>by whose definition? yours? SCs? the useless spec?
>
Just common sense.
I have no objection to having Album Artist="something" and compilation=0; I'm
saying that there's no need for the custom compilation tag - it's the standard
case in any app that if there is an album artist, the album isn't a compilation.
I object more to having Album Artist="something" and compilation=1, in that
this is not reality. I don't strongly object, as I would never model my music
library that way it wouldn't affect me. But if other people can't see the
logic for setting tags correctly, and want apps to sort out their mess for
them, the so be it. But each of these weird situations makes the application
code messy and that leads to mistakes and worse performance. It's also bad for
support.
So, going back to my example rip earlier in this thread. "The Pretenders -
Greatest Hits". It had one track by a different performing artist. This is
not a compilation album, and no tagger would set a compilation tag (there isn't
a standard id3v2.3 tag that taggers could set anyway - iTunes for example uses
its own custom tag called ITUNESCOMPILATION). So I set an album artist of "The
Pretenders" on each track. If I were to set Compilation=0, it appears the
application scanning logic gets messed up and SC doesn't store the album artist
correctly. Compilation=0 should just be ignored. I think we agree that is a
bug. I would not want SC to report the album on the screen as "Compilation:
No" either.
If I were to rip a compilation album, SC works straight away in my case - there
is no album artist tag (because it's an album with various artists, there's no
one artist that makes up the album). Setting Album Artist="Various Artists" is
just wrong. This would be stored in SC as an artist called Various Artists,
and not be a compilation album. I believe this causes two "Various Artists"
artists to be displayed in SC (with the default compilation settings), as
compilation albums are displayed as a special "Various Artists" artist. If I
were to change SC library settings to use a different name for compilation
albums, such as "Compilations", then I'd see normal compilation albums under
that, and a "Various Artists" album for the album that has album
artist="Various Artists". This would also be incorrect for iTunes too, as the
album would appear under an artist called "Various Artists", and not within
Compilations, which is what all ITUNESCOMPILATION albums appear under.
Soundtrack albums are sometimes compilation albums, and sometimes linked to a
specific artist. eg. "The Sorcerer" is a soundtrack album, that is by
Tangerine Dream. There are a couple of other artists performing on that album,
so I would set Album Artist="Tangerine Dream". By virtue that it's then
reported as a Tangerine Dream album, it's not a compilation. I wouldn't set
Album Artist="Soundtrack", because it wouldn't then be linked to Tangerine
Dream.
"Soundtrack" could be set as a genre, or could appear in the album name, or in
a comment, etc. Everyone has their own way of indicating such albums; there
isn't a standard, nor a "defacto" standard. Metadata sources aren't consistent.
Eg. they can't even agree on what the name should be. But setting Album
Artist="Soundtrack" seems to be the worst possible choice to make, as it
conflicts with situations when there is an artist that the soundtrack is
performed by.
>what if i'm using flac, the spec wouldn't apply but i'd have the same
>situation.
>
I have been talking generically about all file formats and how they are treated
in SC, hence trying to get you to appreciate the need to stop using TPE2
everywhere when you really mean album artist!
Once FLAC tags are read from FLAC files, they are treated exactly the same.
>afaik, itunes sets TPE2 to be album artist and it sets a comp tag.
I don't know what you mean by "itunes sets". Do you mean that when you scan an
mp3 album that has a TPE2 value and no compilation tag, that it sets both Album
Artist and Compilation=1? It doesn't.
If there are various artists on an album, iTunes will show each song as an
individual song on the album (i.e. as if there are multiple albums of the same
name).
The songs can be forced together to belong to one album by either setting an
album artist or compilation.
If I set compilation=1, then the album is displayed in iTunes as being by
"Various Artists" (it displays the album artist="Various Artists").
If I set album artist to "Test", the album is shown as being by "Test".
>and btw, if you were only concerned with SC, then you should never need comp
>tags at all.
Correct.
>either set TPE2 or not, but since there is a world outside of SC, thats why SC
>does respect comp tags, you can't always
>conform your tags to a SC only world.
>
No, it's not why SC respects compilation tags - there isn't such a thing as
"respect for compilation tags".
As you keep pointing out, you only set "proper" tags, no custom tags, because
you have to be consistent with standards or defacto standards, so your files
can work in "mainstream applications". And yet, there is no compilation tag
for mp3, nor any "defacto" standard, and every app does things differently.
>i think SC should be configurable so that a user can custom set strings to be
>recognized as
>meaning comps, but thats asking a lot, so in the meantime it should do TPE2
>and comp
>tags together, which i thought it did, and i assume will, once the bugs are
>addressed.
>
That's such a naff idea - it will never happen. What other "mainstream
applications" do you know where they look for customisable strings to be
recognised as compilation albums? Or are you just making something up to suit
your specific reality?
If you want to set rules like that, use mp3Tag to find such albums and set
Compilation=1 for the songs. Then the albums would work in any application,
rather than specifically only SC.
>one last SC point: if you set TPE2 and set comp=1, then SC should
>recognize it as a comp, and put it in the special comp area, whether it
>be the SC default or user specifed.
As I said before, that's conflicting data. If it's a compilation, it lists the
album as "Various Artists" (using default settings). If it has an album
artist, it lists the album by the album arrtist name. If it has both, which
one should it list the album under? It appears that SC looks for Compilation
in precidence to album artist, so it would appear as a compilation under
"Various Artists".
SC needs to make a decision as to what the album artist should be. So, maybe
the right logic would be for Compilation=1 to take precidence over TPE2, but
TPE2 should take precidence over Compilation=0. That would work for all cases,
I believe:
If you had Album Artist="Soundtrack" and Compilation=1, it would appear under
the compilation artist ("Various Artists" by default) because Compilation=1
would win.
If you had Album Artist="Soundtrack" and Compilation=0 (or no compilation tag),
it would appear under artist "Soundtrack".
Nb. The bug is not that with Compilation=0 the album artist logic doesn't work.
You stll get album artist, but no track artists, so performing artists on the
album still get expanded out onto the main list of artists.
>and consider this, as i said above, when would you use comp=1 for SC if
>you didn't have TPE2/album artist data? what comp would have all
>matching TPE1/artist data? you never would! so why does SC support
>comp tags to begin with?
>
I *think* it was added to be able to process albums where songs are split
across multiple folders. Eg. iTunes by default religiously rips each song into
a artist/album/song folder hierarchy (NOT album artist). ie. a compilation
album will be split such that each track appears under each performing artist.
SC would detect that as several albums of the same name. To avoid the
"Greatest Hits" issue (users don't want a single compilation album called
"Greatest Hits" with many artists songs on it), SC doesn't combine the songs
together onto one album. So, to get the songs to appear correctly as a single
album, a COMPILATION=0 or COMPILATION=1 tag would be necessary.
>you said: "TPE2 is not mentioned or used anywhere in SC, other than in
>the scanner."
>
>that is incorrect. as i pointed out, its mentioned in the settings
>explicitly.
>
That's a setting that is only used by the scanner. The scanner actually runs
as a separate process outside of SC (but no-one needs to know that). That's
why I suggested at the time having a separate "Scanner Settings" page, to make
a clearer distinction.
>your original point was people could be confused if they didn't know
>that TPE2 can be/is read into the SC DB as album artist, and i said its
>a given and you said it isn't b/c it isn't mentioned in SC anywhere, and
>you're wrong it is.
>
There is no need for a user to know what TPE2 is when using SC to browse and
play music. There is no "Browse by TPE2" or "Sort by TPE2". It's only used
for scanning files to get information into SC.
>and btw, i am comfortable saying that if 8001 is enabled, SC sorts by
>TPE2. call it shorthand, but its correct enough.
>
No. A combined library of mp3, FLAC, and other stuff would not sort by TPE2 -
it should always be called Album Artist. A library that is completely mp3 may
only have a few TPE2 frames set. Other "mainstream" apps do not mention in
their user interface "sort by TPE2" - they all say "sort by Album Artist", and
under the hood they read TPE2 info into their library as if it is album artist.
Phil
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