[Split out from
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=348047 - DB]
By the way, there is a Singles node available by default in Music. Frankly when I saw this node for the first time I thought it could allow to separtate music albums from the music singles, but it collects the songs without the album title instead. Will it be possible to list music albums and music singles separately, keeping in mind that the music singles always have their own album title?
Confused by this comment @
garfield so split into it's own thread for discussion rather than get muddled into boxed set feature etc. Also singles have been posted about recently so there may be others specifcally interested in this topic.
The Singles node
does allow separation of albums from singles - Albums node only shows albums and Singles node only shows the singles.
Quote:but it collects the songs without the album title instead
Well that is what a "single" is - a music file containing a single track that is
not tagged with an album title.
Something with an album title creates album in the library, it may be an album with only one song but it is an album.
@
DaveBlake I wonder if there is a confusion in terminology, as I remember a similar query very recently.
Single as used by Kodi means single tracks that are not part of any album.
Perhaps when people see Singles they think of CD Single releases that have several tracks e.g. 4 tracks. If you rip CD Singles and want tracks to remain grouped it's best to treat these as mini-albums, and if you don't want these with your normal full albums then custom nodes will have to be created, or use the sources feature introduced.
Please concider the most part of this post as a hidden behind the spoiler tag. I would do that if there is the spoiler tag available here.
Not necessarily CD singles. There are also download singles, 7" vinyl singles, 10" vinyl singles, 12" vinyl singles, cassette singles, DVD singles... A single could easily contain more than 10 different tracks in one release. They could be different remixes of the title song or the title song plus b-side song(s) and/or their remixes. If there are more than 3 different b-side songs then the single becomes the EP (extended play).
That doesn't mean the artist couldn't release an album that contains 5 or 6 songs which is also EP. Example: Depeche Mode's "Love In Itself and live tracks" is the second 12" single of the Love In Itself song but it also is the EP even in its CD form which also contains the 12" remix of the title tong; Martin Gore's "Counterfeit E.P" is initially an EP, just a short album that contains 6 different songs.
Music albums (LP - extended play) should contain 7 or more songs.
Singles most often are multipart releases. There are usually 7" single with initial title song and a b-side song(s) or their 7" versions; 12" single(s) with extended 12" versions of the title song and/or the b-side song(s); CD single(s) which could contain the same tracks/remixes as vinyl ones or some exclusive remixes; the same is for digital download singles.
I just wanted to say that the Single is absolutely not a song without album title. All singles always have their album titles. Technically they are albums, but they are singles.
Anyway, the support of the album type tag is a highly appreciated thing.
That then is where the misunderstanding is, Singles as defined by Kodi are single tracks not part of any album in your music collection. In this case as they are not part of an album, since they maybe a single tracks purchased from iTunes, Amazon etc, there should be no album defined in the tags.
(2019-10-06, 11:10)garfield Wrote: [ -> ]I just wanted to say that the Single is absolutely not a song without album title. All singles always have their album titles. Technically they are albums, but they are singles.
Well you can of course say that, you can define "singles" to be whatever you like and in the music publishing world it can be used for a wide number of meanings.
However what Kodi does is very simple: those music files without an album title tag are shown under the Singles node. If a scanned music file has an album tag value then an album entry is created in the library for every unique album title, artist(s) or musicbrainz id(s) combination. Music files with the same album title, artists(s) and mbids are grouped into the same album. You can have just one track from an album in your collection, there is no numeric limits enforced.
But say a user wants to split their music collection separating the LPs from the EPs (or even the 12" from the 7") there are a number of way this can be achieved.
1) Use multiple music sources and filter by source. This gives control by locating EPs under one folder, and 7" under another, move the file it comes into a different category for filtering in smart playlists and custom nodes.
2) Use album type. For each album (as defined inside Kodi) a type value is held. This is initially populated from the TXXX:MUSICBRAINZ ALBUM TYPE/RELEASETYPE tag added by Picard with Musicbrainz data like "album; compilation" or "EP; remix" or "single" see
https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Release_Group/Type, but since it is just a string users can put whatever they like in this tag value instead. It can also be modified using an album.nfo file. This field can then be used for filtering in smart playlists and custom nodes.
Just some suggestions.
I would call this Orphan Songs out of the box. But it is really not a problem as I could just change the node's name easily. And it is a really useful node as it helped me to find incompoletely tagged albums.
As for your second suggestion regarding the sorting by release type I was searching for the Release Type or something like that in the Node Editor, and have totally skipped just the Type tag.
Thank you for your suggestions, especially because they do their job!
(and sorry for drilling your brains
)
Is there a Singles node? I've only ever seen Songs.
(2019-10-06, 15:22)Hitcher Wrote: [ -> ]Is there a Singles node? I've only ever seen Songs.
Yes and if you don't see it then all your files MUST have a Album Title tagged.
(2019-10-06, 15:11)garfield Wrote: [ -> ]I would call this Orphan Songs out of the box
Why? there are plenty of sources where you can single tracks which may or may not be part of album. If you have no desire to have the whole album then there's nothing orphaned about them, the Singles node allows for the album title tag to removed if they contain one so the Albums view does not get polluted with loads of single track albums.
(2019-10-06, 15:32)jjd-uk Wrote: [ -> ] (2019-10-06, 15:11)garfield Wrote: [ -> ]I would call this Orphan Songs out of the box
Why? there are plenty of sources where you can single tracks which may or may not be part of album. If you have no desire to have the whole album then there's nothing orphaned about them, the Singles node allows for the album title tag to removed if they contain one so the Albums view does not get polluted with loads of single track albums.
I have explained this earlier. Even if one purchases just one or a couple of songs from the album, those songs still remain a part of the specific album. If the song has never been a part of an album then it is a one track single that still has its own album name which is equal to the song's name. It is not my caprice but an industry standard. That's why a song with the empty Album tag can be a single in no circumstances.
As I've said earlier it doesn't really matter how this node is called by default as it could be easily renamed or removed.
(2019-10-06, 15:11)garfield Wrote: [ -> ]As for your second suggestion regarding the sorting by release type I was searching for the Release Type or something like that in the Node Editor, and have totally skipped just the Type tag.
There is room for confusion here because of naming of tags (embedded in music files), xml tags (seen in nfo files) and field names in music db (if you start poking about in there). It is unfortunate, but there you are. To try to clarify it is easilest to start with the db.
The album table in the db has a strType field that can hold anything the user wants, and a strReleaseType field that is used internally and must not be modified. The strType field is the value used as a filter for the "type" rule in "albums" smart playtlists.
Both these values are exported into album.nfo files as <type> and <releasetype> respectively. Users can set <type> to something and it is applied to change the db value when the nfo file is scraped, changes to <releasetype> make no effect internally to Kodi.
There is a tag, provided by Picard but other tagging software could also add this, called "release type" in the Picard UI and written as metadata to the following named tags in the various formats:
TXXX:MusicBrainz Album Type,
RELEASETYPE
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMTYPE
----:com.apple.iTunes:MusicBrainz Album Type
MusicBrainz/Album Type
The values in this tag end up in the strType field of the db taken from the first song of the album.
It would have been better if Musicbrainz had been consistent with their tag names, Kodi could also have avoided calling an internal field "strReleaseType" given the possible tags confusion, but stuff like that happens.
So once again documented for posterity, and maybe a useful reference for someone searching in the future.
Enter album type values (via a music file tag somethings called "RELEASETYPE", or <type> xml tag in album.nfo files), and filter on them in any ways that are meaningful to you .