Author Topic: Music Explorer: Separate Main Albums from Appears On Albums  (Read 8256 times)

:finalsound:

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does this version work better?
https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee34_Patched.zip

Thanks for the reply Steven. I can't see any differences myself

EDIT: I should clarify I'm talking about the most recent posts on this topic regarding collaborations between two artists in the album artist tab causing normal albums by an artist to be put in the appears onn section, not the addition of the appears on section itself

My first post with a little problem ... My Music Explorer is sorted by artist. With 2 (or more) artists the, album artist is "Artist 1 & Artist 2" and so on. Under Artist I use the "Multiple Artist Splitter" (// ).
Since this update I have unknown fields under the Appears On field. These unknowns only appear if the artist is also represented on a compilation (iTunes Compilation Flag, VA) and "Multiple Artist". Everything is fine with multiple Artist without a compilation or artists without a "Multiple Artist" and compilation... With "Multiple Artist" and compilation now I have 4 fields with:

1: Appears On - Compilation
2: Unkown - Artist 1 & Artist 2
3. Appears On -Compilation
4. Unkown - Artist 1 & Artist 2.

https://i.imgur.com/8qMYNP8.jpg


Now my question and my wish. Where do these unknown fields come from? Is it possible to separate "normal" albums and compilations?

Thanks

Goblet

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i wont be able to help further with this

It's a bit disappointing to hear this but I understand. Hopefully you reconsider in the future as I have to imagine this'll be more of a widespread issue than it seems. I really like the idea behind it for features and such, but it lumps collaborations into the same category which is a bit off in my opinion. My library is unusual in that it's dominated by score albums where collaborations are more common (meaning this crops up constantly for nearly every single one of my artists), but scores aren't a niche type of music as it stands. Cheers for the reply regardless.

Steven

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Since this update I have unknown fields under the Appears On field. These unknowns only appear if the artist is also represented on a compilation (iTunes Compilation Flag, VA) and "Multiple Artist". Everything is fine with multiple Artist without a compilation or artists without a "Multiple Artist" and compilation... With "Multiple Artist" and compilation now I have 4 fields with:
can you send me a link to your settings file (help/ support/ view settings)

edit:
actually i can see an inconsistency in the sorting that may be causing this issue for you. Could you try this version:

https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee34_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee application files
Last Edit: September 06, 2020, 10:31:30 AM by Steven

:finalsound:

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Hello Steven, thanks for the quick response. With the new patch the problem is solved. Thank you very much ... have a nice week.

Goblet

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I figured it's intentional so I just wanted to say thank you Steven for making the Music Explorer's appear on section split the multiple album artists correctly. It really makes a huge difference. Your dedication to MusicBee is just awesome and it's by far one of my most used programs.

I wanted to ask if you could possibly take into consideration how this section handles custom sort values? I have a couple artists in my library that've changed their performing name, and whilst I use the custom sorting option to redirect the artist's name and merge their discography fine, any album that doesn't match the merged name will go down into the appears on section.

I may be explaining it incorrectly so I'll add some screenshots and give an example. Composer Junkie XL has been going by his real name, Tom Holkenborg, more recently. As a result I use the multiple artist splitter / custom sort values to sort Junkie XL as Tom Holkenborg. This works perfectly for everything outside of the appears on section, as whilst it'll recognise the individual tracks as ones he's worked on, it won't match to the album artist.


https://i.imgur.com/YCdQoW6.png
https://i.imgur.com/h6w4Jbt.png

Just wanted to float it, no big deal if you can't. It's a pretty minor issue and quite rare I have to imagine.

meisuntitled

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I really appreciate this functionality--but I've noticed my thumbnail browser getting watered down with a lot of artists who only "appear on" a separate artist's release or a Various Artists compilation. Is there a way to filter the thumbnail browser so it only shows artists that have their own releases. Or am I missing this option somewhere?

Thanks!

psychoadept

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Have you tried switching the thumbnail browser to Album Artist?
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Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

meisuntitled

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I have--which causes the "appears on" section to disappear entirely:
Thumbnail browser set to "Artist"--working correctly, but ~thousands of extra artists appearing in the browser:

Thumbnail browser set to "Album Artist"--no "appears on" section:

frankz

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These aren't "extra artists," they're artists that appear on recordings in your library.  You can't both want and not want them to show up.  If you want "Appears on" to show up, then it's going to show you artists that appear on things in the thumbnail browser.  It doesn't know which ones you consider "extra."

meisuntitled

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yeah--but that could be solved with tagging and some basic (toggle-able) filtering capabilities for the thumbnail browser in Music Explorer, e.g. filter out artists that are exclusively tagged as "Guest Artist" or "Remixer." You can currently select that thumbnail browser display "Artist: Artist" which eliminates the "extra" artists, but again, the "Appears On" section doesn't appear in this view.

Just to contextualize why I'm bringing this up: I love the "Appears On" section because it really shows how my library interlaces, but I have roughly 3500 Artists in my library, but only 1300 or so Album Artists. The dilution of the thumbnail browser makes it hard to just browse, basically.

WindValley

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Is there any way to do something like this in the Music Library section (not Music Explorer)?  Is there any way to create a virtual tag that depends on the currently active artist? I would like to create a virtual tag that compares the album artist with the currently active artist that is selected. Is this possible?  Thanks!

Leo_Wolves

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Hi, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong :(

I'm trying to get the ''Appears on'' section to show when clicking on an artist within the Music Explorer.

Could someone share what settings they are using for this to show?

I managed to get this to show previously, I have recently changed a few sorting settings then realised it messed up the 'Appears On' showing, or it might of been after updating the latest alpha version - I'm not sure when this occurred tbh. After hours and hours of trying to get this back I've just started a new and re-installed a fresh MusicBee (I've tried the Windows Store version this time 3.3.7491) - Anyone got any ideas? and/or can confirm which MusicBee version this will work with?

Cheers :)

metrodub

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Not sure if this is available in the Windows Store version, but in the standalone 3.4 version, check to see if the thumbnail browser is set to Artist or Album Artist.  If it's Album Artist, then you won't see the Appears On section, as the library is grouped by Album Artist vs Artist.  If you set it to Artist, you should see the Appears On section for any Artists where the logic holds in your tags (Compilations or Multi-Artist Splitter tags).

Leo_Wolves

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Cheers @metrodub that makes sense, and thank you for the reply, much appreciated!  :D 

It seems to be working in the windows store version too.

I've just realised where I was going wrong all this time! when splitting artists from an album with guest artists, I would always do this at an 'Album' level, it's just occurred to me that this needs to be done at an individual 'Track' level. So I was always getting [Artist] feat. [Guest Artist] as an additional row on in the left menu, now it shows an additional row with just the [Guest Artist] - of which all associated albums for this guest artist will accumulate here too, so it doesn't look a mess.

I suppose the penny had to drop at some point  ;D  ;D