Plex, Musicbrainz and multiple releases of the same album

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

I have all of my music properly entered into Musicbrainz and then added as flac tags via Picard. This works great except for two related cases.

  1. I have multiple copies of the same album. Generally, I will only rip one copy of the album, but some of them have different songs on each version. I have all of the tags set to the specific MB releases but Plex treats it as the exact same album with the only difference being the set list.

  2. Despite setting the specific MB release tags and embedding the cover art into the files, Plex is picking up the generic overall release data. I have to go in and find the correct cover art and it doesn’t show any of the additional text such as (store exclusive) etc.

Is there a way to get Plex to recognize the specific release details? I see there’s a “Prefer Local Metadata” option but I’m a big hesitant to check that and have it mess up my entire library. Also, I want Plex to still fill in any missing data as my files don’t include the artist bios or pictures, etc.

2

There is no alternative to this option if you want several releases of the same album and want to see the literal album and track titles from your embedded metatags.

Yes, it has some potential to mess things up, if

  • your files are missing “album artist” meta tags
  • your files are not stored in the recommended folder structure
  • you have albums with different (or no) “album artist” stored inside the same artist folder
3

Rather than editing your current library, I recommend creating a new “test” library with the “prefer local metadata” option enabled. That way, you can see what Plex will do without messing up your existing library.

BTW, there’s a little more to do than just that checkbox to fully configure Plex to use local tags:
[HowTo] Configure Plex to use embedded metadata (music)

4

I’m not against turning it on. I just want to make sure it will solve my problem. :slight_smile:

All of my files are organized and tagged via Picard so the layout and metadata should all be correct.

Where will Plex look for the album title from? Just the folder name or is it checking the files as well?

5

I saw that but since it’s 5 years old I wasn’t sure if that was still the recommended method.

6

Primarily embedded meta tags. Your files should be all tagged with

  • album title
  • album artist
  • track title
  • track artist
  • track number
  • disc number (if multi-disc album) The disc number does NOT belong into the album title meta tag!
  • “Genre” tags are being read if the library option is set that way. If you want several genres, separate them with semicolon.

Plex cannot read meta tags whatsoever from WAV and AIFF files and Matroska containers.
Proven supported containers are mp3, ogg, flac, and m4a.

7

I update it from time to time. To the best of my knowledge, it is accurate for the current versions of Plex.

8

All of my files are flac or the occasional mp3. I’ll give it a try.

9

Why do you suggest making local data first for Artist as well as Album?

Also, if I don’t use local genre tags do I need to worry about that field or the last.fm setting?

10

Also, I did a test library and the only thing I changed was checking Prefer Local Metadata and that seems to have done exactly what I needed. I don’t think I need to worry about the other steps.

Thanks.

11

It’s possible things have changed and I need to update again. :slight_smile:

12

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