Artists listed and grouped

Hi,

Can artists be listed and grouped in the Database? I think this can be useful in different situations.

Imagine:
The Artist field is a drop-down list, where I can pick an existing artist name. If not in the list, an artist name can easily be added to the list. And, I can pick several artist names from the list to be shown in the Artist field - often it happens individual artists team up to perform a song, like “XX feat YY introducing ZZ”.
The Artist field will then show “XX - YY - ZZ”.

  • The Scheduler will know which artists have been active (in the example, artists XX and YY and ZZ) and can make proper artist separation from that. The Scheduler no longer “just compare” the Artist field text content from song to song; now it actually “knows” each artist on the specific song and can react from that.
    Example: The song “Despacito” by Luis Fonzi - Daddy Yankee - Justin Bieber. Selecting this song makes artist separation work for each of the 3 artists. A solo-song by one of them will not be scheduled before artist separation time has run out.

  • Artist names can be grouped, so that the Scheduler will handle for example Beatles/Wings/Paul McCartney as being the same artist.

  • I can add some notes on an artist. These notes can be seen on all songs by that artist. I do not need to go to each song to write the same.

  • Settings and restrictions can be set for the specific artist (for example to make the Scheduler pick this artist more often than general settings allow, or, maybe switch artist separation off for a specific artist).

  • Different artists with the same artist name (really? …yes, it actually happens…) can be handled correct as individuals.

  • Artist names always sdellep correct - or at least identical - which is a great advantage when searching or sorting songs by artist.

Notes:
This functionality already exist to some degree, via Database Configuration - Mini Scheduler - Artist Groups.
But it can be made much better, I think. I believe it can be like double-click a song to see its properties. The Artist field has the mentioned drop-down list where I can pick the artist (or artists) that perform the song. And next to the artist field, there is a group button. When I press it, a little window comes up where I can select artist names (from the list) as a group. And see the existing group, if any.

HJH

Artist is only a plain text field, and there are no plans to make it a list field. (It used to be one, and many things were much more complicated when it was, e.g. logging and scripting.)

But the scheduler will magically split multiple artists (separated by comma, “&”, “feat.” etc.) when calculating separations.

Okay. I was not aware of the “magic”.

I believe it then means that the example I gave about the “Despacito” song, will actually work as described, if I type in the artists as: Luis Fonzi, Daddy Yankee, Justin Bieber
(names separated by commas)

I must have missed to read that part of the manuals/wiki thoroughly enough. Sorry.

Well … then there is only the functionality about chaining/grouping artists, like in the example of Beatles/Wings/Paul McCartney.
I understand it is not possible now. But please add it to the wishlist.

Thanks :slight_smile:

HJH

For Beatles and Paul McCartney, use the Artist Groups settings.

Which absolutely makes sense - as they are always considered the same (similar) artist. Not only for a particular song.

Very strange question :slight_smile:

How to fill in the artist group list?

is it like:
Beatles, Paul McCartney

Or like:
Beatles
Paul McCartney

Or else???

:-[

Add a group, then type:

Beatles
Paul McCartney
Wings

mAirlist will transfer this to:

Beatles, Paul McCartney, Wings

Thx!

One additional question, is the “feat.” separator case sensitive? So if I use “Feat.” will the artist separation work properly? Thanks