In order to try to lay out clearly what my problem is, I’ve played with
a small library (195 tracks) of various compilations and albums with
guest artists from my collection. These are either mp3 or WMA lossless
files.
All tagging done in mp3tag. Version 7.2.1 of SqueezeCentre.

To start with I peeled down the tags to what I have as standard in my
library. Here’s a sample from one of the mp3 albums:
TALB – Gorillaz
TPE1 – Gorillaz;Ibrahim Ferrer
TPE2 – Gorillaz
TBPM – 57
TCOM – Damon Albarn;Lazaro Villa
TCON – Rock
TPUB – Virgin
TIT2 – Latin Simone
TRCK – 12
TDRC – 2001
TXXX – four or five tags that have something to do with replay gain
APIC – Assume this is something to do with album art?
I’ve looked in the file with a hex editor to check they have the tags
as above. I can’t do that for the WMA files.

Now I set the library options in SC.
I don’t have Composer or Conductor or Band in my Artist tags, so have
left those unchecked.

1.   To start with I have
“Group Compilation Albums Together”
“List Albums by All Artists for that Album”
“Treat TPE2 MP3 Tag as Album Artist”

Do a complete rescan and Browse Artists…

The six Album Artists in the library appear. Browsing five of them,
everything looks peachy. The “Track Artists” TPE1 are correctly
identified and labelled.
However, “Various Artists” appears as an artist to browse (although not
duplicated at the top of the tree), but there are no albums shown
underneath it.

2.   I now set
“Group Compilation Albums Together”
“List Albums by All Artists for that Album”
“Treat TPE2 MP3 Tag as Band”

Do a complete rescan and Browse Artists…

Now Various Artists appears twice (at the top of the tree and in its
alphabetical place). However, Gorillaz do not appear – their albums are
listed under “Various Artists”. They are indicated as Compilations and
(using the above track as an example) Artist (not “Track Artist”) is
Damon Albarn, Ibrahim Ferrer and Band/Orchestra is shown as “Gorillaz”.
WMA VA albums are still not shown.

3.   I now set
“Group Compilation Albums Together”
“List Albums by All Artists for that Album”
“Treat TPE2 MP3 Tag as Album Artist”
(as per 1) but I tag each track on a Various Artists album with a
“Compilation = 1” tag.

Do a complete rescan and Browse Artists…

Now Various Artists appears twice (at the top of the tree and in its
alphabetical place) and  Gorillaz appear as an Artist – their albums
are NOT listed under “Various Artists”. WMA VA albums are still not
shown – although I have noticed that a VA album with three mp3 tracks
and one WMA track is showing all four tracks.

4.   I now leave the settings alone
“Group Compilation Albums Together”
“List Albums by All Artists for that Album”
“Treat TPE2 MP3 Tag as Album Artist”
But I delete the BAND tag in the WMA VA albums. I instead add an
ALBUMARTIST tag of “Various Artists”

Do a complete rescan and Browse Artists…

Now Various Artists appears once (at the top of the tree) and
everything seems peachy. WMA VA albums are shown. All is right with the
world.




Sorry if this has been long-winded, but it should be replicable. My
conclusions are:
1.      Set a Compilation=1 on all Various Artist albums (although might not
do anything on WMA files).
2.      Set the Band tag on all files except WMA Various Artist albums. Use
the Album Artist field instead for these.
“Group Compilation Albums Together”
“List Albums by All Artists for that Album”
“Treat TPE2 MP3 Tag as Album Artist”


Maybe the problem is with mp3tag, maybe it’s a weakness in WMA files.
Whatever, it’s taken me a lot of hassle to get to this stage…

I’d be interested if 1-4 act as expected as in many of them tracks are
just plain missing.

Feel free to move this post somewhere else if it makes following this
thread easier, or format it nicely, or ignore it altogether. I had to
do this exercise anyway to get my thoughts straight(ish).

S.


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