Shawn Oster's Blog

My favorite tag editor is Mp3tag and I use it at least a couple times a week to populate the album artist field that both WMP and Zune seem to depend upon for proper organization.  Instead of manually typing in each album artist field I use this handy script:

$if(%band%, %band%, %artist%)

Basically if the album artist field is already populated then I don't touch it, otherwise I transfer the value from the artist field into the album artist field.  Mp3tag calls the album artist field 'band' but I don't let that stop me.  If you feel like using it as well here is how to add a new action:

1. On the menu select Convert -> Actions
2. Click the 'New' icon in the upper right
3. Give the action a name, I used 'Populate Album Artist'
4. Click the 'New' icon again to add an action type
5. Select the 'Format value' action type
6. For field select 'BAND'
7. For format string use: $if(%band%, %band%, %artist%)
8. You'll end up with a dialog that looks like this:

   

OK your way through everything and now you have an action to automatically fill out that needed Album Artist field and help prevent the silly 'Unknown Artist' folder that Zune seems to like to create.