AlbumArtist and Artist tags "truncated" when read by another app.

[Tony Stachnicki]

I am ripping CDs for use with an Audiolab 9000N streamer.
I am also (trying) to use the AudioWorks commands in PowerShell scripts (Windows).
I have problems with AlbumArtist and Artist strings which contain semicolons.

I have a ripped a CD with the tags set as follows.
- AlbumArtist : Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Claudio Abbado 1
- Artist : Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Claudio Abbado 2

If I use PerfectTunes to view the ripped files, the AlbumArtist and Artist tags are as expected.

If I use the Audiolab mobile phone app, the Artist tag is shown as: Chamber Orchestra of Europe Claudio Abbado 2
Any semicolons are removed from the Artist tag.
Only a minor problem, but it might be a symptom of the next problem.

If I use the AudioWorks commands to read the tags, information is lost, as follows.
- AlbumArtist : Claudio Abbado 1
- Artist : Claudio Abbado 2

If I use the AudioWorks commands to replace these tags with their originally intended values, the problem is fixed.
However some of the other tags added by dbPoweramp are lost.
Refer to attachments dbPoweramp1.png and dbPoweramp2.png.

Why is this happening?

Does dbPoweramp split the tags using the semicolons as delimiters, and then recreate the string when someone reads the tag?

[simbun]

The semicolon (+ space) is used in all Illustrate products (dBpoweramp, PerfectTUNES etc) to VISUALLY delimit the fields of a multivalue tag; the semicolon isn't stored in the file itself.

From your screenshot it appears there are 2 artist values:
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Claudio Abbado 2

There are a couple of ways I like to verify that:

pwsh $ Format-Hex -Path 01.10.flac -Count 1024

00000000000002F0 00 00 00 41 52 54 49 53 54 3D 45 6C 74 6F 6E 20 ARTIST=Elton
0000000000000300 4A 6F 68 6E 15 00 00 00 41 52 54 49 53 54 3D 42 John� ARTIST=B
0000000000000310 72 61 6E 64 69 20 43 61 72 6C 69 6C 65 15 00 00 randi Carlile�

$ metaflac.exe --show-tag=ARTIST 01.10.flac
ARTIST=Elton John
ARTIST=Brandi Carlile

In both of the above examples you can see there are 2 separate ARTIST fields.

It looks like the AudioWorks commands are only returning the last field of each tag.