Force Various Artists, Soundtracks, or other specific "album artists" to top?

[jtcs]

I like to keep all my "non artist" releases at the top of my library (which is sorted by Album Artist/Year/Album).  This was easy enough to do by simply adding ! to the album artist name tag so that they would sort ahead of the others, but doing so makes scrobbling  an issue, so I've reverted to using "various artists" without the ! in front - but this of course lumps them into the V section of the artists.

Is there any easy way to do this?  Without resorting to sort by path, which seems to remove the ability to use the letter navigation bar in my particular view setup.

[jtcs]

EDIT: NVM, why I didn't just elect to replace Album Artist with a custom tag containing !...SMH 

[Mayibongwe]

Before you try the custom tag workaround, have a look at the sorting tab in MusicBee's tag editor (specifically the 'sort as' value for album artist)
And instead of using an exclamation mark to put the desired album artists at the top, you can use an empty space (spacebar) to get a clean look.

[jtcs]

Thanks, that seems to also do the trick - I assume this writes to the MusicBee library instead of writing to the actual mp3s themselves?
Otherwise, would it not fundamentally be the same as using a custom tag?

[Mayibongwe]

Yes, it's the same as using a custom tag and I believe both are (by default) saved to the MB database.
I personally haven't found myself there yet, but I think other users do run out of custom and virtual tags in the long run.
So generally, I think it's advisable that one avoids using up either of those tags whenever there's another method available.

Incase you may also want an automated solution to this kind of sorting going forward, you can sort by a virtual tag which can use a formula like:

Code

$If($Or(<Album Artist>="Various Artists",<Genre>="Soundtrack"),​<Album Artist>,<Album Artist>)

What it basically does is add a (zero-width) space to Album Artist whenever the genre is soundtrack or the album artist is various artists.
You can add to those conditions as you go on. Virtual tags are for display only - they're also never saved to your music files...only to the MB database.

[jtcs]

Yes, it's the same as using a custom tag and I believe both are (by default) saved to the MB database.
I personally haven't found myself there yet, but I think other users do run out of custom and virtual tags in the long run.
So generally, I think it's advisable that one avoids using up either of those tags whenever there's another method available.

Incase you may also want an automated solution to this kind of sorting going forward, you can sort by a virtual tag which can use a formula like:

Code

$If($Or(<Album Artist>="Various Artists",<Genre>="Soundtrack"),​<Album Artist>,<Album Artist>)

What it basically does is add a (zero-width) space to Album Artist whenever the genre is soundtrack or the album artist is various artists.
You can add to those conditions as you go on. Virtual tags are for display only - they're also never saved to your music files...only to the MB database.

Ah excellent, that is by far the most elegant solution - thank you for all your help!

[Mayibongwe]

Awesome. Glad that worked.
I do want to make a correction on that formula though.

Where it says <Genre>="Soundtrack", replace that with $Contains(<Genre>,"Soundtrack")
The change is meant to account for tracks with a genre tag that has multiple values in it.

[Zak]

For compilations, you might also look at the option under Edit > Edit Preferences > Sorting/Grouping:

Detect iTunes compilations and treat as Album Artist

For tracks with the compilation flag set – there is an iTunes compilation checkbox in the Settings tab of the Tag Editor – MusicBee will substitute the value specified in the preferences for the Album Artist. That way you never have to set any specific value in a tag.
I use "[Various Artists]". The brackets look tidy, and it sorts before alphanumeric characters.

Virtual tags are for display only - they're also never saved to your music files...only to the MB database.

Not exactly. Virtual tag values are only determined when tracks are displayed - the calculated values are never stored anywhere.
That's what makes them so great. You can change a virtual tag formula and have it applied to every track in your library instantly - without having to rescan files or update database entries for every file.