>TXXX means no standard tag. It's whatever you want to call it. Create a >MYVERYOWNTAG and it will be stored in TXXX. > Yes, I know that, but SqueezeCenter is written to look for a TXXX (ALBUMARTIST) tag. It's an arbitrary tag, but one that SC specifically looks for. I use TXXX ALBUMARTIST a lot, and SqueezeCenter correctly uses this to group songs by that artist instead of creating the album as a compilation (various artists) album.
If SC sees an TXXX ALBUMARTIST, it displays "Album Artist" in the album info page. If SC sees a BAND tag, it displays "Band/Orchestra" in the album info page. >mp3tag is imho mapping ALBUMARTIST to BAND (TPE2) because it doesn't >officially exist. See second (edited!) posting: >http://www.anytag.de/forums/index.php?showtopic=6667 > That is confirming what I said, isn't it? The item that mp3tag calls ALBUMARTIST was mapped to TXXX ALBUMARTIST. It was then changed to map to TPE2 (BAND), but that was immediately reversed in the next dev build 2 days later (as it confused everybody), so ALBUMARTIST is now back to TXXX and BAND is mapped to TPE2. >> However, most software maps considers BAND to be the album artist for >> grouping and display, rather than a contributing band. > >You've changed your mind since your previous posting? No, I'm certain that TXXX ALBUMARTIST should be considered an ALBUMARTIST for grouping songs to be by the same artist, and not be considered as a contributing artist in the same way as artists, track artists, etc. Which I think is what SC does, apart from when displaying counts of artists that make up albums. i.e. When displaying a list of artists, it displays the albumartist if there is one, otherwise the artist(s) tag. What I wasn't certain about was whether SC considers BAND to be a contributing artist, or whether it considers it the same as ALBUMARTIST. The ID3 standard clearly states that BAND should be a contributing artist, eg. ARTIST=Buddy Holly. BAND=The Crickets. However, most media players/taggers misuse BAND to represent ALBUMARTIST as there isn't a defined standard for it. This is so commonplace, it is becoming standard ;) I haven't really made use of the BAND tag myself, so I was wondering which way SqueezeCenter treated that tag. Here's some hypothetical examples: If I had an album of 10 songs, 9 of which were performed by Buddy Holly, with one song by Frank Zappa, I would set 9 tracks to have: ARTIST=Buddy Holly ARTISTSORT=Holly, Buddy ALBUMARTIST=Buddy Holly and one track to have: ARTIST=Frank Zappa ARTISTSORT=Zappa, Frank ALBUMARTIST=Buddy Holly If I browsed to "Buddy Holly", I'd see 10 tracks on the album, with "Buddy Holly" and "Frank Zappa" as contributing artists. If I browsed to "Frank Zappa", I'd see 1 track on the album, with only "Frank Zappa" contributing. If I added BAND=The Crickets to all songs, I'd either see "The Crickets" as an extra contributor, or either BAND or ALBUMARTIST would take precidence as a way of grouping songs under one album. This is the only thing I'm not quite sure about (I'll have a play). If all songs were by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, I would tag as: ARTIST=Jimmy Page ARTIST=Robert Plant ALBUMARTIST=Page and Plant and "Page and Plant" would appear in the list of artists nicely. The "Unledded" album is largely advertised as "Page and Plant", and it has 2 contributing artists. The album info page would report 1 Album Artist and 2 Track Artists. I *think* SC used to only count contributors (artists, track artists, maybe band?), and not album artists in the count summary. So if I navigated to "Page and Plant", I think it used to show "10 songs on 1 album by 2 artists", (where the 2 artists were "Jimmy Page" and "Robert Plant"), but I think it now considers album artists (i.e. "Page and Plant") to be contributors also, so it says 3 artists. I was only wondering if the change was a bug, or intentional. If it has to be that way for a reason (performance, or because BAND and ALBUMARTIST are considered synominous), then I'm happy (I'm not trying to cause trouble or change the way software is intended to work). I understand that tags are awkward due to standards, and everyone wants them to work in different ways. However, if it was an unintentional change, then I would have raised a bug to fix it. At the end of the day, the counts are not a big thing; it's just I have a habbit of spotting little things ;) I think that whatever the intentional use of tags is, the outcome should be documented in the help pages (eg. as Help->SqueezeCenter Supported Tags). I don't mind/will offer to help write some documentation, eg. capturing the above, (if it is deemed the correct interpretation!) perhaps in a wiki page (the Help page could link into the Wiki page maybe), but it should be listed within the SC help pages, where users may actually read it! Phil _______________________________________________ beta mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/beta
