Helium Music Manager User Forum

[mjm716]

Clearly something basic has changed between 2009 & 7 with how 'album artist sort order' is handled?!

2009 vs 7, both running on MySQL via SQLEXPRESS with new databases created from within each version of Helium. Same music data imported. Music Explorer artist field sorted by > Album Artist and then Album.

Music Explorer in 2009 > album artists (ie "u-ziq [Gary Moscheles]") display correctly and include actual data.

http://img691.imageshack.us/i/2009f.gif/

Music Explorer in 7.7856 > same album artist (ie "u-ziq [Gary Moscheles]") now displays INcorrectly and does NOT include actual data.

http://img716.imageshack.us/i/91200778.gif/

The data does actually exist - if I change Music Explorer to sort by Artist (not Album Artist), "Gary Moscheles" displays with track info.

So why the big change and how to fix it?

Looking through the ID3 tags, now there seems to be HELIUM2 ALBUMARTIST, HELIUM ALBUM ARTIST SORT ORDER and in some cases ARTISTSORTORDER. Which is actually the correct to use now for the maximum compatibility?!
The actual ID3v2 Frame Specification (Version 2.4 - delta respect to 2.3) seems to be TSOP Performer sort order; are any of Helium's tag-frames actually mapping to this standard?!?

btw, in the above example, that album used ARTISTSORTORDER, which worked in 2009 and doesn't in 7 clearly.

[henc]

The sort handling was enhanced in Helium 7 - I'll try and explain to see if that helps and whether I can pin down exactly what the problem is and how to resolve it for you

First off, lets deal with terminology:
The tag 'Album Artist' describes the main artist for an album and will be the same value for every track in an album e.g 'Steve Winwood' in the 'Keep on Running' album. Associated with this Album Artist is the equivalent sort order field 'Album Artist Sort Order' e.g. 'Winwood, Steve'.
The tag 'Artist' describes the artist for each individual track in the album. So in the example album 'Keep on Running', the artists are 'The Spencer Davis Group', 'Traffic', 'Blind Faith' and 'Steve Winwood'. Each of these artists can have an associated 'Artist Sort Order' tag e.g. 'Spencer Davis Group, The'.

Helium Music Manager 7 is instructed how to display these tags using the options set in 'Options > Sort Order':

• Use Sort Order
If selected, Helium Music Manager will use Artist, Album Artist, Album and Title Sort Order fields (if present) in place of the Artist, Album and Title fields. This is done when Helium Music Manager displays the track list in all browsers or the Music Explorers Artist, Album and Title items.
• Show sort order fields
  This option is only available if Use Sort Order is selected (see above). If selected, Helium Music Manager will display the sort order fields, otherwise it will display the non-sort fields. For example, if Show sort order fields is NOT selected, 'The Beatles' will now display as 'The Beatles' but sort under the letter 'B' as oppose to being displayed as 'Beatles, The' if selected.

Now that I have explained how it is meant to work, maybe you could check your sort settings and advise what they are set to?

Hope this helps

[mjm716]

Thanks for your reply, I do understand the terminology, and while it brings up another huge issue with Helium overall, it doesn't address my problem.

I'm referring to a major ?inconsistency? with what actual ID3 tag H7 is using to determine the sort order vs what it used in the past.

Music Explorer artist field sorted by > Album Artist and then Album.

Music Explorer in 2009 > album artists (ie "u-ziq [Gary Moscheles]") display correctly and include actual data.

http://img691.imageshack.us/i/2009f.gif/

Music Explorer in 7.7856 > same album artist (ie "u-ziq [Gary Moscheles]") now displays INcorrectly and does NOT include actual data.

http://img716.imageshack.us/i/91200778.gif/

In my MP3s, there seems to now be several Helium specific tag fields used to modify the sort order. My files that have sort problems, have one or more of these tag fields assigned: HELIUM2 ALBUMARTIST, HELIUM ALBUM ARTIST SORT ORDER and/or ARTISTSORTORDER.

Which is actually the correct one to use now for maximum compatibility?!

btw, in the above example, the artist is "u-ziq" but it had field ARTISTSORTORDER="u-ziq [Gary Moscheles]" and no others, which displayed correctly in 2009 and clearly doesn't in 7.

I hope that is clearer?

[henc]

... In my MP3s, there seems to now be several Helium specific tag fields used to modify the sort order. My files that have sort problems, have one or more of these tag fields assigned: HELIUM2 ALBUMARTIST, HELIUM ALBUM ARTIST SORT ORDER and/or ARTISTSORTORDER.

I still need to know what your Sort options are set to as this could be why you are seeing a difference in HMM7

HELIUM2 ALBUMARTIST = Album Artist ('Steve Winwood' in my example)
HELIUM ALBUM ARTIST SORT ORDER = = Album Artist Sort Order ('Winwood, Steve' in my example)
ARTISTSORTORDER = Artist Sort Order (''Spencer Davis Group, The' in my example)

Can you get a capture of the "Examine Tags" for the problematic track - that might help me get a better handle on this for you