Hi Folks - I apologize if this topic is played, but I couldn’t locate what I was trying to address. I have this album/CD Pandora’s Box by Aerosmith. It’s 3 different CDs, but the Metadata gives me two entries and I want 3. My choices are to change the disc to 1 on all three and change the track numbers into the 70’s or 80’s until it lines up under one icon. I can do this, but refreshing the Metadata gives me CDs 1 & 3 under one icon and 2 as a standalone. Both line up as compilations.
What I prefer is to have all three listed separately (Pandora’s Box - Volume 1, Volume 2 & Volume 3) and have them all line up next to each other under compilations. Once I changed everything listed as Disc 3 under the first icon to Pandora’s Box - Volume 3 and changed the disc # to 3 it worked fine, except the 3rd one wants to line up under albums vs compilations. I copied the label, bio info and even matched all the tags to see if it made any difference, but it won’t budge. The new 3rd Volume stubbornly takes its place under albums while the other two identify as compilations. This seems like a simple thing, but I can’t fix it for some reason. If anyone know how to fix this I’d be very appreciative. Thanks very much in advance.
It sounds like Plex isn’t able to accurately recognize the album. That can either be due to Plex not understanding the folder/filename structure, or the embedded metadata is not correct/complete.
Thank you for trying to help, but I couldn’t really locate anything that could get me past this. I was thinking I could clone an existing icon and trick the rogue icon’s data into joining up with the new one, but I have to experiment with that. For now I’m stumped. If you think of anything else please let me know and thanks again.
Check your various artists tag in the file. Various Artists usually triggers the compilation sorting. You can leave everything the same. Just put various artists as the album artist and leave Aerosmith as the artist per song then move the album to the various artist folder. That would would be what I would try.
Not sure I’ve got this exactly right, but here goes…
Folder & Structure - D:\Library\Aerosmith\Pandora’s Box - Volume 3 (1 and 2 for the others)
The Embedded Meta Tags - See attached photos
Prefer Local Meta Tags - I’m struggling to locate this for some reason
You know Ryan, I might try that. Maybe if it transfers to the Various Artists folder, when I change it back something might click. I have about 7 or 8 other icons (very large library) where EP’s and Singles line up under compilations or albums and other Live records that don’t line up under live either. I’m thinking once I discover the secret sauce here I can fix those as I happen upon them. I only recently kind of figured out that the mistakes (mostly capitalization and punctuation) I was seeing on my stereo computer screen where separate and apart from my actual library. I kept trying to fix things in my library that didn’t need it and wondering why it wasn’t translating to the visual when playing digital files through my stereo via Wi-Fi. I never liked the black and white band photos they assign to each artist so now I’m combing through a 4 TB library, one artist at a time, adding my own photos and fixing the mistakes mentioned above. I’ve been going at it since September 4th, maybe two hours a day and I’m only halfway through the B’s. It’s so worth it though; better artwork, zero mistakes, double checking categories, etc. I’ll probably finish around March at this rate, but I worry all of it will be lost if I change PCs or something else happens. I hope the saved changes are transferable! Thanks for trying to help me.
each disc uses a different album title. Unify that to just “Pandora’s Box”.
there is no AlbumArtist set at all. Put “Aerosmith” in there.
You can use either a subfolder for the contents of each disc or put all tracks into the same album folder. But the latter requires you to prepend the track number with the disc number. Right now, you have each disc stored as if it was a wholly separate album, which it isn’t.
the screenshots don’t show whether a Disc # meta tag exists in the files and what it contains. In a multi-volume album it should certainly be present and it should contain the disc/volume number as a simple integer number.
I assume that all media inside of the folder D:\Library are just music and nothing else, right?
Use the following folder structure:
D:\Library
\Aerosmith
\Pandora’s Box
\CD 1
Aerosmith - When I needed You.mp3
...
\CD 2
Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic.mp3
...
\CD 3
Aerosmith - Kings and Queens (live).mp3
...
After rectifying all of that, perform the Plex Dance with the album.
(with music, you can omit step 4 of the Dance)
I’ll try putting Aerosmith in there. All media in that folder is music only. I’ll try restructuring the original folder, but at this point I feel like I’m killing myself to correct one aggravating problem. I’m about ready to give up and put all the music under Pandora’s Box, change all the track numbers and line them all up under disc one. I haven’t had this issue anywhere else in similar scenarios so it’s a bit frustrating, but I’ll get over it. Can you tell me if every change I save to the database is permanent? In other words, if I change PCs or have to re-populate the library to Plex in the event of a crash are all changes lost? I have two exact backups of what I have in Plex, but I’d have to think all the capitalization, punctuation and sharper artwork changes I have made might go by the wayside when the time comes to upgrade my PC/Server. Just curious, it probably won’t stop me from doing what I’m doing, but it would definitely suck. Thanks!
Everything I told you is not about editing the Plex database, but rather moving the media files themselves and editing their embedded meta tags.
“mp3tag” is the right tool for that.
So the work you are doing here does not only benefit Plex, but also every other player/media manager software you might be using (either now or in the future).
Just a couple thoughts for you as I was in a similar situation and still am I have been burning my CD collection into Plex and have encountered a few weird things myself. To save you from future frustration I have some bits of advice from my painful recent past:
Whatever album photos or artist photos you use. Save a copy in the artist folder and album art in the album folder and name that file cover.jpg. if you have more than one then add a -1 or -2 so its cover-1.jpg. I didn’t do this at first and did something stupid and had to rescan/refresh/ redo my Plex music library and I had to go back in and redo all of my photo work. It was really annoying. With those in the album folder I didn’t have to do much of anything. The only thing i had to do was put my artist photos in the artist poster again. But since they were in the folder with the music files I didn’t have to scan in or go out and get again.
Plex reads a tag in the file called Artist Sort Order. If you want an artist to sort a certain way either by last name or first name you would set the tag like Bowie, David and that would sort Bowie under B if you put David Bowie it will sort him under letter D
For live albums or bootleg albums. There is a tag that is used in musicbrainz its called release type. If you put live in that tag in the file it should put it in the correct spot in plex. But if the album is not in musicbrainz database like a lot of my Dave Matthews bootlegs, even if you use that tag it won’t be read. Or at least I can’t get it to work at the moment. The only remedy is to input the info into musicbrainz. Which if I have time i might go and do for the dave stuff cause it drives me nuts when they don’t sort properly.
If you merge an artist or album and you have to move the files or put them back in or do anything to the structure of your library you will have to go back in and remerge them.
Hey Ryan - Tons of great info here. Thank you. Regarding #1 I have a copy of every photo or overarching band picture I used in Plex, but really I’m concerned about every “to, for or on” that I capitalized all disappearing if I have to change computers in the near future. I wonder if there is a way to back all that stuff up. With the size of my music library it’s daunting to think I may have to do it all over again when I am forced to upgrade my computer. You know what (seemingly) simple improvement I’d like to see in Plex?; the ability for all compilations and Live records to wrap onto the main page like the albums do. I always have to hit the arrow to make changes to those records and when you don’t see them, out of sight out of mind sometimes. The same for new adds to the database, they should wrap too. When they had the hack I did something stupid too and now I have to hit actually hit my friendly database name to see the new adds where as before they just popped up when I opened Plex. I also need a static IP address to see my database on the road, but even with the YouTube videos I’m loathe to make certain changes. It seems so complicated with both the router and the PC/Server needing adjusting. I’m no novice, but I’m deathly afraid of screwing up my local access or losing changes. Anyway…
I have kinda given up on getting Bowie to show up under B. I can live with it under D as long as everything in the folder lines up where it should. I struggle with anything in that artist tag because I delete all featuring artist stuff so it looks nice of the screen. I don’t care who the featured artist is honestly and it makes a mess. Even in a retrospective with 3 bands to an artist’s credit I delete all the underlying band names so it looks clean. If Clapton has a retrospective with Cream, Solo, Delaney & Bonnie, Blind Faith and whatever else I just let it all show up as Clapton for that particular disc. When you open a file under an artist and record all I want to see it the song titles, nothing else. I sometimes delete the parenthesis with extra info too (such as the interpretation, translation, “Johnny’s Song” or Part 2 if there’s no part one. I just want it to be clean looking. I realize I am as ■■■■ as the day is long…
In my case with the Aerosmith Record, I basically created 3 volumes where I may have wanted to combine the three. Pandora’s Box - Volume 3 probably doesn’t exist on Music Brainz, because if it did it would line up correctly like the other two. Although I have no idea whey Volume 2 lines up correctly. I’ll take a look for sure. I have bootlegs too.
The Merge thing is to be expected I guess. I did several of them already and I’m only on the B’s…Bonham and The Jason Bonham band for instance. I have the feeling I’m wasting my time here trying to perfect/customize Plex, but it looks so much nicer on the monitor when I’m playing MP3 through my stereo. I wish I could go somewhere and institute a rule that capitalizes every T in The or To across the board, but I’m guessing that isn’t happening. I’m curious to see how long this takes me. I started on September 4th doing about 2 hours a day. I don’t even think I’ll be done with the B’s by tomorrow. I like all disc two, three and fours to line up under disc one with a different track number too. Boxed sets can really set you back time-wise, but it is what it is.
Thank you so much for offering your insights! - John
All you need to do is to edit the Artist and set the “Sorting Title” to “Bowie, David”.
As long as you set the “AlbumArtist” of that album to just “Eric Clapton”, then you can keep the actual band ot the tracks in their “Artist” tags.
Like i did for this album, because in my mind it doesn’t make sense to have a separate artist for it:
You are very detailed with your libraries. That is some dedication. I would like to get my libraries that detailed and nice. That is what I am shooting for slowly. Its a marathon.
My approach has been as Otto posted, which is to minimize the amount of edits I make in Plex and to have good folder structure and metatags in my files.
I use Musicbrainz Picard to make my metadata edits. I do everything I can to fix things in musicbrainz and then see what Plex does with it, I tweak the tags and metadata till I see it as close to the way I want it in Plex, and then as a last resort I edit in Plex to clean it up nicer. Good luck to you and thanks for sharing. Hopefully it doesn’t take you long.
Thanks Ryuzaki_2 - I downloaded MB Picard, but not sure how to tweak the metadata. I see categories up top with slide bars on them. I added my local entry and pushed the compilation slide all the way to the right. Is that what I’m supposed to do? I didn’t hit “make it so” yet because I wanted to check with you. I never seem to find anything that designates album vs compilation anywhere. This could really be what I’m looking for if it works so thank you so much!
Hey Ryan - Update. I fooled around with a couple of things on MusicBrainz Picard and actually think I did something, but couldn’t repeat it. I was watching a YouTube video on how to work with it, but I struggled with a plugin (TMI, anyway) and just started winging it. I found a a column after scanning my entry and saw it was marked as album/compilation. I cut out the album part and hit save. All of that music disappeared right then and there. I have no idea where it went. I had to re-establish it from a backup and re-enter it. Lo and behold, Plex found it and placed it right where I wanted it. I still can’t figure out how I did it, but problem solved. It’s amazing when Plex disappears things. I sometimes remove periods or hyphens such as The Byrds Mr Tambourine Man. I’ve learned to change the title of the record first because if you change the song first it disappears. Then when I wanted to tag artwork back on Mr Tambourine Man vs Mr. Tambourine Man I had to furnish my own artwork. The record was no longer recognized by Plex. I’m a menace to it I guess. I’m learning. Thanks again.
That sounds great. I’m Glad you found some way to work through. Just be very careful with Picard. Picard has a setting I think by default it will Move files when you hit save. To find where your files go, in the Picard Preferences under the File Naming Section of the preferences, there is a tick box at the top that says move files when saving.
If you want Picard to move the files when you save it will move them to the destination folder you have chosen. So check there and you should see where the file went. Picard will name your files the way the basic script is set to name files. I am not sure off the top of my head if Picard uses Plex friendly naming scheme.
If you don’t want Picard name and move your files, you should uncheck the move files when saving box. Just for reference, Naming Script Forum Post this post was from almost two years ago but this is the file naming script that I use for my files and folders.
In Picard under preferences under the file naming section, there is a drop box where it says selected file naming script. You can add your own naming script and Picard will then name files and folders using that script. Its a bit advanced so proceed with caution. Also backup backup and test Picard settings on one track or one album at a time to be sure its not mucking up your files.
You can add tags such as compilation and you can change the release type and that should help Plex to put the albums in the correct location.
