Silly Questions??? (1 Viewer)

[porky996t]

Hi,

Sorry if this/these sound silly questions.

I am currently going through my song collection so it works well and looks well with StreamedMP. MPTagThat is such a useful tool for doing this, and I'm trying to get some consistency with my naming format. (Seems so time consuming that I have been putting it off for years) My music collection is eclectic, and is currently arranged in a windows folder format. The folders are either albums by a particular artist, or just a convenient location for a collection of different songs of a similar genre i.e. 80's Danceclassics. Perhaps not the best way of organising my music and I am open to suggestions.

I am little confused with "AlbumArtist" and "Artist". I'll use an example. I have Bach's Brandenburg Concerto's by the English National Orchestra. Am I correct in assuming that the "Artist" would be Bach, and then the "AlbumArtist" would be "English National Orchestra"?

Also, I have a folder full of various Indie tracks, and these show in MPTagThat as all having album art associated with the track, however, when accessed in StreamedMP some of the tracks in this folder show the album art thumbnail next to the track, some don't and just show the default icon, even though I know that artwork is associated with every song.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.



M.

 

[hwahrmann]

No question is silly. maybe only answers.


I think the best way to have your collection ordered is:
Artist - Album - Tracks or for compilations
AlbumArtist - Album - Tracks

As a rule of thumb, you should use AlbumArtist for compilations or when you have "Artist A and friends". Then you would have "Artist A" as AlbumArtist and all the performers of the individual tracks as Artist on the respective track.
On a Dance Compilation you might probably use the genre "Dance" as AlbumArtist. Just few exanples.

Your example of Bach could be:
AlbumArtist = English National Orchestra
Artist = johann Sebastian Bach

or if you have a special Solo Artist on this album e.g. "Nigel Kennedy" you would have.

AlbumArtist = English National Orchestra
Artist = Nigel Kennedy
Composer = Johann Sebastian Bach

So there's no real naming convention.
I use the above method, having folders structured:
AlbumArtist - Album - Tracks (On single Artist Albums i have Artist = AlbumArtist, which MP does automatically, if the albumartist is empty, but i would let MPTT) do it.

Tracks for an Artist, which i don't know the Album are put in a folder named "_" (or you could name it "Singles") and i tag the Album as "Singles".

For tracks, where you don't see the Album Art in MP, please have a look at the Thumbs\Music\Album folder, if you find a file named "Artist-Album.jpg"

 

[porky996t]

Thank you for the detailed reply Helmut.

I have solved my thumbnail issue. I have been using MPTagThat on my laptop as it is easier than using the HTPC where all media files are located - (not good trying to edit files sat in front of a 47" LCD at 1080 x 1920). When I went into MP on the HTPC the thumbs were not updating; my mistake as I hadn't clicked on the "update database" in music config settings - I think the database on the laptop client was updating instead. Working great now, I have an "album" thumb showing (this is just "folder.jpg") and going into the folder I now have an embedded thumb showing for each track.

After I have got all my MP3's with embedded images, I will then work on organising them more effectively - if my experience of embedding files with images is anything to go by, this will take some time.

Absolutely brilliant piece of software - well done.