iTunes, sorting, album-artist field.
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From: Rowland McDonnell on 9 Apr 2010 15:30 Jon <jon(a)no-email.org> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell wrote: [snip mis-representation] > Well don't worry about it, you probably don't even need it :) Well, why not mis-represent me very badly then sneer condescendingly, eh? I know - it's because to do otherwise would have been polite and well-mannered decency. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Jim on 9 Apr 2010 15:36 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > That's it, really: what's the album artist field in iTunes all about? > > > > > > Looked in iTunes help, can't find anything on the subject. > > > > Probably not much help, but > > > > <http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200609140956019> > > Gives me a clue. Had no clue before. Could it be to do with things like compilation albums? One album, lots of different artists? (think of the "Now That's What I call Music" range). Jim -- "Microsoft admitted its Vista operating system was a 'less good product' in what IT experts have described as the most ambitious understatement since the captain of the Titanic reported some slightly damp tablecloths." http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
From: Bruce Horrocks on 9 Apr 2010 15:42 On 09/04/2010 19:43, Rowland McDonnell wrote: > Jim<jim(a)magrathea.plus.com> wrote: > >> Rowland McDonnell<real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: >> >>> That's it, really: what's the album artist field in iTunes all about? >>> >>> Looked in iTunes help, can't find anything on the subject. >> >> Probably not much help, but >> >> <http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200609140956019> > > Gives me a clue. Had no clue before. That's exactly what I use it for. It's irksome that iTunes will happily import a CD with 10 tracks by the main artist and one with a duet but stick the duet into its own bloody one-track album. Bleh! I'd like to know what the designer of this feature was thinking. After all, in order to get the artist's names iTunes must have found the CD in a CD database so why not put everything under the one album and name it as per the info in the database? -- Bruce Horrocks Surrey England (bruce at scorecrow dot com)
From: Rowland McDonnell on 9 Apr 2010 16:53 Bruce Horrocks <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell wrote: > > Jim<jim(a)magrathea.plus.com> wrote: > > > >> Rowland McDonnell<real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > >> > >>> That's it, really: what's the album artist field in iTunes all about? > >>> > >>> Looked in iTunes help, can't find anything on the subject. > >> > >> Probably not much help, but > >> > >> <http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200609140956019> > > > > Gives me a clue. Had no clue before. > > That's exactly what I use it for. It's irksome that iTunes will happily > import a CD with 10 tracks by the main artist and one with a duet but > stick the duet into its own bloody one-track album. Bleh! > > I'd like to know what the designer of this feature was thinking. After > all, in order to get the artist's names iTunes must have found the CD in > a CD database so why not put everything under the one album and name it > as per the info in the database? Erm? Not sure what you're getting at here. It did that with my copy of Blue Oyster Cult's first album. Which got displayed as two albums by iTunes. 'cos it comes with additional tracks by `Blue Oyster Cult when they were called `Soft White Underbelly'. And now it's appearing in the list as a single album due to me finding out about the `album artist' field (which is apparently a new feature in iTunes 7). At bloody last... Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: zoara on 10 Apr 2010 20:45
Jim <jim(a)magrathea.plus.com> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > That's it, really: what's the album artist field in iTunes all > > > > about? > > > > > > > > Looked in iTunes help, can't find anything on the subject. > > > > > > Probably not much help, but > > > > > > <http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200609140956019> > > > > Gives me a clue. Had no clue before. > > Could it be to do with things like compilation albums? One album, lots > of different artists? (think of the "Now That's What I call Music" > range). There's a tag for that. I'm currently tidying up my music library so I'm knee-deep in this sort of thing. Compilations are set using the, uh, compilation tag; if this is set then the album will get sorted under "Compilations" or "Various Artists" rather than (or in addition to) under individual artist names in iTunes and most other music cataloguing tools. So if you were searching for an album by Madonna (the shame) then you'd scroll down to M then pick one of Madonna's albums off the submenu. If you were looking for a "Now That's What I call Music" album (the horror) which contained one of Madonna's songs you'd look under "Various Artists" or "Compilations". Album Artist is different. And it seems to be a kludgy workaround for a bad UI decision really. Say you have Alice, who has released an album where some - but not all - tracks are collaborations with Bob. In many views in iTunes you'll see this one album represented as two; they both have the same name but one is just the tracks by Alice, and the other is just the tracks by Alice and Bob together. Setting the Album Artist to Alice for all tracks will "recombine" the albums into one. I *think* this "split albums if they're by different artists" feature is to deal with genuinely distinct albums by different artists, but with the same name ("Greatest Hits" is probably a common one). I had two albums with the same name which confused both iTunes and my iPod - continuing the above example, it played track one of "Greatest Hits" by Alice, followed by track one of "Greatest Hits" by Bob, followed by track two of Alice's album and track two of Bob's. I fixed that by renaming one of the albums slightly but as I haven't gone back to try again in several years, I don't know if iTunes handles it better. I think the Album Artist tag also has an effect on where in the artist list you might find the album. Setting it to Alice means you'll find Alice and Bob's collaboration listed under Alice, not under Bob (nor under "Alice and Bob"). I think. Oh, how I wish iTunes supported multiple artist tags per track so you could find the music via Alice and via Bob - FLAC lets you set multiple artist tags (multiple anything, really) but iTunes doesn't handle FLAC. -z- -- email: nettid1 at fastmail dot fm |