Album Artist Field - Script To Blank It Out

[Guest]

Using latest build of MM... imported my MP3 files, and finding NUMEROUS instances of the Album Artist field not matching what I defined in the MP3 tag (v2)... this ends up screwing up the Artist tree, as now there are several variations of the artist (to include Artist-Album, or Artist-TrackName, etc).. this is maddening, and I am hoping someone has a script that can run through the entire database and blank out this field for every single entry.

I went through every single album on my hard drive and updated every MP3 tag using Tag & Rename... so I am 100% positive that the MP3 tags are correct (I even had it update v1 and v2 tags)...

Next build of MM - I would like an option to NOT add the Album Artist to the database to prevent this problem from happening...

[trixmoto]

If you remove the Album Artist though, you won't be able to see the Album information.

[Guest]

On the entries that I did simply blank it out I couldn't see any ill effect; sometimes I would manually type the entry in to match the ARTIST tag...

so, with that in mind, how about a script that would overwrite the ALBUM ARTIST field with the contents of the ARTIST field so they match?

Either way, the import routine is broken IMO... those fields should match, and I shouldn't be seeing as many problems as I do.. sometimes the ALBUM ARTIST field is gibberish, and I can't think of a reason why it would do that..

[trixmoto]

If you think it is broken then you should send a debug log to the MM team so that they can fix it.

Here is the code to copy the artist name to the album artist name for the selected tracks...

Code: Select all

Sub CopyArtistName
  Dim list, itm, i
  Set list = SDB.CurrentSongList 
  For i=0 To list.count-1
    Set itm = list.Item(i)
    itm.AlbumArtistName = itm.ArtistName
  Next
  list.UpdateAll
End Sub

[Guest]

Trixmoto,

Thank you for the code.. as I am new to MM scripting how do I use the code snippet that you kindly provided? Do I save it to a .VBS file and save it to the AUTO folder, restart MM and it should show up, or is there more involved?

[trixmoto]

Well you can certainly do it this way. If you only want to run it once that probably is the way to do it. Then delete, or rename the extension so that it doesn't run every time.

Normally you would save it as .vbs in the Scripts folder and add an entry to Scripts.ini like this:

Code: Select all

[CopyArtistName]
FileName=CopyArtistName.vbs
ProcName=CopyArtistName
Order=1
DisplayName=Copy ArtistName
Description=Copy ArtistName to AlbumArtistName
Language=VBScript
ScriptType=0

Then when you restart MM it would appear in "Tools, Scripts, Copy ArtistName"

[rovingcowboy]

leaving the album artist blank and filling the album name in and the artist name in has in somecase's lead media monkey to overwrite the artist name with variouse or mixed or blank it out too.

so it is best to just leave the album artist in the properties and make sure you put the right one in.

[riprazor]

If you think it is broken then you should send a debug log to the MM team so that they can fix it.

Here is the code to copy the artist name to the album artist name for the selected tracks...

Code: Select all

Sub CopyArtistName
  Dim list, itm, i
  Set list = SDB.CurrentSongList 
  For i=0 To list.count-1
    Set itm = list.Item(i)
    itm.AlbumArtistName = itm.ArtistName
  Next
  list.UpdateAll
End Sub

The code works temporarily, however, once you leave the curent location and change to a different album or location, then return, the change did not take effect. The album artist is back to being blank.

[judas]

I'm looking for this too...but same thing happens to me...i use the script, MM tags the file (says tagging file in the status bar)...when i check the tag it has changed...then when I go to another location and back the change is lost...any ideas here?

EDIT: The same problem has been noted here, allthough not aparent solution has been found? (btw...pressing ctrl+s to update tags isnt working either)

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5846

and probably here (sort of)

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9370

cheers,

judas

[teemac]

I have had the problem mentioned by Roving Cowboy a couple of posts up.

I was recently just browsing through my collection of nearly 50,000 tracks and noticed lots of 'Various' marked artists. I checked these with my backups and something had over written nearly 3600 files' Artist tag with Various.

After checking what was in my backup files tags, I had artist & album names correct and blank albumartist fields (I don't use or need this field). MediaMonkey or some rampant script had filled in all artist fields with 'Various' and albumartist also with 'Various'.

I checked the tags of the files on my drive with Tag & Rename and most of them were all correct as per the backups, but MM was showing incorrect (Various) tags for Artist and AlbumArtist. I retagged the several hundred which had been changed, as shown by Tag&Rename but this made no difference to MM's view of the tags. Some had changed, some had not.

I cleared the database and re scanned. Everything is now correct.

Something had obviously damaged the MM database.

teemac (Australia) Gold User

[onkel_enno]

(btw...pressing ctrl+s to update tags isnt working either)

I came across it on testing the ParseText-Method of SDBSongData. There it is the same for Artist. It seems to be a Bug.
If the TrackWindow shows the right Artists, ... after beeing modified via script and you select these Files and hit Ctrl+S, the right values are saved to the Tags, but Refreshing the Screen shows the old ones -> Tags are updated, but Database not (checked with "The Godfather")
Rescanning the Directory after removing the Files from the Library should then show the correct Artists, ...

But would be really nice of that could be fixed in the Update-Methods...

[judas]

"Nice" to see this happening to some others too. It shows Im not THAT crazy/stupid/drunk afterall!!!

LOL!!!!

[Nebbin]

I've seen some random instances of the artist being overwritten with what's in the Album Artist field (usually it's my personalised version of various artist). Unlike what others mentioned, the album artist fields were actually in use.

I've also had issues with the tags reverting back to original form after a change. This always happens when I use Trixmoto's Advanced Rename script. The Album Artist always reverts back once you change focus and then return. The Artist field is fine though (changes remain permanent) and so I end up with the two fields out of sync. (This all seemed to go screwy for me after the initial 2.5.2 update - but that may have been coincidence.) The only way I found to make the change permanent was through the properties window.

As a side note to the original query: do many people actually use the Album Artist field for separate info? Or do many simply ignore it? Personally I'd be lost without the field, but I noticed iTunes doesn't even have this field (although I suppose "grouping" could be similar). Added to the fact that it's not visible in MM by default, nor does it have it's own tree node - I'm starting to wonder about its importance at all to most people.

[Teknojnky]

I use it, its critical for compilations/various artists/soundtracks.

[judas]

I use it allthough not THAT much..I guess i could live without it.

DEVELOPERS: Any idea here? should i download the debug version and try to reproduce the problem and send you a log?