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Topic: Shuffle issues (Read 4027 times) previous topic - next topic
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Shuffle issues

So, I was about to post about how Shuffle (Albums) doesn't work with multiple discs using the same album name, but I've just fixed it, and it turns out the multiple disc thing wasn't the entire problem.  Anyway, as I spent so long trying to find a solution I thought I'd post it here in case others are having similar issues.

My setup: I use "Album Artist - Album Name (CDn - Disc Artist - Disc Title)" to identify albums (using custom tags for the last two details), and all parts being optional, except Album Name.

By default, Shuffle (Albums) has very unexpected and varying behaviour.  I managed to stumble across the Album Grouping Pattern, and Album Sorting Pattern in the advanced options.  For lack of documentation on what these did exactly, I added %discnumber% to the former thinking this would solve the problem, but it was only partially successful.  Since the default string is something like "%album artist% | %album%" and some of my albums have no album artist, it was using the individual song names for the %album artist% bit.  Once I realised this is what was going on, it was fairly easy to fix - just replacing the offending %album artist% with $meta(albumartist) does the trick.

Hopefully this is useful to someone.  I'm surprised the Album Grouping / Sorting features aren't documented at all, they seem fairly useful.

Cheers,
Tim

Shuffle issues

Reply #1 –
You somehow fail to explain which "problem" you actually tried to solve here.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the default grouping pattern, provided that albums with various artists have an Album Artist tag.

Quote
Shuffle (Albums) doesn't work with multiple discs using the same album name

I'd say it works very well: all discs of an album are played in proper order, before it switches to another album.

Shuffle issues

Reply #2 –
It doesn't appear he has a problem with the implementation, but rather the lack of documentation.

Of course, since Foobar's main source of documentation is an open wiki, he could PM Jan S., to prove he's not a bot and help contribute to the wiki himself.
elevatorladylevitateme

Shuffle issues

Reply #3 –
Quote
You somehow fail to explain which "problem" you actually tried to solve here.

Okay, the problem I had was that the Shuffle (Album) mode wasn't behaving as I expected it to, as you would have got from my quote had you not taken it out of context.

Quote
So, I was about to post about how Shuffle (Albums) doesn't work with multiple discs using the same album name, but I've just fixed it, and it turns out the multiple disc thing wasn't the entire problem.

I didn't think going into too much detail was necessary, hence the lack of it before, but basically I've seen behaviour ranging from playing the track 1s of each disc, then the track 2s, then..., to just playing completely random songs. Of course I now know the former was happening because the default settings doen't work with multiple discs per album, and the latter was happenning with albums where I had no album artist (nor "Various Artists").

Quote
There is nothing inherently wrong with the default grouping pattern, provided that albums with various artists have an Album Artist tag.

I'd say it works very well: all discs of an album are played in proper order, before it switches to another album.

Yes, had my albums had an Album Artist tag set (Various Artists, or whatever), it would have been slightly more reasonable, but still not correct as I have hilighted above.

Quote
It doesn't appear he has a problem with the implementation, but rather the lack of documentation.

Of course, since Foobar's main source of documentation is an open wiki, he could PM Jan S., to prove he's not a bot and help contribute to the wiki himself.

So I still think the default setting for Shuffle Album Grouping needs to be changed as I said before, to something like: "$meta(album artist) | %album% | %discnumber%" but yes, the lack of documentation was part of it too.  As for doing it myself, I don't know if the pipes in the string have any special meaning, or if they are just there to try and avoid problems where a suffix of an album artist matches a prefix of the album name and so two "different" albums get grouped together by accident.  My guess is the former, but if someone could verify this for me first, I might add something to the wiki

EDIT: Oh also, the Advanced page of the Preferences doesn't even have a help button like other pages (well it does, but it's greyed out).

Tim

P.S. Why does the wink smiley look more like a dissaproving curl of the lips than a cheeky wink? ;-)

Shuffle issues

Reply #4 –
At the risk of taking things out of context again...

Quote from: QuantumTim on
(...) the default settings doen't work with multiple discs per album (...)

Yes they do. Albums with multiple discs are grouped correctly and played in the right order if you add a disc number tag.

Quote
So I still think the default setting for Shuffle Album Grouping needs to be changed as I said before, to something like: "$meta(album artist) | %album% | %discnumber%"

That makes no sense. The intention of this shuffle mode is to group albums, not individual discs.

To achive this, the default settings do not need to be changed at all. You just have to tag your files properly.

Shuffle issues

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Frank Bicking on
Yes they do. Albums with multiple discs are grouped correctly and played in the right order if you add a disc number tag.

No, that's my point. The shuffle mode ignores the disc number tag by default.

EDIT: Okay, you edited that as I replied .  Still, even if it's not meant to group discs, the %discnumber% bit should be put at the front of the Shuffle Sort settings, so that it plays the first disc, then the second, not all track 1s, then all track 2s.  Either way, there's a problem somewhere.

Shuffle issues

Reply #6 –
Quote from: QuantumTim on
No, that's my point. The shuffle mode ignores the disc number tag by default.

Yes, the disc number is not part of the grouping pattern, to play all discs of an album before shuffle switches to another album.

However, %discnumber% is part of the default sorting pattern to play the individual discs in the correct order.

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the %discnumber% bit should be put at the front of the Shuffle Sort settings

It is. Right-click on the option to reset to the default sorting string in case you have forgotten what it is.

Shuffle issues

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Frank Bicking on
However, %discnumber% is part of the default sorting pattern to play the individual discs in the correct order.

Okay, I've just gone back to the default settings, and it looks like it now is. I guess my originally installed version didn't have this, and when I upgraded to 0.9.5 it kept the old settings.  Perhaps the installer could check for things like this, or have the config only store settings that have been changed from the default?

Apologies for the confusion.

Tim

EDIT: Heh, looks like we are replying too quick to read each others updates.  Out of interest by "...in case you have forgotten what it is," do you mean to say you've memorised all the default settings?
 

Shuffle issues

Reply #8 –
Quote from: QuantumTim on
I guess my originally installed version didn't have this

You must have manually changed this setting on your own then, because the default sorting pattern has always been "%discnumber% | %tracknumber% | %title%", even when it was added with 0.9.2 beta 5. I just verified this.

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Out of interest by "...in case you have forgotten what it is," do you mean to say you've memorised all the default settings?

No, I meant to imply that if I should ever complain about the default settings, I'd make sure to know what they are.

Shuffle issues

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Frank Bicking on
You must have manually changed this setting on your own then, because the default sorting pattern has always been "%discnumber% | %tracknumber% | %title%", even when it was added with 0.9.2 beta 5. I just verified this.

Hmm, that's odd, because I've definitely not touched the setting knowingly, as evidenced by the fact that I didn't know to look for it to fix my problem, plus the change is somewhat counter to what I was after.  Maybe some plugin I tried once messed with it...