Compilations! Argh!

MusicBrainz Picard
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Hello,

First, thank you soooo much to everyone involved in MusicBrainz Picard! It’s bloody fantastic!
On to my question! You must get this often or something similar :persevere:

So, I discovered MusicBrainz Picard via a random youtube video. I followed it’s instructions and now my collection definitely looks better but there’s a few things that irk me.

There is a lot of folders with the Artists Name and 1 audio file inside that has come from a “compilation” or “various artist” albums. Is there any easy way I get the program to go over my new structured library and put all those single files into a folder with a name of the compilation?

I’ve tried googling it but it’s all a bit too much for me, I’m sorry :frowning:

An example would be “Need for Speed Underground Soundtrack”
You can see the tracks here: https://nfssoundtrack.com/ug/
The program using settings from the video I watched put all the individual tracks under the artists name rather than one folder called “Need for Speed Underground” or something. Can it be fixed?

Any info appreciated!

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Here’s an example naming script I use:

$if($and($rsearch(%_secondaryreleasetype%,soundtrack),
		$or($rsearch(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,%_STartists%),$rsearch(%album%,Broadway))),Soundtracks,
	$if($eq(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377),Compilations,
		Albums/$firstalphachar($if2(%albumartistsort%,%artistsort%),#)/$if2(%albumartistsort%,%artistsort%)))

/$if($eq(%album%,[non-album tracks]),%artist% - %title%,%album%)
/$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),%discnumber%-,)$num(%tracknumber%,2) - $if($ne(%albumartist%,%artist%),%artist% - ,)%title%

You don’t need all of this, but I figured you might have follow ups. The first part is what check whether an album is a compilation, soundtrack, or just regular ol’ release and decides which base directory to put it in. The second half handles the subdirectories and file names. There is a specific album artist for Various Artist comps and that’s part of what I trigger the first part on.

Start with something like this:

$if($eq(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377),Compilations,
		Albums/$if2(%albumartistsort%,%artistsort%))

That would put all VA comps under the Compilations folder and all others under Albums. Oh, switch the slashes to backslashes if you’re on Windows.

At the bottom of the options screen you’ll see some examples of what it will do.

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The key is to make sure you make sure you match the files to the right release and select the “Rename files when saving” option.

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You may need to link to that video, or show us what you changed from a default setup. Unless you started adding scripts and changing options a compilation album should stay together under a “Various Artists” folder.

I assume you have some kind of script in place that is moving the files to Artist folders instead of AlbumArtist folders. But that is a guess without seeing the video you followed.

I don’t really know what that script in the post above is doing as I run my Picard more vanilla without lots of scripts rearranging things. I don’t have my Picard moving and renaming files, just updating tags.

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Thnaks thomnottom! I’ll try this tomorrow!

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