Author Topic: Sorting compilation with different artist for each song  (Read 4846 times)

LamaPatate

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Hello,

Because of the bad way iTunes manages and display some files I used a precise way to sort some artists, mostly some compilations putting them in a fake artist named "zzCompilation" ("zz" to be at the very end of the list).
Now I use MusicBee which has many more customization, I would want to put the real artist in the artist tag but have those compilation to still appear the same way as before (so sorted like if it was the same artist and the album).

Now it will get very tricky for me to explain, so sorry if you don't get what I mean, say it, and I will try to show it with screenshots and different explanations.

Currently when I have a compilation, the artist and the album artist tag are "zzCompilation", then the title use this pattern "<Title>(<Artist>)" ("<Artist>" is the real artist, not "zzCompilation").
I saw if I set album artist tag with "zzCompilation", I set artist tag with the real artist and the title with just the title in it and nothing more, then I change the sort I used (from artist tag) to album artist tag in the thumbnail browser panel, it works: I see different artist all being on the same album and grouped together.
BUT this causes many issues since I have to change the sort I use and the most important thing, in my iPod classic, music are sorted by artist and there's no way to sort them by album artist, so if you followed all until here, it means I get my compilation to not be displayed correctly in the iPod (song is sort in the real artist instead of being under "zzCompilation" name).

So I assumed by inverting artist and album artist tag, it would be a success, I was wrong, because then it's MusicBee that doesn't appreciate it, whatever the sorting is, if the album artist tag differs from the music of the same album (if the tag is inconsistent), it seems to separate each song like if it was a new album for each of them.

Then is there anyway to get rid of this issue?

Thanks in advance for answering my question.
(By the way, sorry for doing several threads, I tired to not mixed up questions that have nothing in common to keep a clear subject for future researches).

phred

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Make Album Artist "Various Artists" and place the track artist as Artist.
Also mark all tracks in the album as "iTunes compilation." This is done on the 'settings' tab of the Tag Editor.

(By the way, sorry for doing several threads, I tired to not mixed up questions that have nothing in common to keep a clear subject for future researches).
That's the way to do it. No need to be sorry for multiple, unrelated threads.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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LamaPatate

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Argh, just tried it, doesn't work as I wanted, that's the exact same result of what I described in my original post.

What does the "iTunes Compilation" option exactly? I mean I never ever saw any difference using it neither in iTunes nor in MusicBee, is it suppose to group different artist into one like it is in a compilation? If so, it as never worked for me neither in iTunes nor in my iPod classic, I already tried this option several years ago in iTunes.

Actually, that not a big deal, I think I can live without it, I will probably gave up on trying to have different artist for a compilation then.
Thanks for your help.

redwing

  • Guest
Did you also tick "detect iTunes compilation tag.." option in Preferences> Sorting/Grouping with Various Artists entered in the box?
Basically there are two ways to handle compilations: either put "Various Artists" to album artist tag explicitly or put nothing in album artist tag and use iTunes compilation tag to display the entered text as album artist tag.