What is the difference between album artist and contributing artist

The Artist field then would be whatever artist is singing on that track like Drake feat. From putting music on my Droid and my sisters iPod it appears to be backward. Can anyone shed some light onto this?? I am very close to just putting the main artist in both fields to avoid this non-sense but i am very anal and want to have it the correct way. Also, is there an easy way to switch data from column to column. Meaning can I have the program swap the contents in Album Artist and Artist without having to manually do it?

Also I've recently started using this program so I am looking for new features on it. In general is the albumartist one word if you refer to the tag im mp3tag the superior grouping criterion over artist. For many albums both fields will contain the same data. In compilations though, the albumartist very often becomes "various artists" and the artist then shows the actual performer.

So, always fill the albumartist tag even if it means to duplicate the data. In the FAQs you will find instructions on how to create an action that copies the contents of one field to another. I'm new on Android, got a new smart phone two weeks ago. I tested several free players from the android market.

All group compilations correctly when I sort for album. But most of them show the first artist in the album list as the artist of the album. When I sort for artist, all of them show every single Arist.

None of them has an option to sort for Albumartist. The only exception again "Jukefox". There are a few tracks that have featuring artist on those tracks. There aren't any duplicates, one Artist one Album perfect. I am ill have to stop using Winamp.

The kicker is, as far as I can remember, the format that works on my droid has to be reversed in order to work on my iPod. I'd rather have the tags the right way but i use my iPod in the car and it takes forever to scroll through the artist when there are so many duplicates. My Droid read its correct but the iPod doesn't. Could it be an outdated software on the iPod?

Oh and what about track title. I like to know the featuring artist on that track. The correct way it putting it in the artist field and the player should then show it but should it also be in the title? To be honest, i dont entirely understand your point pone. There's a ton of features MP3Tag has that I dont even know about.

My point isn't about Mp3tag. There I would call myself pretty experienced and I have no problems to get tags from one field into another and using all the other features of Mp3tag. My problem is with the Android's players. There I'm an absolutely neewbie and need some help. Sorry for hijacking your thread with my own questions. Mp3tag has is not specially designed for any specific player and as you have experienced, there are no fixed rules which all players follow at the way they treat and support tag fields.

In order to optimize your files for your players, you have to know what tag fields are supported and how they are treated. That's what I have described for the players I have tested. My built in Droid media player seem to be different from yours. I have dupicates in the artst list where the same artist appears with different featurings. And it seems there is nothing I can change about that. But that ater of course the very last solutions.

And before spoiling all my tags with something like that, I rather forgo sorting correctly by album artist on my mobile player but keep the correct tag fields on my big archive at home. That field has been introduced by itunes, as far as I know, so it should be supported. Enter the value "1" for compilations and leave it empty or enter "0" for standard albums.

When you want the different featuring artists in the ARTIST field, you have to treat the album technically as compilation, because it has different artists. I forgot to mention, I have Cyanogenmod 7 on my droid so that is probably why.

I was disappointed to see that Winamp does not support it. It appears that a lot of players use the artist field to in the filter list by artist. We need javascript to function properly otherwise some things won't work. SMF 2. Album Artist Tags. Pages: 1. Author Topic: Need Help with Artist vs. Album Artist Tags Read times. Need Help with Artist vs. HI all - Sorry, I realize this is a very newbie topic.

I am a newbie, just having started working with MB after years of letting iTunes have its way with my library. What is the intended distinction between the Artist and Album Artist tags? I'm an old guy and my brain still sees my music as a collection of albums. If the vinyl album or CD! Okay, one of those 12 tracks also has Barbra Streisand in duet with Neil, how should I best include her name in the metadata without causing that track to be stripped from the album.

Yes of course, if I search for Barbra Streisand I would like to find tracks on other people's albums in which she sang. Not really very important, but what if four other artists joined Neil on a track?

I'm guessing a Various Artists tag would best be used So glad to have crawled out from under iTunes! Use a mp3 test file and fill the "Contributing Artist" field with a text of your own by using WMP 12, and save this file. Load this test file into Mp3tag. Search for your text and identify the name of the tagfield. Come back into the Mp3tag forum and tell us more.

Thank you guys for your replies. It will take me some time to process all this information.