How do I tag - or - what is the compilation-tag good for?

[FortyTwo]

Hi,

I´m preparing to rip my entire music-catalogue in flac. Because of several displaying and sorting problems with my old mp3-catalogue - this time I want to do it right from the beginning.

But I still don´t get ist... What is the compilation-tag good for? Or how do I tag the following CDs? And with compilations: Do I leave the tag "album artist" empty or do I have to fill in "Various Artists". What is the difference?

Tags in question are:
- Artist
- Album
- Album Artist
- Compilation

Problem 1: Soundtrack with multiple artists (eg: Mission Impossible 3)
Problem 2: Soundtrack with one artist (eg: John Williams: Star Wars)
Problem 3: Soundtrack of one main artist with guest performers (eg: Angelo Badalamenti: Twin Peaks, guest: Julee Cruise)
Problem 4: Compilation with multiple artists (eg: Top10-Charts)
Problem 5: Best-of of an artist (eg: Genesis: Turn it on again)
Problem 6: Album of one main artist with guests performers on several tracks (eg: Santana: Supernatural)

I´m using iTunes on PC and mobile devices and several Squeezeboxes stationary.

Sorry for my English...

Daniel

[Spoon]

Re: How do I tag - or - what is the compilation-tag good for?

It depends on player, the compilation tag tells a player to group an album even though it has different artists for each track. The use of Album artist can do the same, if set to 'Various Artists'

[FortyTwo]

Re: How do I tag - or - what is the compilation-tag good for?

Just for the understanding: therefore it makes no difference if i set the compilation tag for a regular studio album, eg: The Police: Synchronisity. ??!!

Just for Dummies like me: Can someone give the correct (with the least sorting-compatibily-problems) tags to choose or set for the six listed problems?

Daniel

[Spoon]

Re: How do I tag - or - what is the compilation-tag good for?

You should only set compilation if the album has different artists.

[garym]

Re: How do I tag - or - what is the compilation-tag good for?

I use squeezeboxes and foobar2000 and itunes (for my lossy versions used with ipods). Here's what I do:

1. for true compilations with different artists (soundtracks, tribute albums, greatest hits of a decade, etc.): I leave ALBUM ARTIST blank and make sure that I've checked the COMPILATION (so that COMPILATION = 1). If you want, you can use ALBUM ARTIST too (Various Artists or something similar). Actually, I do include ALBUM ARTIST for tribute albums. For example, a BOB DYLAN tribute album, I use BOB DYLAN as the "Album Artist" so that this tribute album shows up when I'm search for or browsing for bob dylan albums.

2. For any album that is mostly one artist, but has at least one track that has a different (or second) artist, I set ALBUM ARTIST to the main artist. This is important for squeezebox users, because Logitech Media Server will treat any album that has more than one artist (even on a single track) as a compilation, even if the compilation tag is not there.

3. For an album that has a single artist, I leave Album Artist blank. My only exception is when the artist has different variations that I want to group together. For example, Sir Douglas Quintet, Doug Sahm & Band, Doug Sahm, "The Masked Men", are all "Doug Sahm" so I add Album Artist of "Doug Sahm" to all these CDs, although I leave the track artist as, for example, "Sir Douglas Quintet".

[FortyTwo]

Re: How do I tag - or - what is the compilation-tag good for?

Thank you very much! This explanation was very helpful :smile2:

[garym]

Re: How do I tag - or - what is the compilation-tag good for?

Thank you very much! This explanation was very helpful :smile2:

you're welcome. Also, I leave Disc Number blank for single disk CDs.