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iTunes 11 splitting up albums into separate tracks for each song

So I've been importing music from my laptop since there is a lot of music on my laptop which is not yet on my laptop


The problem I'm having is that the albums, after being imported into iTunes split up into a singular album for each song


[IMG]http://gyazo.com/c21fae8795858f94013f237a43dfd6e3.png[/IMG]


Every album in that trio is from the same album, but is split up into three different albums

Posted on Jun 1, 2013 8:53 AM

Reply
25 replies

Jun 3, 2013 9:38 AM in response to bencough

Hello bencough,



The following article details a number of potential reasons for this, and methods for correcting the behavior.


Why aren't songs with the same album art grouped together?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1468


Symptoms

When viewing the iTunes Library or a playlist, songs from the same album may not be grouped together as expected in Album view when sorted by album.

Solution

There are three reasons why songs from the same album may not be grouped together

  • The album names of the songs may differ slightly
  • The songs from the same album may have different artists
  • Not all songs in the album have the same "Album Artist" assigned to it




Cheers,

Allen

Jun 21, 2013 8:46 AM in response to turingtest2

Your article is very helpful and explains a lot. For which many thanks.


But the solutions you propose do not always apply. Let me give an example. My main interest is classical music, particularly choral and vocal music which I also perform.


I'm just loading into iTunes the Collector's Edition of Ralph Vaughan Williams - a set of 30CDs.


CD1, for instance is simple. It contains one complete work, A Sea Symphony. Loaded into iTunes it is the first playlist in a folder called RVW Collector's Edition, and saves as a complete album. Both playlist and album are named 1 - Sea Symphony.


But CD22 is just the opposite. It consists of 29 songs performed by 12 different performers or groups of performers. It shows as playlist 22 - Songs and Choral Folksongs. But you can guess how many albums it makes!


In some cases, several tracks have the same orchestra and conductor and different soloists.


I have about 600Gb of music in my iTunes folder [lives on a dedicated external drive] consisting of some 19,000 tracks. The main performers [choir / orchestra / conductor] are listed in the Artist field because when I loaded the first few albums into iTunes years ago, that's where Mr Apple put them. So for consistency I have continued that habit, and list the other performers, eg soloists under Album Artists.


I can't delete the names of the Album Artists - I often want to compare performances by different performers to help me learn and understand a work, to choose other recordings by those performers, or even to buy tickets for their concerts.


All I want to do is for ME to decide what tracks are included in a any given album. and NOT Mr Apple.


Yes, there has to be a default – but why can't EIHER Apple give us a "Custom Albam" option? Or maybe someone like Doug Adams [whose Applescripts for iTunes are part of my essential toolkit] write an app or script to do it?

Jun 21, 2013 9:06 AM in response to welsbywrites

As mentioned in the Grouping tracks into albums article I find it helps to treat the composer as the artist for classical music. If you don't have to worry about putting the tracks on an iPod classic then you can leave the original performer details in Artist and just set Album Artist as required.


In iTunes an album is any collection of tracks with the same Album title and Album Artist. You can select ranges of tracks and edit common properties as desired, then switch to individual tracks if you need to adjust track numbers.


A method that I sometimes use for box sets is to ignore the artificial breaks caused by the limited CD size and create one album for each work with all its tracks in the correct order. For example I've taken the 4-disc recording of Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, King Arthur and The Fairy Queen and turned it into 3 individual albums (with the same artwork) and I've taken the 3 disc Remains Of Tom Lehrer and reconstructed his 5 original albums, with their respective artwork, leaving the remaining bonus tracks under the box set cover.


tt2

Jun 21, 2013 11:32 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for that.


The problem is that we often have two sets of "performers".


For example, in the RVW album[s] mentioned, there are several orchestral works performed by the New Philharmonia under Boult – and then The Lark Ascending, in which Hugh Bean is the soloist, but with the same orchestra and conductor. In that case I can amend the track name to The Lark...[Hugh Bean]


But what happens with another of the CDs where some of the tracks are performed just by the orchestra, but others have three or four soloists plus a chorus. That string of names is too long to include in the track name field – unless I create a view which omits other useful info.


BTW I agree with you about combining multi-disc works into single playlists and albums. That certainly works where the split is purely on the grounds of disc size, but with works such as operas and some oratorios, eg Messiah, I prefer to separate the acts or parts into separate playlists. If I want to listen to "For He shall Purify" it's easier to find it in a short list of Part 1 rather than a long list of the entire work. But that might be just me!


One solution might be to abbreviate / truncate playlist titles in the sidebar and put soloists etc in the Comments field, then make room for that in the View.


Why doesn't Apple just allow us a choice?

Jun 21, 2013 11:53 AM in response to welsbywrites

welsbywrites wrote:


Thanks for that.


The problem is that we often have two sets of "performers".


Or more... Composer, Conductor, Orchestra, Soloists. All might be important but iTunes doesn't make it easy to record them all. WMP, for example, scores on treating Artist as a collection of values so for The Lark Ascending you could note the artist as New Philharmonia; Sir Adrian Boult; Hugh Bean and then see that piece listed individually in Artist entries for Hugh Bean, New Philharmonia, and Sir Adrian Boult. iTunes will treat this collection as a single value. In an ideal world one might be able to store and retrievie songs based on arbitrary <Name>/<Role> value pairs.


You don't have to put the Artist details into the song Name if you will only be using iTunes and iOS devices. You can, as an alternative, put up to 255 characters of information into the Comments field or an unlimited amount of text into Lyrics.


Like it or not iTunes is geared towards popular music (even then it sill needs work) however it should be possible to create a tagging scheme that works to let you get the most out of the way it behaves. With a wide screen I can usually get all the infomation I want presented in the list views, particularly now that artwork can be enabled in lists.


tt2

Jun 21, 2013 3:04 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks - Discussing this offline with a colleague who has the same issues, we think the solution is


1 transfer all the info which currently lives in Album Artist into Comments,

2 ensure that all the former fields are blank

3 ensure that all playlists with soloists are labelled as Compilations

4 edit all playlist names to reduce character counts, allowing the sidebar to shrink

5 remake playlist views to include the Comments fields


Given the sheer volume of tracks to process, we think we might look for someone who could write an script to do the job.


If a better solution emerges, we'll let you know.

Aug 12, 2013 12:55 PM in response to turingtest2

Please, forgive me my stupidity. I'm experiencing similar problems. And tried everything of the solutions above. But it doen't seem to work as another problems occurs the moment I e.g. change the album artist. Let me give an example. I'm loading into iTunes Bach's Complete Cantatas albums released by Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Hew uses different soloists in different cantatas, so consequently the album is split up. So, I go to 'get info' and change the Album artist. It seems to work (2 album 'squares' become 1), but when I open up the new tracks are gone. Or at least not visible. And I cannot find what to do about it. Can anyone help?

iTunes 11 splitting up albums into separate tracks for each song

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