# Replace Artist Sort with Artist Name
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artist-sort-with-artist-name/67272
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 25, 2025, 5:09am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artist-sort-with-artist-name/67272 "2025-01-25T05:09:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pixelchef](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/pixelchef)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2025, 5:09am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artist-sort-with-artist-name/67272/1 "2025-01-25T05:09:18Z")
My Artist Sort got all messed up using Picard (never doing that again even if it reduced album art metadata). Wanted to sanity check and ask here after searching the forum but couldn't find my exact issue.
Current Song metadata:
Title: Don't Touch Me
Artist: Bettye Swann
Sort Artist: Swann, Bettye
Desired Song Metadata:
Title: Dont' Touch Me
Artist: Bettye Swann
Sort Artist: Bettye Swann
I figure I can use an action to replace Sort Artist with Artist name but couldn't get the regex right. Currently this issue is moving Bob Marley to the M's section in macOS Music and the song above to the S section etc. This is an example but I don't mind adding it where there isn't anything [Replace ARTISTSORT with ARTIST](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artistsort-with-artist/57367). I want to replan all ARTISTSORT and mirror ARTIST in that field.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2025, 6:43am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artist-sort-with-artist-name/67272/2 "2025-01-25T06:43:00Z")
Create an action of the type "Format value" or use Convert\>Tag-Tag for ARTISTSORT
Format string: %artist%
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2025, 12:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artist-sort-with-artist-name/67272/3 "2025-01-25T12:54:05Z")
> [@pixelchef](#):
>
> Artist: Bettye Swann
> Sort Artist: Swann, Bettye
This is the expected "correct" tag field value for Artistsort for traditional music cataloging. For band names only leading terms like A, An, or The are dropped in most cases. For Artists using their proper names, sorting is by last name, first name.
If your personal preference is to use first name last name in your own library, perhaps there is a setting in Picard to change that before you run any further data through it? Otherwise as suggested by @ohrenkino you can use the Format Value in the converter to apply the value from Artist to Artistsort.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2025, 1:11pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artist-sort-with-artist-name/67272/4 "2025-01-25T13:11:51Z")
It's true what @MotleyG says.
> [@pixelchef](#):
>
> My Artist Sort got all messed up using Picard (never doing that again...)
Picard did it correct with
Artist: Bettye Swann
Sort Artist: Swann, Bettye
Of course you can change it to your desired metadata
Artist: Bettye Swann
Sort Artist: Bettye Swann
but this is not what [ARTISTSORT](https://docs.mp3tag.de/mapping/#artistsort) is meant for.
If you do not want MusicBrainz Picard to write ARTISTSORT to your files at all, you can follow this advice:
> **[I want to prevent Artist Sort and Album Artist Sort from being written by...](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/i-want-to-prevent-artist-sort-and-album-artist-sort-from-being-written-by-default/586290/2)**
>
> You can use a script in Options \> Scripting to unset this data: $unset(artistsort) $unset(albumartistsort) Or if you actually also want to delete existing tags from files when saving use $delete: $delete(artistsort) $delete(albumartistsort) ...
This suggestion also includes the 2 lines to write the ARTIST or ALBUMARTIST to the SORT fields.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2025, 1:12pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-artist-sort-with-artist-name/67272/5 "2025-02-24T13:12:24Z")
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