Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

[MetalMike666]

I'm a new PerfectTUNES user and love it (Windows 10). With my huge CD collection I don't know how I managed without it

Anyway, I just ran into a problem with updating my tag data for the band Drowning Pool (by the way, am I allowed to use a band/album name in my thread title?). When I view the album art/title using "Browse by Metadata; Album Artist/Album; [D..]; Drowning Pool", one of the five albums shows "Creed" as the artist instead of "Drowning Pool". It so happens that I also have a Creed album with the same title ... "Full Circle".

But when I click on the "Full Circle" album picture, the Album Artist & Artist show "Drowning Pool" for all 13 songs. There are 3 rip formats for each song, FLAC/MP3/WMA for a total of 39 files. I've attached screen captures to clarify what I'm seeing.

Let me know if I've violated any posting rules/best practices as this is my first post on the forum.

[mville]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

Double check that the artist, artist sort, album artist and album artist sort tags are consistent for all tracks, in both the Drowning Pool and Creed 'Full Circle' albums.

... and also check the album and album sort tags.

Illustrate software scans albums for uniqueness. I believe, if you only use the album tag and artist tag then Illustrate will create a single album, whereas you want to see 2 albums.

[MetalMike666]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

Thank you "mville" for your help. As a new PerfectTUNES user I didn't understand the concept of sort tags/sort tag ordering, and still don't fully. But your post got me to read the help section on it and through some trial and error I finally got the problem solved. But I still don't understand why I had to add the "Album sort" tag to a single album in my collection to fix the problem.

I'll give a summary on what fixed my problem and then some follow-up thoughts/questions.

I have never used any "sort" tags on my dBpoweramp CD collection rips (2,700+ CD's ripped). I have the six "sort" tags unchecked/disabled in my dBpoweramp settings (Artist Sort/Album Artist Sort/Album Sort/SoloistsSort/ComposerSort/ConductorSort). I'm guessing that this is the dBpoweramp default. I think that explains why I never saw any difference between using the "No Sort Tag Ordering" and "Order by Sort Tag" views in PerfectTUNES.

The fix to the Drowning Pool album art picture being labeled Creed was to add a new "Album sort" tag named "Full Circle [Drowning Pool]" to all 13 song files (actually 39 if you count the three formats). I contemplated adding a similar "Album sort" tag named "Full Circle [Creed]" to the Creed album, but the album art picture was already correctly labeled as Creed, so I did not.

By the way, all the tags were consistent for each separate Drowning Pool and Creed album. I don't understand why PerfectTUNES wouldn't see one album effectively as "Full Circle" by Creed, and "Full Circle" by Drowning Pool. I mean I guess it does actually because they're correctly shown separately under the letter C: Album Artist/Album list and the letter D: Album Artist/Album list. It just seems that since the letter C comes first, the Creed album "Full Circle" had the proper label on its album art picture, and when it saw a second album with the exact same "Full Circle" title under the letter D, it labeled it as Creed (even though the correct Album Art picture for the Drowning pool version was shown).

So now I have only one album in my large rip collection that uses the "Album sort" tag. Kind of weird. I don't know if I have any other similar cases where there are two artists with the exact same album title. As I continue using PerfectTUNES to clean up my collection perhaps I'll run into this problem again.

I'm also still not sure what the overall purpose of the sort tags is. I've gotten along well for years with listening to my music without needing them. I think I understand the Help file example of having your Ludwig van Beethoven composed songs essentially given a nickname of Beethoven. Just not sure where it's used practically in listening to the music. Perhaps to shorten things on a small display device? But obviously they have a use or they wouldn't have been created.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

[garym]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

sort tags are most often used related to ARTIST name. For example, if one wants John Lennon, to show up under "L" when browsing library alphabetically, one would create an ARTISTSORT tag containing "Lennon, John", while leaving the ARTIST tag as "John Lennon". Folks like this, because many players will show the ARTIST tag when playing the song (so one sees "John Lennon" on the display), but they prefer to find John Lennon's work alphabetically under "L".

p.s. I don't use any SORT tags. Long ago I got used to browsing alphabetically assuming the first name, so if I look for John Lennon stuff, I know to look under "J".

[mville]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

But I still don't understand why I had to add the "Album sort" tag to a single album in my collection to fix the problem...

By the way, all the tags were consistent for each separate Drowning Pool and Creed album. I don't understand why PerfectTUNES wouldn't see one album effectively as "Full Circle" by Creed, and "Full Circle" by Drowning Pool...

In most metadata software, Artist is per track, while Album Artist is per album. The Illustrate software uses the Album/Album Sort tags and the Album Artist/Album Artist Sort tags to identify unique albums.

In your case the Album Artist/Album Artist Sort tags were NOT populated and so only the Album tag was used, hence all tracks with Album=Creed, are seen as 1 album.

I'm also still not sure what the overall purpose of the sort tags is.

When software displays lists of albums, artists, album artists, tracks, composers etc. the list is usually sorted alphabetically.

When sorting a list of composers, most software will use the composer sort tag if it exists or else it will use the composer tag.

You don't have to use sort tags.

[MetalMike666]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

OK, I still don't understand, and still think this may be a bug when two albums with the same title by two different artists are displayed using the "Browse by Metadata; Album Artist/Album" view. And for the record, even though I'm a PerfectTUNES newbie, I am not thick/dumb/whatever-you-call-it when it comes to using software in general (and I'm not saying you are implying that). I just want to contrast myself from someone like my father who can't understand the difference between 128 GB of RAM memory and 128 GB of disk/SSD storage space. I'm a retired aerospace engineer who has used some of the most complex analysis software available, and also build my own computers for home use.

In most metadata software, Artist is per track, while Album Artist is per album. The Illustrate software uses the Album/Album Sort tags and the Album Artist/Album Artist Sort tags to identify unique albums.

In your case the Album Artist/Album Artist Sort tags were NOT populated and so only the Album tag was used, hence all tracks with Album=Creed, are seen as 1 album.

I understand the difference between Album Artist (per album) and Artist (per track). I have many albums that have guest musicians on individual songs and always add them as such. So if Joe Satriani did a guest guitar solo on one Drowning Pool song I would list the Artist for that song as "Drowning Pool; Joe Satriani", but leave the Album Artist for all songs as Drowning Pool.

In my original post screen capture attachments you can see that the Album Artist tag IS populated as Drowning Pool, but again no sort tags are used. The album "Full Circle" is correctly shown under the "Browse by Metadata; Album Artist/Album; [D..]; Drowning Pool" view. It's the artist label between the album cover picture and the album title that is the "bug". Since it is correctly identified as Album Artist = Drowning Pool & Album = Full Circle, the artist label between the album cover picture and the album title should say Drowning Pool, NOT Creed. Unless, again, I'm still missing something. If PerfectTUNES can get the Album Artist & Album in the correct place, it should be able to label the Cover Art view correctly.

Finally, after correcting the "Drowning Pool artist/Full Circle album" display problem by adding a new "Album sort" tag named "Full Circle [Drowning Pool]" to all of the album song files, I did an experiment.

I went to the next alphabetical letter "E" under the "Browse by Metadata; Album Artist/Album" view and picked the Album Artist "Evergrey". In Windows Explorer I copied the Evergrey album "Glorious Collision" folder and renamed it to "Full Circle" (for all three rip formats, FLAC/MP3/WMA). I then edited all fourteen songs using the right click "Edit ID Tags" and changed the Album tag from "Glorious Collision" to "Full Circle". Both the Artist tag and Album Artist tag are unchanged as "Evergrey".

Sure enough, using the "Browse by Metadata; Album Artist/Album; [E..]; Evergrey" view, the new fake Evergrey album titled Full Circle shows the band Creed between the correct Album Cover picture and the fake Full Circle album title. See the attached screen captures.

Sorry for another long post ... promise it will be my last since I found the fix to my problem, but I just want to understand whether this "duplicate Album title/Cover Art/Artist label displayed" problem is a bug or a feature.

[Spoon]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

Can you upload 2 albums which present this issue to somewhere like drop box and personal message me a link please.

[MetalMike666]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

Yes, I will do so ASAP.

[mville]

Re: Artist/Album View Shows Wrong Artist

OK, I still don't understand, and still think this may be a bug when two albums with the same title by two different artists are displayed using the "Browse by Metadata; Album Artist/Album" view.

Yes, it may be a bug. If all the tracks with Album=Full Circle have the Album Artist tag populated with Drowning Pool or Creed, then you should see 2 separate albums.