Help setting up library/sorting/grouping

[leftdevices]

Hey everyone,

Apologies if this is explained somewhere, but I'm having troubling seeing the forest for the trees and hope someone can help me make sense of things:

I currently have my layout organised with
-a Library Explorer set to Album Artists on the left
-Main Panel on Album Covers, set to group by 'Grouping', ( to divide into Album, EP, Single etc.), and sorting to 'Album Artist/Grouping/Year/Album'.

I also use a Virtual Tag to name and divide discs/movements/bonus tracks, which works really nicely.

One area that gives me trouble is splits (eg. a Split EP between two bands), collaborations, and various 'Various Artists' situations (compilations, soundtracks, etc.)

When clicking on an artist in my Library Explorer, I'd like it to show all albums that artist is involved with, including those where it's not the only/main artist. It does this for Compilations (partially, it only shows the songs of said artist, which I can live with), but as only 'Artist' can have multiple entries, and I'm sorting by Album Artist, those 'Various Artists' albums pose a problem, as do collaborations (where the Album Artist will be something like 'Band X & Artist Y).
I'm struggling to find a way to deal with these situations, and was hoping someone could help me figure things out!

Thanks in advance

[Mayibongwe]

I'm struggling to find a way to deal with these situations, and was hoping someone could help me figure things out!

A lot to process, but without having given it much thought:
Are you trying to replicate the list of albums that you see when you are viewing a particular artist from the Music Explorer?

[leftdevices]

No, that I've got covered. The most important bit is this:
"One area that gives me trouble is splits (eg. a Split EP between two bands), collaborations, and various 'Various Artists' situations (compilations, soundtracks, etc.)". I wonder how other people deal with this?
I use 'Album Artist' to make sure compilations behave, but Split EP's and collaborations elude me.


Here's what my layout looks like:

[tjinc]

I've read your post(s) a few times and I'm still not certain what your issue is exactly so I'm not sure I can address this. I can agree that these types of releases can be problematic/confusing. There are many ways that people deal with this stuff so I guess the 'right' way is the way that works best for you - this is just my 2 cents:

Compilations: I don't think these are hard to deal with - set the <Album Artist> to "Various Artists" for all tracks and tag the individual tracks with the appropriate <Artist>. I think you are doing this.

Collaborations: A little harder maybe but for me, if you have a collaboration between Artist A and Artist B then the <Album Artist> should be "Artist A & Artist B", the <Display Artist> for each track also "Artist A & Artist B" and each track tagged with "Artist A" and "Artist B" as separate artists (in the multiple artist splitter).

Split EPs: Definitely more of an issue. You can do the same as for collaborations but that doesn't feel right to me. I don't have many so it doesn't keep me up at night but I currently tag these with multiple <Album Artist> values (it may be a sin but.... I'll say sorry before I am judged).
So a split EP between Artist A and Artist B would have an <Album Artist> value "Artist A; Artist B". This results in the EP being displayed for both Artist A and Artist B (as album artists).


How you might configure the display settings and/or manipulate tag values to achieve the layout/display you desire is another, possibly more complex story.

[leftdevices]

@tjinc: In the cases of Collaborations and Splits, where the Album Artist ends up being 'Artist X & Artist Y', but the 'Artist' field can still list each artist separately:
any way to set up custom grouping/sorting so these also show up on the individual page for each artist? As stated, I currently use 'Album Artist' so compilations etc get accurately grouped together as an album, but I can't help but think there's some virtual tag trickery to get closer.

edit: Wait, I missed what you said about Splits... I didn't realise I could enter multiple values there! That might actually just do it. Thanks a lot!

Edit 2:... I can't believe it was that simple. Given the lack of a '...' at the end of Album Artist I just assumed this couldn't store multiple values. This is perfect, thanks!