Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

[Theleb_Kaarna]

Good morning!

So I've ripped to flac a few hundred CDs so far, and in the "Artist" field I've been manually changing to last-name-first (ie "Parker, Charlie" instead of the default "Charlie Parker"). Reason being is I want everything alpha by last name, from the music listed in any given player I use, to the folders my flac files are contained in. Now I kind of understand the concept of "Artist Sort" but not the practical application of it. I mainly use JRiver for organizing and listening to my music and nowhere in it's instructions (JRiver Wiki) do I see anything about "Artist Sort" mentioned. I also use an older iPod which lacks Artist Sort functionality. I plan to purchase an Astell and Kern KANN DAP which may support it, I don't know. Anyways...

1. Am I doing it wrong? What do most people do in this instance?

2. For Artist Sort, what do people do with artists with three names? So for example "Jean Luc Ponty" I'd want third-name-first (ie "Ponty, Jean Luc") but "Phi Yaan Zek" I'd want second-name-first (ie "Yaan Zek, Phi").

3. Any opinions, advice or links to tutorials would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

-Theleb

[Spoon]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

You never see Artist Sort in the player, the player uses it to arrange the name and displays the real Artist name at that location.

You are not doing it wrong if artist sort is not supported by your players.

[Theleb_Kaarna]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

^ Thanks for the explanation Spoon. So as an experiment I used PerfectTUNES ID Tags to revert the Artist name "Abercrombie, John" back to default "John Abercrombie". Making sure Artist Sort (in ID Tags) showed "Abercrombie, John", I re-imported the album back into JRiver and JRiver placed the album in the Artist "J's" (for "John") instead of the "A's". Does this mean JRiver likely doesn't support Artist Sort, or that I've done something incorrectly?

Thanks!
-Theleb

[Spoon]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

It means it supports artist sort, to be 100% certain, for that album set the sort name to:

zzzz

it should put the artist name with z

[Theleb_Kaarna]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

Well rats. I tried that and it didn't work. Just as with my first experiment, JRiver kept the album in its original position in Artist view. To be clear, in ID Tags I set the Artist field to "John Abercrombie"; Artist Sort I set to "ZZZZ". It still appeared in the "J's" not "Z's" in JRiver's Artist view.

Does it look to you like I'm doing it correctly in CD Ripper / ID Tags and that I'm not missing anything?

If "Yes", then I guess my next stop is the JRiver forums...

[Spoon]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

Perhaps it uses the first value associated with an artist, rename the artist (and album artist) also to YYYY and see where it places it.

[Theleb_Kaarna]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

I think I understood you. Tried:
Artist: ZZZZ
Album Artist: ZZZZ
Artist Sort: YYYY
Album Artist Sort: YYYY

JRiver placed it in the Z's.


Also Tried:
Artist: John Abercrombie
Album Artist: John Abercrombie
Artist Sort: Abercrombie, John
Album Artist Sort: Abercrombie, John

JRiver placed it in the J's in both the Artist view and the Files view.


I know you're busy Spoon and I don't mean to waste your time. Please let me know at any point if you think I've done everything correctly in CD Ripper/ID Tags and that I need to take this issue to the JRiver Forums.

Thanks!
-Theleb

[garym]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

Both your examples suggest that JRiver is using artist or album artist and ignoring your sort tags.

[Oggy]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

I think I understood you. Tried:
Artist: ZZZZ
Album Artist: ZZZZ
Artist Sort: YYYY
Album Artist Sort: YYYY

JRiver placed it in the Z's.


Also Tried:
Artist: John Abercrombie
Album Artist: John Abercrombie
Artist Sort: Abercrombie, John
Album Artist Sort: Abercrombie, John

JRiver placed it in the J's in both the Artist view and the Files view.


I know you're busy Spoon and I don't mean to waste your time. Please let me know at any point if you think I've done everything correctly in CD Ripper/ID Tags and that I need to take this issue to the JRiver Forums.

Thanks!
-Theleb

Both your examples suggest that JRiver is using artist or album artist and ignoring your sort tags.

No, you have done nothing wrong, and as has been said JRiver is ignoring the sort tags. Unfortunately there is no standardisation for tagging, some players and apps use sort tags, and others do not.

Out of three apps I use, two use sort tags and one ignores them: as they are simply a tag, they do no harm being there and down to the individual to use or not.

Most portable players appear not to handle sort tags, but some that run on Android then give the option to download software which may offer this function.

If you do an internet search, there are a lot of questions regarding how to sort by surname (family name) in JRiver, and there are threads on their own forum.

[Theleb_Kaarna]

Re: Artist naming confusion: last-name-first, Artist Sort, etc

^^^ Thanks garym & Oggy for the thoughtful response, most helpful. Since my OP I've been searching around reading other threads touching on this subject. This dBpa thread: [ https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthr...e-Solo-Artists ] I found to be most helpful (especially considering I'm likely going to purchase an A & K DAP). While I'm not entirely happy with having to have the Artist (in this case) be as "Abercrombie, John", it's preferable to me to do it this way to be guaranteed it's listed in the "A's" (and not "J's") regardless of whether or not a given player (portable or otherwise) supports Sort functionality.