I think the wiki could use an entry explaining SqueezeCenters handling of compilation albums. Im willing to take a crack at it, but I dont understand it well enough yet to do a reasonable job. Id like to pose some questions here and hope that the answers allow me to craft a first draft of a wiki entry. Then Id invite everyone to review and edit it.
The clearest statements Ive seen in the forums are from Philip Meyer: Philip Meyer;366101 Wrote: > > When browsing artists, albums will be listed under their album artist. > If there is no album artist, and there are many performing artists on > the album, the album will considered a compilation. > Compilation albums will be listed by default under "Various Artists". > Artists performing only on albums that have a defined album artist or > on compilation albums can be configured to not be listed when browsing > artists. > Philip Meyer;348896 Wrote: > > > The ARTIST tag for each song on an album should represent the artist(s) > that perform on the song. If there are different artists on songs, SC > will treat this as a compilation album and will appear as a full album > under Various Artists (unless there is an ALBUMARTIST tag present, in > which case the full album will only appear under that artist). > > But if you browse artist XXX and that artist performs some songs on > compilation ALBUM YYY and performs a song on an album that has an > ALBUMARTIST ZZZ, then albums YYY and ZZZ will be listed, and you would > only see those songs (not the whole album). > What follows is my current understanding of the basic behavior and the effect of the three compilations-related settings in SC, along with some specific questions. I'd appreciate any any responses that answer my questions or can clarify my thinking. SC always uses some various artists detection algorithm to identify albums with mixed artists. If it detects different track artists on an album it places that album under Various Artists (This name is configurable) in the Genre and Artist menus. The group comps together setting controls whether comps are only listed under Various Artists in artist lists. If this setting is not chosen, then artist lists contain all artists on compilation albums as well as a Various Artists entry. To illustrate, suppose album YYY has track one with track artist=AAA and track two with track artist=BBB. SC will automatically identify this as a compilation. If group compilations is NOT selected then the list of artists shown when browsing Genre or Artist will include AAA, BBB, and Various Artists. If group compilations is selected then artist lists when browsing will only include Various artists, unless artist AAA or BBB shows up on another non-compilation album in your library. No matter how group compilation is set, when you browse to artist AAA you will see all full albums as well as any compilation albums on which AAA appears. If you select one of these compilation albums you will only see the tracks on which AAA appears. Q: does the presence of a second trackartist on a single track cause an album to be identified as a compilation? For example, suppose on Album YYY, track one has track artist=AAA and track two has track artist = AAA; BBB (or track artist = AAA and track artist = BBB is there a difference?). Will SC automatically treat this as a compilation? Q: Does the presence of a tag COMPILATION=1 override the VA detection and force an album to be identified as a compilation? Q: Does the presence of a tag COMPILATION=0 override the VA detection and force an album to not be identified as a compilation? (In which case, under what artist would it be listed?) This statement: > > unless there is an ALBUMARTIST tag present, in which case the full > album will only appear under that artist > seems to imply that the presence of an ALBUMARTIST tag effectively overrides the VA detection of SC and sets COMPILATION=0. What is the role of the second compilation setting List albums by all artists vs. List albums by Band. I have read that it might be more helpful to think of this as denote, as in denote albums by Band. I notice that when list by Band is selected compilation albums appear in various artists as ALBUM YYY by <Band>, whereas if List artists is selected, albums appear as ALBUM YYY by various artists. I think this means that this setting just controls whether albums are displayed by <BAND> or by <artist>. Does this choice have an effect elsewhere? Does it also control which artists show up when browsing Genre or Artist? (my guess: No.) How does it interact with the group compilation setting? (my guess: not at all.) The third setting to deal with is the use TPE2 as ALBUMARTIST vs. Use TPE2 as BAND. TPE2 is supposed to mean BAND, but some tagging software appropriates it for ALBUMARTIST, and this setting allows SC to work with those cases. The preferred method is to use your tagging software to set a custom tag (TXXX ALBUMARTIST). Several apps/taggers support this, including SqueezeCenter scanner, FooBar, and Mp3Tag. I realize there are a variety of complex cases where the behavior is complicated, but to start I wanted to sketch out the basic behavior. Any help appreciated. -Steve -- wnshall ------------------------------------------------------------------------ wnshall's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5886 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=55941
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