Returned to EAC..having an issue

steveinaz · May 2016

I downloaded the latest version of EAC and I'm having a bit of an issue with Various Artist CD burns.

My directory structure and filename look fine on my computer:
%artist% - %albumtitle%\%tracknr2% %tracktitle% renders a directory:
Various Artists - Baby it's cold outside\01 Baby it's cold outside.flac, etc.

However,
Various artist, even though they appear fine in directory structure terms on the computer; appear in host programs (in this case Foobar2000) as individual albums---not grouped under "Various Artists."

The newer versions of EAC no longer have the "Various Artists" checkbox on the main screen--its gone. It does still have in the "settings-->filenames" where you can stipulate filename conventions for Various artists albums. I tried:
%artist% - %albumtitle%\%tracknr2% %artist% / %tracktitle% But it wouldn't accept the forward slash character. I tried a - (dash) instead, and that rendered:
Various Artists - Baby it's cold outside\01 Dean Martin - Baby it's cold outside.flac; however, Foobar2000 still splits all the artist out as if they are seperate artists, rather than a compilation one 1 album.

Sooooooooo....what are you guys using as a filename convention in the "Various Artists" string?

JPete · May 2016

I use Foobar sometimes. To compile all of the songs together from various artist albums, I create a new folder in the library that Foobar is pulling from and put the songs into that folder. Doesn't sound like you have your files setup right for Foobar to display the way you want.

I actually created separate folders in my library for each album while I was ripping the CDs so the Foobar library was neat and organized. If I didn't do that, it comingled all of the albums from one artist together, which I didn't like. I think adding another level to your file hierarchy will do the trick.

I hope this is what you're looking for, or maybe I misunderstood. If I did, then disregard.

Emlyn · May 2016

To avoid confusion, a few years ago I just named all compilation and soundtrack CDs as "Mix" in the artist field then used the regular album name and integrated the artist name for each track into the song title field in parentheses at the end of the song title name. Likewise, if there is a collaboration CD, I put the artist as the primary contributor (like "Santana") and incorporate the collaborating artist in the song title in parenthesse at the end like ...(with xxxx). Using "Various" or "Various Artists" in the artist field would do the same thing. I always uncheck the various artists box when ripping a CD. I can still do searches by artist name as they are embedded in the song title fields.

The reason I did this was because of problems with keeping track of song tracks under various artists albums caused by autopopulation of metadata fields.

Emlyn · May 2016

This is how I have files set up in JRiver, with the file structure working across multiple devices for what would have been a various artists album. Main difference seems to be separate folders in the file structure for artist and album:

J:\FLAC Files\Music\Mix\America's Top Ten_ 1970s, Classic Rock's Greatest Hits (Casey Kasem Presents)\08-Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple).flac

J:\FLAC Files\Music\Mix\America's Top Ten_ 1970s, Classic Rock's Greatest Hits (Casey Kasem Presents)\09-Dust in the Wind (Kansas).flac

J:\FLAC Files\Music\Santana\Shaman\03-The Game of Love (Featuring Michelle Branch).flac

steveinaz · May 2016

I got her figured out. Just manual code it.

steveinaz · May 2016

...BTW, one thing I love about my Oppo music interface---it translates album info for display "literally." IOW, it displays your info as typed in on your computer.

steveinaz · May 2016

Better explaination:

I have a various artist CD Titled "Baby it's cold outside" which is a Christmas compilation. It features Dean Martin, Bobby Darryn, Nat King Cole, etc. When I pop the CD in with EAC running, EAC correctly reflects the Artist Name as 'Various" and then each track properly displays its associated artist for that particular song. Ok, cool. When I burn the CD into flac, my computer also shows proper album naming, and groups all the songs under the album. Cool. Now, here's where it falls apart---and I know back when I had a squeezbox it did this also---Foobar2000 displays all the individual artists as if they are all seperate albums. It does not group the songs under the "Various; Baby it's cold outside" folder. I remember squeezeserver giving me some guff about the same issue, but forgot how I resloved it.

ALSO: Might be helpful: When I look at the tag info for particular song, it doesn't display "Various" under Artist like you would expect----it displays "Dean Martin." So, even though "Various" was entered in EAC as the artist, Foobar2000 isn't translating right. I'm not sure if EAC is at fault or Foobar2000...but like I said, Squeezebox gave me the same grief at first with various Artists CD's encoded by (earlier version) EAC and using MediaMonkey as front-end.

steveinaz · May 2016

Pete; my hiearchy is (Drive)\Music\Artist - Album Title\Track# SongTitle.flac. "D" being my USB hard drive.

Emlyn; I can simply "hard" tag it and force it to go into the proper folder, but I thought that might mess something up in the future. You would think these burn programs (esp EAC) would have this ironed out by now. I got it to work in the past, but can't remember what I did, and the newest version of EAC lacks the "Various Artists" checkbox. Wierd.

Returned to EAC..having an issue

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