Various Artist handling in 6.5.0

[SMC]

I've just started using my SB3 and am very pleased with it. I have a problem with slimserver which may result from incomplete understanding of how it works.

I have several albums tagged with more than one artist for certain tracks e.g. Steve Earle's 'El Corazon' has Emmylou Harris siging on one track and is thus tagged as ARTIST steve earle; emmylou harris

Slimserver seems to use the presence of multiple artist tags to define this album as a compilation. (Is this how it does it?)


Now in Server Settings\Behaviour\Compilations if I select 'Group compilation albums together' the album 'El Corazon' shows up under 'various artists' but not 'Steve Earle'.

If I select 'List compilation albums under each artist' then I see the album under Steve Earle but every artist for every compilation listed - which I don't want.

I want to stick with 'Group compilation albums together' to keep the artists who only appear on compilations out of the artists list BUT I also want albums by one artist (with additional contributors on some tracks) to show up under that artist and not just in 'Various artists'


Even if I set the tag ALBUM ARTIST or BAND to 'Steve Earle' the album still only shows up under 'Various Artists' - This happens whether I select 'List albums by band' or 'List albums by all artists for that album'. Naturally I have the checkbox for band/orchestra at the top of the page ticked.

Can anyone explain to me how to achieve this?

[slimpy]

You didn't say what format you use. If it is flac add COMPILATION=0 to all songs from that album. For mp3 there is no standard tag but I think iTunes writes a compilation tag that slimserver picks up.
Do a "clear library and rescan" to make sure all changes are picked up.

-s.

[SMC]

Thanks for your help Slimpy. I'm using FLAC; there are some other idisyncracies appearing despite retagging and rescanning - some artists are showing up with 0 songs in browse but are appearing on the track details when playing. I'll have to see if I can find a pattern in this behaviour.

I presume slimserver treats all albums with more than one artist as compilations unless tagged COMPILATION=0

[slimpy]

Everything you said in your first post was actually right.
Usually if you add an ALBUMARTIST tag to an album with multiple artists the album gets listed under the album artist as well as Various artists. But only if you have at least one other proper album by that artist (doesn't seem to be the case in your example).
Slimserver treats files within a directory as a compilation if they share the album name and have more than one artist in total and don't have COMPILATION=0 set.

-s.