Various Artist Compilation albums problem

[norderney]

This is my post to Beta forum:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17229

I am hoping to avoid re-ripping over 900CDs!!!!!

I have been using a directory structure as:
\artist\album name\track title.

This has worked ok for me until version 6.2 arrived. With various artist compilation albums, the same album appears multiple times, which Dan Sully says is because of the way version 6.2 works now. He seems to suggest a directory structure such as:
album name\artist\track title.

He also suggests as an alternative, I might need to add a 'Compilation' tag to that album's tracks in order for
SlimServer to correctly identify it.

But Tag & Rename does not allow you to access the 'Compilation' tag, but Dan says iTunes does. But I can not see anything within iTunes that allows you to access the 'Compilation' tag either. I am getting very desparate!!!!!

Any suggestions what I ought to do?

Thanks
Andrew Smith

[mikerob]

I would agree that a change in Slimserver behaviour shouldn't force you to retag or reorganise your collection, but if you do want to tag something as a compilation using iTunes, you can select a track or album and select menu option File / Get Info and there is a check box called "Part of a compilation" (this is under the "Info" window for a track)

This is with iTunes on a Mac - however I think the menu options on a PC are similar.

[norderney]

I don't want to retag or reorganise my music collection, but unfortunately I do not seem to have a choice!!!!!

What about FLAC files.

I did not think iTunes handles FLAC files? I have a mixture of both MP3 (VBR) and FLAC.

[MeSue]

Assuming you have tagged the track artist for each song on your compilation albums, this:

I have been using a directory structure as:
\artist\album name\track title

would mean you have your compilation tracks spread all over the place, mostly with 1 track per folder.

The point Dan was making in the other thread was that the compilation tracks should all be in the same folder.

album name\artist\track title wont work either, because you'll still be left with tracks scattered about.

I also use \artist\album name\track title for my directory structure, EXCEPT for compilations, which I file as:
\_compilations\album name\track title

I don't know anything about a compilation tag, but this is what works for me. Hope it helps.

[norderney]

I use EAC for ripping my CDs.

Just had a look at the settings. In EAC Options, the naming scheme is set to %A\%C\%T (track artist\cd title\track title).

I have got use various artists naming scheme ticked, but this is also set to %A\%C\%T. I assume this is where my problem is.

Can you suggest a better naming scheme for handling various artists, so that I could achive \_compilations\album name\track title.

Would %C\%T work? Should I create a sub folder called Compilations?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Andrew Smith

[Patrick Dixon]

If you use something like

Various Artists\%C\%T

it should work. Substitute 'Compliations' for 'Various Artists' if you prefer. You shouldn't need to re-rip, just spend a little time with Windows Explorer moving the orphaned tracks into your 'new' directory structure.

[JJZolx]

This is my post to Beta forum:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17229

I am hoping to avoid re-ripping over 900CDs!!!!!

I have been using a directory structure as:
\artist\album name\track title.

This has worked ok for me until version 6.2 arrived. With various artist compilation albums, the same album appears multiple times, which Dan Sully says is because of the way version 6.2 works now. He seems to suggest a directory structure such as:
album name\artist\track title.

Unless you're using "guess tags" from the directory structure, then the directory structure shouldn't matter. Cataloging behaviour will be based on the tags found within the files.

He also suggests as an alternative, I might need to add a 'Compilation' tag to that album's tracks in order for
SlimServer to correctly identify it.

What type of files are you working with - mp3, AAC, flac?

The COMPILATION tag helps in that it makes it explicit that an album is a compilation, but I thought the main way that SlimServer detected a compilation was when there it found tracks within an album with different ARTIST tags. I don't believe that behaviour has changed in 6.2.

How are you tagging your compilation albums with respect to the ARTIST tag on each track?

But Tag & Rename does not allow you to access the 'Compilation' tag, but Dan says iTunes does. But I can not see anything within iTunes that allows you to access the 'Compilation' tag either. I am getting very desparate!!!!!

I'm pretty sure that SlimServer's use of the COMPILATION tag was derived from iTunes tagging behaviour, so it must be there somewhere.

Mp3Tag ( http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ ) lets you easily tag most types of files with any tag you like. The actual name of the tag that you want to use, however, is dependant on the file type.

[ceejay]

To address this one, I have two different EAC configuration files ... one for normal albums which has the artist name as the top folder name, and another one which puts "Various" as the top folder name. This gets everything in the right place. Only drawback is that if I decide to change some configuration setting, I have to do it in both.

The other issue about ripping VA albums is checking the tag info that comes in from CDDB ... I find you have to check it really carefully, every now and again you get one that's been tagged backwards (title/artist instead of artist/title), which really messes things up.

Ceejay

[greg]

Does anyone have advice on exactly how to configure things so that the compilation information comes across from iTunes to Slimserver?

I have coded my files in iTunes as to whether they are compilations or not (using the file information). They show up correctly in iTunes grouped by the compilation. My issue is that with Slimserver they show up not grouped by the compilation, but just by each individual artist. I am thinking that I have not configured something correctly in SlimServer (just recently upgraded to 6.1.1). Or maybe I am not clear on how SlimServer uses the compilation data.

[robf]

My compilations are all in .../Various Artists/<album>/<song>.
since upgrading to 6.2 some (but not all) compilations appear
in the Browse Albums list multiple times, split randomly as
far as I can tell.

Each file is only in one place, (the album directory) so its not the theory about bad location of files.

Each file has correct ID3 tags (using the TPE1 tag for the
artist name), so its not the theory about bad tags.

For Compilations I have "Group compilation albums together".

The split always seems to keep adjacent tracks together, for example tracks 1-7 might be one "album", 8-11 another, and 12-14 another (each file has different artists)

If this is an improved "feature" its pretty bad - is there no workaround ? Or is this really a bug that slimdevices refuses to fix ?