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Option to keep soundtrack from multiple artists under the same album


Jurtaani

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So on the previous stable version and with every other music players on Android or pc I had my songs organized by the tag feature inside the files. 

With the latest alpha version everything is otherwise OK,  but with albums that contain tracks from multiple artists I get new album under the same name but with the different artist. 

 

Example if I had movie or game soundtrack with multiple artists but in the same album, I would get something like this on the albums list 

The terminator osd - artist number 1

The terminator osd - artist number 2

The terminator osd - artist number 3

And so on

With stable version and other players I would get only "The terminator osd - multiple artists" that would contain everything in the album. 

 

When this happens with multiple soundtracks things get really messy and it makes it almost impossible to find what I want to play. 

 

Off course that "artists number 1" and so on was just a example, it does say the real artist name instead of that. 

But when we actually have that option to search music per artist, this separation only messes things up. 

 

I don't mind if this however stays as a option or even as a default way to show the albums, but please make option to combine all the albums under one album. Even if it has multiple artists on it. 

Best way to show them (in my opinion) would be "the terminator osd - multiple artists" like it was. 

However I can see that may someone else would like this way, but things like this should be optional. 

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This is most likely related to the implementation of support for the Album Artist tag, which so many people had been asking for. Try using that mode, and also check the option in Settings > Folders and Library > Lists > Join Albums and see if that helps your situation.

Personally, I just use Folder and Filename sorting, takes all the guesswork out of how a file has been tagged.

Andre

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Sadly that join albums thing did absolutely nothing, I still get same albums "repeated" on the albums view. 

Stupidest thing is that there already seems to be "albums by artists" view that does exactly the same thing as the album view does now. 

So most likely this is a rather large bug (at least on the usability side) and hopefully it will be fixed,  so I don't have to keep using the old version indefinitely. 

Edit: forum wouldn't let me post my screenshots because they were over 50kb limit, so there is imgur link for them. 

Poweramp alpha albums view bug https://imgur.com/a/AaNYR

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Do these collection albums have a valid Album Artist tag to ensure they are treated as one album?

Otherwise, PA should not just assume that the same "Album Title" tag but with differing "Artist" tags for each track is the same product. For example, you could have several albums titled just "The Ultimate Collection" (actually there are hundreds on Amazon) but if they have different Artist names then they should be treated as separate albums not all bundled into one. What you are asking for would group the "Ultimate Collection" by ELO along with the "Ultimate Collection" by Roy Orbison, Jim Reeves, The Eurythmics, Anastacia, etc. That's why the Album Artist tag is useful to bring a varied group of songs by different artists into one entity.

Andre

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I'm not sure but at least on the old stable version it did group that album  under the same big collection like it should. 

However couldn't that albums by artists view be what has this behavior,  and that albums view remain like it was on the old version? 

That way people who want this new way could be happy and also people like me would be too. 

Or there could be option under the settings for this. 

And what you said about the ultimate collection example, then I would rather just edit the files and change the album name to ultimate collection by *artist name and then both albums would be separated from each other. 

Now only option would be me to go ahead and remove the artist name tags from the album, just to restore them under the same album. 

At least according to other players on Android and windows, those files are OK. 

And if those files worked fine on the old Poweramp, then why wouldn't they work on the new one too? 

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2 hours ago, atomi said:

I'm not sure but at least on the old stable version it did group that album  under the same big collection like it should. 

Yes it did, but it shouldn't have. This was reported numerous times by users as a bug.

The old fix, as you have suggested, was to rename the Album Title field to something unique, which is a workaround rather than the correct answer - especially where you have two artists who happen to have released albums with the exact same title. The correct answer is to use the Album Artist field (try setting it to "Various") which should now be supported for any "Various Artists" / Collection albums you might have, which is basically what you are describing. 

Andre

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As for now I have settled in using the old stable version, as it works as it should (for me at least) 

However for the future it would be better if there was different shorting for the old way (albums) that contains the whole album. Then there could be that albums by artists view that had different albums for every artist. 

Now it makes no sense because both albums and albums by artists view both contains the exact same layout. 

 

I know that this new way makes sense for some use cases.  but when we have two shorting options that are named differently (albums) and (albums by artists),  but contain the exact same shorting. That makes no sense at all. 

 

However I have to step down because I have 4.4.2 kitkat rom on my phone, and after seeing what it is like to use my s5 with lollipop it is how it will stay. 

But this phone and it's kitkat rom aren't forever as I'm looking if Nokia will release the rumored 128gb/6gb version of the Nokia 8 or not, I'm going to upgrade to it. 

And I don't think that if not Oreo, then maybe the next Android P is what breaks the old stable Poweramp. 

So for the future having the both layouts working would be the best way to go. 

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As I said before, just fix your files to use the Album Artist tags. Without those tags, PA has no way to know that the same Album Title tag, but by a different artist, should be treated as being the same thing, and nor should it really (as I said, this has been reported as a bug for many years). There is also a Various Artists tag in the ID3 format, but I don't know if PA uses that. 

Andre

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Well call it a bug but I call it a miracle!

because after I restored the old stable version using titanium backup (both the app and the data), play store decided to ignore my request not to automatically install Poweramp updates. 

However even though I have alpha 703 play store version installed, without "fixing" my files everything appears to be just like it was in the old stable version. 

I even didn't have access to my computer between the last restore and accidental update, I literally have no idea how but now it works. 

Even though in the albums view it says on those collections "unknown artist" and groups them under one album. 

On the albums by artists view it shows them just like it used to show them(on the artists view) , when I posted this thread on here.

 

Now I probably have to take "protected backup" of the working Poweramp just to be safe. 

 

Well apparently Poweramp went bit crazy when I went to 7 hour Helsinki - Tallinn and back cruise (for tax free liquor off course ?) 

I didn't have reliable internet for the whole time.

 and for some odd reason even though I have had normal internet access for several hours now, and I have been using Poweramp good amounts of time too. 

Only after I posted this reply, It went back to the "normal" mode, so I give up and I will edit the excessive library of music again so our lord and savior Poweramp will be satisfied. 

Otherwise I would have just returned to the old version, but if not oreo then most likely either Android P or at least Q would be incompatible with the old version. 

But I still don't understand what use there is to have both "albums" and "albums by artists" view. 

 I would understand that the albums view had "90's hits - various artists" while albums by artists view had that same album separated in a smaller groups by artists like it is now on both views. 

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I must admit I don't really understand the subtle difference between "Albums" and "Albums by Artist" (and they both seem to share the same list options). Using "Album Artists" is different though in the way it uses tags.

As I said before, either ensure your tags are set correctly or use Folder/Filename view (which is how I use Poweramp, as I prefer the complete sorting control that mode gives me just by renaming folders).

Andre

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  • 3 years later...

I've got a folder of mp3s, a top 500 list that has a huge amount of individual artists in it, had it for years, worked well enough on my old iPod because i could quite easily convert the "Artist" field to "Top 500" or whathaveyou, so that all these various artists would be shown under that one tag, but in Poweramp I'm not finding any easy way to do this.

Basically, there are hundreds of artists in this folder of 500 songs, which results in my artist list swelling massively with row upon row of artists with the same icon and only a song or two for each of them.

I want some way to say that this folder is a compilation, or something, and for it all to be presented under one artist header.. can this be done in Poweramp?

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You can only edit tags one song at a time in Poweramp, you need to use a batch tag editor to assign a common Album and Album Artist tag to all of your individual songs so they get treated as one 'album'. Some common batch tag editors are TagScanner or MP3Tag on a PC, or AutoTagger on Android.

The individual Artist tags can remain different and relevant for each song, it will become just like a very large 'Various Artists' collection disc. I do exactly the same thing with my Singles collection, which I tag along the following lines:

Title: Africa
Artist: Toto
Album: (Singles)
Album Artist: Various Artists
Track#:
Disc#:

Title: A Walk in the Park
Artist: Nick Straker Band
Album: (Singles)
Album Artist: Various Artists
Track#:
Disc#:

Title: All Right Now
Artist: Free
Album: (Singles)
Album Artist: Various Artists
Track#:
Disc#:

I use "(Singles)" as my fake Album Title in order to force it to the top of the Albums category when the library is alphabetically sorted, but you could use "[Singles]" (square brackets) to force it to the bottom of the list if you want. Or in your case, something like "(Top 500)" or "[Top 500]" would be ideal.

I leave the Track# and Disc# tags blank, as there seems no point trying to sort my very random list into any sort of faked track order, but you could create 500 individual track numbers if you felt so inclined - a batch tag editor could even auto-number them for you.

Andre

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