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Music Splits A Mix In A Number Of "Albums"

I continue to struggle with Music. My latest ...


  • A friend and I made a mix of 21 songs.
  • We copied / converted / made duplicates / whatever you call it and changed the name and artwork of the "new" songs to the name / image of the mix.
  • In "Get Info" the album field has our new name and in artwork we dragged in a new picture. And we click the "Album is a compilation of songs by various artists" box.
  • When I search on the title it shows up as six different albums -- all with the same album name and artwork.
  • I've gone to Info and deleted then re typed the album name. I've unclicked the compilation box then reclicked. I've gone to the "Sorting" tab and sorting deleted the "sort as" in the album and let Music repopulate. No luck.


Any other ideas?


I'm running Music 1.0.5.14 and Catalina 10.15.5


Thanks

Posted on Jul 18, 2020 9:07 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 18, 2020 9:31 AM

If iTunes or Music shows multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Get Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:

  • For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
  • For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the application between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.


* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.



Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.



One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my iTunes Match library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and let iTunes autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.



tt2

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 18, 2020 9:31 AM in response to jayessemm

If iTunes or Music shows multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Get Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:

  • For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
  • For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the application between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.


* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.



Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.



One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my iTunes Match library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and let iTunes autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.



tt2

Jul 18, 2020 9:41 AM in response to turingtest2

Hey tt2


I get a feeling whenever I get so "challenged" with my library that I ask a question here you are the one to help me out :-). Many thanks!


I should have remembered the "add xxx" trick. It still took a few tries. For a while I had the xxx mix down to two albums. Finally I deleted the xxxs and that final pesky song fell in place.


Don't get me going on search, song order on my Apple TV, bla bla bla


I really appreciate your help.


Many thanks!





Music Splits A Mix In A Number Of "Albums"

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