[CrankyCraig]

Hi all, I'm hoping for some advice from the more knowledgeable folk on here regarding home made compilations. I've tried a number of times to add some compilations into Kodi, and each time it messes other things up and I have to start over. I'm assuming there's something wrong with my approach.

All of my albums are tagged using MusicBrainz, with the obvious exception of a few home made compilations, and Kodi then correctly matches 95% of the albums. When I try to add a compilation album featuring a song/artist previously added to the library, it renames the existing album with the compilation name. I use Mp3tag to edit the tags for the compilation albums, such as:

Title: Track Name** 
Artist: Artist**
Album: Sound Test
Track: Track Number**
Album Artist: Various Artists

(**Variable per compilation)

All other tags are left blank

So, in the example above, an Album previously added to my library by Amon Amarth entitled 'Deciever Of The Gods' becomes 'Sound Test', along with any other albums by artists featuring on the 'Sound Test' compilation.

So, can anyone suggest where I'm going wrong?

[DaveBlake]

My first guess would be that the music files of your "home made compilations" have Muiscbrainz Id tags, that is the only reason exitsing library entries would get modified. If mbid tags exists Kodi assumes they are accurate and definitive. You say "all other tags are left blank", but are you sure? In Mp3Tag select a song and use ctrl+T to see the extended tag list, that will show more tags than the usual main screen does.

But I also want to know more about the "home made compilations". If you have these songs on other albums in your library, do you in fact just want to make playlists of selected songs instead?

Also to help Kodi know something is a compilation set the COMPILATION tag in each music file.

[CrankyCraig]

Thanks very much Dave, great advice. You're exactly right, I was completely unaware of the tags in the extended section. That explains why Kodi was doing so well matching them with, as I incorrectly thought, so little information. Though I've only spent a couple of mins trying, there doesn't seem an immediately obvious way to clear these Tags on mass. I'll keep looking.

You're also right to question why I do it this way instead of using Playlists. I think this methodology stems from a life before Kodi and Plex, when it was much harder to get devices such as laptops and MP3 players to interact with one another, and I was using playlists in other programs like Windows Media Player (shudder). Those were dark days, when copying files proved much more dependable than playlists, which would stop working because a single file had been deleted or moved. 

Since those days Plex/PleXBMC has been my primary music player, and it's worked well like this, though it has meant sacrificing playlists, and some lyrics and fanart. As of Monday I binned my ancient Kodi installations and started fresh, with a new skin, PlexKodiConnect and direct paths for music. I'd forgotten all about Kodi's playlists, which I'd been keen to try but never could. You've opened my eyes to a world of possibilities. Thanks again.

Kind regards, Craig.