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Topic: Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.) (Read 29990 times) previous topic - next topic
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Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Hello everyone,

I am curious what the best way to tag music with multiple artists is. Currently on specific tracks that feature other artists I use a semicolon in between artists when in foobar2000, and a forward slash when importing from EAC (both appear to have the same result, I believe the actual metadata uses a forward slash). This allows me to browse my music collection in foobar2000 with the Facets plugin and have the song come up under both artists.

Now, this is all fine and good but what about hybrid artists? Here is an example. Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse collaborated on an album entitled "Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse: Dark Night of the Soul". When I search my collection, the album only comes up under the artist "Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse" but not each artist individually. Is this correct? Or should I enter "Danger Mouse; Sparklehorse" as the artist?

Furthermore, each track on the album features a different guest singer. So for the artist field on each track I use a semicolon to seperate the artists. Currently the fields look like this:

Artist Name: Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse; The Flaming Lips
Track Title: Revenge
Album Title: Dark Night of the Soul
Date: 2009
Genre: Pop
Composer:
Performer:
Album Artist:
Track Number:1
Total Tracks:13
Disc Number:1
Total Discs:1

When I put the songs on my iPod it creates a different artist in the artist list for each collaboration which is really annoying (for example: Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse; Flaming Lips).

Here is the general information on the whole album:
All songs written and composed and produced by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse - Dark Night of the Soul

  1. "Revenge" (featuring The Flaming Lips) – 4:52
  2. "Just War" (featuring Gruff Rhys) – 3:44
  3. "Jaykub" (featuring Jason Lytle) – 3:52
  4. "Little Girl" (featuring Julian Casablancas) – 4:33
  5. "Angel's Harp" (featuring Black Francis) – 2:57
  6. "Pain" (featuring Iggy Pop) – 2:49
  7. "Star Eyes (I Can't Catch It)" (featuring David Lynch) – 3:10
  8. "Everytime I'm with You" (featuring Jason Lytle) – 3:09
  9. "Insane Lullaby" (featuring James Mercer) – 3:12
  10. "Daddy's Gone" (featuring Mark Linkous and Nina Persson) – 3:09
  11. "The Man Who Played God" (featuring Suzanne Vega) – 3:09
  12. "Grim Augury" (featuring Vic Chesnutt) – 2:32
  13. "Dark Night of the Soul" (featuring David Lynch) – 4:38

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #1 –
Quote from: bnieman on
I am curious what the best way to tag music with multiple artists is. Currently on specific tracks that feature other artists I use a semicolon in between artists when in foobar2000, and a forward slash when importing from EAC (both appear to have the same result, I believe the actual metadata uses a forward slash). This allows me to browse my music collection in foobar2000 with the Facets plugin and have the song come up under both artists.


I think that different tagging systems use different markers for multiple artists. I believe vorbis tags use ";", and mp3 officially uses "/".

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #2 –
Well, most programs/products don't deal with multiple discrete artists per track.

The iPod and iTunes definitely doesn't.  It'll just treat the names as a single item.  It does partially support Album Artist, however.  So, Album Artist (TPE2/BAND for iTunes) should equal "Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse" in your example.  This will at least keep the tracks grouped together as an album (for Cover Flow, etc.) while the individual tracks can have different names in them if you choose to do that.

You can also use the iTunes "compilation" flag, which will hide the tracks/albums under Compilations for grouping.  (Which is fairly stupid, but that was Apple's grouping solution before they added half-baked Album Artist support... and we're stuck with it.)

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #3 –
Thanks for the info on iTunes, very good to know.

As I am gathering from comments here and my own experience, there really isn't a "right" way to tag files since all programs interpret them differently. We could REALLY use a standards system that all currently developing programs could adopt.

Cheers!

Bryan

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Eli on
There are standards and "right" ways, but not everyone uses the standards...


Is there an outline of these standards anywhere? I've scoured the internet but I mostly find articles pertaining to a single issue such as multiple artists or various artists. There isn't a "Wiki" with specific directions on all fields that I could find.

Best Regards,
Bryan

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #6 –
http://id3.org/

a good start

terry

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #7 –
for FLAC:
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

Quote
Field names are not required to be unique (occur once) within a comment header. As an example, assume a track was recorded by three well know artists; the following is permissible, and encouraged:

              ARTIST=Dizzy Gillespie
              ARTIST=Sonny Rollins
              ARTIST=Sonny Stitt

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Eli on
for FLAC:
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

Quote
Field names are not required to be unique (occur once) within a comment header. As an example, assume a track was recorded by three well know artists; the following is permissible, and encouraged:

              ARTIST=Dizzy Gillespie
              ARTIST=Sonny Rollins
              ARTIST=Sonny Stitt


Using a ripper such as EAC, is that tagging possible without manually doing it?  Also, is there a standard way to present this within a cuesheet?

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #9 –
If you are looking for a standard way of tagging multiple artists within EAC, you could try the tagging method recommended by the so-called "uberstandard", if it will fit in your needs.
"Listen to me...
Never take unsolicited advice..."

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #10 –
I'm not familiar with the method.  I tried looking it up and found http://www.uberstandard.org/specifications.html but this doesn't actually describe tagging multiple artists--unless I missed it.  I saw the various artist comment which doesn't really relate to tagging a single track with multiple artists.

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #11 –
I just took the liberty of copying and pasting from the newer document:

"One track or disc with multiple collaborating artists are normally tagged like this — see CorrectTagging for more information.
- Artist & Artist (common way of doing it)
- Artist, Artist & Artist (3 or more in a list)
- Artist/Artist (rare)
- Artist/Artist/Artist/Artist/Artist (tending towards the extreme cases)"

You are right that this wasn't in the link you mentioned, I just don't remember where I downloaded the newer so-called "ÜberStandard 3.1 Specification"

EDIT: However, I might surmise that this may not be the way of tagging you are looking for
"Listen to me...
Never take unsolicited advice..."

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #12 –
Quote from: microUgly on
but this doesn't actually describe tagging multiple artists--unless I missed it.  I saw the various artist comment which doesn't really relate to tagging a single track with multiple artists.
Like I mentioned... most applications don't support "discrete" multiple artist names per track.  So, it's really more about the applications and how they deal with it.

If you don't care about discrete names (or use an application that doesn't support it), put whatever you like in the Artist field and just forget about it.  There is no "standard"; make your own.

Anyway, regarding formats internally:

[blockquote]MP3 ID3v2.3: This de facto standard tagging for MP3 uses "/" internally to split artist names in a single tag, but this is rarely implemented.  (Microsoft follows this part of the ID3 standard... since they were one of the first to support multiple names in their media software.)  Applications that don't support multiple names will see all the names as a single artist entry, so it's somewhat backwards compatible.  Note: Due to character conflict, software needs explicit workarounds for popular artist names like "AC/DC" so they don't get treated as two names.

MP3 ID3v2.4: Internally uses null in a single tag to split artist names.  This informal standard isn't widely used (other than foobar2000, it's primary proponent), so it's also rarely implemented.  Applications that don't support multiple names will probably only see the first artist name entered if it encounters a file tagged like this.

M4A/AAC: No support for discrete multiple names, so some applications use the ID3v2.3-like "/" as an internal separator.

WMA: Full support for multiple names.  Each artist name has it's own discrete entry.  If the application doesn't support multiple artist names per track, it will read the first one.

FLAC (and any loose tagging format): Full support for multiple names.  Each artist name can have it's own discrete entry.  If the application doesn't support multiple artists per track, it should read the first one entered but I've seen some poorly written applications use the last.[/blockquote]From the application point of view, how the product displays or manages multiple artist names per track varies... using semi-colon is often used as a delimiter for display and entry.  (Media Monkey, Windows Media Player, Windows 7/Vista Explorer Shell, foobar2000, etc.)

Tagging Music Files with Multiple Artists (FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)

Reply #13 –
Thanks for the extra info guys.  I should explain my goal in more detail. 

I'm archiving my CD collection to FLAC--one image per album.  My goal isn't to be able to use the flac file in any devices, it's to have them available and correctly tagged so I can seamlessly convert them to any format a device might need.  Part of my goal is to be able to seamlessly set the tags in those formats also, based on the info stored in the FLAC files.

Setting the artist for a track as "Filter & The Crystal Method" isn't so good if in future I have a device that supports multiple artists (which I think Rockbox for the iPod does).  I would prefer to separate the artist in the tagging and combine them if or when needed.  If I can get my tagging to work in Foobar, I'll be happy.

Having said that, I realise now that the biggest piece of the problem is that I can only set the track artist in a FLAC image via a Cue Sheet--as far as I've been able to see, there is no standard for specifying multiple artists in a cuesheet.  I tried seperating them with "/" and ";" but Foobar reads both variations as a single artist.  And if I create a second "PERFORMER" value it's ignored.

I've spent many many hours researching, compiling together commandline tools, and writing a batch script to get the data I need into these FLAC files.  But multiple artists is the final challenge--if it's possible.  If there is no support for multiple artists in a Cue Sheet, please say and I'll settle for a separator instead.