Jump to content

2091 Album Artists, 3126 Artists, 6635 Composer = How many EmbyArtists


Recommended Posts

Posted

For a while Emby has been using its own grouping of the above Album Artist, Artist and Composer to define an "Artist" for all the views in "Emby Music".

While that maybe was the best option a couple of years ago. Now it seems more arbitrary and more of a bug than a feature.

My Music Library is visually displayed well by Emby,

But when you look at the Details the grouping makes it appear "wrong",  and makes the artist view almost impossible to just play or shuffle tracks that an Artist was physically present and performed on.

So Please Fix this for the next release. As sadly just a "Customer", anything else again seems more arbitrary vs any variety of explanations.

-vicpa

 

  • Agree 1
user24
Posted (edited)

Yes, I agree fully with this. At a casual & visual level, Emby is great for music, but for serious consideration & playback at a detailed level, it is not as good as it needs to be.

I have a similar music count to @Vicpa (currently):

  • Album Artists: 1906
  • Artists: 5673
  • Composers: 8022

(I estimate the embedded tags are 90+% accurate/complete for these 3 fields.)

While Emby gives a (filtered) choice of Album Artist/Artist/Composer menu tabs, as soon as you drill down to an individual level, there is no difference for a music entity that happens to be all of the 3 categories.

E.g., I have 37 Paul McCartney (individual performer) Albums and 1231 Paul McCartney (grouped) Songs listed in all 3 views, there is no Album Artist/Artist/Composer filtering applied on the distinct pages, irrespective of the top-level category.

Of the 1231 Songs, only 438 (or 35%) are performed by Paul McCartney as an individual Artist. The other 65% comprise: The Beatles, Wings and 80+ other Artist (not McCartney) performers.

The above example illustrates that the current grouping of the Album Artist/Artist/Composer entities can severely dilute/pollute designated music views and playback selections. The recent (good) improvement of the Genre pages also highlighted the above problem.

There are already Sort by options for Album Artist/Artist/Composer. Perhaps a possible solution is to add Filter options as well, in appropriate places, to give everyone a choice with how they wish to view and playback their music. In some instances, grouping could work well, but in many instances filtering/separation is very much needed.

So Emby, what do you think? Easy or difficult? Likely probable for the near future or somewhat possible for the far future???

Thanks for considering.

Edited by user24
Posted

Hi, I understand what you’re asking so more ways to play are needed.

 But I think the title of this thread is misleading. The content on  what you see in those three tabs is based purely on the data in the audio files.

Posted (edited)

HI @Luke, Emby Team

The tabs are functioning as intended; however, my concern and request pertain to the definition of EMBYARTISTS. I apologize for any confusion my previous message may have caused. The crux of the matter is the need for customization in determining which MusicBrainz tags equate to EMBYARTISTS.

At present, Emby maps the following MusicBrainz tags:

  • MB Artist
  • MB AlbumArtist
  • MB Composer

These are collectively used to define EMBYARTISTS. This grouping, however, should be configurable to cater to individual preferences.

@Luke, @ebr  and the rest of the Emby Team, this issue has been ongoing for years. Is it possible for the team to prioritize and address this matter now?

Or will it be relegated to the backlog with a note to consider for a future release? The ability to configure these settings would greatly enhance user experience and provide much-needed flexibility in managing music libraries.

 

Edited by Vicpa
  • Agree 1
user24
Posted (edited)
On 5/20/2024 at 12:11 PM, Luke said:

so more ways to play are needed.

Hi, More ways to play would always be useful, but I agree that some method of selectable configuring and/or more separation between the 3 entities would go a very long way towards good improvements, if it is technically possible.

8 hours ago, Vicpa said:

At present, Emby maps the following MusicBrainz tags:

  • MB Artist
  • MB AlbumArtist
  • MB Composer

These are collectively used to define EMBYARTISTS. This grouping, however, should be configurable to cater to individual preferences.

In some specific instances Emby does effectively split Album Artist and Artist, but still combines Artist and Composer on the same page/view:

Another actual example of mine is Chuck Berry albums (with numbers slightly rounded up/down to easier illustrate the issue):

  • Albums Total with a CB Credit/Field/Tag: 100
  • Album Artist Credit/Field/Tag: 5
  • Separate (non Album Artist) Artist Credit/Field/Tag: 5
  • Additional (non Artist) Composer Credit/Field/Tag: 90

Current Emby Album Groupings: (where Artist and Composer are combined in Albums)

  • Albums: 5 (Album Artist credits)
  • Appears On: 95 (Artist and Composer credits)

Suggested Emby Album Groupings: (where Artist and Composer are split in Albums)

  • Albums: 5 (Album Artist credits)
  • Appears On: 5 (Artist credits)
  • Composed By: 90 (Composer credits)

(the "Appears On" and "Composed By" labels may then need some fine-tuning with the wording)

I haven't counted up the Songs split, but Artist and Composer are also grouped together here, with only one Songs Total view, where it is not possible to easily separate the performer from the composer, without creating a dedicated playlist.

Individual preference is also important because some people will want to to separate the info/views and others may want to combine.

I suppose it is much more complex to technically implement than I could be imagining because (e.g.) Chuck Berry could be any 1 or 2 of the 3 entities, or even all 3, on any selected Album or Song. I expect Emby is already well aware and across all of the underlying issues.

Perhap a good solution is something that the forthcoming new Smart Views could address?  Keep up the good work, it's always appreciated!

Edited by user24
Posted
Quote

which MusicBrainz tags equate to EMBYARTISTS.

At present, Emby maps the following MusicBrainz tags:

  • MB Artist
  • MB AlbumArtist
  • MB Composer

These are collectively used to define EMBYARTISTS. This grouping, however, should be configurable to cater to individual preferences.

Actually this isn't true. None of those are used to established the list of artists/albumartists/composers.

Those come from the raw, name-based fields.

The mbz tags are only used to add metadata later to what was already imported via the name tags.

Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, Luke said:

Actually this isn't true. None of those are used to established the list of artists/albumartists/composers.

Those come from the raw, name-based fields.

The mbz tags are only used to add metadata later to what was already imported via the name tags.

@Luke, @ebrThanks for making my point "Those come from the raw , name-based fields" But talk about misleading.. 

Emby is still arbitrarily grouping the three elements.

The "data" comes from discreet embedded tags. Perhaps you would prefer to use ID3. The "data" comes from some third party source in my case MusicBrainz .

Below is the Picard tag map. 

tagsB.thumb.png.0beb1167979d8c4d34de70ed961e36f1.png

EMBYARTSTS=  AlbumArtist(TPE2) + Artist(TPE1) + Composer(TCOM)

The question is still the same can EMBY provide an option to define this grouping , refinements to grouping would greatly improve the playback opportunities  and  the Emby UI.

- vicpa

Edited by Vicpa
Posted

Hi 

For those in community who like to know what EMBY is defining as an EMBYARTIST here is a sample purely for testing, please respect any digital rights of the band :

04 The Bomber_ Closet Queen _ Bolero _ Cast Your Fate to the Wind 2024-05-23.flac

The above is a track from the "The James Gang Rides Again" I just take the tags from MB. MB follows the ID3 definitions. But anyone feel free to put the track in a tagger of your choice. 

@Luke@ebrperhaps you guys should tag it with what ever Tagging Tool Emby tests with Picard, MP3Tag, ? .

The relationships that emby creates by grouping ..??. is Great, Not So great, OK, Poor, or pick your adjective. Don't really care. It is a user/customer choice and needs to be so

  • Thanks 1
Posted (edited)

Hi @Luke

Any Progress on this ? One of this "Hidden db config options" works for me

Edited by Vicpa
Posted
Quote
  •  

Suggested Emby Album Groupings: (where Artist and Composer are split in Albums)

  • Albums: 5 (Album Artist credits)
  • Appears On: 5 (Artist credits)
  • Composed By: 90 (Composer credits)

Yea I think something like this makes sense.

user24
Posted
4 hours ago, Luke said:

Yea I think something like this makes sense.

(FWIW) Some more thoughts...

For Albums (where Album Artist is a needed field for differentiation) there are 7 possible combinations to consider across the 3 Album Artist/Artist/Composer fields.

For Songs (where Album Artist is not required for differentiation) there are 3 possible combinations to consider across the 2 Artist/Composer fields.

For these 10 combinations, it is necessary to consider where the person/group concerned (e.g. Chuck Berry again) both has and hasn’t been included in the fields (refer to diagram below):

groupings1.thumb.png.2a97e381bd28ed2366a393c30ffa72f1.png

If just considering the “Chuck Berry” example above, one of the combinations (Albums 4) doesn’t quite make sense, but if the example was changed to “Various Artists” then it may make sense?

To implement something similar to this diagram would require 2 extra vertical sections (e.g. Albums Composed and Songs Composed).

This may likely be too many fields for music-casual Emby users... (to be continued) ...

  • Thanks 1
user24
Posted

(continuing) ...

If the two additional fields (as mentioned previously) were incorporated, the Music pages would then have the following vertical sections:

  • Songs
  • Songs Composed
  • Albums
  • Albums Composed
  • Appears On
  • Included In
  • Music Videos
  • More Like This
  • About

A good basic filter (or Smart View) would allow for unwanted vertical sections to be turned off, individually across the Album Artist / Artist / Composer pages. Album Artist pages, focussing on just Albums performed, could just show, e.g.:

  • Albums
  • Appears On
  • More Like This
  • About

Whereas the Composer pages, focussed on just composition, could have a different view, e.g.:

  • Songs Composed
  • Albums Composed
  • More Like This
  • About

Advanced filters (or Smart Views) could potentially have even more sophisticated settings, where the default views could be based upon “Entity Priority”. That is:

  • Album Artist tab/pages would give priority to the underlying 4 Album Artist combinations
  • Artist tab/pages would give priority to the underlying 6 Artist combinations
  • Composer tab/pages would give priority to the underlying 6 Composer combinations

AlbumArtist.thumb.png.1e4e8019c89dc8b24ce6c70861d76a2d.png

 

Artist.thumb.png.653001823c3b65df01b3d048e9c953d8.png

 

Composer.thumb.png.cdbcaf08d99996c234bdf70828359730.png

“Entity Priority” would hide likely non-wanted combinations by default, while allowing advanced options to show them, if required:

Maybe some of the above is helpful information?

Either way, it does show that considering different views/separation/filtering for Album Artists/Artists/Composers is something to think through carefully to get to a good end solution!

  • Agree 2
  • Thanks 1
Posted (edited)
On 5/25/2024 at 2:07 AM, Luke said:

Yea I think something like this makes sense.

@LukeOH  well, whatever not what was asked for. 

For the time being I am going with this for one of my music clients. The play and shuffle buttons work as expected. The Artist definition uses an accepted standard. and 

BTW this app seems to have no problem correctly formatting the description. Funny thing exact same data. And Mr Lennon only gets an 'Artist" credit one album, vs the 80 plus that emby displays. 

john.thumb.png.4769db1cd1f1814edd7741d786280f45.png

@Luke btw these guys actually read nfo files in my music library unlike EMBY can't tell you how surprised I was to find Descriptions and tags that I updated in EMBY UI show up in this UI. 

-vicpa

Apologies to the Dead..😀

 "Emby Team, you better watch your speed Trouble ahead, trouble behind ......And you know that notion just crossed my mind..."

Edited by Vicpa
user24
Posted (edited)

For comparison purposes, below is an image of my Emby John Lennon page:

(Note: I have hidden the Emby Songs Vertical Section with CSS, so just considering the albums rows in this post.)

lennon1.jpg.ab7f387d2498bb9860d16197c8f86e90.jpg

The Albums section is all good, where John Lennon is the Album Artist.

The Appears On section combines John Lennon albums as a (non Album Artist) Artist performer and a (non Album Artist) Composer. Therefore, of the 11 albums visible in the screenshot, 10 are obvious Composer credits only. It is not until the 9th album (The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl) that a genuine John Lennon “performed on” album appears. (And, even that is from a Composer credit! - but I can likely deal with that type of issue with my embedded tags).

It is certainly valid to show the John Lennon Composer info (possibly in a separate row), but not mixed with the Artist (performer) info.

Another observation is that the Albums section can be ‘clicked on’ to give an expanded grid view, but the Appears On section cannot.

With the (current) Appears On section and (future?) Appears On/Albums Composed sections, it would be helpful to have the expanded grid views as well. For largish music libraries (like the John Lennon example) there could easily be 50+ Albums for each separate Albums/Appears On/Albums Composed category.

Any improvements with this would be most appreciated!

Edited by user24
  • Thanks 1
Posted

Here's an updated version of the nfo metadata plugin with album and artist nfo support enabled:

NfoMetadata.zip

It solves a couple issues I found with the initial run a couple days ago. Thanks.

user24
Posted (edited)

I’ve been trying out the new Group By function for Collections in Emby 4.8.8.0. It’s very easy to understand and use, plus gives good flexibility with the different views for everyone to choose a preference for themselves. Perhaps Group By could also be used to give more flexibility to the Music views, for resolving the Artist/Composer issue, by hiding/removing unwanted rows/items?

By further rearranging the same logic (and diagrams) posted previously, Group By could select from (say?) 4 different Music groups/views, e.g.:

  • Combined (Artists and Composers are grouped) Note: this is the current default view
  • Separated (Artists and Composers are not grouped)
  • Artist Priority (Composer-only items are removed)
  • Composer Priority (Artist-only items are removed)

The current Combined group/view could remain as the default view for casual music users. This could easily be the same basic view for the Album Artists/Artists/Composers menu tabs? The Artist items and Composer items are combined and there are only 3 vertical sections involved:

  • Albums
  • Appears On
  • Songs

A new Separated group/view could be added for serious music users. Albums are unchanged, but “Appears On” and “Songs" are now split into 2 rows each. This could be a useful ‘everything’ view for the Album Artist tabs and/or a general Album-focussed perspective? Artist items and Composer items are separated, but there are now 5 vertical sections involved, and some info is duplicated (refer to diagram) in the rows:

  • Albums
  • Performs On
  • Composed On
  • Songs Performed
  • Songs Composed

A new Artist Priority group/view would show Artist-specific Albums and Songs, but hide Composer-only items. This could be a useful view for the Artist tabs and/or an Artist-focussed perspective? There are only 3 vertical sections:

  • Albums
  • Performs On
  • Songs Performed

A new Composer Priority group/view would show Composer-specific Albums and Songs, but hide Artist-only items. This could be a useful view for the Composer tabs and/or a Composer-focussed perspective? There are only 3 vertical sections:

  • Albums
  • Composed On
  • Songs Composed

Here’s an updated diagram showing the different groups and the underlying logic. It looks quite involved, but it’s necessary to consider all the possible true logic combinations (e.g. 001-111 for Albums and 01-11 for Songs) before rolling-up to the higher-level info (the developers would well know this – much more than me). Apologies, in advance, if I have made any silly errors!

Picture3.thumb.jpg.9fea2ca7b5c5aa3a80b0116620745a81.jpg

I think the above 4 top-level Groups are reasonably simple to understand and the underlying row views should also make sense, from just trying out the different groups, especially for serious music users who would likely want something beyond the basic (current) default combined view. Having at least the 2 options of Combined and Separated would be a good improvement. Adding Artist Priority and Composer Priority would give Emby great flexibility for (e.g.) contemporary vs classical music libraries (or both).

Of course several other worthwhile combinations are also possible, but the above is enough for this one post, and these 4 Groups could be a good starting point for some flexible music smart views!

Edited by user24
diagram changes!
  • Thanks 1
Posted

Hi @Luke

Let's cut through the BS. 

1) Emby's current base definitions for Music Artists, Albums Artists and Composers is a Unicorn in the Media Industry.

2) and "What the Emby" why should you Care? For multiple years the Emby Team has been asked nicely and sometimes not to make this a User Choice. 

3) I don't care at all how you think it should work or anyone else for that matter....... Do whatever.

4) There has been zero indication of the "level of effort" to make this an optional feature. What the emby? I can't imagine that this "feature" of Magic Artists was so poorly implemented that it would more than trivial. 

5) What the emby? The below has nothing to do with the topic at hand. and doesn't work.

On 5/29/2024 at 10:35 PM, Luke said:

Here's an updated version of the nfo metadata plugin with album and artist nfo support enabled:

6) What the Emby? Grouping options for Collections. Cool kinda like Drag and drop reordering of genres. 

7) From a competitive standpoint Emby's "Magic Artists" is a WTE moment rather than a feature. Pick and choose the grouping is a feature, imposing Emby's Unicorn definition. Is well choose, an Opportunity, Issue, Bug, Defect, a steaming pile of......

8. SomeOne is missing the point.. Emby's Magic Music Artists are showing me a "Person" view in Music, when by definition the Categories are different. A Person can be many things...

An Artist is an Artist, an Album Artist is an Album Artist, A Composer is a Composer

 

 

Posted
On 6/5/2024 at 12:34 PM, Vicpa said:

Hi @Luke

Let's cut through the BS. 

1) Emby's current base definitions for Music Artists, Albums Artists and Composers is a Unicorn in the Media Industry.

2) and "What the Emby" why should you Care? For multiple years the Emby Team has been asked nicely and sometimes not to make this a User Choice. 

3) I don't care at all how you think it should work or anyone else for that matter....... Do whatever.

4) There has been zero indication of the "level of effort" to make this an optional feature. What the emby? I can't imagine that this "feature" of Magic Artists was so poorly implemented that it would more than trivial. 

5) What the emby? The below has nothing to do with the topic at hand. and doesn't work.

6) What the Emby? Grouping options for Collections. Cool kinda like Drag and drop reordering of genres. 

7) From a competitive standpoint Emby's "Magic Artists" is a WTE moment rather than a feature. Pick and choose the grouping is a feature, imposing Emby's Unicorn definition. Is well choose, an Opportunity, Issue, Bug, Defect, a steaming pile of......

8. SomeOne is missing the point.. Emby's Magic Music Artists are showing me a "Person" view in Music, when by definition the Categories are different. A Person can be many things...

An Artist is an Artist, an Album Artist is an Album Artist, A Composer is a Composer

 

 

I did earlier say we could do what you suggested, no?

Posted

 

1 hour ago, Luke said:

I did earlier say we could do what you suggested, no?

Can/Could is ok, Will is good, Coming Soon is even better. I will crawl back under my rock if soon=soon...

--vicpa

 

  • Thanks 1
  • 2 months later...
Posted
On 6/6/2024 at 10:19 PM, Luke said:

I did earlier say we could do what you suggested, no?

Making any progress on this? 

  • Agree 1
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
On 8/26/2024 at 12:16 AM, Vicpa said:

Making any progress on this? 

While the two most interested people (!!) are waiting patiently for the extremely busy @Luke to respond, I’ve been experimenting with another approach, by changing embedded metadata. This enables an entity (e.g. Blind Blake) to be split into 2 or 3 to give different Song and Album configurations, depending on which page view (Album Artist / Artist / Composer) is being used.

Yes, it’s a slightly messy workaround, but perhaps gives some more ideas for ongoing consideration?

Here are 3 example Albums to show the concept:

image.thumb.jpeg.6ed79f5a746c3d1118d70ecf8dc8fccd.jpeg

What we have with Emby now (with no major finessing of imported info) is a combined entity:

  • AlbumArtist field: Blind Blake
  • Artist field: Blind Blake
  • Composer field: Blind Blake

Therefore all three Album Artist / Artist / Composer pages show the same combined info:

image.thumb.jpeg.7ac399237c303d090588419803d62808.jpeg

This is also consistent with MusicBrainz only having one MBID per entity. Some problems (for me at least) with these 3 views (above) are that they are all the same AND both Artist and Composer are combined in the Appears On section (as per OP).

It is possible to split away the Composer only Album (and Songs) by creating a separate Composer with (C) suffix entity:

  • AlbumArtist field: Blind Blake
  • Artist field: Blind Blake
  • Composer field: Blind Blake (C)

This will result in the Emby Album Artist and Artist pages still being the same as each other (but now without the Blind Blake Composer ‘pollution’ from another Artist). Also, the Emby Composer page will show only the Composer info:

image.thumb.jpeg.74b39c3811051e40798a2d66af5fb2bc.jpeg

This concept can be taken even further by separating the Artist entity:

  • AlbumArtist field: Blind Blake
  • Artist field: Blind Blake (A)
  • Composer field: Blind Blake (C)

This will result in the Emby Album Artist / Artist / Composer pages all showing different info, relevant to the page focus::

image.thumb.jpeg.cc65e5d12ea27a83b6ff0b31f026ac04.jpeg

I expect these 3 'split' views may not suit everyone, but I prefer the differentiation this gives. 

All separate entities can easily import the same overview info from MusicBrainz by using the one MBID for all.

It's possible to change the fields/tags (as per examples above) in Mp3tag with a custom Action, e.g.:

image.jpeg.988b99f8fbb61844481db9a980fa384d.jpeg

The first two lines add the (A) and (C) suffixes for multiple entities in the same field, separated by a semicolon. (A different expression will be needed for other separators). The second two lines remove any duplicate (A) and (C) if the Action is run more than once on the same files.

Don't try this at home unless you make a backup and test on a small sample first!!! (I potentially need to add a bit more to run this fully on a large library).

@Vicpa FYI - my next step is to  try this with John Lennon!

My method is very Album Artist centric, but this can easily be adapted to be say(?) Composer centric.

If an elegant solution is going to be forthcoming from Emby 'soon' then GREAT, I'll hold off on restructuring 100k+ tracks for the time being. If it's 'later' on, as in years, then I better keep gong!!!

Thanks for considering!

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...