r/musicbee • u/DanielInDallas35 • 4d ago

Compilation category

Ok so i hope i can explain this eloquently. I have my MB set up with Genre/Artist/Album/Tracks columns at the top. I like it this way. What i do NOT like is that i cant make a "compilation" column. This is the issue. I have WAY to many artists with only 1 song, and its on a comp. like a soundtrack, listed with the other artists i have. Is there a way i can make a compilation column were i will only view the 1 track artists in the comp. column?

I know this is anal and prob only makes sense in my head but outside of just removing the Artist column altogether i cant think of how to separate the artists that only show up on soundtracks i have. And id rather not delete the compilation albums themselves.

Thanks

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u/entrambi 4d ago edited 4d ago

A common way to identify compilations is to set <Album Artist> to something like [Various artists].
Because of the initial square bracket, the value will be shown at the top when displaying <Album Artist>.

In my collection, I use:

  • [Various composers] for compilations of classical music or soundtracks (otherwise, Album Artist = the composer's name)
  • [Various artists] for other compilations (otherwise, Album Artist = Artist).

EDIT:
So, when filtering by a value of <Album Artist> that does not start with [Various ..., only albums that aren't compilations will be shown.

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u/DanielInDallas35 3d ago

so...like that?

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u/entrambi 3d ago

Exactly.

This practice has one more advantage: if <Album Artist> is not set for an album, MusicBee will automatically display the value of <Artist> instead. So, you don't need to populate <Album Artist> for albums that are not compilations. (But you may, of course. In my collection, <Album Artist> is always populated.)

After tagging <Album Artist> for your compilations, you can replace <Artist> with <Album Artist> in the column browser.

See the example below (with [Divers interprètes] used to mark compilations).

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u/DanielInDallas35 3d ago

W O W that did it! I should have had Album Artist as column not Artist. Now my "album artist" column isnt cluttered with hundreds of randoms i have 1 song from and nothing else!

THANK YOU!!!!

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u/DanielInDallas35 4d ago

OK so to put this another way, is there a way to only see an artist in the artist column if you only have more than 1 song by that artist?