How to display mix CD details (for use with the NW-A3000)?

[hp1975]

Hello all.

Well I've been reading these forums and the Gen Kanai log for a while now and decided to go for a NWA 3000 because I have been using SS3.4 with my HIMD device with no problems. well I'm delighted with the 3000..its sooo pretty and sounds awsome. CDs i have in ATRAC on my PC transfer in seconds. I jave one minor quibble.... I listen to a lot of DJ mix CDs and they import fine onto the PC but when I transfer to the 3000 and list the Artists it lists all the individual artists that have tunes on all those mix cd's which of course is useless, I want to list the Artist that created the mix. This seemed no problem on my HiMD device and I cant seem to find any options to change this in SS. Is this something that can be done in Connect Player. I'm loathe to put that piece of software anywhere near my PC.

Anyway I hope that rant made sense and someone has also experienced this problem and has a solution. The long and short of it is I'm delighted with the player but would love to sort this wee problem.

Cheers

HP

[Ishiyoshi]

Welcome to ATRACLife!

To organize individual tracks of the same album: Ensure that you select "Tracks in the compilation albums" (within track properties) on the tracks in question. In addition, ensure that all the tracks of the same album have identical album title.

Note: Because by default, SonicStage sort music tracks by artist, tracks of the same album but with various artists will be placed as individual tracks. Thus, you will need to re-organize the tracks accordingly as outlined above.

[hp1975]

Thanks Yoshi.

I assume you are talking about the 'properties' of the album when it is in 'My Library' because I dont think you can edit the properties of the tracks on the player in SS?

Whe you import a compilation it automaticallly selects the check box you referred to but in the player window (and on the player) its is still listing by artist, have i missed something? Is there a display option on th player I can change so that when I list by artist it picks up the CD artist? This could be a real problem cos I have a serious amount of dance compilations!!

Cheers

H

[Ishiyoshi]

Yes, the option I've outlined is within both "properties" of the album (option is below artist) and tracks (option is below rating) in question. Unfortunately, there are no simple way if tracks within the mix are not sorted as it should by SonicStage. The best route to display compilation albums is by using "View by Albums; Sort by Artist" and apply the suggestion I have outlined in the preceding posts. This is a very tedious task indeed, but it works.

Just for your reference, let's assume that your huge compilation CD was composed/arranged by John Digweed. Accordingly, ensure that all tracks belonging to the album mix "A" is by artist "John Digweed" and click "Tracks in the compilation albums" for all tracks belonging to the mix. I have done this with no problems with the Global Underground Series.

[hp1975]

Mmm...The Compliation check boxes are always checked so there doesn't appear to be anything more I can do. I just thought there might be an option to display by the 'Album Artist' i.e. John Digweed in the right hand panel of SS and hence the player. The only other way of doing it would be to change the Artist on all the individual tracks to the same as the CD Artist which would be annoying!

YOu said you had success with your Digweed CD, does that mean that it shows up as John Digweed when you diplay Artists on your player?

[Ishiyoshi]

YOu said you had success with your Digweed CD, does that mean that it shows up as John Digweed when you diplay Artists on your player?

Yes. Here are screen captures (of another artist) depicting different artists of a mix album under one composer. It's not all that difficult; you do not need to rename individual tracks within the mix album to reflect the composer's name. All you need to do is to ensure that under Album properties the artist = composer.

[hp1975]

Ishi!

Many Thanks for going to all the effort of screeen shots etc. I think i did not explain my problem properly in the first post. It is not in 'My Library' that i have the problem (mine looks as yours does in the shots) it is when the NWA300 is connected and its contents are displayed in the right hand (transfer) panel that pops up in Sonic Stage. It is in THIS view that ALL the artists are displayed (rather than the CD creator) and hence the same on the player. It means that say I wanted to search on artist for Sasha (as in your shots) on the player I would not be able to because for some reason it only picks up the tags of the individual track artists....

Mmm unfortunately I can only access my home PC at the weekend so I cant even grab a screenshot of what I mean. Anyway I hope this second explanation helps.

Thanks

Again

[alexwils]

Same problem / annoyance here. The only way I've found around it is to put in the artist name as something like Various Artists and name each track with both the artist and the title.

Alternatively you can always search by album instead of artist but that doesn't help if you want to play all by an artist instead of just a single album. Ipods have this problem too.

On SS or connect you can search by album artist or track artist, on the A3000 you can only search by track artist and this is the problem. Maybe on the next firmware upgrade....?

[Ishiyoshi]

Ishi!

Many Thanks for going to all the effort of screeen shots etc. I think i did not explain my problem properly in the first post. It is not in 'My Library' that i have the problem (mine looks as yours does in the shots) it is when the NWA300 is connected and its contents are displayed in the right hand (transfer) panel that pops up in Sonic Stage. It is in THIS view that ALL the artists are displayed (rather than the CD creator) and hence the same on the player. It means that say I wanted to search on artist for Sasha (as in your shots) on the player I would not be able to because for some reason it only picks up the tags of the individual track artists....

Mmm unfortunately I can only access my home PC at the weekend so I cant even grab a screenshot of what I mean. Anyway I hope this second explanation helps.

Thanks

Again

In that case, I believe the problems lies with the fact that you must have transferred those mix albums with CONNECT Player. Is that the case? Otherwise, perhaps another experienced NW-A3000 user can provide better advice in this regard. You may also need to consider using CONNECT Player to tweak the track info accordingly to reflect what you desire.

[hp1975]

No, all the CDs have been ripped and transferred using SS3.4.

I dont really want to have to use connect until its been 'sorted' but I will give it a go this weekend as I'm intrigued as to how it will run on my PC. I'm just cautious about connecting the a3000 for fear of screwing up its database!

Edited February 14, 2006 by hp1975

[Ishiyoshi]

Drop Ascariss (one of our moderators) a pm; he should be able to provide you with more details regarding this issue since he owns both the A1000 and A3000. Sorry I can't be much help for now. Cheers and Good Luck.

[alexwils]

No, all the CDs have been ripped and transferred using SS3.4.

I dont really want to have to use connect until its been 'sorted' but I will give it a go this weekend as I'm intrigued as to how it will run on my PC. I'm just cautious about connecting the a3000 for fear of screwing up its database!

All of my CDs have been ripped with CP as I have no problems with using it on my PC. Still get the same problem though

[Ascariss]

I would recommend you give CP a try, the newest built is quite stable and works just fine for me. I've had no problems with it yet.

In CP, there is an option when ripping a CD to specify the artist and then album artist.

So when ripping a cd with say 15 songs, and each song having an individual artist, the album aritist remains the same, but the individual artist is what is the actual artist.

the album name has to be the same as well, in order for this to work.

I've done this plenty of times, even used WMP to rip a cd to wma and transferred it over, it was a mixed cd so it has different artists as well.

The tracks are as well all correctly ordered.

[hp1975]

Thanks Ascariss,

So my next obvious question would be, what is the best way to transfer from Sonic Stage to CP or do you just let CP scan your folders?

Also, can youCP be used with HIMD or is it just for the A Series because my girlfriend inherited my NHZ-700 so will be using teh same library or can both bits of software be used with the same library though of course not at the same time!

Cheers

H

[metal]

Also, can youCP be used with HIMD or is it just for the A Series because my girlfriend inherited my NHZ-700 so will be using teh same library or can both bits of software be used with the same library though of course not at the same time!

No, CP only works for A-series Sony player.

For HiMD, you have to use Sonic Stage.

[Ascariss]

The A series was designed in mind with CP so I use only that and personally only recommend that with the A series.

No scan is needed, just import the files you ripped from the cd, and once they import, choose album view and check to see if they are all in one, if not check the album artist.

if you are ripping it with CP, then this won't be a problem.

[jrhughes]

I was annoyed (and initially puzzled) by the same problem when I got my A1000. I use SonicStage and have done for some time, being a big fan of MD. After transferring some stuff from my SS library, which includes a lot of mix albums such as Global Underground, I noticed that the display within SS of the A1000's contents was showing all of the track artists instead of album artists. Not good.

I thought it was because I'd transferred using SS instead of Connect, but no. To cut a long(ish) story short, I installed Connect and found that I could display the A1000's contents, transferred from SS, by album artist (eg, Nick Warren) instead of all the track artists. It's arranged slightly differently to content transferred using Connect, but still much better than it is displayed in SS.

I'm hoping that, beyond v3.4, we may be able to get Connect-like display of A-series content in SS as it is in Connect. For the time being, I use SS for everything except viewing and deleting content by album on my A1000, for which I use Connect.

[Ishiyoshi]

@ hp1975: I forgot to mention to read "IMPORTING MUSIC FILES" section of our CONNECT Player FAQ. You may find that helpful in sorting out the mix album issue.

[hp1975]

Thanks Ishi,

I had a play with CP over the weekend (not impressed), couldnt even connect to the support section of te Sony website to download latest update. Anyway regardless of what software is used as far as I can tell neither CP or SS will actually effect how mix CDs are displayed on the player itself i.e. when viewing by Artist it is still going to display all the individual artists or list it as Various Artists, neither of which are useful when searching for Gatecrasher, Sasha/Digweed, Dave Clarke etc because theese are the Artists I want to display.

I think I will just have to put up with this unless future updates of SS remedy.

HP

[alexwils]

Am I being thick or something? On CP I've got 3 compilation albums all listed with the Album Artist as Various Artists and each individual track being listed as the correct artist and this is fine however on my A3000 they're all listed by their artist name, not the album artist. What's going on? How do I fix this? Please help!!!

[hp1975]

Thats just it! I dont think you can, the way the firmware in the player interprets the tags and builds the database will always be this way until they Sony change it. I dont think it matters how CP displays it.