Author Topic: «fields to define an album» not working properly  (Read 3544 times)

marlonob

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I have a virtual tag that I wanted to use to define an album, so I edite the settings; the problem is, it works with some albums and not others, and I don't know why.

This image shows it working as expected, grouping otherwise identical <Album Artist> and <Album> tags (the <Disc Subtitle> tag is empty).



But in this other album, it simply doesn't work, even though the corresponding column shows that MB recognizes the difference that should be grouping them separately.



Any idea of how to work this out? Is it maybe a bug?

redwing

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Not sure without full info about your tags & settings, but try different sorting and grouping setting for the album & tracks view.

marlonob

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Thanks for the response.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting, I think the sorting and grouping settings were global. However, this issue occurs in all views (except track details, of course). The thing is, in theory, no matter what the other tags are, if the values on a field selected as “to define an album” are different, then those tracks must be grouped separately. Am I understanding this right, or are there other factors involved?

If this help, my virtual tag <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> has a numeric value, which is assigned by reading the first three characters of the tag <Grouping>, and a series of conditionals depending on its content. The tag <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> has its values as expected (the highlighted column in the above images), yet, they remain grouped together.

Now, I've looked with more detail and it seems that for some <Album Artist> it works every time (Radiohead, Blur, Beastie Boys), and for others (the most) it never works (Rage Against the Machine, Garbage, Beck, Korn, Sonic Youth), as far as I can tell, tough I haven't looked to all of the relevant artists… (The songs that I’m trying to exclude, belong to a 90s compilation, and I don’t want to have duplicated songs for those albums I have separately).

redwing

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What I meant was try adjusting "sort by" and "group by" setting for the view as it would affect how tracks are viewed as grouped.
The easiest way to tell whether they are indeed grouped in the same album or they are only displayed as such is to add "album track count" column to the main panel. It won't be affected by "sort by" and "group by" setting, but by album grouping setting.

redwing

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If this help, my virtual tag <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> has a numeric value, which is assigned by reading the first three characters of the tag <Grouping>, and a series of conditionals depending on its content. The tag <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> has its values as expected (the highlighted column in the above images), yet, they remain grouped together.

Another thing you should check is those conditions shouldn't depend on any album grouping setting.

marlonob

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I did what you suggested, and, indeed, they are grouped in the same album and are not affected by the sorting or grouping of the view. The conditionals only pertain to the <Grouping> tag (which is a string field), and, as I metioned earlier, have the expected values.

Digging a little more, I created a new virtual tag <LV> that simply translate the numeric value in <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> (1, 2, 3) into a string value ("A", "B", "C"), and this new tag works every time. I tried to change the configuration of <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> from numeric to string, but MB doesn't allow me to.

Then I changed the definition of <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> to be "A", "B", "C" from start (and make sure that it were considered as string in its configuration) and it was the same as always: It worked just for some <Album Artist>s (the same as before). So I changed the name of <¿Lista, Vinil-r?> to <ListaVinil>, and it was the same, erratic behaviour. I even changed the corresponding virtual tag position (from virtualtag8 to virtualtag14) to no avail.

I think this may be a bug. For what is worth, this is the definition of the virtual tag in question (formerly, "B" was 2; "A", 1; and "a", 0).

Code
$If($Left(<Grouping>,3)="[L]",B,$If($Left(<Grouping>,3)="[C]",B,$If($Left(<Disc Subtitle>,1)="_",A,a)))
Last Edit: June 02, 2016, 06:31:48 PM by marlonob

redwing

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Did some tests and looks like virtual tags can't work as an album grouping field.
Including the following virtual tag as additional album grouping field
$If($Left(<Title>,1)="a",1,0)
didn't affect original album grouping in any way,
while
$If($Left(<Title>,1)="a",a,b)
split every album.
Maybe any virtual tags shouldn't be allowed to select for the setting.

theta_wave

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I don't know what you are trying to do, as using the default <Album> and <Albumartist> setting does a pretty good job keeping albums properly grouped for me.  I mean, if you want to separate double albums or bonus tracks, isn't that what subgrouping headers (http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=11990.0) are used for?

marlonob

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@redwing: Yes, that might be the case. Although, as I have being able to find a workaround also involving virtual tags, forbid them for album grouping wouldn't be ideal for me.

@ssri: My problem is how to deal with duplicate songs within an album. Like, I have an album in its respective artist folder. But then I have a folder with a compilation of songs (based, for example, on The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time). So, I have the album Nevermind in my Nirvana folder, and again the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in my RS 500s folder. So MB will put both of them as track one of the Nevermind album, effectively duplicating the song.

I'm aware of the subgrouping headers, and I used that (sorting those list songs last with their own subheading) but if you right click the album to play it or to edit it, replay gain, or send it to playlist, it will affect both the album song and the list-song, which I will to avoid, hence my resort to the album grouping setting. I hope I can explain myself; english is not my first language.

Note: I tagged list-songs with its single release (instead of the album), whenever possible, but not always have the info, or not were released as singles, etc. Also, tagging the list as one album is not an option since I'd like to retain the acurate album info for those not duplicated, which are the most.

psychoadept

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You could use the "files for each album are organized in their own folder" option for defining albums.  That way you could keep the tags on the RS 500 while separating it in your library.
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