Multi-Disc Albums?

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood the question. If you want the album under one cover then it can only have one album title. Here is an approach I've used previously where I've put the names of the two discs of Mike Oldfield's Light & Shade as comments in the track names of the first track of each disk.

tt2

Apple use GraceNote CDDB to look up album details. GraceNote used information mainly submitted by other users and the typical naming convention used for multi-disc albums is as follows

This is an album name [Disc 1]

This is an album name [Disc 2]

This results in iTunes effectively treating it as two albums even though the tracks may also be labelled (in a separate field) as Disc 1 of 2 and Disc 2 of 2 as appropriate.

I personally prefer keeping each disc as a separate 'album' as it allows me to easily select a particular disc to play. If you want iTunes to group the as one album you need to select all the tracks (for both discs) and rename the album name to be the same for all the tracks - using the above example you would then have them all named like

This is an album name

In your case it looks like you want to select all the tracks on both discs and change the album name for all of them to

Iowa (10th Anniversary Edition)

This, and other suggestions, are not working for me. I tried this for a 2-disc set. The first one I uploaded was fine, but when I uploaded the 2nd disc, and change the names for both discs to be the same, the second one disappeared. My reason for wanting multiple CDs to be under a single entry/title is that I listen to opera and other classical music (among other things). Most opera recordings are multiple CDs and it's a pain to have each disc listed as a separate entry. I apologize if I'm misunderstanding previous suggestions, but sincerely appreciate any help that can be offered.

When you rename the second one it will no longer be a separate album but will then be part of the first album. If your looking at the folder in the Finder then if you have iTunes organising files it will also move the files in to the other discs folder.

Try doing a search in iTunes (in the top right corner) for one of the track names for the second disc they should still be there.

To summarise you would modify the album name from something like

My Opera Album [Disc 2]

to

My Opera Album

You should then end up with tracks listed as one album although the track numbers will still reflect they are separate discs, so you will have two track 1, two track 2, etc.

You can still sort them correctly as there is an additional field for 'Disc x of y' and you can sort based on that.

Thanks! I just edited a 2 disc set that I loaded yesterday and made those changes. Made sure that all album name and other fields are identical, and voila! It worked! So simple that I feel embarrassed asking for help. Anyway, thank you so much, John! Made my day.

Thanks for this but I ran into a problem. When I create a Playlist for a group of, say, 3 CDs I have imported they don't play in the right order. I get 3 tracks ones, three track twos and so on. Then the track ones play in succession; and so on. So my question is: how do you get all the tracks from the 3 CDs to play in the right order?

The best way to fix things is set out in One cover for multi-disc album.

You can rearrange any playlist by clicking on different column headings. If you click the heading for the left-most column of numbers (called the Play Order) you can then drag any track up or down the list to your preferred order. If you sort on a different column, such as album, you can right-click the playlist name and then click Copy to Play Order. This ensures that any device gets the order set up in the playlist.

tt2

I have this same problem. I know to remove the "Disc x" from the album title & change the disc reference to "x of y" ... and this work 90% of the time but then there are a number of multi disc albums that that will not allow me to get one of the discs into the same album group. I wind up with 3 of 4 disc's in one group and the 4th by itself. I have noticed that one groups will display the artist plus a year (".... (1996)") while the other will just display the artist w/o the year. When I go into the "Get Info" screens, however, the artist is identically named without the date and the "year" box is blank. I cannot find nor figure out how the year is being generated in the album display page and, although I suspect this difference is why all of the discs will not disply as one multi disc album, I cannot figure out how to fix it.

I have quite a few box sets, and I wished to see them all under a single Album icon/image, with Disc 1, 2, etc. I tried a few approaches and spoke with Apple support too. My conclusion is that iTunes as a product/program has gotten so big, and is used so pervasively, and in such complex combinations (especially if you are a Match subscriber), that it almost has an organic set of actions, rather than robotic. I know that sounds odd, but Apple nearly admitted to such, suggesting in one of my issues, we just "wait it out..."

Regarding the multilpe CD issue, first I found it helpful while loading CDs to be signed out of iTunes. This in essence turns off Genius and Match, and allows you to deal solely with iTunes (local) and the CDs you are loading. Next, note how iTunes reads the meta/data file for the disk. It is at the mercy of the CD mfg, and there is not always consistency in the title text. For example, I had part of a 8-CD box say "Dvorak:" another part say "Dvorak - " and another part with either the colon or dash. After loading, I went into Get Info, and standardized on the use of the dash - and verified the order, disk 1 of 8, 2 of 8, etc. and then all the CDs loaded under a single Album heading as I understand you are looking to do. Other CDs had an embedded [Disk 1], and [Disk 2] in the title. You must remove these from the title, in order for iTunes to file them together and then make use of the "x of y" fields.

After loading, you can sign into iTunes and do Genius - then Load Album Artwork, and then Match. It doesnot make complete sense to me, but doing it this way gave me the results I wanted, which seem to be the same as the results you are looking for. Also, if the initial load have been messed up by iTunes/Match etc, you may need to delete the album and redo, playing attention to the steps described above. Good luck.

Hey guys,

I just figure out this problem by setting “disc x of y” in album-wise,that really works! Another question comes to me,slightly different from original case.

Having a two-disc set of live compilation album ripped into Mac.In the album grid view (iTunes 12.4.1.6), I can view 2 disc in the same album cover.

it’s like below:

[album title]

[artist]•[years]

ーーーーーーーー

disc 1

track#1 [song title]

.

track#10 [song title]

disc 2

track#1 [song title]

.

.

I’d like to know,

can I edit [disc 1] to other preferable names? e.g. “Live at CBGB” or “Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall “ rather than [disc 1] ..[disc x]

Thanks for reply!

Could you explain in detail? Cause I don't see any blanket or field editable over "Disc 1" on iTunes.

I just put the 2CD under the same album cover after setting all tracks

from original disc order using "Track" and "Disc x of y".

And if I name the both discs receptively in [Album] field, then it will soon split into two albums with same cover.

not a serious problem tough, my hysteria maybe 😝

Okay. no problem.

That’s a good idea you keep the whole album in a continuous order and make note in the beginning of each disc.

It would be very cool to me if ‘Disc 1’ being replaced by ‘Light’ and ‘Disc 2’ by ’Shade’ with respective track order just like how we used to listen CDs.😎

Yep, it would be neat if we could edit those Disc 1 & 2 labels where they appear in that image. You could always try iTunes feedback.

tt2

See also One cover for multi-disc album.

tt2

Read through the rest of the Grouping tracks into albums article. The solution should be there. Generally consistency is the key.

tt2