Disambiguate Between Album Versions

Feature requests
1

Feature description:

Show album “VERSION” tag alongside album tag to visually identify different versions of the same album. I added this as an API request to Opensubsonic but, the more I think about it, it should also just be a simple read of the ID3 tags to display on the Symfonium app as Musicbrainz ID’s can be used to keep the albums separate but won’t visually show the differences.

Problem solved:

Visually disambiguate differences between various versions of the same album [i.e. Beatles - Revolver (UK Mono), Revolver (US Stereo), Revolver (2014 Beatles in Mono), etc.]

Tagging these albums in Musicbrainz will result in all 3 versions of the album appearing with just the album name “Revolver” when browsing the app.

Brought benefits:

I have seen similar requests across numerous Subsonic servers to help disambiguate between album versions.

Other application solutions:

Roon does this very well by showing the “VERSION” tag under the album name (example image of Bryan Adams - Reckless attached below). Ampache documentation uses the VERSION tag as well, however, I have not tested this.

Additional description and context:

Screenshot below shows 5 versions I have of Beatles Revolver. The album tags currently have the versions in parentheses but those will all turn into just Revolver once I run through Musicbrainz.

I have this in the Opensubsonic API as well but I’m not entirely sure why an API is needed just to display the content now. Could still be useless for those that want to disambiguate off of the version tag instead of MBID from a server standpoint.

My initial thoughts on how to do this would be some way of concatenating the album tag and version tag so that it doesn’t affect the users that do not want to bother setting up version tags due to no need. Or maybe it’s easier just the program an “if version tag exists = show version tag…”

Screenshots / Mockup:

200181404-7b525eeb-b8e7-4405-9e02-a783b480f711
200181404-7b525eeb-b8e7-4405-9e02-a783b480f711314×231 47.5 KB

Screenshot_20231227-115534
Screenshot_20231227-1155341080×2242 628 KB

2

If Symfonium talk to a Subsonic server it does not have access to the tags hence the need for the corresponding API.

A simple way is to use a picard script to add the version tag to the album name it will do the same.

3

Gotcha. So probably worth discussing after (if) it gets implemented in the API.

Probably going to add it to make album name tags for now. Just going to have to find a good way to easily revert back to the original album tags if the VERSION tag does get implemented.

4

Now that VERSION is available through the API (LMS and Navidrome I believe) is it possible to bring this into Symfonium?

getAlbumList2

album:
  0
    artist	"Adele"
    name	"19"
    version	"Expanded Edition"
    year	2008
5

I’ll add the version to the album name during sync.

1 Like
6

Thank you.

Could you place VERSION in square brackets as round brackets are commonly used in album titles?

7

No it will be added with the common • as everything in Symfonium.

8

Will that be optional? Since hardly any player supports showing the version I’ve always appended it to the album tag like this: American Idiot (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition). The DISAMBIGUATION tag also holds 20th anniversary deluxe edition.
At least for users like me who already have the info in the album tag, appending the version would yield an unwanted result of:

American Idiot (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) • 20th anniversary deluxe edition
9

You’ll need to see with @itm

10

I should have said anything but ().

• is perfect!

11

It’s not currently optional in LMS. I take it you haven’t used the webui in a while?

EDIT:
LMS uses { “ALBUMCOMMENT”, “MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMCOMMENT, MUSICBRAINZ ALBUM COMMENT”, “ALBUMVERSION”, “VERSION” }

1 Like
12

I’ve been looking forward to this one for well over a year! I’m assuming this will also display properly when playing through Chromecast or Android Auto?

I’ve been appending this to the Album Title myself for a while now so I’m sure the mass re-tagging of my library is going to be fun :slight_smile:

13

I only use the webui to start a rescan or change options. On PCs I use MusicBee and on Android Symfonium so there’s no need for me to use lms directly.

Thanks for the info. I might be safe then. I don’t think MusicBrainz expanded, which is what I use to add MB tags to my files, writes any of these fields.

I’d first have to find and then edit a couple thousand such albums so that option is pretty much out the window for me. But have fun!

14

Is there a setting to hide the disambiguation, and if so, where is it? I wasn’t able to find it.