AlbumArtist or Album Artist? Which tag does MB use?

[rickster53 27]

I recently noticed some name variations of Artist names in the IBN/Artists folder, which I don't want... Ex. I have two separate folders, one for "Cincinnati Pops Orchestra" and another for "Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Pops Orchestra". The web client identified one album associated with Artist "Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Pops Orchestra", and identified it under the column Album Artist. The Artist column in the web client was identified as "Cincinnati Pops Orchestra." So I checked the Album Artist and Artist tags for the offending Album in mp3tag and I did not see the variations. Ie, it identified the Album Artist and the Artist as simply and only as "Cincinnati Pops Orchestra". I then checked under View/Extended Tags in mp3tag and noticed separate entries for AlbumArtist and Album Artist(with space). AlbumArtist contained "Cincinnati Pops Orchestra" and Album Artist contained "Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Pops Orchestra". So I have the following questions:

 

Is MB3 grabbing and using both of these tags to populate IBN/Artists,(ie. AlbumArtist and Album Artist)and if not, which one is the "correct" one for MB3 purposes?

 

The answer will determine whether or not I need to do some Extended Tag cleanup or whether a fix and library rebuild will eliminate the variations.

Edited November 27, 2013 by rickster53

[Luke 42077]

it has a few variations that we check but don't combine them. what's the primary one as used by mp3tag?

[rickster53 27]

mp3tag uses AlbumArtist ---no space

[Luke 42077]

ok. that's our preferred one too. then if it's empty we check album artist, followed by album_artist

[rickster53 27]

That doesn't synch with my case though... If AlbumArtist was the first choice then MB3 would have chosen "Cincinnati Pops Orchestra". Instead, it chose "Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Pops Orchestra", which was contained in Album Artist (space)...

Edited November 27, 2013 by rickster53

[Luke 42077]

try running it through ffprobe to see what it returns.

[rickster53 27]

Don't have ffprobe but here's one of the album songs

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45569607/1%20Fanfare%20for%202001%20A%20Space%20Odyssey.flac

[rickster53 27]

Here's a screenshot of the Extended Tags for the songs of the album I just sent you:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45569607/Screenshot%202013-11-27%2010.18.16.png

 

I was able to download and run ffprobe against the song and contrary to what mp3tag displays, it did not report back finding AlbumArtist. Instead, it reported the following:

 

Album Artist = Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

album_artist = Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

Artist = Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

 

This result supports your statement about the priority order MB uses (AlbumArtist, if it's empty we check Album Artist, followed by Album_Artist). Since according to ffprobe AlbumArtist did not exist, MB found and used Album Artist. So I can only assume mp3tag is incorrectly showing Album_Artist as AlbumArtist in Extended Tags? And, since it appears as though MB is processing this as designed, is my option to clean these variations up manually?

[rickster53 27]

FYI... just to verify and close the loop on this... I deleted the Album Artist Extended tag as a test and now MB3 displays what I wanted "Cincinnati Pops Orchestra". ffbrobe now only reports:

 

album_artist = Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

Artist = Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

 

and, mp3tag Extended Tags reports:

 

AlbumArtist = Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

Artist = Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

 

 

Therefore album_artist == AlbumArtist in the mp3tag world...

Edited November 27, 2013 by rickster53

[Luke 42077]

Probably. I know that mp3tag is popular but we need to run ffprobe no matter what, so we would need a really good reason to run every audio file through two programs.