For years, I’ve entered ALBUMARTIST as Last, First. With thousands of files, anyone know of a way to mass edit that one field to be First Last? I have MP3Tag and have been going through the help files, but it doesn’t look possible there. Other software that would accomplish this?
thanks
Are you on a Mac or a PC?
I ask because if you’re a Mac guy, there’s a great tagging app called Yate that I BELIEVE (emphasis, not completely sure) will do this.
Here is a bit of prose about the command (called Sort Form) Yate has which seems to answer your needs:
"Set First Name Last Name
This mode does nothing if the field does not contain a comma. It looks for the first comma in a field and flips the content: eg:
Red, Boogie Woogie → Boogie Woogie Red
It will also restore bracketed components preserved by the Set Last Name, First Name function. eg."
Hope this helps.
I should have specified. I’m on a PC. Hopefully, there will be something. If not, it may be worthwhile to borrow a mac as your example is exactly what I’m looking for. Thanks
Yate gave me something to search with and I found this:
https://alternativeto.net/software/yate/?platform=windows
I’ll begin working through the relevant possibilities - Picard, Kid3, SongKong, Jaikoz and Magic MP3 Tagger.
If anyone knows the answer about this particular task, please chime in!
Bingo!
I decided to ask for MP3Tag support to see if it is possible and found the user forum. The solution is in posts 1 - 4: Switching first and last name of Artist - #4 by Flskydiver - Support - Mp3tag Community - I hadn’t dug into “Actions” before. A whole new world!
I tried it on one album and it worked perfectly. I’ll go slow and make sure it’s reliable. Particularly with band names with no comma, eg, The Beatles.
So you are storing Sort Album Artist in the Album Artist field and want to correct to Album Artist. You might want to consider whether you need to move the existing value from Album Artist to Sort Album Artist first, also do you have similar problem for Artist field.
You can copy each value from one field to another using Jaikoz and Append to Right.You also uses Jaikoz or SongKong to automatch your music coĺlection and have it auto fix these values.
I wasn’t aware of Sort Album Artist as it wasn’t listed in MP3Tag’s default panel. I can easily add it. Googling a bit, I see the value.
Roon will use this automatically for sorting if I include it? Or do I have to specify using file’s tags over Roon’s in options?
Thanks
I think by default for identified albums will use its own value, but for unidentified albums will use your value.
In Mp3tag, you can also copy the value from the ALBUMARTIST field to ALBUMARTISTSORT using either Convert → Tag - Tag or an action Format value for ALBUMARTISTSORT with
$if2(%ALBUMARTISTSORT%,%ALBUMARTIST%)
The fancy scripting ensures, that the value is only copied if there isn’t already something (potentially manually fine-tuned) in the Sort Album Artist.
If you need to identify files without this value, you can also use the Filter via F3 and a query like ALBUMARTISTSORT MISSING
And to add fields to the Tag Panel on the left or the File List, see
Thanks… I’ll experiment and see.
Well hi Florian! Thanks for chiming in.
I am discovering these things now. Quite a MP3Tag learning spurt in the last couple of days. You have developed something incredibly powerful and easier to use than most similar apps I have tried.
…Pete
Have this so far:
Works for most cases except some like this result:
Album Artist is scrambled in this case.
I’m starting to work on a single action that will have multiple expressions in order. First will look for cases that need to be addressed before the mass change. “Carlton, Larry & Ford, Robben”, for example. I guess I’ll need if, then expressions. Work is cut out for me!
I will try to avoid having to manually check each album before transforming.
I’ll post in the Mp3tag forum thread referenced above to continue.
Here’s my working set so far. Works for most cases. A few will need massaging ahead of mass execution. How’s that for a sentence!! Hmmm, and how is that for a pun!! Help, I can’t stop! 
Examples of the edge cases (before / after) that I will work on:
Yamash’ta, Stomu / Yamash’ta, Stomu
Milteau, Jean-Jacques / Jean Milteau-Jacques
Earth, Wind & Fire / Wind Earth & Fire
Ndegéocello, Me’Shell / Me Ndegéocello’Shell
Scott-Heron, Gil / Scott-Heron, Gil
Coryell, Bailey, White / Bailey Coryell, White
I’m working on this over at Switching first and last name of Artist - #29 by pstrisik - Support - Mp3tag Community. Posting it here for closure.
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