Alias Artist tag

[GregC]

I sometimes use MP3Tag and there are two tags I use, Artist and Album Artist.  I use Album Artist for compilations to set something like "Bluegrass Various" for the tag.  I see in the dialog for Album Details, there is a tag called Artist Alias.  Is that the same as "Album Artist" tag?  If not how can I set "Album Artist" tag? 

Thanks, Greg

[GregC]

I ran a test where I entered Artist Alias and saved tracks and the tag did not get mapped to Album Artist.  Is there a way to add Album Artist tag?

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Artist Alias is not well understood (even by me!).  This is something I plan to raise with StephenJK, who was the one who originally requested it.  With a bit of luck, it can be removed.

In any event, it's not the right thing to be using here.  I'm pretty sure that what MP3Tag calls Artist would, in VinylStudio, be entered into the Artist field in the Edit Track Details dialog.

You enter the Album Artist when creating the album, and you can change it later if you want to in the Edit Album Details dialog.

[GregC]

Hi Paul,

"Album Artist" is a useful tag based on my usage.  For example, let's say some albums are "The Tony Rice Unit" for the artist and others are "Tony Rice" for the artist.  If I enter "Tony Rice" as the "Album Artist" tag for "The Tony Rice Unit" albums and for the "Tony Rice" albums, I can search by Artist and find both Tony Rice and The Tony Rice Unit albums grouped together under Tony Rice. 

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Please let me know what file format you are saving your tracks in.  I think some magic can be worked with the Custom Tags editor here.

[GregC]

Sorry I did not reply sooner.  Here is an example:

ARTIST="The Tony Rice Unit"
ALBUMARTIST="Tony Rice"

 

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

It's OK, we will sort this out in V14 Beta (we now understand it properly).  I will post back here when we have something for you.  Or follow monitor our 'VinylStudio Beta' page:

https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2567.0

[GregC]

Thanks, I appreciate it. 

For now I just save the album with ARTIST tag since that is what is exported by Vinyl Studio.  Then I use MP3Tag afterwards to add ALBUMARTIST tag.

ALBUMARTIST is useful if there are various artists in compilation albums made up of multiple artists. For example, "KBCO" albums have multiple volumes and each volume is made up of many different ARTIST tags (one ARTIST per song).  I can use "KBCO" ALBUMARTIST tag to group all volumes and albums together. 

Another example is I can group "Bob Marley" and "Bob Marley and the Wailers" with "Bob Marley" ALBUMARTIST tag. 

ALBUMARTIST tag is used in different streaming software such as JRiver, Foobar, and Logitech Music Server.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hello again,

Just to say this is *not* fixed in the Beta we released yesterday (V13.1.5 Beta 2).  That's just a maintenance release.

This issue will be fixed in V14.

[GregC]

I did some splitting today and I found "Custom Tags" option that allowed me to add "ALBUMARTIST" tag and that worked.  The Artist was "The Doors" and I saved "Doors" for the "ALBUMARTIST" tag.

JRiver uses "ALBUMARTIST" for the Artists view and the album showed up under "Doors" so the Custom Tag worked as expected.

Thanks,
Greg 

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

OK, thanks.  We will, in fact, be addressing this (properly!) in the next Beta, so you shouldn't need to jump through hoops to get the results you want.  I'll post in more detail when that goes out.