Sorting issue (answered)

[brianzech]

I am having an issue sorting albums. I have grouping set to each album is in its own folder. This is correct and works. I then have the sorting set to "album artist/ album". This is where it fails. The album artist part works fine, but when it gets to the album part of the sort, it appears to take into consideration the folder name as well as the album name in the tags that it pulls for display. I have tested this via the following:

Album Artist - Album (per tags and what is displayed in MB)
Various Artists - BRIT Awards 2015
Various Artists - BRIT Awards 2014

These albums were not displaying next to each other on the screen, although the names, as seen above, is exactly what was showing. I found the cause to be that the folder names were slightly different, as:

The BRIT Awards 2015
BRIT Awards 2014

I make the statement of this being the cause because when I renamed the folders so they would appear next to each other, the albums then appeared next to each other in MB as well.

Is there any way to "correct" this? My folder names are designed to talk to me, not software. The tags are setup to talk to the software. I have numerous examples to share, but I think the one is enough to show the issue. The problem is proven to be the same, meaning the same fix corrects all of them. I tried playing with the sorting a bit and found that it appears that the album portion of the sorting has this anomaly on all that I tried, where the album used appears to also factor in the folder's name.

Anyway, I cannot say it is a bug as this could be user error or how it was actually intended. For me however, this does not work. As picky as that sounds, I have a album collection in the thousands. So "losing" a album in the mix is easy to do. And yes, I am aware of the search functionality, it works well.

[Steven]

the behavior you describe is as intended.
The setting is intended for people that dont have well maintained tags. If MB used the album name for sorting in that set up, it would potentially cause inconsistencies between sorting and grouping if the abum tags were not correctly maintained.

[brianzech]

Thanks, understood, this is something that I thought as a possibility, that it is intended.

To make sure I get it, MB uses the folder name to determine the album name?

Is there a way to achieve what I am trying to do? Maybe by using other settings/features?

[Steven]

i could probably do something to handle sorting for "The ..." in this setup. I wont be able to look at it for some months though but you should put it on the wishlist

[brianzech]

I would not worry to do something special for me. The handle sorting for "The ..." won't really solve what I am trying to do, it would only help. So, since I now understand this is how it works, and understand why, I should really look at another solution.

For reference, my situation may just be unique. All of my albums are organized into folders, there is no flaw there. All of the files within those folders will all have the same album tag on them, which may differ from the folder name. It is possible to have more than 1 albums with the same album name tag though, obviously with containing folders named different. Examples would be for a EU and US version of a release that may contain different tracks, different number of tracks, etc. These albums would all have the same album name in tags, because that is the name of the album. The folders though will indicate to me the origins of the album, making them different to me, but also providing the actual album name to others.

If it helps any one reading this, my tagging will resemble that of MusicBrainz, so the descriptors like deluxe, Japan, etc are not part of the actual album title, but descriptors for different albums in a album group.

[psychoadept]

Rather than grouping albums by folders, you could create a custom tag to hold that disambiguation info, and include that in your album grouping criteria.  There's probably a way you could use the additional tagging tools plugin to make the process faster than doing it all manually, but I.can't offer much beyond that without more info on the exact folder names

[brianzech]

Thanks for the info. There really is no pattern to the folder names. For example, lets say we have Artist A, Album B. The folder could be:
1) Artist A - Album B (JP Deluxe) [M4A]
2) Album B (JP Deluxe) [M4A]
3) Artist A - Album B (JP first pressing) [MP3]
4) 1994 - Artist A - Album B [FLAC]
5) 2002 - Artist A - Album B (EU reissue) [FLAC]
etc.

I hope that short illustration makes sense. The folder is always in very close similarity to the album tage on the files within. It could also be something like this"
- ..\Artist A Discography\Album B (JP)\.
- ..\Artist A Discography\Album B (US)\.
etc.

I do see the idea of using custom tags, but in a way, it is just duplicating information that is already there and adding non-standard tagging to files. I do not even keep MusicBrainz custom tags, they are not part of the standard, but are allowed. I may rethink this, I guess custom tags are allowed for a reason.

I primarily use MP3TAG for tagging of most all files, it supports a lot of them. To do this correctly, I would need a better logical outline of the grouping and sorting logic that is applied for the settings., compare this to that of other reputable software, then make a solid most-universal workable decision.

[brianzech]

Rather than grouping albums by folders, you could create a custom tag to hold that disambiguation info, and include that in your album grouping criteria.

I am believing that ultimately you are probably right. Guess I will look into the tag(s) to use. It seems to be most logical to create at least one carefully structured tag to solve numerous issues at once, with minimal tag invasion.

[psychoadept]

It seems to be most logical to create at least one carefully structured tag to solve numerous issues at once, with minimal tag invasion.

Yeah, I think making something consistent will be really important.  If you get the info into a tag or tags, then you can even use MB's organizing tools to make your folder structure consistent, too.  (Info like file format shouldn't need its own tag - It's available in mb already.  The only thing in your example that needs to go in a custom tag would be like "JP Deluxe" or "EU Reissue".)

[Bee-liever]

The only thing in your example that needs to go in a custom tag would be like "JP Deluxe" or "EU Reissue"

And you could use the ID3v2 tag "Subtitle" (TIT3) for those tags.

It's one of the pre-configured extra tags that just needs to be turned on in:
Preferences> Tags (1)> custom tags

[brianzech]

Info like file format shouldn't need its own tag - It's available in mb already.

The reason that the file container type is currently used is due to folder differentiation. For example, I might have a FLAC and a MP3 of the same album, which will be drawn upon depending on the audio target. So in that specific case, the only real file difference is the file type. This is also where I was referring to when I said that the folders are made to talk to me and not the software, plus obviously keeping the OS from saying two folders cannot have the same name.

And you could use the ID3v2 tag "Subtitle" (TIT3) for those tags.

It's one of the pre-configured extra tags that just needs to be turned on in:
Preferences> Tags (1)> custom tags

Yes, that is a good option, I did not really think of it. I will also need to see on tag mapping, I use a lot of container types and MP3 is not top dog.