How to stop Album Artist browsing from including Ensemble tags

[emalvick]

I've tested Music Bee off and on over the years.  It appears to have the elements of being one of the best programs for my music collection EXCEPT browsing by "Album Artist", which is my primary method of using my collection is broken because it incorporates ensemble tags when present.  This issue has always showed itself, and I've always quickly given up because I never understood how my files (mostly FLAC) when tagged with an "Album Artist" would often end up with two entries when I would look at the properties.

It wasn't until today when looking into MusicBee for probably a 5th time, that I found the tag inspector, which I could then see would show my Album Artist tag as I expected and then the Ensemble tag.

Every other software typically handles my music as I expect... i.e. if I am browsing by Album Artist (or ALBUMARTIST), I am only seeing ALBUMARTIST.  I feel like if I wanted to include Ensemble, I would have a Virtual Tag to do that.  Further, it appears that this consolidating of Ensemble in Album Artist also breaks my album definitions.  I am using "Album Artist" and "Album" to define albums, but with Ensemble included, my compilation albums essentially end up as multiple albums just like they would if I didn't have "Album Artist" at all.


This is the only software I've ever seen do this; it's probably the only one I've used to even scan the Ensemble tag without serious tweaking.  My files are meticulously tagged, and Ensemble is not a widely used tag in my collection, but it probably shows up in about 15% of my tracks (8,000), and it does show up quite a bit in compilations because most end up being International Folk music compilations and Latin Jazz compilations or Classical music.


Is there something I am missing? 

For such an advanced and well thought out program, this just seems like an odd issue to be having. 

[psychoadept]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

It sounds like this is really a wish list request. It seems that ENSEMBLE is a very controversial tag in FLAC files and has in some cases been used basically synonymous with Album Artist. But the things I can find about that are 10+ years old, and newer info seems to be that it's used more like a specific subset of Artist.

[hiccup]

There are probably historical reasons, but these days I would put 'Ensemble' in the same category as Orchestra, Band, Accompaniment, Group, etc.

I wouldn't expect it to relate to 'Album Artist'.
(it's not called 'Album Ensemble')

At the OP, what software are you using that writes this 'Ensemble' tag?

[emalvick]

I write the ensemble tag using MP3Tag.  I use these to capture orchestras, bands, etc.  just as you note.  For instance, while I might have the Miles Davis Quintet as a track artist, I will actually set the ENSEMBLE to Miles Davis Quintet (1st) or Miles Davis Quintet (2nd) for either of his great quintets (as just one example). 

This actually came out of past issues with other software that would use the ID3v2 tag, TPE2 "BAND" tag (sorry if I rembered the code wrong, I'm quickly going off my memory), as the Album Artist.  The don't think that was the intent of the "BAND" tag, but that is what became default, so I had to find another means to capture that especially as I started moving to FLAC files.  I think that is when I found the ENSEMBLE tag as something recognized in FLAC and that could be used as a custom tag in ID3v2. 

So, I was using ENSEMBLE to specifically avoid the type of issue I am having because the ID3v2 BAND tag had already been misappropriated for that purpose.

I guess it sounds like what I am looking for is more of a feature request since it isn't necessarily a bug, but I do find it as unexpected behavior because I've never seen any other software treat ENSEMBLE that way. 

The closest I've seen is that a couple of programs through settings allow one to establish multiple tags to represent Track Artist or Album Artist in their libraries but by default stick with the most basic ARTIST and ALBUMARTIST tags.  In other words, if I wanted to include ENSEMBLE, I could define it in the settings. 

Given all the flexibility in MusicBee, I find this little nuance strangely inflexible, and it does break my ability to shift to it permanently as I try to eliminate MediaMonkey from my use.

[emalvick]

I just want to add an update, which might help define what the wish needs to be.


By default, MusicBee does not actually provide Ensemble as one of its main tags.  It appears that it reads Ensemble and includes it / combines it with the Album Artist.  I could see this through the Tag Inspector, which would show the Ensemble tag, which was eventually how I could find what was happening.

If I set a Custom Tag to read in Ensemble as its own tag, it is removed from Album Artist, and the albums are no longer broken as they were.

This is a bit confusing because without actually including Ensemble as a tag (or custom tag), its presence was breaking my album structure down.  But, once I brought it in as a Custom Tag it works.

I would say that the Wish should be (but I would consider it minor now):

Include Ensemble by default as a tag.  If it is worthy of being automatically included and merged with Album Artist, perhaps it should be brought in without having to use a Custom Tag for it.

The benefit would be that if someone did want the current behavior, it could be written into a virtual tag that way

Provide an option to select what items should be considered in computing the Album Artist entry in the library, maybe as checkboxes.  ()Ensemble ()Album Artist ()AlbumArtist ()Band.... 

If that option existed, I probably would have quickly seen to check off Ensemble and had been on my way. 

For all the nice allowances made to provide some flexibility for those that might need tags such as Ensemble in Classical or Jazz, that might help the rare few of us that run into this situation (albeit perhaps too rarely).

[Steven]

I agree ENSEMBLE is a bit of a strange one. I recall mp3Tag used to treat that as the tag for album artist a long time ago but was later made configurable and it was certainly being used by some people as the album artist.
But that was a long time ago and if there is any link anyone can provide with a definition for this tag i would be grateful
What I might do is remove support for reading it as album artist and let people use it as a custom tag

edit:
here is a definition and I can see why its been confused in its usage
http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/vorbis/2001-December/005411.html
"ENSEMBLE
        the group playing the peice, whether orchestra, choir,
        quartet, or rock group. ie, Berlin Philharmonic"

[hiccup]

here is a definition and I can see why its been confused in its usage
http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/vorbis/2001-December/005411.html
"ENSEMBLE
        the group playing the peice, whether orchestra, choir,
        quartet, or rock group. ie, Berlin Philharmonic"

I think the issue is that MB considers it as album related.
Not so much if it is considered or used as a band, artist, orchestra, performer, etc.

[Bee-liever]

hydrogenaudio lists ENSEMBLE as separate tag.
picard/musicbrainz doesn't list it but they do only show ALBUMARTIST as the Vorbis mapping for Album Artist

[Steven]

For the next update, the ENSEMBLE tag is not read as album artist. If you want to make use of this tag, you will need to set up a custom field