Various Artists on a non-VA album

[InTheBath]

Thanks for the reply.
I'm going to do a full rescan before looking at problems in the future. It's a pain to keep doing them whilst you're hunting for the correct settings though, as they take a while.

I'm careful in mp3tag to only have one set of tags (been there...) however, I don't know in mp3tag how to see what the tag actually is at the file level. I mean, if mp3tag says I have Album Artist set in an ID3v2.4 tag, how do I know at the file level whether it says "ALBUM ARTIST" or "ALBUMARTIST" or "TPE2" or something else? Do I need a hex reader to look at the files?

I bet mp3tag will tell me somehow - that program is like an iceberg - I only see a tiny percentage of what there is...

M.

[emalvick]

You do have to be careful with MP3Tag. The more recent versions of it (I believe since 2.46) identify the TPE2 tag as ALBUMARTIST. Most tagging software identifies the TPE2 tag as BAND.

I believe that if you go into the extended tags it will show you what your version of Album Artist is saved as (but like you said when it comes to the mapping it is a bit hard to figure out). This really screwed me up when they switched over because before the change, I was using ALBUMARTIST as a TXXX tag (TXXX I believe is just an identifier for custom tags). That change made it so all my album artists were being written to the TPE2 tag, which I was purposely not using (setting aside for Jazz and Orchestral music).

I don't think you need a hex editor to sort it out. At the worst, you may need another tag viewer. The MP3Tag help files and web pages do have a list somewhere of how it maps things. I believe they even explain the differences between ID3v2.4 and ID3v2.3.

I used to use 2.4 but switched to 2.3. I remember having some type of problem with 2.4, but I'm not sure what it was. Someone else could probably chime in on the advantages to 2.3 vs. 2.4.

[garym]

Thanks for the reply.
I'm going to do a full rescan before looking at problems in the future. It's a pain to keep doing them whilst you're hunting for the correct settings though, as they take a while.

I'm careful in mp3tag to only have one set of tags (been there...) however, I don't know in mp3tag how to see what the tag actually is at the file level. I mean, if mp3tag says I have Album Artist set in an ID3v2.4 tag, how do I know at the file level whether it says "ALBUM ARTIST" or "ALBUMARTIST" or "TPE2" or something else? Do I need a hex reader to look at the files?

I bet mp3tag will tell me somehow - that program is like an iceberg - I only see a tiny percentage of what there is...

M.

In mp3tag, to see what tags are in the file and which is being read, create a custom column (right click on column heading area), create new column named TAG, and use this as the value:

%_tag_read%[ (%_tag%)]

[Philip Meyer]

>how do I know at the file level whether it says "ALBUM ARTIST" or "ALBUMARTIST"
>or "TPE2" or something else? Do I need a hex reader to look at the files?
>
>I bet mp3tag will tell me somehow - that program is like an iceberg - I
>only see a tiny percentage of what there is...

Mp3Tag used to report TPE2 as Band, but a while back it changed. It's configurable in the app, but not particularly obvious. So it depends what version you have, and how you've configured it.

Best way to be absolutely sure is to use a hex editor to check. I use PSPad for this sort of thing.

You can also see the exact mp3 tag frames that SBS has read values from in SBS/LMS. Song Details > More Info > View Tags. i.e. this will report "TPE2" rather than "Band" or "Album Artist".

[InTheBath]

Thanks for the help.

GARYM> In mp3tag, to see what tags are in the file and which is being read...

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't show what tags are in the file, just what type of tags there are. I guess this may be useful to somebody, but as I said I've been bitten before and now ensure that all my files have only one set of tags. I'm sticking with v2.4 as that seems to work for me.

PhilipM> I may resort to hex editor, but the LMS view is probably ok for me. Allows me to see what LMS actually thinks things are tagged with.

Cheers,

M.

[garym]

Thanks for the help.

GARYM> In mp3tag, to see what tags are in the file and which is being read...

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't show what tags are in the file, just what type of tags there are. I guess this may be useful to somebody, but as I said I've been bitten before and now ensure that all my files have only one set of tags. I'm sticking with v2.4 as that seems to work for me.

I'm a bit confused with what you mean here. A "Tag" is something like ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4. Within a given TAG, there are fields that contain the metadata (like ARTIST, ALBUM, GENRE, TITLE, etc.). So mp3tag can show you what tags are in the file and which tags are being read (so for example, if you had both ID3v2.3 and ID3v1.1 tags, the column I gave you would show both but then show the ID3v2.3 as the one read).

Other parts of mp3tag show you what fields are within the tag (right click on file and select extended tags to see ALL fields in file). Or add a column for any of the fields (this is what I do for metadata fields I'm interested in, the normal stuff, plus ReplayGain values, comments, whether artwork exists, artwork size, etc.

p.s. I agree that with mp3 files having ONLY one tag per file is good. Except for old car CD mp3 players I'm not sure anything really needs ID3v1 tags anymore. In my own case, I make all my mp3 files ID3v2.3 for maximum compatibility. But v2.4 may very well be fine. and I mostly use my FLAC files within SB anyhow.... my mp3 mirror directory is just for my iphone/ipods.

[garym]

here's some picture examples (not showing all columns, but you get the idea)

[MrSinatra]

contrary to what was said earlier, almost everything now uses and identifies TPE2 as albumartist, not as band. foobar was the last holdout, and they now see the light, spec be damned.

the question as i see it, is whether or not your tags are using the TPE2 frame for AA. i use 2.3 tags, but you might check if 2.4 tags do AA as TPE2, i assume they would.

you absolutely should drill down to the view tags level in SBS and see what frames, etc, are being used.

i would also make sure there are no APE tags or other tag types, as Garys mp3tag suggestion would show. a full clear and rescan is always a good idea too.

also, i know SP and some other UIs have had bugs where they show AA, A, etc... in the UI, instead of whatever should be there.

LMS/SBS is really a joke though when it comes to this, ridiculous really. it should be a lot easier to manipulate the data.

[InTheBath]

I'm a bit confused with what you mean here. A "Tag" is something like ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4. Within a given TAG, there are fields that contain the metadata (like ARTIST, ALBUM, GENRE, TITLE, etc.). So mp3tag can show you what tags are in the file and which tags are being read (so for example, if you had both ID3v2.3 and ID3v1.1 tags, the column I gave you would show both but then show the ID3v2.3 as the one read).

Other parts of mp3tag show you what fields are within the tag (right click on file and select extended tags to see ALL fields in file). Or add a column for any of the fields (this is what I do for metadata fields I'm interested in, the normal stuff, plus ReplayGain values, comments, whether artwork exists, artwork size, etc.

Ah, I see the confusion. I thought because I limited myself to 2.4 I only had one type of tag. You're saying I actually have only one tag. Live and learn...

Anyway, my earlier message should have made it clear that my mp3 files only have a 2.4 tag and I wanted to know what fields were in that. I already had the tag column in mp3tag (which was how I was so sure I only had one tag per file).

Not sure what the screenshots were meant to show - I didn't see your tag column there. But I'm familiar with mp3tag and am fine with it.

Thanks,

M.

[garym]

The screen shots were showing you examples of the Columns showing the contents (fields) within my single ID3V2.3 tag. I thought you were asking how to see the contents of a tag. Anyhow, right click and extended tags will show all the contents.