Mix Albums

[WannabeMKII]

Hi all,

A lot of my music is mixed music by DJ's, however, I'm having real problems with getting them to display how I'd like in SS.

I've tried all the other tips, but I still can't get it to work :-(

So can someone help please? I've attached images to make it easier.

As you can see, it's a mix by James Zabiela with 2 MP3's and 2 CUE files in a James Zabiela folder.

When I go into SS, I want to be able to look up James Zabiela, then see the Album 'Alive' and then within there, CD1 & CD2. But at the moment as per the screenshot, it's showing under 'Various Artists', then 'Alive CD1' as one album. Therefore, all the songs are bundled in together!?

How can I change it to how I'd like to see it?

Any pointers welcome, as this is DRIVING ME CRAZY :-)

Thanks in advance.

[slimpy]

Those screenshots are just too small to useful in any way.
Can you post the contents of one of the cue sheets?
Are the two mp3 files tagged in any way? If so, can you post the tags?
What are your compilation settings in slimserver (server settings - behavior - compilations)?
What is "Group discs" set to in slimserver (server settings - behavior - group discs)?
What slimserver version?

-s.

[WannabeMKII]

Hi slimpy,

Not sure why the images are so small? I guess this forum shrinks them when they're attached!?

Anyway, answers as requested:

Cue Sheet:

PERFORMER "Various Artists"
TITLE "Alive - James Zabiela CD1 (2004)"
FILE "James Zabiela - Alive (Disc One).mp3" MP3
TRACK 01 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Luke Vibert"
TITLE "Ambalek (Zabiela's Delboy Edit)"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Diplomat"
TITLE "Number One Mc & Dj Crew"
INDEX 01 01:53:66
TRACK 03 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Si Begg"
TITLE "Gangstas"
INDEX 01 03:19:20
TRACK 04 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Elite Force"
TITLE "Peyote Road"
INDEX 01 08:16:05
TRACK 05 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Hisham Samawi"
TITLE "Holding On"
INDEX 01 14:13:44
TRACK 06 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Rob Mello Presents No Ears Dub Volume Ii - Fantasize' (No Ears Dub)"
TITLE "Undeworld - Dark & Long (Zabiela's Live Dub & Long Mash U"
INDEX 01 17:40:25
TRACK 07 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Hisham Samawi"
TITLE "Spirals"
INDEX 01 26:48:22
TRACK 08 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Smash TV"
TITLE "Circuit Breaker"
INDEX 01 32:14:61
TRACK 09 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Masket & Mullet"
TITLE "Forgive"
INDEX 01 35:56:60
TRACK 10 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Atomic Hoolagan"
TITLE "Shine A Light (Lee Coombs Mix)"
INDEX 01 42:07:29
TRACK 11 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Downpressor"
TITLE "Nine (Elite Force Mix)"
INDEX 01 49:30:01
TRACK 12 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Sven Sarvarko"
TITLE "Transition"
INDEX 01 55:10:59
TRACK 13 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Donacha Costello"
TITLE "Blue"
INDEX 01 61:02:60
TRACK 14 AUDIO
PERFORMER "Jeff Bennett"
TITLE "Strange Item (Zabiela's Tease Edit)"
INDEX 01 67:38:00

Tags:

Title - Alive (Disc One) / (Disc Two)
Artist - James Zabiela

Compilation Settings:

Group compilation albums together
List albums by band

Group Discs:

Treat multi-disc sets as multiple albums

Slimserver Version:

6.5.4

Hopefully that's covered everything...?

Any ideas? Looking at it, it's not the "Performer" in the .CUE is it? But even so, they're still being bundled together?

Thanks.

[jeebers]

At least part of yuor request is effectively to get support for the ALBUMARTIST tag in cue sheets. I've yet to find a way to do this - but I can tell you that it is not picking up the overarching PERFORMER in the cue sheet.
Having experimented with this issue a bit myself, I can tell you that if all of the PERFORMER tags are the same in the cue sheet, Slimserver will report that tag as the artist for the album, above the tags in the actual MP3. But as soon as any of the performer tags are different, Slimserver defaults to Various Artists, again above any tags in the MP3.
I've yet to find a way to get it working as you want, so I'll be watching the thread with interest!

[slimpy]

I have no experience with cue sheets so this is only a stab in the dark.
Set PERFORMER in the cue sheet to James Zabiela.
Set the BAND (TPE2) tag in the mp3 to James Zabiela

According to jeebers' comment setting the PERFORMER in the cue sheet doesn't have any effect but you can try anyway.
I'm more interested to see if the band tag in the mp3 makes a difference.

-s.

[jeebers]

I have no experience with cue sheets so this is only a stab in the dark.
Set PERFORMER in the cue sheet to James Zabiela.
Set the BAND (TPE2) tag in the mp3 to James Zabiela

According to jeebers' comment setting the PERFORMER in the cue sheet doesn't have any effect but you can try anyway.
I'm more interested to see if the band tag in the mp3 makes a difference.

-s.

I thought I'd resurrect this thread as I still haven't found a way to get ALBUMARTIST to work with cuesheets. Regardless of the contents of the cuesheet or the tags in the actual file (BAND, ALBUMARTIST, ALBUM ARTIST etc), Squeezecenter reports the albums under "Various Artists" (and individual artists if you have the relevant options ticked) rather than the album artist.

Any suggestions - is this a limitation of cuesheets and therefore outside of SqueezeCenter's remit or would this class as a bug?

[Storm]

I have had a similar challenge with classical music because an album may have a couple of symphonies and each symphony has 3-4 tracks.

What I have done is set up a folder system in my hard disk with all my music that stores each symphony the way I want to hear it (with the appropriate tracks -- including ones that come from different disks). I make copies of the album art, desktop, and folder files for each separate folder that I create

When I scan the hard disk to SqueezeCenter, the folders become read as albums (along with their album art). So, when I want to hear a particular symphony, I play the "album" I want.

Each of the folders with the "albums" are in fact sub-folders under the name of composers. If I want to play music by composer "X", I go into Music Folder and each of the composers are listed as they are in my folder system.

[Nonreality]

I don't understand the cue sheet route, but then again really haven't tried. What is the purpose of using them over tags in the files. I would think that if you set your tags to make sure you have artist, album artist and band tags all correct and in place it would read like you want provided you set Squeezecenter to use group by band. Watch the compilation tag also, it can mess you up. I tend to agree with Slimpy.

[Nonreality]

If you haven't discovered the problems with the album artist tags, here is a great answer to my babbling from Philip Meyer, on how to set your tags to work right. It seems that most other programs have misused the band tag and Squeezecenter is one of the few that insists on using it right. Anyway if you already know this disregard but if not it's a great read for people not getting what they expect from the band tag. http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...d+album+artist

Plus as an added bonus you get to read a rare apology from me! (I could have linked around that but I still owe Philip)

[slimkid]

If nothing else works, and you are willing to mess with the database, then here's what you can do. Using MySQL query browser (or similar program) get table 'albums'. Note columns 'compilation' and 'contributor'. For albums that are in Various Artists, 'compilation' column would be '1'; change it to '0'. Column 'contributor' is used for sorting the album in album view when sorted by artist, album. Currently it should hold a number that corresponds to the id for Various Artists in contributor table. Search contributor table for the artist that you want to use for sorting, note its Id and update contributor column in 'album' table with that number. Next time you do a full rescan, you'd have to repeat the process, so document it or automate it: write sql statements that do what you want and put them into the C:\Program Files\SqueezeCenter\server\SQL\mysql\schema_optimi ze.sql file (on windows).

In order to get multi disc album split by CDs, change corresponding settings on Music Library -> group discs.


hope this helps,
K