Multiple value artist tag to multiple value artistsort

Support
1

Is there a way how I can do this:

ARTIST: John Lewis:Mick Jagger;Ringo Harrison

-->

ARTISTSORT: Lewis, John;Jagger, Mick;Harrison, Ringo

I have found (and used it) solution how to make this if I have only one artist in ARTIST tag, but how can I do it if there's more than one artist in that tag?

2

Action type: Format value
Field: ARTISTSORT
Format string: %artist%

Action type: Replace with regular expression
Field: ARTISTSORT
Regular expression: ([^;]+)\s([^;]+)
Replace matches with: $2, $1

3

Dano, thank you very much!

4

I’ve been working on a refined version of this that handles all the following artist/composer formats, in fields that are semi-colon separated:

  • Otis Redding → ReddingOtis
  • Booker T. Jones → JonesBookerT
  • Donald “Duck” Dunn → DunnDonaldDuck
  • Al Jackson, Jr. → JacksonJrAl
  • Ludvig van Beethoven → BeethovenLudvigvan

The algorithm is something like:

  • Copy the COMPOSER field to COMPOSERSORT
  • Handle suffixes identified with a comma seperator, plus any number of forenames
  • Handle all other names, with any number of forenames
  • Remove various characters from the sort field

I use the following actions in a group:

  • Format tag field “COMPOSERSORT”: %COMPOSER%
  • Replace with Regular Expression “COMPOSERSORT”: “(?:([^;]+)\s)+([^;]+),\s*([^;]+)” → “$2$3$1”
  • Replace with Regular Expression “COMPOSERSORT”: “(?:([^;]+)\s)+([^;]+)” → “$2$1”
  • Replace with Regular Expression “COMPOSERSORT”: “[". ]" → "”

This is one example of what it can do:

  • Composer: Al Jackson, Jr.;Booker T. Jones;Donald "Duck" Dunn;Junior Wells;Steve Cropper
  • ComposerSort: JacksonJrAl;JonesBookerT;DunnDonaldDuck;WellsJunior;CropperSteve

I shall continue to tune it as I hit any other combinations that break the algorithm.

5

Does it work with groups like "Earth, Wind & Fire"?

In any case: I am pretty sure that any sorting will not produce better results after the first transformed name. Or in other words: Unless there are a lot of varying persons who joined Al Jackson Jr, I doubt that the sorting result will be much better.
Also, I find that the list of persons ist not really sorted. Why would Mr. Wells (letter #22) come before Mr. Cropper (letter #3).

Should be: (IMHO)
CropperSteve;DunnDonaldDuck;JacksonJrAl;JonesBookerT;WellsJunior

6

It does not attempt to address the problem of distinguishing between the names of people (that should be sorted on last name) and the names of groups (that should not). I do this manually, ie. only apply the action to tracks that contain peoples’ names.

I agree about the usefulness of doing the sort field like this. I ought to do some testing to see if it makes any material difference in any interface I use (I’m using Lyrion with a Transporter and a WiiM Ultra).

As for sorting the list of persons, they are usually listed in order of significance, not alphabetical, so sorting them within the field would make no sense.

7

I like what you have done, nice work! As always, any specific use cases for Artists that should not be reorganized such as Earth, Wind & Fire should be handled separately. There are always exceptions.

Plus any library management should be able to separate these multi-value fields and list them correctly anyhow.