Best program for sorting my library.

[telliott]

My main libary/player is MediaMonky. At least they ignore "The" when sorting. Some other programs I've tried sort all "The..." artists together. Linux players I've tried do that BUT they support a "sort" field, which seems perfect. I would update my collection with this sort field if every program supported it. MM doesn't seem to and they don't seem to be interested in adding support going by the forum. One thing I do like in MM is one listing which combines Artist and Album Artist, so I can see everything by an artist, whether it's

I would love it if programs like MM would allow a special character to be added in front of the word to be used for sorting in both artist fields.

I will NOT update my library with "McCartney, Paul" or "Beatles, The" just for sorting.

Thanks,
Yim

[garym]

Re: Best program for sorting my library.

My main libary/player is MediaMonky. At least they ignore "The" when sorting. Some other programs I've tried sort all "The..." artists together. Linux players I've tried do that BUT they support a "sort" field, which seems perfect. I would update my collection with this sort field if every program supported it. MM doesn't seem to and they don't seem to be interested in adding support going by the forum. One thing I do like in MM is one listing which combines Artist and Album Artist, so I can see everything by an artist, whether it's

I would love it if programs like MM would allow a special character to be added in front of the word to be used for sorting in both artist fields.

I will NOT update my library with "McCartney, Paul" or "Beatles, The" just for sorting.

Thanks,
Yim

I use Logitech Media Server as the database that feeds my house full of squeezeboxes (networked music players). It has a setting to ignore "the" when browsing, sorting artists. And one can edit the list it ignores (and can include "los" "las", etc.

For playing on my computer, I use foobar2000 and it ignores the "the" when browsing artists. I recall this may be a setting in the options somewhere.

I don't use any SORT tags, so the above behavior is based on the program settings (not my tags).

[telliott]

Re: Best program for sorting my library.

I use Logitech Media Server as the database that feeds my house full of squeezeboxes (networked music players). It has a setting to ignore "the" when browsing, sorting artists. And one can edit the list it ignores (and can include "los" "las", etc.

For playing on my computer, I use foobar2000 and it ignores the "the" when browsing artists. I recall this may be a setting in the options somewhere.

I don't use any SORT tags, so the above behavior is based on the program settings (not my tags).

That's the point. It seems there is no desire to properly sort music outside of ignoring "The". Paul McCartney will always be sorted under "P" unless you are willing to flip first and last names. I guess not enough people care to get a universal standard for proper sorting. Heck, Rockbox won't even ignore "The". Otherwise, I love the player firmware replacement. I just removed "The" from folder names on my iPod (Running Rockbox).

This seems to one of the ways "Smart" software becomes brain dead.

[garym]

Re: Best program for sorting my library.

That's the point. It seems there is no desire to properly sort music outside of ignoring "The". Paul McCartney will always be sorted under "P" unless you are willing to flip first and last names. I guess not enough people care to get a universal standard for proper sorting. Heck, Rockbox won't even ignore "The". Otherwise, I love the player firmware replacement. I just removed "The" from folder names on my iPod (Running Rockbox).

This seems to one of the ways "Smart" software becomes brain dead.

Regarding Paul McCartney, how would you expect the software to know how to sort if you don't use a sort tag (ARTISTSORT or ALBUMARTISTSORT) to tell the program to use McCartney, Paul. It can't simply guess that the two names are first and last name. If so, what would it do with a two name band? Would it sort "Little Feat" as "Feat, Little" under "Fs"?

p.s. Use of ARTISTSORT or ALBUMARTISTSORT metadata tags does exactly what you are wanting to do. And you can automate creating these tags from ARTIST to a great extent with dbpa or mp3tag.

[telliott]

Re: Best program for sorting my library.

Regarding Paul McCartney, how would you expect the software to know how to sort if you don't use a sort tag (ARTISTSORT or ALBUMARTISTSORT) to tell the program to use McCartney, Paul. It can't simply guess that the two names are first and last name. If so, what would it do with a two name band? Would it sort "Little Feat" as "Feat, Little" under "Fs"?

p.s. Use of ARTISTSORT or ALBUMARTISTSORT metadata tags does exactly what you are wanting to do. And you can automate creating these tags from ARTIST to a great extent with dbpa or mp3tag.

I would do that if programs and players supported those tags. I need to read up on what players support those.

I lust checked the MediaMonkey forum again and the sort tags were discussed but nothing after 2012 (sigh). Oh well.

[garym]

Re: Best program for sorting my library.

I would do that if programs and players supported those tags. I need to read up on what players support those.

I lust checked the MediaMonkey forum again and the sort tags were discussed but nothing after 2012 (sigh). Oh well.

I suspect mediamonkey supports those SORT tags. I know foobar2000, winamp, logitech media server, squeezeboxes, etc. all support those tags.

edit: just did some googling on this. As of Dec 13, it seems MM does NOT support ARTISTSORT tags. Amazing. I always heard that MM was a very good music server program. Oh well. Time to switch to another program as SORT tags are certainly mainstream these days.

[astromo]

Re: Best program for sorting my library.

Give J River's 30 day trial a go and see how it works for you.

It has an ignore articles switch that deals with sorting easily and offers extensive options to customise views to suit user preference if the default stuff doesn't work.

Plus I find the internal rename / move / copy function to be quite powerful.

Depends on user needs. There's no single solution that will satisfy everyone. A case of suck and see .. All the best.