Author Topic: Custom Tag: Related Artists (Not that SOLVED!!!)  (Read 1968 times)

boomercl

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Hi! I created a custom tag named Related to include artists (bands) that are in the same 'musical family' but not necessarily involved in the artist's albums. For example: Neal Morse, formerly from the band Spock's Beard, has Spock's Beard in Related (although it can't be used as a filter in the Column Browser since Spock's Beard is not found in the listing of Neal's albums - and that band can't go in Artists: Artist since they are not involved in the album.

So far, so good!!! But here is my question/problem: I'd like to be able to have that list of artists found in my custom tag Related to be an active Library Filter to quickly navigate to this or that band that is somehow linked to this or that artist.
 
As seen in the screen capture, Musicbee can include the Artist(s) involved in the album now playing, (see Details(2) in the screen capture) I can click it as it redirects me to all the albums where that artist is involved... and that is really a great feature. But does anyone have an idea or a solution so that I could have those artists/bands that I have in my Related custom tag: Spock's Beard; Transatlantic etc... show in the Details and be 'clickable' as a Library Filter ...

Maybe someone who is familiar with formulas could have a way to make a virtual tag to do exactly that??? Or linking that custom tag (artist's name) to the tag Artist ?

I am aware of the Find Similar Artists but it is in no way an answer to my problem.
Any other idea to quickly navigate to related artists would be appreciated! Thanks!

Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 06:21:28 AM by boomercl

psychoadept

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Hi, welcome to the forum! You should be able to add Related directly as a column in the column browser. Custom tags are allowed for that.
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boomercl

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Hi!
It is already in the column browser but it doesn't navigate to the related artists because there is no album
corresponding to that name (it's like a "parent" band - to speak like a computer arborescence)
and filtering down.

If the custom tag was for any Christmas album made by the artist, it would work perfectly... or if
it was a tag pointing to that album with whoever is involved in the discography of that artist, fine!

But my idea is to be able to add specific artists that I want to associate to an artists and be redirected to
the albums of that artist.


thank you for your idea, but that is not what I'm trying to do. That is why I think it would require a specific formula
(which I cannot think of) in a virtual tag or linking my Related tag to the Artist - because a custom tag is not clickable
as a library filter.
Last Edit: July 22, 2018, 02:12:01 PM by boomercl

psychoadept

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Oh, I see. No, that's not going to be possible in track details, because only album and artist tags function as filters there.

The column browser is your best bet here, and you can probably do it without the custom tags if you set up your artist tags correctly.

What you need to make this work is not to have Neal Morse tagged with Spock's Beard but to have Spock's Beard tagged with Neal Morse as a performer. Then if you click on Neal Morse in your artists lists, you will see both Neal and Spock's Beard in the main panel. Then you can filter to just Spock's Beard if you want to with a middle click on artist. And the column browser should continue to show ALL artists tagged on the displayed tracks, so you can change the filter easily.

For example, in my library Paul McCartney is a performer on tracks for The Beatles and Wings, and a main artist for solo works and collaborations. When I have artists in the column browser, MusicBee combines all of these credits so I see them all when I click on Paul McCartney. But I could still use the column browser to go to, say, Ringo Starr because he is also tagged in some of those tracks.
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boomercl

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Thank you Psychoadept,

That is a solution, although it implies that I would sometimes include artists/bands in Artists: Artist
or Artists: Performer that did not participate in that album. For example, I could include The Beatles
in all Paul McCartney & Wings (to see the link with Paul) but the Beatles were not involved as a list
of musicians like adding Denny Laine there.

Maybe if there was a fifth choice in Artist (apart from Artist, Guest Artist, Performer, Remixer) like
Related to / Belongs to ... The Beatles family, The Yes family ... just to differentiate it from an actual
musician or guest in that band. It would then become a wish for Steven to look into it.

But I see your solution is a nice compromise.

 
Thanks! I appreciate the quick answer!

frankz

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What I've done for the specific case of The Beatles and related, but you could apply this very easily to any band with any grouping of artists that you want to create, is to enter "Beatles" as a Genre.  So, for Abbey Road for example, the genre list would be Rock; Classic Rock; Beatles.  Same for All Things Must Pass, Imagine, Band on the Run, etc.  Then, if I want to see all my Beatles connected content, I just browse to Beatles under Genre and there it is.  If I wanted an auto playlist I could do "Genre Contains Beatles" and there you go.  For solo material it could be "Genre Contains Beatles AND Artist is not The Beatles"

I don't know how feasible it would be to expand this to more than 5 or 10 artist "families" without it being a pain in the neck to remember all the tagging conventions you've created, but it's a way that works on a small scale.
Last Edit: July 22, 2018, 03:49:26 PM by frankz

boomercl

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Thank you for your input Frankz, but I just tried Psychoadept's suggestion and he has a great solution !!!

I was looking at it from a wrong perspective focusing on my Related custom tag...  I don't even need that custom tag anymore!!! 

So for anyone who wishes to do the same, I'll explain Psychoadept's solution the way I organized it.
(screen capture added)

I put the names of the involved or related artists (guitarist, related to The Beatles, whatever I want) in the artist section and use the column browser with Album Artist so that when I click on the artist's name in the section
DETAILS, it redirects Musicbee to show all the artists linked to whoever is there... and then, the column browser
let's me filter whoever I want in all those artists to focus only on that one. Perfect!!!



So, Thank you Psychoadept... after trying it, I now know you gave me more than a compromise...
but an actual solution!!!

Thanks again!

psychoadept

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glad it worked for you!
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boomercl

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After thoroughly testing Frankz and Psychoadept's ideas, I notice that there are flaws when connections get complex (more than 2 ways)...

I might be the only one who is trying to find a quick way to navigate quickly and have a listing of bands related or linked to another artist -mostly for a large collection- but I wanted to remove the SOLVED for this question... in fact,

if an admin here wishes to move my question to the "Wishes that might one day, perhaps, be looked into" it's fine.

Thanks again, not only for this awesome player that is Musicbee (the best there is, I know because I practically tried them all) but also to the people involved in this forum.
Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 06:29:01 AM by boomercl

psychoadept

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I'll be happy to move this to the wishlist, but I'm not sure what change is needed to meet your needs.  Where are you still running into difficulty?
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boomercl

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Here's what I did

After more testing, I realized that having "parent bands" in Artist (compared to "child" artists -like a folder structure for example - of people who played on the album) creates cross referencing.

And of course the filtering working "downward" and the Library Filter not letting me add a clickable custom tag, or Album Artist, forces me to have a complex workaround with additional column browser elements that still show cross referencing in large family cases.

You see I'm trying to achieve here. It's more than being able to see all the participations of an artist, but the affiliations that messes things up... that's why I made a Related Bands custom tag, but it's unclickable.

so close... so close...
Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 04:33:18 PM by boomercl