !!!
= batch conversion (with dBp and with result verified) of WAV files to FLAC omitting Album Artist tag -> HURRA: Album Artist tag no more present in FLAC files
= batch conversion of FLAC files back to WAV replacing original files -> Album Artist column in Windows Explorer during converion empty, but after 1 second containg 'Various Artists' !!!
= moved WAV files to a different location and moved FLAC files to Synology share and 'Refresh All' on both Asset UPnP devices
== result under Naim's n-Stream -> Same as with WAV-files, altough Album Artist tag in FLAC files no more present
== result under dBp's Asset control -> Correct as expected
Hi there,

let me inform you about some strange behaviour of the album artist tag, which is similar to as you indicated, but there are some details which make me think that the problem is not with Asset.

My actual equipment is as follows:
- Renderer: Naim Uniti 2
- Control point: Naim n-Stream and/or Asset Control
- CD ripped with dBpoweramp Release 14.4 to WAV with compilation tag = 1
- using dBp's Edit ID-Tag function in Win Explorer shows Album Artist tag = Various Artists (don't remember whether this was added automatically at ripping time or later ...)
- Asset UPnP Release 4.3 used on a Win 7 notebook pointing to a shared folder on a Synology DS-1512, which is not defined as containg media files (to avoid indexing by Synology)
- Asset UPnP Release 4.3 used on a Mac mini pointing to exactly the same shared folder as the Win 7 notebook (to show possible differences due to different file system)
- both Asset versions are registered, additional container 'Album Artist / Album' was added in both Asset versions (to see behaviour of Album Artist with different contents)

And here is what I did:
- at the beginning I experienced the same behaviour as shown in post *1 under this thread when playing a track of this album using Naim's n-Stream
- as suggested by Mr. Spoon in his post *21 under this thread, I verified that the compilation tag was set to 1, but then found that Album Artist contained the words 'Various Artists'
- so I tried the following to get rid of the contents of this tag's content:
= replaced text string by 1 blank -> separate album artist (blank) was shown in Album Artist / Album container unter letter '*' (at the beginning before 'A')
= replaced text string by chr$ 255 (ASC 'FF') -> similar appearance as with blank
= deleted all characters -> 'Various Artists' still there
= removed tag Album Artist with dBp's Edit ID-Tag function -> tag Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' still there (!!!)
= removed tag Album Artist with dBp's Batch converter -> tag Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' still there (!!!)
= tried the same with all album tracks -> same result as above
= removed Album Artist using Windows Explorers 'Properties' and then 'Details' panel:
== bottom text shows 'Remove properties or personal informations" - selecting this opens a further panel
== select 2nd choice radio button ('remove the following properties from this file') and check Album Artist
== pressing OK button closes this panel, focus gets to previous panel, all property fields disappear for part of a second, and then Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' is still there !!!
= copied files of this album directly to the Win notebook's disc and tried removing Album Artist tag with all methods described before -> content 'Various Artists' still there !!!
= shared Win notebook's disc, mounted it on another Mac, installed actual dBp's beta and tried to remove Album Artist tag remotely -> tag on Win notebook still unchanged !!!
= batch conversion (with dBp and with result verified) of WAV files to FLAC omitting Album Artist tag -> HURRA: Album Artist tag no more present in FLAC files
= batch conversion of FLAC files back to WAV replacing original files -> Album Artist column in Windows Explorer during converion empty, but after 1 second containg 'Various Artists' !!!
= moved WAV files to a different location and moved FLAC files to Synology share and 'Refresh All' on both Asset UPnP devices
== result under Naim's n-Stream -> Same as with WAV-files, altough Album Artist tag in FLAC files no more present
Hi there,

let me inform you about some strange behaviour of the album artist tag, which is similar to as you indicated, but there are some details which make me think that the problem is not with Asset.

My actual equipment is as follows:
- Renderer: Naim Uniti 2
- Control point: Naim n-Stream and/or Asset Control
- CD ripped with dBpoweramp Release 14.4 to WAV with compilation tag = 1
- using dBp's Edit ID-Tag function in Win Explorer shows Album Artist tag = Various Artists (don't remember whether this was added automatically at ripping time or later ...)
- Asset UPnP Release 4.3 used on a Win 7 notebook pointing to a shared folder on a Synology DS-1512, which is not defined as containg media files (to avoid indexing by Synology)
- Asset UPnP Release 4.3 used on a Mac mini pointing to exactly the same shared folder as the Win 7 notebook (to show possible differences due to different file system)
- both Asset versions are registered, additional container 'Album Artist / Album' was added in both Asset versions (to see behaviour of Album Artist with different contents)

And here is what I did:
- at the beginning I experienced the same behaviour as shown in post *1 under this thread when playing a track of this album using Naim's n-Stream
- as suggested by Mr. Spoon in his post *21 under this thread, I verified that the compilation tag was set to 1, but then found that Album Artist contained the words 'Various Artists'
- so I tried the following to get rid of the contents of this tag's content:
= replaced text string by 1 blank -> separate album artist (blank) was shown in Album Artist / Album container unter letter '*' (at the beginning before 'A')
= replaced text string by chr$ 255 (ASC 'FF') -> similar appearance as with blank
= deleted all characters -> 'Various Artists' still there
= removed tag Album Artist with dBp's Edit ID-Tag function -> tag Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' still there (!!!)
= removed tag Album Artist with dBp's Batch converter -> tag Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' still there (!!!)
= tried the same with all album tracks -> same result as above
= removed Album Artist using Windows Explorers 'Properties' and then 'Details' panel:
== bottom text shows 'Remove properties or personal informations" - selecting this opens a further panel
== select 2nd choice radio button ('remove the following properties from this file') and check Album Artist
== pressing OK button closes this panel, focus gets to previous panel, all property fields disappear for part of a second, and then Album Artist containing 'Various Artists' is still there !!!
= copied files of this album directly to the Win notebook's disc and tried removing Album Artist tag with all methods described before -> content 'Various Artists' still there !!!
= shared Win notebook's disc, mounted it on another Mac, installed actual dBp's beta and tried to remove Album Artist tag remotely -> tag on Win notebook still unchanged !!!
= batch conversion (with dBp and with result verified) of WAV files to FLAC omitting Album Artist tag -> HURRA: Album Artist tag no more present in FLAC files
= batch conversion of FLAC files back to WAV replacing original files -> Album Artist column in Windows Explorer during converion empty, but after 1 second containg 'Various Artists' !!!
= moved WAV files to a different location and moved FLAC files to Synology share and 'Refresh All' on both Asset UPnP devices
== result under Naim's n-Stream -> Same as with WAV-files, altough Album Artist tag in FLAC files no more present
== result under dBp's Asset control -> Correct as expected:





In this connection, some other informations may also be useful:
- I once tried Naim's Uniti Serve, and if I remember correctly that this device had it's own propietary database with write (and update protection) as well, wherein the Album Artist tag was not included. If you download e.g. Naim's n-Serve app to an iDevice you will find also that Album Artist is not a selectable (or editable) field. Thus it was impossible to complete the metadata in a reliable and persistent way. Since it is Naim's own server product, their control point software would be functioning complementary (thus handling of such additional tag info might confuse n-Stream, since the FLAC file example proves that it 'invents' the Album Artist on its own).
- I had a problem with long paths and file names: On the same share, Asset UPnP on Mac found more tracks than the Win 7 PC. After reducing the lenght of the file name, the same result was found on both computers, which was additionally verified by manual couning. Maybe dBp Release 14.4 did not contain the same filename limit as Asset does (which I think Mr. Spoon should fix for consistency reasons, if not yet done in the actual release).
- When doing a 'Refresh All', the Mac is on about similar hardware about 4 times faster than the Win notebook, although the same remote share was concerned and both computers are connected to the network by 1 Gb cable link.

I would be glad if some other forum members could try removing the Album Artist tag from WAV files and report whether they experience the same behaviour as indicated above.

Regards,
Niko

[wilro15]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

Hi Niko and thanks for your investigations!

I discovered that other UPnP software did handle the Album Artist tag properly, unlike Asset. However, they all had other problems which were worse, so I am still using Asset. The ongoing lack of artist names is frustrating but there seems to be nothing we can do about it. I am hoping that Asset might at some point be fixed.

[AlexJ]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

Hi, first post here.

Not sure if this thread is still relevant but I have some information about it.

I have been using R4.2 Beta (Free) of the Debian Linux (64-bit) under a desktop version of CentOS 6.5 for a few weeks for evaluation and the Various Artists option has been working fine. Today, I decided to install it on a Rapsberry Pi so that I could use it even when my computer was off. The handling of compilation albums and AlbumArtist is one of the reasons I decided to move from the Twonky in my NAS to Asset.

I downloaded and registered the Premium version of R4.3 for Raspberry-Pi and found that the various artist setting has no effect.
I also tried it on a R4.2 version under Windows 7 and the option has no effect on that either.
I also downloaded the current version of Debian Linux (R4.3 Free) and the option also has no affect on this version.

In all cases, the external equipment was the same and they were all using the same music data on my NAS share so the tags are the same in all cases.

Seems the feature was broken somewhere between R4.2 Beta and R4.2.

Hope that's useful.

Edit: The same appears to be true for other options such as "[track *] - [title] for album tracks" which has no affect on R4.3 (Debian) but works fine on R4.2 Beta (Debian)

Edit2: Having seen your recommendation to use Kinsky to check Asset, I installed it and found that both the Raspberry-Pi and the latest Debian all work fine. Any idea why just changing the Asset version should change the behaviour given eveything else remains unchanged?

[Spoon]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

Asset R5 fixes, we will beta the Windows version in the next 2 months, others after that.

[Music-Man]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

Sorry for digging out that old thread

I've all my music in the folder structure "Artist\Album"\("CD*")
Between them I have some collection folders like "Compilations\NameOfCompilationAlbum", "Soundtracks\NameOfSoundtrackAlbum".
The audio files in that collection folders are tagged with "COLLECTION"=1

Now I want to browse via UPnP through my music with Browse Tree "Artist\Album".
But under "Artists" all artists are listed that are also included in the collection folders.
This makes the view very confusing.

How can I exclude the artists from the collection folders from this view?

The same problem is at audiobooks and podcasts. Their Artists are listed aswell and I'd like to exclude them from that view.
How can I achieve this?

[Music-Man]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

I was almost afraid of that :(

Multiple Asset-UPnP instances would unfortunately not be practical for me.
Moreover, I need the existing structure for another application that also accesses the music collection.

Do the library exclusions always have to be instance-wide?
Or would it perhaps be possible to set the exclusions only for individual branches in the browse tree?

Unfortunately, this problem has just turned out to be a knock-out criterion for Asset-UPnP for me.
Which is a great pity, because the software otherwise appeals to me very much and its range of functions meets my requirements exactly.

[vilsen]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

The audio files in that collection folders are tagged with "COLLECTION"=1

COLLECTION=1 would be a custom tag, but I assume you are aware that the standard is COMPILATION=1

Also, don't you populate ALBUM ARTIST? Browsing by that won't include the artists on compilations (but also not guest artists on regular albums).

[Music-Man]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

So your podcasts are literally in the same tree structure as your music, and not like
./podcasts
./music

I suppose the other question is are you looking for something to serve your podcasts too? Whilst it's not designed for it I guess they're just audio files with tags.

The folder structure ist as following:
./music
./music/artist_a/album_1
./music/artist_b/album_2
./music/compilations/compilation_a
./music/soundtracks/soundtrack_a
./music/audiobooks/audiobook_a
./music/various_artists
./podcasts

The audiobooks and podcasts are just regular audio files with genre-tag "audiobook" or "podcast".

Do you have, or could you add a single tag to all your files to differentiate them? At that point you could add that tag as an Index/Container to Asset (or as a Library Exclusion if you're not interested in serving podcasts) and make that your first browsing selection which would exclude all the files from the other categories for subsequent browsing.

EDIT: If not a single tag, I know you have COLLECTION=1 that could identify your collections, but is there a tag that's always used for podcasts but nothing else?

On all audio files the following tags are used:
ALBUM, ARTIST, DISCNUMBER, GENRE, TITLE, TRACK, YEAR.
Additionaly compilations, soundtracks, and the files in the various_artists folder has the tag COMPILATION=1.

If it is not absolutely necessary, I would like to save myself the trouble of having to tag all the other audio files with an extra tag.

COLLECTION=1 would be a custom tag, but I assume you are aware that the standard is COMPILATION=1

Also, don't you populate ALBUM ARTIST? Browsing by that won't include the artists on compilations (but also not guest artists on regular albums).

Of course I meant COMPILATION=1.
Please excuse the confusion.

The tag ALBUM ARTIST is not used yet.


How do other users handle this?

[GBrown]

Re: Various Artists on Compilation Albums

The tag ALBUM ARTIST is not used yet.

AlbumArtist is an essential tag to allow most library managers to differentiate Album titles with the same name. This is the prime reason the field has come into use. Greatest Hits packages are the most common, but there are plenty of other examples where two or more Artists have used the same Album title for their releases.

In most cases, the AlbumArtist is the same as Artist for regular Album releases, but if there are "guest" Artist on one or more of those Album tracks, it will also make sure these Album remain grouped under a single folder or location in the library. Compilation titles (the flag for this tag should be set to 1) often have the AlbumArtist set to "Various Artists" or something similar (your preference here). Occasionally this may be something more specific, for "tribute" albums, as an example I usually use the tributee's name for the AlbumArtist field to group these under their folder and library location.

Using your naming convention without the AlbumArtist tag means your discs will be split into separate folders for Compilation titles, or even single Artist releases with a guest performing on a track. Using a tag editor, I would start off by setting the AlbumArtist to "Various Artists" at least for your Compilation=1 tracks.