Album Artist / Artist..?

[daleyb]

Just out of Interest does it really matter if I Tick both Album Artist or just Artist. Surely both are in effect doing / Saying the same thing-unless its an album with a guest/ duet with them.

Can I just tick one.. and be happy..?? If its a comp its just Various Artists, In album Artist. So.. maybe just use Album Artist , end of.

I just worry how different Streamers pick this up.You dont want a repeat of Artist name!

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

Hi daleyb, I've been gone awhile....good to be back and see you're still around. ALBUM ARTIST is a very important tag because most players use it for organization and navigation of your music library. The two tags are most definitely NOT doing the same thing. ARTIST is the tag that specifies the artist(s) for a given file, and it's the one that players display as the track plays. ALBUM ARTIST is more of an organizational tool, as it's used (along with ALBUM, of course) to group files into albums.

Here's an example: I want Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Concert album to be categorized as a Bob Dylan album in my collection., not just thrown into some big Compilations category. So "Bob Dylan" is the ALBUM ARTIST for the whole album, while the ARTIST denotes the specific performer(s) on each track. My players treat it as a Bob Dylan album while still displaying the proper artists as each track plays.

Because of its organizing functionality, ALBUM ARTIST can be a powerful tool for controlling the way your player navigates your music library. I use it extensively this way.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

I use consequently artist and album artist. I am a big jazz fan and especially in jazz music the formation of a band changes over the years. So I use the band name for 'album artist' and the names of the musicians as 'artist'.


Dat Ei

[daleyb]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

I use consequently artist and album artist. I am a big jazz fan and especially in jazz music the formation of a band changes over the years. So I use the band name for 'album artist' and the names of the musicians as 'artist'.


Dat Ei

Being a Jazz Fan too.. this makes perfect sense.Jeez Brodyboy long time no write.I remember you from my early days on here, when I didn't know how to turn my computer on. Later, I realised you never really turn them off anyway. Iam now a full time geek (and proud), The good news is my music has never been so organised.

So in a nutshell I will keep both Artist/Album Artist.

[doane2u]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

Hello, new here, and hope I'm not rehashing out what is probably obvious to you all. I'm in the process of re ripping my CD collection, mostly the Classical section that was done to low quality mp3's over the years. Am now re-ripping to FLAC using dbpower ripper, and I'm still confused about how to fill in the tags for "Artist," "Album Artist," and "Composer" fields. I want things to stay consistent for easier searches, but it's confusing.

Example: I have a CD of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concertos *23 & 24, Carmen Piazzini Piano, Leningrad Soloists, Mikhail Gantvarg conductor.

So, is the "Artist" going to be the composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,? SonataDB thinks so, but Discogs thinks it is "Leningrad Soloists; Carmen Piazzini; Mikhail Gantvarg" while Freedb lists it as "Leningrad Soloists, Carmen Piazzini" (Musicbrains has nothing on this one)
And for "Composer," Discogs and SonataDB list "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," while Freedb has nothing... this one is easy though, "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," no problem. Or should it be shortened to just "Mozart," even though there are several (his father). Same problem would be with Bach, etc.

Another problem I ran into is the spelling of composer's names...ie: Handel's middle name has been shown as "Frideric," "Friedrich," "Frederick" and if I don't decide on one and correct, I end up with multiple listings for Handel. So, for the "Composer" for searches should I just use the last name of "Handel," only to make it easier in searches in MediaMonkey when I drop down the "Composer" list? Or maybe there is a way to list last name first?

I've already ripped about ten albums so would like to get this straightened out for consistency.

I can see how the "Album Artist" in popular/Jazz, etc. music might be the performer/singer or the band, etc., while the "Artist" would be the same or the performer and the "Composer" would be who wrote it, since many times they vary and the main focus is on the singer, player, etc., but Classical is not as clear.

And I can see how in a Compilation album, the "Album Artist" might be the performer or the conductor and orchestra while the "Artist" might be the pianist, etc., or is it the other way around?.. and there might be several composers listed for different pieces.

Any help and insight to how some of you organize things will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

[mville]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

The tagging of classical music is especially difficult and sadly, there is no tagging standard for classical music. There are a few classical tagging guidelines/recommendations on the web.

You are able to populate the following for flacs: Artist, Album Artist, Composer, Soloists, Orchestra, Chorus, Conductor and their corresponding sort tags. In your examples above, Composer, Soloists, Orchestra, Chorus, Conductor are straight forward, but Artist and Album Artist not so.

Some users put Composer in the Artist tag, others use a combination of conductor, orchestra, chorus and soloists. It is up to you how you want to catalog your library, so I suggest you google classical tagging recommendations and decide for yourself, what to populate Artist and Album Artist with.

As you alluded to already, it is very important that you keep the tags consistent. I always use the following for Handel:
Composer = George Frideric Handel, ComposerSort = Handel, George Frideric

Here is an example of what I do, showing the classical tags:

[doane2u]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

Thanks, Mville:
I've got a lot more to learn as I don't understand what you are explaining about the sort tags; if that's a dbpoweramp (dbp) function I need to read up on it, I guess.

I was experimenting in MediaMonkey (MM) last night and realized I have the tags really messed up. I also, slowly started figuring out how it works.. sort of.

I had dbp set up to what I guess is default: Album Artist\Album\Tracknum Artist-Title

I am now putting the main orchestra/conductor as "Album Artist" if the whole CD doesn't vary.. if it does I put in "Various Artists" for that field. For the "Artists" field I'm using the performer/solosists, and the Composer and Conductor are filled in in their respective fields.

I changed the file save location and this is the tag I'm using for it in DBP: Not sure if I did it right...

It saves the ripped CD in a folder with the composer's name, with the album name under it. I'm not sure if I have the script set up right for compilation albums though??

In MM I have this file structure under a classical folder heading:

This makes it really nice to look up things by Artist/Album, Composer, Conductor, Album or even by location.

[doane2u]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

I'm still having trouble here.

I got it to save to a folder of the composers name, last name first, by just putting that in the tag for composer and putting composer in the ripping base location script.

But I can't figure out a script so that compilations will be ripped to a "compilations" folder with the album under it

IE: I have a CD "Mozart-Beethoven piano quintets." I want it to rip it to My Music\Compilations\Mozart-Beethoven piano quintets\with the tracks and titles in that album.

Can someone please post the base location script I will need? Ideally, I would like a script that saves single composer CDs to the composer name file, and if it's a compilation, it then saves them to the compilations folder with the album name under it. I have read through the help file on this and I can't figure out how to do it.

Thanks,

[mville]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

I've got a lot more to learn as I don't understand what you are explaining about the sort tags; if that's a dbpoweramp (dbp) function I need to read up on it, I guess.

It is not a dBpoweramp function, but the sort tags are supported in dBpoweramp. Media player/server software will use a tag for display purposes and any respective sort tag for sorting i.e. Artists can be sorted by the Artist Sort tag (e.g. Bowie, David), but will display the Artist tag (e.g. David Bowie).

I had dbp set up to what I guess is default: Album Artist\Album\Tracknum Artist-Title

The default Naming string is:
[IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[IFCOMP]Various Artists[][IF!COMP][artist][][]\[album]\[track] [artist] - [title]

[mville]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

I got it to save to a folder of the composers name, last name first, by just putting that in the tag for composer and putting composer in the ripping base location script.

I suggest you populate both Composer and the ComposerSort tags:
Composer = Frédéric Chopin and ComposerSort = Chopin, Frédéric

and use ComposerSort in the Naming string

[mville]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

Can someone please post the base location script I will need? Ideally, I would like a script that saves single composer CDs to the composer name file, and if it's a compilation, it then saves them to the compilations folder with the album name under it. I have read through the help file on this and I can't figure out how to do it.

I'm not entirely clear of what you want because you have not defined what you need for non-classical albums but for classical albums, this Naming string may help:
[IFCOMP]Compilations[][IF!COMP][tag]composersort[][]\[album]\[track] [artist] - [title]

... do all your classical CDs have the genre = Classical?

[doane2u]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

Thanks again, mville, I haven't tried the script you posted above yet, but will do that today:

I've tried to simplify my catalog by using the genre, "classical" for all music that sort of falls in that slot.. so I don't use "symphonies" or "chamber music," etc.

I haven't even got into doing popular, jazz, etc., but I figure, if I can save the rip scripts I can have one for classical, another one for the rest. For the popular, etc., it doesn't seem as complicated as most will be by the performers name or group... Bob Dylan, Sting, the album name/event, etc.

When I click on the default profile I get: [IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[IFCOMP]Various Artists[][IF!COMP][artist][][]\[album]\[track] [artist] - [title]
This puts things in folders by what ever I put in the album artist slot.. to me that doesn't work as well as using the composer to organize things, except on compilations. The problem is that it rips the CD and the physical filing is unclear to me. In Media Monkey it isn't so much of a problem because I can look in the MM folder for the album artist, or the album name or composer and find it there, but I don't like the physical filing to be all over the place and I don't want to have to look by the album artist when I am interested in finding all Mozart albums, etc.

What I want is for the single composer CD's to go in folders sorted by their last name. I got this to work by using composer for the sort and saving that profile, but I have to change each composer entry manually to last name first each time. I figure there has got to be a script that will do that automatically?
Here's what I am using for the composer solution, but it doesn't handle compilations or last name first:

[IFVALUE]composer,[composer],[IFCOMP]Various Artists[][IF!COMP][artist][][]\[album]\[track] [artist] - [title]

I'm really not sure what I want for compilations, maybe you have an idea? With the above it creates folders for each composer (or adds them to existing ones), "Bach, J.S.," etc. But I have to manually change the last name, first on each line in the album. So a compilation CD gets spread all over the place in the computer. Maybe it would be better for compilations to end up in a folder called "Compilations" with the sub folders being the "Album Name?" What do you think? And would there be a script that will do either of these with out having to choose the profile each time?

Thanks, I wish I was as good at doing scripts as some of you, have never been able to get the hang of it.

[mville]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

To create your folders so they are named last name, first name, before ripping, I suggest you populate both Composer and the ComposerSort and Album Artist and the Album Artist Sort tags as follows:
Composer = Frédéric Chopin and ComposerSort = Chopin, Frédéric
Album Artist = Bob Dylan and Album Artist Sort = Dylan, Bob

I would also include the Artist and Artist Sort, Conductor and Conductor Sort, Soloists and Soloists sort etc. This is not difficult to do in CDRipper and is what many users do already.

Then, you can use the sort tags in the Naming string. With this method, the following string should work for all your CDs:
[IF!COMP][if][genre],=,Classical,[tag]composersort[],[tag]album artist sort[][][][IFCOMP]Compilations[]\[album]\[track] [artist] - [title]

[doane2u]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

mville: Sorry, you lost me.. how do you "populate" the tags with these sort scripts?

[mville]

Re: Album Artist / Artist..?

mville: Sorry, you lost me.. how do you "populate" the tags with these sort scripts?

In CDRipper you can add/edit tags manually.

After retrieving metadata from the database providers and selecting the best match, if composersort is not listed, you are able to add it yourself, along with many other tags.

This is a separate process to editing the Naming string.