Author Topic: specify what defines an Artist  (Read 3919 times)

Bee-liever

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In Sorting/Grouping we have the dialogue for how files are grouped into an album.

Could a similar interface be created to define unique Artists


This would fix problems of having to have special work-arounds for same-named artists
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psychoadept

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What would this look like? A second tag to disambiguate them? How would it work for multiple artists?
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Bee-liever

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What would this look like? A second tag to disambiguate them? How would it work for multiple artists?
I don't know Steven's working behind the Album gouping, but that doesn't add anything to the <Album> tag, I am hoping it could behave in a similar way for <Artist> (it would probably have to link to <Album Artist> as well).
Maybe MB would place them in an enumerated group so that internally you get:

same name Artist (1)
same name Artist (2)
etc

But in panels, all you see is seperate entries for that Artist.
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Bee-liever

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Maybe a simpler solution would be to allow number suffixes to differentiate the Artists in Sort tab?
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boroda

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or zero-width unicode chars at the end of artist tag?

hiccup

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In Sorting/Grouping we have the dialogue for how files are grouped into an album.
Could a similar interface be created to define unique Artists

For most users I would think it is probably quite rare to have artists with the exact same name in their library?
And for those occasions and that purpose it's not very difficult to setup some custom tag.
Sure it will demand some effort, but wouldn't having a 'what defines an artist' option, and then setting that up and keeping it working well for your duplicate named artists, demand the same or maybe even more effort?


P.S.
It's kind off the opposite and yet somewhat similar:
I use something like this to group different artist names together under the same artist name.
So e.g. 'Robert Cray', 'Robert Cray Band', 'The Robert Cray Band' all become the same artist, or, 'Eno & Hyde', 'Eno • Hyde', 'Brian Eno and  Karl Hyde' become the same artist, etc.

psychoadept

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I was thinking about whether it would be possible to use MusicBrainz ids which are already in the files for this, but keeping them in sync would be a huge pita unless there were a system similar to the custom sort feature to associate them.
Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 06:12:59 PM by psychoadept
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phred

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I use something like this to group different artist names together under the same artist name.
So e.g. 'Robert Cray', 'Robert Cray Band', 'The Robert Cray Band' all become the same artist, or, 'Eno & Hyde', 'Eno • Hyde', 'Brian Eno and  Karl Hyde' become the same artist, etc.
I ran into this issue yesterday.
Could you expand on it a bit? How do you accomplish this?
For example, "Paul Butterfield" and "The Paul Butterfield Blues Band" and "The Butterfield Blues Band"
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hiccup

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Could you expand on it a bit? How do you accomplish this?
For example, "Paul Butterfield" and "The Paul Butterfield Blues Band" and "The Butterfield Blues Band"

First you create a custom tag and call it something like 'Album Artist alias'
Then you create a virtual tag: $IsNull(<Album Artist alias>,<Album Artist>,<Album Artist alias>)

Then for e.g. the Album Cover view, you set it to 'group by' this new virtual tag.
Then all Paul's assemblies will be grouped together.
Of course you'll have to populate the custom tag yourself for all the album tracks of these Paul variations, and decide on the artist name you want to use to cover all variations.


P.S.
I myself would also use multi value Album Artist tags here, so all tracks would get: Paul Butterfield; The Paul Butterfield Blues Band; The Butterfield Blues Band as album artist, so when you e.g. search or scroll through the column browser you'll find every occurrence and won't have to remember what you put under the custom tag exactly.
Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 08:15:14 PM by hiccup

phred

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First you create a custom tag and call it something like 'Album Artist alias'
Then you create a virtual tag: $IsNull(<Album Artist alias>,<Album Artist>,<Album Artist alias>)

Then for e.g. the Album Cover view, you set it to 'group by' this new virtual tag.
Then all Paul's assemblies will be grouped together.
Of course you'll have to populate the custom tag yourself for all the album tracks of these Paul variations, and decide on the artist name you want to use to cover all variations.
Very helpful.
I guess I've got a new MB project to start soon.
Thanks.
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hiccup

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I guess I've got a new MB project to start soon.
Thanks.

You're welcome, note that I just added a little remark to my previous post.

psychoadept

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I handle similar situations (Alison Krauss/Union Station, Bob Marley/The Wailers, Buddy Holly/The Crickets) with the custom sort tag, but that might not cut it for grouping purposes.
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phred

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You're welcome, note that I just added a little remark to my previous post.
Yup - got that.

I handle similar situations (Alison Krauss/Union Station, Bob Marley/The Wailers, Buddy Holly/The Crickets) with the custom sort tag, but that might not cut it for grouping purposes.
Looks like Im going to have to experiment to see how I want to deal with this. And how many other 'different but same' artists I have.

Thanks to both of you.
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Corliss Rain

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I came up with a simpler solution (for me at least) using the Sort Artist and Sort Album Artist fields. Since I like to have my artists sorted alphabetically by last name, I'm using those fields anyway. So, for example, Tom Petty and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are set as Artist, depending on the album, but I have the Album Artist for both set as "Tom Petty". And I have the Sort field for both set up as "Petty  Tom". (I use two spaces rather than a comma so that, for example, "Carly Simon", "Paul Simon" and "Simon and Garfunkel" sort in that order.) I've also run into the two artists with the same name thing and sorted them as "Young  Paul 1" (the guy from Mike + the Mechanics) and "Young  Paul 2" (the guy who sang "Everytime You Go Away".)