Support for original artist

[okurokonfire 4]

When the song is a cover i fill metadata for the original artist in the tags in the music file. Is there a possibility to view/search by covers/original artist?

Like if there are songs which are covers of, lets say, Depeche Mode, i want to specifically search for covers for them. I guess it would be a nice place on the band page along with music videos and supporting albums, but it is definitely not there.

[Luke 42077]

HI, yes it's not a bad idea. Thanks.

[user24 313]

Hi, yeah I understand what you want and have spent a bit of time setting up something similar for myself with Emby and Mp3tag.

Here's a couple of (fairly easy?) workaround ways you could do it (there are probably others as well):

1. Close to what you are asking for:

• Create a custom field in Mp3tag called ROONTRACKTAG.
• As per your example, add the tag Depeche Mode (Cover) to this field.
• Emby will import this tag into the Tag field (but doesn't yet support ROONALBUMTAG).
• Rescan the parent folder (or whole library) in Emby.
• You should now see the Depeche Mode (Cover) tag on the relevant song in Emby.
• You then need the same tag on Depeche Mode to link the cover Song to the original Artist.
• If this is sufficient you could create two custom Actions (or a combined Action) in Mp3tag to somewhat automate and bulk edit this across your whole library, e.g.
• 1. Append (Cover) to your Original Artist tag using, e.g.:
• Action: Add (Cover) to Original Artist
• Field: Format value
• Format value: ORIGARTIST 
• Format string: %origartist% (Cover)
• 2 Copy Original Artist to ROONTRACKTAG
• Action: Copy Original Artist to RoonTrackTag
• Field: Format value
• Format value: ROONTRACKTAG
• Format string: %origartist%

(Or, as per above, just use Depeche Mode as the relevant Tag to link original Artist and cover Artist.)

2. My own method:

• Add Artist (Tribute) to the relevant AlbumArtist field e.g. George Harrison (Tribute)
• (I only do this for whole Albums and haven't yet bothered with individual Songs, but it would still likely work)
• Then your Album/Song will appear in Emby under the actual AlbumArtist/Artist and also the additional tribute AlbumArtist/Artist
• You can then link the two Artists together with Collections or Tags if you want to.
• (I originally tried Tags, but ended up with using Collections)
• The Tribute Artist (Tag or Collection) will appear on the Original Artist page and vice versa.
• Also, the new Artist (Tribute) will appear  directly after the original Artist on the relevant page views - no need to search!
• Again, Mp3tag Actions can be used for bulk updates similar to the method above:

Here's how George Harrison appears in my library:

Currently, I have this set up with 62 tribute AlbumArtists and its working quite well. It takes a little bit of time setting it up in Mp3tag, but if you have Original Artist already, then the methods above (or similar) could be useful for you?

Hopefully this all sorta makes some sense. I'll be interested to know what you think. Cheers!

(Hopefully there are no errors  in the Mp3tag method - I did try it out before posting.)

Edited August 21, 2025 by user24

[okurokonfire 4]

On 8/22/2025 at 12:48 AM, user24 said:

I'll be interested to know what you think.

Sounds interesting, i'll probably try to do something like this