Album Artist Node

[nojac]

Before in MM2 you could do a album artist node with magic node.

You still can. There is a new version of MagicNodes which works perfectly on MM3 (thank you again , ZvezdanD!) http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19168

Just install and use the mask
Album Artist|child of:Artist\<album artist>\<album|sort by:max(year)|sort order:asc>

cmx: "Properly tagged" in this context means that all multiple artist albums should have "Various" (or "Various Artists" or what you choose) in the Album Artist field of every track. If you have various "Various", just corret the spelling in the in the left panel until there is only one.. (All tracks will be updated.) If you have multi-artist albums where the track artist is also the album artist, these should be found in Library --> Files to edit --> Multiple Artist Albums. (Or you might prefer File --> Maintain library --> Create multi-artist albums. I have not tested this feature)

In MM's Artist node it is Artist field which determines which tracks are displayed in the right panel when you select an artist, but the Album Artist field determines which albums will come up as subnodes. This way each album appears only once as a subnode in the Artist node. If the muliti-artist albums came up as subnodes of each artist (as cmx suggests) it would be very messy.

EDIT: This is the Album Artist node as I prefer it - with album year and number of tracks for each album:
Album Artist|child of:Artist\<album artist|statistic:count(all)>\<album|sort by:max(year)|sort order:asc|statistic:count(all)>

[Guest]

Thanks for the response nojac.

One man's "mess" is another man's clarity...lol. I still don't see how this would be a problem or a mess...evidently I am misunderstanding something...the display is clear, and seemingly NOT messy in the "Track Browser Display".

I would expect each album the artist appears on to appear only once as a subnode of of artist...however that is accomplished it is up to MM as it is done in the "Track Browser"...but I do strongly feel that each album an artist appears on as an "artist" should be a subnode of the artist...as it is now it is MESSY to me...in that there ARE albums the artist is represented as an artist on, YET they are NOT represented/missing in the artist node of the Nav Tree...so I have to sift thru somtimes hundreds of tracks to find those individual tracks...or use the new "Track Browser" which seems redundant.

I am confused a bit about multi-artist albums designation because MM2 by some method applies "various" to the multi-artist field...yet MM3 by some method applies the artist name to the album artist field...and these do NOT show up in the "Files to edit" as nojac describes...so some of the explanations are contrary to what I am seeing here...I'll keep trying to understand things and I hope you will continue helping me understand how things are working.

Question: ...and please be patient as I have no knowledge of the technical aspects of "tags"

"properly tagged"...does this refer to actual data contained in the music file itself? I was not aware of an "album artist" tag available in the file...I thought MM generated this "field" for its use in its db/library.


Possibly I am not making things clear..I am definitely confused on the issue. I'll present it again.

Practical background:

I have a very large library consisting of a "collection" of collections from friends, family etc...gathered together over time...so there are differeing file types, different file directory structure/organization, different file naming protocols, etc, etc...it is not uniform and it would not be practical to try to "properly tag" all the files to be of a uniform tag structure/type. Whether that be working on the files themselves or the MM db record for each file.

I need a program to dig thru and organize a large library as well as play music and add to my collection on a day-to-day basis...with a definite emphasis as an archival tool in addition to a daily music player.

That said, MM is fantastic in the way it recognizes, handles and organizes all these files...That is why I am here!!..MM is the only thing that practically handles everything(once the m4a stuff is worked out..LOL).


This idea of the way the music of an individual artist is displayed is an important functionality in the way I need to use MM...and to me it is simply a question of logical user interface for the "Music Explorer Tree".

In MM6 I can use the "Track Browser" to show the issue:

Note...under the artist node for "Albert King" only 6 albums are apparent.

Note...in the "Track Browser" all 14 albums that Albert King appears as an artist on appear. This seems to me to be what should also appear under the Albert King artist node...it is confusing and unexpected for the user that they do not.


I would rather use the original "Music Explorer Tree" than the iTunes style "Track Browser"... simply from a practical point of view, in my usage, as you can see there is a huge amount of screen space eaten up by the Track Browser.




Note... I do not think it is primarily a question of the way MM is handling multiple artist albums... it is the way the tracks and the albums those tracks appear on for an individual artist are displayed in the Nav Tree. There are a few glitches with some of my files concerning multiple artists, but that does not appear to at issue for this discussion.

Devs...please don't think I am ungrateful for the great program and the huge amount of work involved and nojac thanks for the patience in helping me understand things.

[Teknojnky]

I would expect each album the artist appears on to appear only once as a subnode of of artist...

It does, the album appears under the artist that is designated as the 'album artist' field within the file.

Perhaps it will be clearer if you open the album within the album node. If you open the album node, and navigate to the album, if there is more than one entry for the same album, then not all of the tracks have the same <album artist>.

In the album node, the album artist is indicated by parenthesis.

however that is accomplished it is up to MM as it is done in the "Track Browser"...but I do strongly feel that each album an artist appears on as an "artist" should be a subnode of the artist...as it is now it is MESSY to me...in that there ARE albums the artist is represented as an artist on, YET they are NOT represented/missing in the artist node of the Nav Tree...so I have to sift thru somtimes hundreds of tracks to find those individual tracks...or use the new "Track Browser" which seems redundant.

It sounds like you need to make the album artist consistent amongst all of the files within that album.

I am confused a bit about multi-artist albums designation because MM2 by some method applies "various" to the multi-artist field...yet MM3 by some method applies the artist name to the album artist field...and these do NOT show up in the "Files to edit" as nojac describes...so some of the explanations are contrary to what I am seeing here...I'll keep trying to understand things and I hope you will continue helping me understand how things are working.

I am not sure the differences between mm2 and mm3 at this point.

Question: ...and please be patient as I have no knowledge of the technical aspects of "tags"

"properly tagged"...does this refer to actual data contained in the music file itself? I was not aware of an "album artist" tag available in the file...I thought MM generated this "field" for its use in its db/library.

"properly tagged" in the context I used, means that all tracks of an album, have the same tag applied.

Meaning, if its a various artist, then all tracks with that album, have an album artist of "Various", or whatever your preferred text is. (various/various artists/VA/etc)

IIRC MM utilizes the the 'band/accompaniment' id3 field to represent the <album artist>.

Possibly I am not making things clear..I am definitely confused on the issue. I'll present it again.

Practical background:

I have a very large library consisting of a "collection" of collections from friends, family etc...gathered together over time...so there are differeing file types, different file directory structure/organization, different file naming protocols, etc, etc...it is not uniform and it would not be practical to try to "properly tag" all the files to be of a uniform tag structure/type. Whether that be working on the files themselves or the MM db record for each file.

I need a program to dig thru and organize a large library as well as play music and add to my collection on a day-to-day basis...with a definite emphasis as an archival tool in addition to a daily music player.

again, it sounds like you need to take the tracks from the same album and ensure they all have the same album artist, in your screenshot, you would want all your "Albert King" tracks to have the album artist of "Albert King", while the tracks that use for example "Albert King/Stevie Ray Vaughn" will have that as the <ARTIST> (not <ALBUM ARTIST>).

That said, MM is fantastic in the way it recognizes, handles and organizes all these files...That is why I am here!!..MM is the only thing that practically handles everything(once the m4a stuff is worked out..LOL).

This idea of the way the music of an individual artist is displayed is an important functionality in the way I need to use MM...and to me it is simply a question of logical user interface for the "Music Explorer Tree".

I think once you fully grasp how it works, and how your files need to be tagged consistently with the applicable <album artist> field, it works quite well.

In MM6 I can use the "Track Browser" to show the issue:

Note...under the artist node for "Albert King" only 6 albums are apparent.

This because those 6 albums are the only tracks with "Albert King" as the <Album artist>.

Note...in the "Track Browser" all 14 albums that Albert King appears as an artist on appear. This seems to me to be what should also appear under the Albert King artist node...it is confusing and unexpected for the user that they do not.

The track browser is showing all tracks with "Albert King" as the <Artist>, not the <album artist>.

I would rather use the original "Music Explorer Tree" than the iTunes style "Track Browser"... simply from a practical point of view, in my usage, as you can see there is a huge amount of screen space eaten up by the Track Browser.

I agree, the track browser is useful for some things, but does use alot of screen space and is not always the most appropriate tool.

Note... I do not think it is primarily a question of the way MM is handling multiple artist albums... it is the way the tracks and the albums those tracks appear on for an individual artist are displayed in the Nav Tree. There are a few glitches with some of my files concerning multiple artists, but that does not appear to at issue for this discussion.

Devs...please don't think I am ungrateful for the great program and the huge amount of work involved and nojac thanks for the patience in helping me understand things.

Hopefully the all above should help explain, if not just ask some more!

[Nebbin]

"properly tagged"...does this refer to actual data contained in the music file itself? I was not aware of an "album artist" tag available in the file...I thought MM generated this "field" for its use in its db/library.

Yes, this field is saved within the file (tag). Leaving it blank and relying on MM to generate this field will result mainly in chaos for multi artist albums since it assumes the field is the same as the artist field. I use a variety of custom album artist tags to cover differing scenarios, and transferring these files to my notebook leaves this field intact when read by another version of MM. Whether it can be read by other programs is a hit and miss issue (I know for certain that Traktor does not read this field).

[cmx]

thanks tekno....

Most all your comments seem predicated on what is in the "album artist" field of the track...MM3 is simply not behaving as you describe.

The point I am trying to make(and evidently not succeding at) is that in this issue I am not concerned about compilation or album artist designations and "tagging"...it is simply a practical display matter...I would logically expect the Nav Tree to display "each album the artist appears on "AS ARTIST" to appear in the nav tree ONCE as a subnode of the artist in the artist node"...in exactly the same way they appear in the Track Browser. Anything else is incomplete, difficult to work with, counter-intuitive, and confusing in my opinion.

I am pretty happy with the way all my stuff is presently "tagged" and the way MM3 handles the organization...there are a few little glitches but nothing of note at this point.

Anonymous wrote:
I would expect each album the artist appears on to appear only once as a subnode of of artist...


It does, the album appears under the artist that is designated as the 'album artist' field within the file.

Again, when I scan my files MM3 has assigned the "artist" also to the "album artist"...I did not. MM2 in a different manner, assigned "various" to the compilations shown here.

Quote:
In MM6 I can use the "Track Browser" to show the issue:

Note...under the artist node for "Albert King" only 6 albums are apparent.


This because those 6 albums are the only tracks with "Albert King" as the <Album artist>.

This is simply not the case.


Here is an example screen cap of one of the compilation tracks with the "Album Artist" the same as the "Artist" as assigned by MM3. As I understand your post this track SHOULD show up in the Nav Tree...as it does in the Track Browser.

[Teknojnky]

As mentioned, I do not know the current differnces in behavior between mm 2 and mm 3.

Everything I posted above, was in regardes to mm 2 behavior.

Whether any differences in behavior are due to design changes, or bugs, I simply do not know.

I'll simpy restate my opinion, that a dedicated <album artist> node should be implemented, while the existing (as in 2.x) artist node, should remain the same.

This gives the user the flexibility to choose the node which is most appropriate for their needs.

[nojac]

Again, when I scan my files MM3 has assigned the "artist" also to the "album artist"...I did not. MM2 in a different manner, assigned "various" to the compilations shown here.]

You seem to trust the automatic routines of MM to assign a value to the Album Artist field. If you want to continue this discussion I suggest you manually select all your multiartist albums and put "Various Artists" in the Album Artist field. (This field is a part of the tag stored within the music file, not only in the MM library. Make sure the option to update tags is checked in Options)

Once this is done I guess it will work the same way for you as for the rest of us (and the same in MM2 and MM3), and we can take it from there....

[cmx]

nojac...

Yeah, as I said, I am fine with the way MM assigns the values and organizes the files. The functionality seems to be working great..really better than I could have hoped with the diversity of files I have.

I am not really interested in tagging or the album artist field as far as this issue is concerned. As I alluded to, my collection is large and diverse and manually trying to uniformly tag tens of thousands of files would be difficult and ultimately, at this point, I can't see what the point would be.

I am suggesting that the Music Explorer Tree display be updated to a more logical and useful display functionality...visually displaying the information concerning albums an artist appears on in the same logical and complete way that the new Track Browser currently does in MM3.

From what I have seen and from the screen captures I've posted above, the "Album Artist" field seems to have nothing directly to do with what albums are displayed in the Music Explorer Tree artist subnode...I have no idea, maybe the devs could explain how it is determined.

Why would having each album an artist appears on as "artist" appear as a subnode of the artist node in the Music Explorer Tree be "messy"? Beyond being what I intuitively and logically expect to be there, for me and my library it would be a very useful and time saving visual reference for exploring an artist's work, making playlists, general clean up, re-constructing partial albums, etc.

I'm sorry if I have not been clear on this...I really don't understand the reactions.

[nojac]

Why would having each album an artist appears on as "artist" appear as a subnode of the artist node in the Music Explorer Tree be "messy"? Beyond being what I intuitively and logically expect to be there, for me and my library it would be a very useful and time saving visual reference for exploring an artist's work, making playlists, general clean up, re-constructing partial albums, etc.

Because most of us don't consider multi-artist compilations part of an artist's work. And we don't want the same album to appear 20 times...

The tracks of these albums are however considered part of the artist's work, so they are listed, with full reference to the compilations they belong to.

In the track browser it seems you are having it your way. So may be we will all be happy??

This is another similar discussion: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16379

But this discussion is off topic.. I have wanted an Album Artist node as standard in MM, since the Artist node is crowded with minor artists from compilations. .. But now I use Magic nodes, so I don't care any more

[Diabolic-Destiny]

yes i use Album Artist Node and make Compilations Known as Various Artists and fill in the Artists Field with the actual Artist name Much more organized and thanks for the updated Magic Node

[cmx]

Nojac, thanks for the reply.

An artists work is an artists work. An individual track is most definitely an artists work. I have many, many artists with specific tracks that only appear on compilations.

I guess the comment about seeing the same album 20 times is referring to MM2 functionality, that does not seem to currently be an issue in MM3...In my suggestion, a compilation would appear once as a subnode under an artist that appeared as artist on it, and once under the album node with the (Various) designation...

It is something that would help me use and enjoy MM. In my opinion it is logical and intuitive. Looking at MM with the Music Explorer Tree and the Track Browser open...it looks as if there is an error...one place references more albums than the other...confusing.

MM provides many ways for you to customize your view if you wish...evidently you can manipulate the tags to affect how things are displayed in the Music Explorer Tree, the magic nodes add-on seems to help you and I'm sure MM itself will continue to improve to serve the user's needs.

If you choose to view only a subset of an artists tracks that is totally cool...but why limit mine, or any other user's view to your personal considerations?

User choice is always best. We should be able to have the choice. I respect yours, please consider mine.

I do very much appreciate the Track Browser, but as discussed above, as it is currently implemented it is very "screen space" intensive...you also cannot "select" albums to "move", send to playlists etc. from the Track Browser as you can from the Music Explorer Tree.

I'm not trying to push "my way" on anyone...just pointing out a need I have here, making a suggestion, and pointing out what I feel is the logic of my suggestion.

The thread reference you gave points out the confusing nature of this issue. It also is referencing MM2.

***Please note that I am referring to MM3. Currently MM3 seems to be handling things differently than MM2 as far as the "album artist" is concerned. It does not seem to matter that the artist's name appears in the album artist field on a compilation album... the album and track will still not appear as a subnode of the artist ...I can't figure out how to get the album and track to appear under the artist node as you can in MM2 by changing the album artist field to the artist...BUT the problem of seeing the album 20 times in the Album node does not seem to occur as it does in MM2...this is a big thing that seems to be confusing things in these discussions.***


Again...sorry if I am confusing things or am unclear. Thanks for the discussion. It has helped me better understand how MM2 operates...but MM3 just seems to be working differently so far.

[nojac]

BUT the problem of seeing the album 20 times in the Album node does not seem to occur as it does in MM2...

OK My albums were tagged in MM2, and I have not been able to see any difference between MM2 and MM3 in the way my albums are displayed. But by your screenshots it seems that MM3 has changed the display of compilation albums that ar NOT tagged according to the MM2 standard. Thank you for pointing out this.

I thought you wanted one compilation album with 20 artists to come up as a subnode of every artist in the Artist node of MM3 too..... I am happy with the MM2 system. But I'll wait for the docuentation of MM3 before I comment further on it.

[JohnBuckWLD]

Pardon the minor hijack...

On a related topic (from a MM noob): Is there a way to (semi-)automatically copy / paste (in other words: move w/o adversely affecting the artist tags) all the contents of the artist field into album artist field?

/We now return you to your complicated discussion

[cmx]

john, you can edit a single track or bulk edit any number of selected tracks from the main window using the "Properties" selection from the Standard menu or the right click menus.

From an album selection in the Music Explorer Tree you can right click to select "Properties" for a whole album at once...this is a limited subset of properties but Album and Album artist is there...although for some reason the auto-fill capability is not available.

Is this what you mean?

[nojac]

On a related topic (from a MM noob): Is there a way to (semi-)automatically copy / paste (in other words: move w/o adversely affecting the artist tags) all the contents of the artist field into album artist field

I think this script by Steegy is what you need:

ExtractFields (Manual) - http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10566
-- Lets you tag your tracks based on the current tags contents (e.g. switch/copy fields, remove unwanted prefix numbers, split FreeDB titles as title and artist, ...)

I assume it will only work on MM2, though (But once the tags are adjusted, just rescan to MM3)