Naming scheme: How to add artist only in compilation albums?

[becket]

I am a beginner with dbpoweramp and naming schemes. I want to keep the naming scheme pretty simple. For compilation albums I fill in the Album Artist box with some variation of "Various Artists', e.g. if the album is jazz, the entry for Album Artist will be "Various Artists - Jazz". For non-compilation albums I prefer to not include the artist name in the naming scheme. However, I do want to include the artist name in the naming scheme of compilation albums. Here are the naming schemes I am now using:

For non-compilation albums: [album artist]\[album]\[track]-[title]

For compilation albums: [album artist]\[album]\[track]-[artist]-[title]

I think that one should be able to use one naming scheme that will add the artist name to compilation albums only and that this is accomplished by using [IFCOMP] in some way. However, I have tried doing this and so far have not been able to make it work. Is anyone able to tell me how to do this? I will appreciate any help or advice you can give me.

[Spoon]

[IFCOMP][album artist]\[album]\[track]-[artist]-[title][][IF!COMP][album artist]\[album]\[track]-[title][]

[smisk]

I would advice against it though - if a single music file (from a non-compilation ) is moved (or copied to a friend) you (or your friend) will have no idea who the artist is when you look at the file 2 weeks later.


From someone who has been ripping for a while, I would advice you to keep it a little more complicated Once you start ripping using the above example you will have several hundred directories in you music file root, very difficult to navigate + the operating system will be very slow to handle anything placed in this directory because of the simple fact that it will need to read through several hundred directory entries each time you want to access a file in there)

I have come to rely on the following naming scheme, where a subdirectory must pre-exist for each character of the alphabet and 0-9. And you also need a \VA directory in your song root (for various artists):
(note that the whole string below would need to go as one row into your naming scheme box)

[IFCOMP][IFMULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],VA[]\[album]\Disc [disc]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][IF!MULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],VA[]\[album]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][][IF!COMP][IFMULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],VA[]\[album]\Disc [disc]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][IF!MULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],VA[]\[album]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][]
[IFCOMP][IFMULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[MAXLENGTH]1,[album artist][]\[album artist],VA[]\[album]\Disc [disc]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][IF!MULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[MAXLENGTH]1,[album artist][]\[album artist],VA[]\[album]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][][IF!COMP][IFMULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[MAXLENGTH]1,[album artist][]\[album artist],VA[]\[album]\Disc [disc]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][IF!MULTI][IFVALUE]album artist,[MAXLENGTH]1,[album artist][]\[album artist],VA[]\[album]\[track] - [artist] - [title][][]

Songs would then be named M:\B\Beatles\White Album\01 - Beatles - Yellow submarine.mp3 or m:\VA\Absolute Dance Summer 2012\Disc 2\04 - David Lindgren - Shout it out (WeSmile & Alexie Divello radio edit).mp3
(disc subdirectory level is only added if there is more than one disc for the album. this is done automatically)

(M:\ is where i keep my music and it is not specified in the naming scheme here it is set in options in the lower part of the main screen in the ripper)


To create the necessary pre-existing directories you could use this DOS command (change to your music root directory first before issuing this command)

For %x in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Å Ä Ö Ü É Ç) DO MKDIR %X

(be sure to add any specific letters if you live in a country that uses them for example ø would need to be added if you live in (or have music from) Denmark or Norway


Note: for this to work properly with "various artists" albums you need to always clear (empty) the album artist field for such albums.
I.e. you MUSTN'T have "VA" or "Various Artists" or anything else in this metadata field.