Messages

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 26, 2020, 03:46:57 PM »

It's only 145 days worth of tagged files with almost every track AccurateRip confirmed accurate. 
Storing on computer is a lot easier than finding places for all those phyiscal CD's.

MusicBee has been my favorite player by far.

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 26, 2020, 02:41:43 PM »

No and sort of temporarily yes.
My music files are over 2TB.

My old W7 computer was limited to reading only up to a 2TB hard drive...even though I tried larger, my system couldn't see the larger storage capacity. So I was was limited with 2 completely full 2TB  external drives plus a certain part on my internal system drive and a partition for back up (not ideal but it was what it was.)

Along with my new W10 PC, I bought 2 5TB external drives to use with my new PC.
So the "no and yes"...I successfully transferred all 50k files over to one of my new 5TB drives, but I haven't backed that one up to the 5TB backup because I wanted to finish updating my sorting tags before writing the the backup.

If disaster hits, I still have those older 2TB drives, just not with my tag updates I have been doing plus some recent new rips on this new PC. So I'm not flying totally backup-less, but it is a fact that I would have some work to do if I had to reconcile backing up from those old drives vs. what has been added to my new ones.

Probably TMI...but since you mentioned it...LOL.

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 26, 2020, 02:00:37 PM »

Thanks everyone for your time and guidance.

I recently got a new Windows 10 computer. Up until that point, I had been cruising along just fine with my old Windows 7 machine and using my dbpa and MB with my wav files (I hadn't updated my old PC OS because my motherboard/video card wouldn't support high res on W10). What really stirred up this recent flurry of issues was wanting to start sorting my library by last name instead of first name that I had been doing forever. I guess the Album Artist and Artists tags are more "standard" than the Sort Artist and Album Sort Artist tags, so I had not been having any problems in my old configuration and usage.

At this point, since I am dealing with a new computer and some newly purchased 5TB hard drives for storage/backup, I think I better make sure everything is tight before I start converting files because I could never find the time to re-rip and re-tag these 50,000 files. I just need to make sure I'm backed up and don't screw anything up in the conversion process if I do it.

Thanks again. Y'all have been wonderful. I'll post back if more q's arise. 

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 26, 2020, 03:10:29 AM »

So if a tag is showing in the MusicBee Tag Inspector, that doesn't mean that MusicBee is actually "reading" the tag?

I can see where if I add sort tags without spaces like ArtistSort then MusicBee does seem to read them as expected with last name, first name.  I guess even though dbpa's own tag editor displays Album Artist, it is actually written as ALBUMARTIST with no spaces behind the scenes so that explains why it works for ALBUMARTIST because it's actually written as MusicBee is looking for it. (Thanks to Hiccup for telling me about Hex editors today.)

As for that guy that posted in the dbpa forum, I really have no idea what he is babbling about. The dbpa ripper has fields at both the top and bottom of the screen for metadata and you can input tags to be written during the rip in both locations. Not sure what he was talking about otherwise.

So I now see if I add a tag thru MB, it formats tag code as ARTISTSORT.
i know that flac tagging is not standardized, but I am surprised to find there is a discrepancy between how dpba and MusicBee are handlng these 2 specific sort tags.

I wonder should I just add a 2nd set of tags ARTISTSORT and ALBUMARTISTSORT to run parallel with my existing tags with the space.....or should I batch convert to rename those existing to tags to remove the "space"?

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 26, 2020, 12:52:55 AM »

Everyone has been very helpful and I appreciate it.

So I'm not ready to convert my 50,000 wav files to flac yet, but I have been playing around with an album of flac files today and have run into some issues there as well. Maybe someone can point me in a good direction that will complete the sale to flac.

I have come to realize that my dBpoweramp ripper/converter/ID Tag Update codec can affect how music players read the multiple artist tags.
I've achieved much of what I would like testing flac but can't seem to overcome the following:

All the files have Album Artist, Artist, Artist Sort (Sort Artist is MB's term) and Album Artist Sort (MB = Sort Album Artist).
The MB tag inspector reflects reading the multiple artists semi-colon separators and even reading the sort tags appropriately as last name, first name....BUT, the MB library stills shows all as first name, last name.

In other words, MB tag inspector shows correctly but the MB player library does not show them the same way as shown in tag inspector.

Why the disconnect between MB tag inspector and my library?
What is shown in the tag inspector is actually what I want but it's not translating to the MB flac library.

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 24, 2020, 03:16:01 AM »

The more I test things, the more confused I think I am getting.
I converted the Buffett album from wav to both flac and mp3 for testing purposes.
I created a new library for each to switch back and forth in MB.

Same tags on all of the tracks...multiple artists separated by "; " and here's what I get in MB.

wav view:



flac view:



mp3 view:



For some, MB is reading the "; " to split the artists and for some formats it is combining the artists together.
Any ideas?

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 24, 2020, 02:41:19 AM »

I'm just not sure. All my multiple artists tags are using the ";" semi-colon space as the separator but MB reads the Artist tags as "Artist 1; Artist 2" while it reads the Sort Artist tag as "Artist 1/Artist 2".

It seemed like Hiccup showed in his screenshot that this was not happening in his use.

Can anyone give me a clue where to look next. I'm reaching wit's end.

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 23, 2020, 11:09:05 PM »

Thanks for everyone's input so far.
I'll try to answer Hiccup's questions and do some additional testing on my end.

-Yes, I am consciously using wav files. Even though flac is lossless, it is still compression/processor power being used and with storage so cheap these days, I ripped everything as wav. I understand that in theory there should be no sound quality difference although I have certainly seen it debated. I have 50,000 wav files at this point. I have had good luck using dBpoweramp and it's ability to save the wag tags in a chunk that were being read well by MusicBee. It's only lately that I started dabbling in the Sort Artist domain in order to sort by last name that I have started running into behavior that was not what I expected. So I am just trying to figure out what is happening here so I can adjust my tags as needed, if there is something I can do to affect the desired behavior.

-All my files were created using dBpoweramp ripper. All metadata from the automatic providers was reviewed prior to rip and edited to conform to a consistent tagging strategy for all files. Any after rip edits were made using the dBpoweramp ID Tag Update plugin and built in dbpa converter.

-All my wav files were ripped from my own physical CD collection. There are no downloads and I have not used any 3rd party software to systematically search/update my tags. All my tags are what was input at time of rip or edited afterward with dbpa tag editor. I used a semi-colon in any Artist or Sort Artist tags where the track had multiple artists. All my Album Artist and Sort Album Artist tags are a single performer.

Hiccup...your screenshot does indeed to show that you are not getting the same behavior. It seems all your artist related fields are reading the ";". I wonder why the difference?

Since I didn't have any MP3 or flac files, I haven't really done any testing with those, so I will convert some files to flac and see what happens on a testing basis. Maybe there is something that dbpa is doing/not doing with the ";" tags that gives me this behavior. I won't give up on it and will report back on my progress.

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 23, 2020, 01:44:33 AM »

If I am understanding correctly, I think that would head me in the opposite direction of what I'm trying to accomplish.

When I group by ARTIST, MB shows an entry for both multiple artists.
In the example above, that track is listed under ARTIST: Jimmy Buffett and also under ARTIST: TOBY KEITH.
This is great.

I want that same behavior with SORT ARTIST except of course the tags are formatted "last name, first name" and so the sort would be by last name vs. first name that ALBUM ARTIST or ARTIST tags provides.

So I would like to see that track have an entry under Sort Artist: Buffett, Jimmy and also under Sort Artist: Keith, Toby.
What I don't want is to see a Sort Artist: Buffett, Jimmy/Keith, Toby which in reality is creating a third artist entry (plus others for every duet on that Buffett album) which is the current behavior.

Make sense?

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 23, 2020, 01:00:34 AM »

I've never used the tag editor or that screen in MusicBee, so seems the answer is no, it is not checked.
When I do look at that now, the presets for custom sorting do not refer to the Sort Artist tag.

Just to confirm, the Album Artist, Artist, and Sort Album Artist tags are all doing just fine in my application of them.
(I guess I would have problems with Sort Album Artist too if I was inputting multiple values there but I'm not doing that).

I don't want to do anything that will change the current MusicBee behavior with the Album Artist or Artist tags.

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Questions / Re: Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 23, 2020, 12:29:55 AM »

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Questions / Artist vs. Sort Artist on multiple artists tracks with semi-colon separator

« on: January 22, 2020, 11:03:13 PM »

I have all my music files tagged with Album Artist, Artist, Sort Album Artist and Sort Artist tags.

Basically, I use the Album Artist and Artist tags if I want to sort by first name of the artists.
I use the Album Artist tag as a singular artist but I list all artists on a track separated by a semi-colon in the Artist tag.
This works great for me on MusicBee as this creates an individual entry for each Artist in my library view if I group to look for that.

Then if I want to sort by last name as I would find in a music store, then I use the Sort Album Artist tag.
And then use the Sort Artist Tag with multiple artists separated by a semi-colon but of course listed as last name, first name format (just like I do with the Artist tag).

The problem I am encountering is that MusicBee handles the ";" semi-colon separated artists in Artist tag differently than it handles the Sort Artist tag for the same files.

In other words,
Artist: Jimmy Buffett; Toby Keith gets displayed as Jimmy Buffett; Toby Keith with separate entries. (preferable)
Sort Artist: Buffett; Keith, Toby get displayed and sorted as one combo artist Buffett, Jimmy/Keith, Toby (";" is changed to a "/" and the separate artists are recognized as ONE artist).

This is not desirable for me because albums released by an artist with several duets on the album get all splintered up in the Sort Artist library view.

I assume MusicBee is working as it should and I must have out of normal expectations for my Sort Artist tag handling?
That said, is there something I can do to make MusicBee handle the ";" the exact same way in all tags?

I basically want my tags to be handled consistently...I just want to use the "sort" tags when I want to sort by last name....but I want MB to read the artist separators the same way for all.

Here is an example of an album released by one singular artist but it has many duets and guest appearances.
This is a nightmare when it creates a new artist entry for each unique combination of duet artists.

If anything I have said here is not clear or anyone needs more info, please let me know.
To be clear, I am not talking about compilation albums that I have tagged as Album Artist "Various Artists".
I'm strictly talking about the behavior regarding Sort Artist tag.

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Bug Reports / Re: Main Panel keeps reverting to "Albums" view even though I set it to "Artists"

« on: August 21, 2016, 03:21:07 PM »

Finally got it to update to 6076 version after many attempts...tried extracting to the MB program folder, copy/replace, and deleting before pasting and none were working.  On about the 10th try, I finally updated to 3.0.6076 and seems to have resolved the issue.

Thanks so much for your help! 

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Bug Reports / Re: Main Panel keeps reverting to "Albums" view even though I set it to "Artists"

« on: August 21, 2016, 10:29:14 AM »

After installing the patch you provided, it states I am running version 3.0.6073.
(I started with download 3.0.6067 before updates).

Here is a link to my settings file:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1i1thijjl30el1i/MusicBee3Settings.ini

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Bug Reports / Re: Main Panel keeps reverting to "Albums" view even though I set it to "Artists"

« on: August 21, 2016, 01:47:58 AM »

Steven,

I implemented the patch but still have the problem.

The only way I don't lose my ARTISTS view is if I use the BACK ARROW to return to the main panel instead of clicking MUSIC in the explorer window like I always did with MB 2.5.

Not sure what to do.