Is there a File Name Convention that works with multi composer CD's

[ghibliss]

I am interested in learning if any batch ripper users have a naming convention that keeps all ripped tracks together in the same folder when they rip Classical CD tiles with multiple composers on the same disc. I have no problems ripping Classical music with single composer CD's however multi composer causes the files to be placed in separate folders when I use the naming convention: [Composer]\Album\[Track] - [Title]

I realize that I could avoid the result of having the files split into separate "Composer" folders by simply ripping [Album]\[Track} - [Title] which I could then post edit with an editing tool to create the composer folder. If I first removed all of the multi composer CD titles everything would be fine. The fact that we are using computers makes me believe there is a better way to do this which requires less work following the ripping process.

Does anyone have any solutions that have worked for them?

I just ripped 3,000 Classical titles last weekend and the time required to edit was quite significant!

[GBrown]

What other distinguishing field are you using in the case of these multi-composer discs? Something like an Albumartist field with "Various Artists" would do. You could use an IF condition in your naming convention for the Various discs to use one format, and the else condition would be your current formatting.

[schmidj]

For my classical CDs, many of which have multiple composers:

First, the artist for each track is the orchestra and or soloist(s), and sometimes the conductor if well-known. If more than one for the track, separated by semicolons. The composer (rarely more than one on a single track) is in the composer field for each track. The track title is the composer, followed by a colon and then the name of the track. I do that since my phone player (which I do much of my listening on) doesn't display composers.

For the album artist, I enter Various Artists if the artists are different on the different tracks. For the album title, if the composer(s) aren't already part of the title, I add them before the actual album title, with a colon in between. Identical on all tracks. If the album has different artists on different tracks, I also set the compilation tag.

I rip to FLAC, playback FLAC in the house. Converted to m4a for the 1TB micro SD card in the phone, for playback in the car or headphones. when away from home.

Just my method, I'm sure others have their own methods.

[ghibliss]

The "If" condition only looks at a single track at a time! This does not work for multi composer titles as it would need to see every track title to determine that there were different composers present.

[garym]

The "If" condition only looks at a single track at a time! This does not work for multi composer titles as it would need to see every track title to determine that there were different composers present.

So for you, multiple composers means that different tracks have different composers, but for any individual track, the composer tag has only a single composer. I was thinking by multi-composer that you meant the COMPOSER tag held multiple values (like a multi-artist tag, etc.). As I think about it, of course there are few, if any, examples of classical works with multiple composers.

[GBrown]

The "If" condition only looks at a single track at a time! This does not work for multi composer titles as it would need to see every track title to determine that there were different composers present.

Which is why you would need a consistent other tag to evaluate if there are multiples. Like the Albumartist set to "Various Artists" or even just the compilation flag set to 1.

[ghibliss]

I just ripped 3,000 Classical CD's last weekend of which 250+ were CD's that contained multiple composers ie at least 2 tracks on the CD are from different composers. There are 1,000's of CD'slike this which make ripping Classical CD's very time consuming to get right!

[ghibliss]

how would using "Various Artists" indicate that there are multiple composers? An example of why this may not work is a CD where Pavarotti sings 10 tracks all from different composers. Multiple Artist has nothing to do with multiple Composer. Compilation only pertains to multiple artist or a CD that is for example made up from greatest hits from several different albums ie a compilation album. Compilation does not work at all for Multi-Composer CD's. I have already tried these file naming conventions which do not work.

The problem is that the software does not look at multiple files at a time, it looks at only one file at a time therefore it cannot determine that there are multiple composers or not.

[GBrown]

how would using "Various Artists" indicate that there are multiple composers? An example of why this may not work is a CD where Pavarotti sings 10 tracks all from different composers. Multiple Artist has nothing to do with multiple Composer. Compilation only pertains to multiple artist or a CD that is for example made up from greatest hits from several different albums ie a compilation album. Compilation does not work at all for Multi-Composer CD's. I have already tried these file naming conventions which do not work.

The problem is that the software does not look at multiple files at a time, it looks at only one file at a time therefore it cannot determine that there are multiple composers or not.

It still boils down to the same point about finding a consistent tag to use that distinguishes what you want to separate these discs, whether it is for 1 track or 99.

You could always create a user-defined tag like "MultiComposer" and simply set that to 1 whenever you rip a Multi-Composer disc. Use this in your naming convention with an IF. While most other players or library manages would not look at this non-standard tag, it would help simply during the ripping and file naming stage in dbPA.

[ghibliss]

Just to be clear when I refer to a "multi Composer" CD I mean that there is more than one composer on the entire CD not multiple composers on a given track. Since the software as I understand it can only address one track at a time, using "If" statements or user defined tags should have no effect on what I am asking for as they cannot address more than one track at a time. If this statement is correct then there is nothing that may be performed in dbpoweramp to correct this problem when ripping.

My current solution to address this issue is to simply rip Classical music using [Album]\[Track] - [Title] which would keep all of the tracks for a CD together in a single folder and following ripping I could edit by first looking for "Title" folders containing multiple composers and cutting and pasting them into a "Various Composers" folder. The remaining "Title" folders would all contain single composer titles which could then easily be edited in a batch mode with editing software creating a "Composer" Folder for each of them.

[garym]

Just to be clear when I refer to a "multi Composer" CD I mean that there is more than one composer on the entire CD not multiple composers on a given track. Since the software as I understand it can only address one track at a time, using "If" statements or user defined tags should have no effect on what I am asking for as they cannot address more than one track at a time. If this statement is correct then there is nothing that may be performed in dbpoweramp to correct this problem when ripping.

My current solution to address this issue is to simply rip Classical music using [Album]\[Track] - [Title] which would keep all of the tracks for a CD together in a single folder and following ripping I could edit by first looking for "Title" folders containing multiple composers and cutting and pasting them into a "Various Composers" folder. The remaining "Title" folders would all contain single composer titles which could then easily be edited in a batch mode with editing software creating a "Composer" Folder for each of them.

To do this automatically, I would put "Multiple Composer" as the value in ALBUM ARTIST tag. Then rip to [Album Artist]\[Album]\[Track] - [Title]
Then the ripped files would all show up in a folder called "Multiple Composer" with subfolders for each complete album. Then you can move those later to wherever you want them.
p.s. not sure whether Album Artist is [AlbumArtist] or [Album Artist]

[ghibliss]

This still requires extracting the contents of each sub-folder to a main folder following the ripping process. It does keep all of the tracks essentially together in one main folder assuming the artist is the same for all tracks even if a different composer is present for each track. Multicomposer CD's can have multiple artists as well so this is not necessarily a one size fits all solution.

[garym]

This still requires extracting the contents of each sub-folder to a main folder following the ripping process. It does keep all of the tracks essentially together in one main folder assuming the artist is the same for all tracks even if a different composer is present for each track. Multicomposer CD's can have multiple artists as well so this is not necessarily a one size fits all solution.

correct, but you'll have some manual steps after ripping no matter what. This at least creates a single ALBUM folder instead of spreading out tracks in different folders (and that's true even if if the ARTIST is different across tracks....the key is that the ALBUM ARTIST is the same across all tracks).

[GBrown]

correct, but you'll have some manual steps after ripping no matter what. This at least creates a single ALBUM folder instead of spreading out tracks in different folders (and that's true even if if the ARTIST is different across tracks....the key is that the ALBUM ARTIST is the same across all tracks).

Agreed. Changing the AlbumArtist tag this way allows you to manipulate the naming convention more easily. Again with one track or many, it is irrelevant. As long as you have some other place to get a unique piece of data to work from that confirms each song comes from a disc that you want to call out separately for your regular naming convention. This has no dependency to look at a group of tracks as an "Album" per se.