I am new to Plex and Plexamp. I am using it to build a music server library (coming over from years of iTunes). My initial rips are jazz compilation albums which I’ve never ripped before. This is a double benefit, because I can get FLAC and get new stuff to hear online anywhere, via Plexamp.
My preference is to have a CD box set appear as a single entry in Plex, with art related to the overall box set, and with an internal track listing ordered by disc. If you prefer to rip CD box sets and keep the art and identity of each individual CD in the box, then these notes don’t apply.
Here is what I have discovered. Many of these points appear in other forum posts – my thanks to others in these discoveries:
(1) Edit music tag fields outside of Plex. I use windows and right click on all the files in a given album folder, then choose ‘edit tags’, and the tags come up. I don’t know what editor this is. If I need to add fields, there is an ‘add’ button.
(2) Ensure that the Album Sort and Album title fields are identical and that they match the overall name of the CD box set. (Nb. ‘Album Sort’ is also seen as ‘Sort Album’)
(3) Ensure that the field ‘disc’ has an accurate #/# for each disc – e.g., for a three-disc set: 1/3, 2/3, 3/3.
(4) Choose art for the overall box set and ensure that it is added correctly to each disc. I rip with dbPoweramp, and I take care of this there. The art will be a file called ‘folder.jpg’ in each album’s folder. (Actually, I try to do as much of my tag and art editing as possible in dbPoweramp, before editing in Windows. If you are ripping with dbPoweramp, edit all the fields before clicking ‘Rip’. The issue – and I am still working on this – is that dbPoweramp does not provide as many fields as I need, and so I find myself editing each disc’s fields both there and in windows.)
(5) Ensure that the album artist is ‘Various Artists’ for each disc.
(6) Ensure that ‘compilation=yes’ for each disc.
(7) go over to Plex and click on the settings icon at upper right, scroll down to libraries, select the library destination, and edit the library. Click on the ‘advanced’ tab and choose ‘prefer local metadata’. Nb. I found on a Plex support page that they strongly recommend turning this off, and I did so – it caused a lot of problems. You can always turn it back off after you’ve finished importing your compilation box CDs. If I am doing several compilation box sets, I leave this turned on. Frankly, I turn on ‘prefer local metadata’ when I am bringing in anything to Plex.
(8) Cut or copy (as you prefer) all folders for the box set into your ‘Various Artists’ folder in the Plex library. If this is your first comp album, create a ‘Various Artists’ folder. Plex may not later cooperate to give you generic art for that ‘Various Artists’ folder. I’ve had to change it back a few times. It seems to me that the generic art is a black-and-white image of a microphone, but sometimes (see step (7)) if the local metadata is not preferred, it picks up the image of some artist somewhere on one of my comps. (I just can’t stop Plex from suggesting a head shot of Lucky Millander!). Caution: do NOT use the ‘import folder’ choice within Plex itself. I’ve had weird errors with that.
(9) select the library as in step (7) above, go over to the far right, and tell Plex to scan the entire library. It goes more quickly if you do one comp box set at a time.
(10) Look at the results – you may still need to do a merge if the albums in the box set came in separately. Search ‘merge’ here at the forum or on Plex support pages for further instructions. I’ve also had trouble here with Plex not respecting the incoming art for each disc, which requires me to fix it via Plex. This appears not to happen if local metadata is preferred, but it is not consistent.
In closing:
If things go wrong, cut the folder out of the Plex library (in Windows – don’t do a ‘delete folder’ in Plex, I’ve had weird errors with that), re-scan the library with the folder removed, check the libraray that it is OK, then repeat the above steps and see if you’ve missed something before bringing it back in.
The only remaining problem I have had is that Plex seems to label various artist compilations as ‘albums’, ‘live’, and ‘compliation’ under some internal tagging or logic of its own. I cannot figure a way to control this. In some cases, it may be because I allowed Plex to do the tagging (‘prefer local metadata’ was off) and it has remembered its original internal choices from early in my experimentations. At present, so long as all my jazz comp box sets or double CDs go into ‘Various Artists’, and so long as each set is collated (with numbered discs and tracks), they appear correctly in Plex and Plexamp.
Fred
