Here's my 2¢ worth of how I have music setup in KODI, mind you I'm far from being an expert with the music library, so I'm sure other more knowledgeable KODI members can offer better setup advice or more insight to the music library.
Now, AFAIK KODI reads the
"ID3" Album Artist tag, supporting embedded album art in files with
ID3 tags on
WMA and
MP4 tags only. (unfortunate if the music library has other file types/extensions)
With thumbnail images:
(folder.jpg) "with no brackets" is the nominal naming convention for thumbnail images, however the
.jpg has a pixel range constraint and has to be between the range of:
64x64 to 256x256 in pixels.
(NB: Images outside this range may have issues with the artwork not being displayed, YMMV. (could be why there is missing art)
Thumbnail to folder:
Code:
Music\path\album\folder.jpg
If your folders already have thumbnail-artwork/s, other than the default folder.jpg, you can create/add a tag to the
advancedsettings.xm file in userdata, to cache your user defined convention/s.
Alternate thumbnail conventions:
(separate additional conventions with vertical-bar '|' symbol.)
Code:
<musicthumbs> <!-- opening tag -->
<remove>folder.jpg</remove> <!-- removes the default: folder.jpg -->
<add>thumb.jpg|cover.jpg</add> <!-- list user defined convention/s -->
</musicthumbs><!-- closing tag -->
With music artwork, I included local folder artwork and .nfo's, etc in case the music scraper API fell over, and couldn't pull data on obscure albums/artists.
(Fixed issues where artwork/metadata doesn't scrape or simply doesn't exist),
Artwork
Code:
Music\path\artist\album\audiofilename.mp3
Music\path\artist\album\audiofilename.jpg
Music\path\artist\album\cover.jpg
Music\path\artist\fanart.jpg
Music\path\artist\folder.jpg
Music\path\artist\logo.png
Music\path\artist\extrafanart\fanart1.jpg, fanart2.jpg, etc
Music\path\artist\banner.jpg
Music\path\artist\album\cdart.png
Music\path\artist\album\folder.jpg
Music\path\artist\artist.nfo <!-- artist.nfo optional (if no data to be scraped) -->
Music\path\artist\album\album.nfo <!-- album.nfo optional (if no data to be scraped) -->
Music folder structure (PITA to do at first, but worth doing, particularly obscure non-scrape-able's).
Single album hierarchy:
Code:
Artist folder\Album folder\track1.mp3 file
-->track2.mp3 file
-->track3.mp3 file
-->etc
<!-- Parent with subsequent albums to sub-folder -->
Artist folder\Album folder 2\track1.mp3 file
-->track2.mp3 file
-->track3.mp3 file
-->etc
album hierarchy:
Code:
Artist folder\Album folder\Disc 1 folder\track1.mp3 file
-->track2.mp3 file
-->track3.mp3 file
-->etc
<!-- Parent with subsequent multi-part to sub-folder -->
Artist folder\Album folder\Disc 2 folder\track1.mp3 file
-->track2.mp3 file
-->track3.mp3 file
-->etc
In the above music folder hierarchy, the artist folder-naming needs to match the actual
Artist Name.
If it's not matching, scraping tends to cause library issues with:
i) multiple/duplicate entries for the same artist
ii) inconsistent albums or tracks listed/grouped across different letters of the same artist
iii) album tracks split across duplicate album entries for the same artist
Using the artist
"MICHAEL JACKSON" as an example.
The music scraper/API adds the tracks/albums to the music library, allocating some tracks/albums to duplicates =
| "JACKSON MICHAEL" | "MICHAEL J" | "J MICHAEL" | "MJ" | "ETC" and
one album to actual artist name =
"MICHAEL JACKSON".
Music is then played via smart play-list, letter-group-filtering or navigating to album:
1) Play-all albums-of-artist:
"MICHAEL JACKSON"
- or -
2) Play-all artist's-album/s grouped under the letter:
"M"".
The track/album-artist or letter group, respectively:
| "JACKSON MICHAEL" | "MICHAEL J" | "J MICHAEL" | "MJ" | - and - :
"J", are not populated, when playing actual artist name. The
one album is played, while duplicates are not.
Some useful links:
Music add-on:
cdART Manager manages music artwork
.nfo examples:
artist.nfo and album.nfo when there's no data to scrape
HTH
