Action - Artist Name with Multiple Artists in Field

General Discussion
1

So, I've tried to find this topic in the forums and my search has turned up bagels.

My issue is as follows:

I have set up an Action to reverse First and Last names for ARTISTSORT which works great as below.

ARTIST = David Guetta

to

ARTISTSORT = Guetta, David

But when I have a "Feat..." or some other modifier, I get:

ARTIST = David Guetta (Feat. Nicki Minaji)

to

ARTISTSORT = Minaji), David Guetta (Feat. Nicki

Obviously not what my goal is. In my ideal world, I'd get

ARTIST = David Guetta (Feat. Nicki Minaji)

to

ARTISTSORT = Guetta, David (Feat. Nicki Minaji)
OR
(better) ARTISTSORT = Guetta, David (Feat. Minaji, Nicki)

But I'd settle for

ARTIST = Guetta, David (Feat. Nicki Minaji)

to

ARTISTSORT = Guetta, David

Anyone know how to do this (or where to point me if it's already in another thread I'm too stupid to find)?

Thanks!

2

Perhaps this thread could help you:
Split a string on the first space?

3

Good suggestion, but no. That's actually the thread that I'd used when I created my original Action for ARTISTSORT. It solves for long artist names, but doesn't solve for collaborative artists.

I'm really trying to get the string to ignore anything after a certain point, such as a "(" or "Feat.".

4

It looked a little different in the example "ARTISTSORT = Guetta, David (Feat. Minaji, Nicki)" but I don't want to start any nitpicking here.

If a structure becomes rather complicated you could either use a filter and run a single action or apply an action group that digs down its way along the structure or do both.
In your case this would be the part in front of the brackets and behind it.
So filter for tracks with
%artist% HAS "(feat"
and then apply an actiongroup of the type "Replace with regular expression"
Search string:
(.) (.) ((Feat.*))
Replace string:
$2, $1 $3

Second action in that group:
Search string:
(.) (feat.(.) (.*))
Replace string
$1 (Feat. $3, $2)

5

Thank you!

Actually, I was just playing around and the following, although less than elegant, seems to work for me.

GUESS VALUES
%albumartist%
%albumartist% feat. %null%

I can then use other actions to address other naming conventions and move the results back where I want them.

I've actually done a whole group of GUESS VALUES actions within the group so as to cover a range of modifiers (vs, and, etc) I want to crop out for sorting purposes.