Blank Album Artist being sorted as Various Artists

[Mr. Trev]

I'm currently using v.3.1.6345, but it happened with previous versions.

I have a bunch of music the has been tagged using "Artist", but I haven't set a value for "Album Artist" for some reason all this music is being sorted as "Various Artists". I haven't set any rule for sorting, so I don't know why this is happening

[boroda]

try to check if 'itunes compilation' tag is set.

[Mr. Trev]

No. I never use iTunes specific tags.

I know that there is a whole bunch of sorting changes in 3.1, but I'd think that a blank "album artist" would be filled with "artist" if anything

[Steven]

it might have already been set on the file when you imported it. You can check in the tag editor/ settings tab

[psychoadept]

ITunes Compilation flag is also set on compilations by Picard

[Mr. Trev]

I don't see an compilation flag on the files I was referring to. What I did find is that these "artists" are also on compilation albums that I have used "Various Artists" for the "album artist" tag.
Looking at the custom sorting prefs I can see that every artist is now being sorted as "Various Artists" regardless if that album is the compilation or their own release (btw the comp. albums don't have the itunes comp. flag either).

For the time being I've just disabled the custom sorting altogether until I figure out the best way to work around this

TLDR: If the "artist" is on an album that uses Various Artists for the "album artist" tag, MB automatically assigns the "artist" a Various Artist sort tag

[Steven]

you only need to edit the custom artist sort list once ie. its only auto-populated once. I will look to improve the handling for the initial load to exclude Various Artists

[redwing]

its only auto-populated once.

It seemed to me, while testing it, that it needs a way to update the list manually by rescanning library (like artwork rebuilder) as people keep importing new tracks - hence new or conflicting sort artist/composer values.

[Steven]

It seemed to me, while testing it, that it needs a way to update the list manually by rescanning library (like artwork rebuilder) as people keep importing new tracks - hence new or conflicting sort artist/composer values.

when importing new tracks, new sort mappings are checked for and added. Existing ones are not modified or deleted.
I take your point about at least needing some sort of feedback

[Steven]

TLDR: If the "artist" is on an album that uses Various Artists for the "album artist" tag, MB automatically assigns the "artist" a Various Artist sort tag

Are you sorting by Album Artist or by Artist?
If you sort by Album Artist and the Album Artist tag is blank then MB will use the Artist tag for sorting (the same way MB displays Album Artist in the main panel when there is no Album Artist tag).
When custom sorting is enabled, the artist as described above is checked to see if there is a custom sort mapping and if that exists, that is what is used.
So if you are sorting by Album Artist and the Album Artist is "Various Artists" then MB would look up the custom sort value for "Various Artists". If the Album Artist was blank then MB would use the Artist name and look up the custom sort value for the Artist name.
Can you post a screenshot of the custom sort values for the Album Artist and Artist involved in one of the files you had problems with? (just temporarily re-enable the custom sorting in the Sorting preferences and click the Artists button)

[Mr. Trev]

I keep my library sorted by Album Artist/Year/Album. This way keeps all my Various Artist in the "V" section. (although maybe I should have been using the Artist tag instead?)



Not sure if this is the image you need, but as you can see pretty much everything has been tagged as VA. They all had the Album Artist left blank, but as you can see, I have copied the Artist info over now. (and the sorting stay at VA)

Is there a dedicated file to delete to reset the custom sort now that I've filled in the Album Artists

[Steven]

if you open the tag inspector from the tag editor, and look at the files for The Tag Garden, do you see a Sort Artist or Sort Album Artist for any of the files and does it say Various Artists?

if you want to quickly edit the custom sorting for many items, click the "Show as Text" button

[Mr. Trev]

These are the tags for the file I posted above



I randomly checked a few of the other files the were doing the same thing and they didn't have any sort tags embedded either

[Steven]

Well i dont get how MB would have defaulted the Sort Album Artist to Various Artists unless you have since edited the files.
I will leave it at that i think

[Mr. Trev]

I did copy the Artist Tag to the Album Artist last night on all the files after I 1st posted this (I mentioned this earlier, before I changed,it was blank). That would be the only thing I've changed.

The tags that belong with one of the tracks on a compilation album do have both sort artist (soaa) and sort album artist (soar) tags set as VA. Some - but not all - also have that itunes comp, and a pgap (whatever that is)

There's a whole lot of files, so I don't have time to check them all, but from the few I have looked at, only the tracks that are from compilation albums and have VA as Album Artist are getting the embedded sort tag, which I guess is why MB assigns it globally

I've just started digging into the new sorting options, so I haven't figured out what's what yet, and probably have been doing a lousy job explaining what I have (or haven't) done