as far as i can tell the artist and role are being formatted consistently as "Artist (role)".
for display purposes , that is correct.
I was trying to work out how they were formatted for MB's internal use, so I could use the data for virtual tags
But with some trial and error, and the new 'Prieview' function in the template editor, I worked it out.
Anything saved in the Multiple Artist Splitter that's not an Artist, Guest Artist or Remixer goes into the Artists: Performer string.
If the
role/ instrument: column is selected as
Performer only the artist goes in.
If the
role/ instrument: column is selected as a role or instrument (or anything else you want to type there) is saved in the string as artist (role/ instrument).
So when you save something like this
internally MB saves that info in a string
Edvard Grieg; Moscow Soloists (ensemble); Yuri Bashmet (director)
and this string is what you are working with virtual tags, naming templates, etc.
Now all I have to do is work out the regex part of $RxReplace(<field>,regex-pattern,replace-text) to extract the entries that only include (role/ instrument) in them (to give me just a list of the musicians) and I'll be happy camper