[SOLVED] Tagging albums with multiple artists behaving strange.

[TheOldPresbyope]

Tim beat me to it (again!).

The whole field of audio metadata is a dumpster fire IMHO.

There's differences between what various tagging schemes allow, what different tagging editors require a user to do, what actually gets encoded in a file, and what application software (like the various plugins in MPD) do with the result. On the subject of multiple artists have a look at this discussion which is over a decade old.

Please include me with your files.

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

I'll need the real files that you used in your screen images. Just PM the download link to Kent and myself.

The testfiles produce the exact same behaviour as the "real" ones,

I made updated screenshots with the supplied testfiles.

the first pictures is the flac files only using the artist tag.
the 2nd picture is the flac files as attached.
the 3rd picture is the attached files converted to mp3 with foobar. (I can see they get tagged with ID3v2.3 & ID3v1.1 if it matters.)

I'm only interested in the real files, and it should be easy for you to provide them but if you don't want to do that then maybe someone else will help you out.

[suhrim]

I'll need the real files that you used in your screen images. Just PM the download link to Kent and myself.

The testfiles produce the exact same behaviour as the "real" ones,

I made updated screenshots with the supplied testfiles.

the first pictures is the flac files only using the artist tag.
the 2nd picture is the flac files as attached.
the 3rd picture is the attached files converted to mp3 with foobar. (I can see they get tagged with ID3v2.3 & ID3v1.1 if it matters.)

I'm only interested in the real files, and it should be easy for you to provide them but if you don't want to do that then maybe someone else will help you out.

I'm uploading it now, sending you a pm with the download link shortly.

[suhrim]

Tim beat me to it (again!).

The whole field of audio metadata is a dumpster fire IMHO.

There's differences between what various tagging schemes allow, what different tagging editors require a user to do, what actually gets encoded in a file, and what application software (like the various plugins in MPD) do with the result. On the subject of multiple artists have a look at this discussion which is over a decade old.

Please include me with your files.

Regards,
Kent

I allways use foobar2000 for editing tags, I think I can trust that it writes the data correctly (I might be wrong though), from what I can see the files only contains vorbis comments.

I checked the thread you linked, seing how mp3 and flac handles multiple artists different it makes sence how they are displayed different.

[TheOldPresbyope]

Not just display differently but be processed differently. Until we see the actual files we can't know what we would expect moOde/MPD to do with them.

Regards,
Kent

[suhrim]

Not just display differently but be processed differently. Until we see the actual files we can't know what we would expect moOde/MPD to do with them.

Regards,
Kent

I sent the files to Tim, you have a pm with the link aswell.

[TheOldPresbyope]

@suhrim

Here's the content of the Vorbis Comment block in your first track as reported by metaflac:

Code:

METADATA block #1
 type: 4 (VORBIS_COMMENT)
 is last: false
 length: 543
 vendor string: reference libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917
 comments: 16
   comment[0]: AccurateRipDiscID=004-0004e8d7-001513ad-3f092005-1
   comment[1]: AccurateRipResult=AccurateRip: Accurate (confidence 5)   [91B978DA]
   comment[2]: ALBUM=Without You I'm Nothing (Single)
   comment[3]: ALBUMARTIST=Placebo
   comment[4]: ALBUMARTIST=David Bowie
   comment[5]: ARTIST=Placebo
   comment[6]: ARTIST=David Bowie
   comment[7]: DATE=1999
   comment[8]: GENRE=Alt Rock
   comment[9]: TITLE=Without You I'm Nothing (Single Mix)
   comment[10]: TRACKTOTAL=4
   comment[11]: TRACKNUMBER=1
   comment[12]: replaygain_album_gain=-8.53 dB
   comment[13]: replaygain_album_peak=1.000000
   comment[14]: replaygain_track_gain=-9.96 dB
   comment[15]: replaygain_track_peak=1.000000

The multiple instances of the ALBUMARTIST field is not recommended practice (there's no standard, by the way, so it's up to software developers to agree). I would have expected, rather, a single instance, conventionally with the value "Various Artists" [ETA] for a compilation album but I suppose you could use "Placebo & David Bowie" (for your example) as one might, say, for "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young". Just be sure it's the same on all tracks of the album.

The multiple instances of the ARTIST field is the recommended practice for dealing with multiple artists in a Vorbis Comment block.

The fields/values in this file get presented differently in the user interfaces of the different tag editors I keep around---EasyTag, Kid3, MusicBrainz Picard, Mp3Tag---and in various command-line tools. One has to experiment to get what one wants consistently. I have no experience with foobar2000 and can't comment on it.

I didn't find a sample MP3 file in the zip archive so I can't comment on possible ID3v2 encoding issues.

Regards,
Kent

[suhrim]

@TheOldPresbyope

Yeah the lack of standard on how to tag things is the big problem, IMO the most logical way to tag an album like this would be to only use the artist tags (since it's the same on all songs), this also displays closest to what I want if it didn't show up under unknown artist. I thought you'd only use the Album artist tag the artist isn't the same for the whole album

[Soldeed]

The whole field of audio metadata is a dumpster fire IMHO.

There's differences between what various tagging schemes allow, what different tagging editors require a user to do, what actually gets encoded in a file, and what application software (like the various plugins in MPD) do with the result. On the subject of multiple artists have a look at this discussion which is over a decade old.

Regards,
Kent

What is the best program to use with MoOde for tagging on a PC?

I use Mp3Tag which seems to work but I have run into some issues over the years.

TIA

[Sehnsucht]

The whole field of audio metadata is a dumpster fire IMHO.

There's differences between what various tagging schemes allow, what different tagging editors require a user to do, what actually gets encoded in a file, and what application software (like the various plugins in MPD) do with the result. On the subject of multiple artists have a look at this discussion which is over a decade old.

Regards,
Kent

What is the best program to use with MoOde for tagging on a PC?

I use Mp3Tag which seems to work but I have run into some issues over the years.

TIA

I use EasyTAG.  It's not perfect but I've stuck with it for years now.