"Album Artist" field is populated with "Artist" field data

[Phil_B]

I have all my MP3s on a hard disk. That's my master copy and I transfer files to devices from there. When I transfer files to my Android phone (version 10.0.0.298), the "Album Artist field" in MediaMonkey is populated with the "Artist" field from my files. The two fields are populated with different information on my HDD, but both end up with the "Artist" field data when I view them in MediaMonkey.

Is this a bug that can be fixed?

[Peke]

Hi,
Unfortunately this is not a bug, it is a build in feature.

To explain, if you have Album Information but Album artist is missing it is Auto Populated by Artist due the fact that each Album also have Album Artist even that be VARIOUS ARTISTS (Compilations) so MM and MMA know how to Populate Albums Listing and Avoid THE BEST Albums from multiple Artists listed as One eg. "Queen - The Best" and "Beatles - The Best" or "Various - Billboard 90's top 100" correctly show as Album, but all tracks have its own Artist.

[Phil_B]

But I have Album information and Album Artist isn't missing, so why is Album Artist being overwritten in that situation?

[Lowlander]

It sounds like you're directly copying files to the device in which case you're relying on Android Media Scanner which is known to handle tags poorly.

A Sync from MMW5 would work better.

[MattTown]

I use MM5/MMA sync to transfer music files from PC to an Android phone and can confirm that the sync process respects the MM5 distinction between Artist and Album Artist, eg MMA reports that for the track "Walking on Sunshine" from the album "80s Chart Toppers", the Artist is "Katrina and the Waves" and Album Artist is "Various".
Cheers
Matt

[rusty]

Phil,

Assuming that syncing between MMW and MMA solved the problem, be aware that MMA, by default, shows an 'Artists' node on the home screen / 'Artists' tab in Music. This node/tab is representative of both Artists _and_ Album Artists. If you want to browse by 'Track Artists' or 'Album Artists' you can tap the 'Edit' view button on the home screen to customize which nodes/tabs are displayed (though this requires an MMA Pro license).

-Rusty