What is the definition of Compilation?

[Michael S.]

Wondering what "Compilation" designation means in CD Ripper.

For classical music, would this mean a CD that has music of different composers? Assuming this would not apply to different genres, for example, a CD that has a symphony and violin concerto by the same composer.

For discs that have music of different composers, I usually set the composer tag to be "Various" and then provide a complete description of the composers and music in the album title. I don't usually set different composer tags within the same CD because don't want partial albums to come up when doing searches for a composer.

Curious if the "Compilation" feature could provide a better approach to handling this situation. What would change if it were used?

[GBrown]

Wondering what "Compilation" designation means in CD Ripper.
For discs that have music of different composers, I usually set the composer tag to be "Various" and then provide a complete description of the composers and music in the album title. I don't usually set different composer tags within the same CD because don't want partial albums to come up when doing searches for a composer.

Curious if the "Compilation" feature could provide a better approach to handling this situation. What would change if it were used?

Every library can be different based on what your software needs and how you prefer or expect to see the information.

The Compilation flag is used by some software to indicate an Album is based on the combination of songs regardless of the separate Artist field contents. Most programs now use the combination of the Album and Albumartist fields to be a unique pair for this purpose. It doesn't hurt to have both conditions to satisfy more programs.

Classical music is still tougher to handle. The addition of fields like Composer, Conductor, Soloist, etc. can help in some cases yet often music players have little to no support for these fields. This is compounded if you are trying to satisfy home and mobile applications.

The best advice is to try a few collections you know have a challenging assortment of tracks and see what is needed to satisfy your player(s).