WiiM Amp USB Album Artist / Compilation issue

[middleagedgrump]

Hi all. One for the collective hive-mind of the great-and-good of the WiiM community

Found this thread where the OP seems to perfectly describe the issue I'm also having:

https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/...ums-in-app-usb-media-library-album-view.5729/

However, the solution identified here (i.e. ensuring 'album artist' is the same) doesn't work for me. I use MediaMonkey 5 to rip to FLAC and to organise all my FLACs and DSDs. I'm fastidious to the point of fanaticism when it comes to tags and metadata. The 'album artist' field is correctly filled in MM5 (it doesn't have a 'compilation' flag - I'm lead to believe that the 'album artist' tag is its equivalent) and yet when the files are copied across to a USB stick and plugged into the WiiM Amp, the App shows an album for each song artist. By way of example, here is a screenshot from MM5 showing a file's metadata:



The album is "7 Live #1 [Disc 1]" by Jon Carter. Each track (of which there are 16 in total) is by a different artist. The above screenshot shows track number 9, being Break Dance Electric Boogie by West Street Mob. The album artist is listed as Jon Carter and the disc# and track# fields correctly populated. Yet this file, when moved to a USB stick (512GB SanDisk 3.2 Gen 1), appears in the WiiM app as being a separate album. This is the same for the other 15 tracks on this album, so rather than showing as one album I see 16 different albums, each with one track. This happens for all my compilation albums.

Is this because the WiiM is using the 'artist' tag in preference/priority to the 'album artist' tag? Or is there an album artist option in the WiiM Amp that simply I've overlooked?

Any and all help gratefully received.

 

[Warren]

Hi, I’ve just recently ripped a good proportion of my cd’s and I made a mistake of using windows media player which didn’t include album covers so I switched to Nero ripper which includes Gracenote and that’s been pretty good, I put them on a Samsung memory stick for my wiim amp and I’ve found it a bit of mess just like what you’ve experienced, unless you go into Folders and select the album you want.

 

[simbun]

This is the same for the other 15 tracks on this album, so rather than showing as one album I see 16 different albums, each with one track. This happens for all my compilation albums.

Is this because the WiiM is using the 'artist' tag in preference/priority to the 'album artist' tag? Or is there an album artist option in the WiiM Amp that simply I've overlooked?

I've just performed a quick test with MiniDLNA (the underlying server - although it is possible that WiiM have modified it), and as long as all the tracks are in the same folder it seems to only care about the Album tag.

I tagged 12 tracks and split them into 4 albums. 3 of the albums had 'Various Artists' as the AlbumArtist and the other I left empty. All the remaining tags were unique (TITLE, ARTIST, GENRE, DISC, TRACK, DATE).
Under the Albums index in MiniDLNA it showed Album 1 - Album 4 (the associated "AlbumArtist" of Album 4 was the Artist associated with the first track).

Here's the data in MiniDLNA.

PATH|TITLE|CREATOR|ARTIST|ALBUM|GENRE|DISC|TRACK|DATE
/media/TempMiniDLNA/01.01.flac|Title 01|Artist 01|Various Artists|Album 1|Genre 01|1|1|2001-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/02.02.flac|Title 02|Artist 02|Various Artists|Album 1|Genre 02|2|2|2002-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/03.03.flac|Title 03|Artist 03|Various Artists|Album 1|Genre 03|3|3|2003-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/04.04.flac|Title 04|Artist 04|Various Artists|Album 2|Genre 04|4|4|2004-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/05.05.flac|Title 05|Artist 05|Various Artists|Album 2|Genre 05|5|5|2005-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/06.06.flac|Title 06|Artist 06|Various Artists|Album 2|Genre 06|6|6|2006-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/07.07.flac|Title 07|Artist 07|Various Artists|Album 3|Genre 07|7|7|2007-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/08.08.flac|Title 08|Artist 08|Various Artists|Album 3|Genre 08|8|8|2008-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/09.09.flac|Title 09|Artist 09|Various Artists|Album 3|Genre 09|9|9|2009-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/10.10.flac|Title 10|Artist 10|Artist 10|Album 4|Genre 10|10|10|2010-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/11.11.flac|Title 11|Artist 11|Artist 11|Album 4|Genre 11|11|11|2011-01-01
/media/TempMiniDLNA/12.12.flac|Title 12|Artist 12|Artist 12|Album 4|Genre 12|12|12|2012-01-01

Was AlbumArtist populated before the first scan?

I've attached the tracks just in case you want to test it yourself.

 

[simbun]

Hi, I’ve just recently ripped a good proportion of my cd’s and I made a mistake of using windows media player which didn’t include album covers so I switched to Nero ripper which includes Gracenote and that’s been pretty good, I put them on a Samsung memory stick for my wiim amp and I’ve found it a bit of mess just like what you’ve experienced, unless you go into Folders and select the album you want.

I've never used Nero but I don't think it includes AccurateRip, so if you want to verify your rips run them through CUETools.

A guide to CUETools can be found here: https://captainrookie.com/how-to-use-cuetools-verification-log-feature/