Author Topic: Album Artist defaults to Artist if it's actually blank  (Read 2303 times)

Dave Dee

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In the main panel is there a way of having the listing of Album Artist show as blank if the underlying tag is blank?
At the moment it's populated with the Artist value, which means that some compilations' tracks are showing as individual items in the 'Album and Tracks' view.
I have a feeling it's related to 'Virtual Tags': I'd prefer to set it to reflect the true value of Album Artist in this list to help me organise the tags.

TIA  :)

psychoadept

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If these are compilations, you can mark them as iTunes compilations with the tag editor, and set "treat itunes compilations as..." in sorting/grouping preferences.  I'm not sure you can make them truly blank, but you can set the compilation value for album artist to anything you like.  I use [compilation] so that they sort separately from the rest of the library.
Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 03:18:31 AM by psychoadept
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redwing

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In the main panel is there a way of having the listing of Album Artist show as blank if the underlying tag is blank?

Not possible. The only way you can identify tracks with blank album artist tag is using either library filter or auto-playlist (http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=7974.msg72615#msg72615). But even those lists won't show blank for album artist tag in the main panel.

At the moment it's populated with the Artist value, which means that some compilations' tracks are showing as individual items in the 'Album and Tracks' view.

That's expected if your grouping setting (Preferences> Sorting/Grouping) includes album artist field by default.

I have a feeling it's related to 'Virtual Tags': I'd prefer to set it to reflect the true value of Album Artist in this list to help me organise the tags.

That's nothing to do with virtual tags. What's "true value" of album artist? If you don't type anything in album artist field, MB treats them having the same value as artist tag. That's why most people type "Various Artists" in album artist field for compilations so that they won't split into separate albums. Setting iTunes compilation tag is just another way to handle that but basically the same as to how they function.

Dave Dee

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Thank you both for your comments and advice, I tried the steps above and they worked as advertised. Especially like the filter feature.

Redwing, the reason I mentioned Virtual Tags is I remember seeing a reference to them here http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Virtual_tags… I was almost right: the phrase I was looking for was 'Special Fields'.
"See Special Fields for other built-in virtual tags."

And what I meant by the 'true value' of Album Artist is exactly that: the value contained in that tag embedded in the file, rather than a calculated value derived from another tag. That's why I asked if the main track listing could be set to display it as blank if appropriate. It's not a problem though as mp3tag or similar will be fine to use for tag-tidying purposes.

I have a question about playlists but that's probably better in its own thread.

hiccup

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If you create a virtual tag: $IsNull(<Album Artist>,,<Album Artist>) it will show a blank field if there is no Album Artist.
I am not sure if this is an answer to your 'grouping' question though.