Editing Album Properties
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Introduction
Within the properties for any file, there are several fields that are specific to Album attributes. Specifically, Album and Album Artist. These fields are edited in the same way as any other, but affect how Albums are displayed in MediaMonkey in a manner that might not be obvious at first.
MediaMonkey considers files belong to the same Album when the Album value and the Album Artist value are the same for all files. Other software may use a Compilation flag, but MediaMonkey uses Album Artist in combination with Album to determine what files belong to an Album.
When displaying Albums the Disc#, Track# and Title fields are also used to show files in Album order. This means that when you sort on Album MediaMonkey will sort on Album > Album Artist > Disc# > Track# > Title.
Single Artist Albums
For a set of files that are part of an Album by a single Artist, the Artist and the Album Artist will be identical for every file on the Album. Thus any operation that changes the Artist (e.g. from Artist 1 to Artist 2) will automatically change the Album Artist to Artist 2 as well.
You still can have any Artist values, including multi-Artist when the artist features other artists on a track. A single Artist Album in this case refers to that the Album is associated with a single Artist.
Multiple Artist Albums
Multiple Artist Albums are different. They are not associated with any single Artist. These are often compilation Albums that may have files from many Artists on them. The Album Artist will often be Various Artists, Various or VA. For instance, the Album "The Big Chill" has an Album Artist of Various Artists but the file Artist for the Track I Heard it through the Grapevine is Marvin Gaye. This will be represented in the Media Tree:
In the Albums node as:
The Big Chill (Various Artists) with all files associated with The Big Chill Album
In the Artists node as:
Marvin Gaye with just the file Marvin Gaye - I heard it through the Grapevine
Various Artists > The Big Chill with all files associated with The Big Chill Album
Thus you can easily find the files by any individual Artist, as well as the Albums by the Album Artist. If you Drag & Drop a file from an Album in which the Artist and Album Artists do not match, from one Artist to Another, only the Artist will change. Similarly, if you drag the Album from one Artist to another, only the Album Artist will change.
If you find Albums that show split in multiple Albums in MediaMonkey it is likely you need to fix the Album Artist for all the files on the Album. All files need the same Album Artist value for the Album to be shown as 1 Album.
Combining Files into a Multiple Artist Album
If you have several files that are all part of the same Album, but the Artists are all different values, and for each file on that Album, the Album Artist = Artist, then your files will not be represented properly in the Media Tree, since the Album Artist is not the same value for every file on the Album. This will cause the Album to be split among the various Album Artist values.
You can correct this type of situation through the following steps:
- Select all files on the Album
- Use Edit > Properties from the Main Menu to open the Properties for all the files on the Album.
- Edit the Album Artist tag to be the same value for all files on the Album.
- OK the Properties dialog to save the changes.
MediaMonkey has two Files to Edit nodes to help find Albums that may require the Album Artist to be fixed.
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