Audio compilations on USB

ausdma said:

Can't find this answer on searching the forums. Got a 64gb thumb drive and been putting music on it.

I have a number of compilations (a CD with a number of songs by different artists) I like to listen to. No matter how I put them in the folder structure, when I select Albums in the UI it displays each song in the compilation as if it is a separate album. I can get to them through the Folder Structure view but the Album view is screwed up.

Am I missing something?

Click to expand...

You're not missing something. Folder access is really the only reliable way to get to your music unless you are absolutely fanatical about managing the metadata tags in your files. There's absolutely no quality control from commercial providers on the metadata: the same artist might show up five different ways, the album field can be garbage, etc. For the compilation, you'd have to edit the metadata tags to change all the album names to be the same.

My guess - if you make sure every song in a given album has the exact same Album name and Album Artist attributes, the songs should be combined into one album on the interface.

Try it out on one album, and see if it works.

iffatall said:

My guess - if you make sure every song in a given album has the exact same Album name and Album Artist attributes, the songs should be combined into one album on the interface.

Try it out on one album, and see if it works.

Click to expand...

Good point -- album and artist has to match (so that everyone's "Greatest Hits" don't end up in the same album).

Robert.Boston said:

Good point -- album and artist has to match (so that everyone's "Greatest Hits" don't end up in the same album).

Click to expand...

Exactly.

By the way, I just want to clarify - I was talking about the "Album" and "Album Artist" attributes. We have to be careful when talking about this because "Artists" is a separate attribute that can be different for different songs within the album.

iffatall said:

Exactly.

By the way, I just want to clarify - I was talking about the "Album" and "Album Artist" attributes. We have to be careful when talking about this because "Artists" is a separate attribute that can be different for different songs within the album.

Click to expand...

I think the real solution would be playlist support. That (and lack of shuffle) make the music player implementation mediocre, IMO.

ausdma said:

I have this feeling that the car must be caching the data because I can change tags and see they have been tagged on the app on my computer but the UI in the car doesn't recognize the changes.

Click to expand...

I believe that the old data are cached based on the filename. If you change just one character in the name of the files whose tags have been updated, the car will recognize the updated metadata. That's been my experience at least.

May not matter since it doesn't sound like the tagging software is at fault, but I've always used MP3tag for my tagging (Don't let the name fool you, it works on most formats, not just MP3s)

Didn't really care for Picard.

I've been unable to get my Model S to recognize my compilations as a single artist. Here are some details:

I'm using FLAC not MP3.

All of the compilations have both AlbumArtist and Compilation flags sets appropriately (AlbumArtist is typically "Various Artists" and Compilation is "1"). I used MP3tag to add the compilation flags: the AlbumArtist had already been set consistently by foobar2000.



To reset any caching I've tried renaming the audio files. I've also tried renaming the album's folder instead of the original files. Neither seemed to have any effect.

Have you had success with compilations of FLAC-encoded audio?

Thanks.

Bump: Anyone using FLAC in the Model S?

Does anyone know a way to clear the music cache. I corrected all the tags in my entire collection. But the UI still shows old tags. I don't want to go about changing the names of every single track in my collection. Any tricks anyone?

AoneOne said:

Bump: Anyone using FLAC in the Model S?

Click to expand...

Certainly. FLAC works great.