MusicBrainz Picard: How to fill only certain tags, sort into least albums, and "disallow" multi-artist albums

Question

Here is what I want:

• Fill only: Genre, Date (As the original release), and Album
• Sort into the least amount of albums
• Don't use albums with multiple/various artists

The artist and title tags are already filled, so I really don't need audio fingerprints or anything like that - just fetch the info, sort, fill. My music collection is not as big as others, but it is a daunting task to do one by one.

If this question has been asked and answered, I'm sorry. My Google fu isn't very good :-p

P.S.: I would prefer the date to be formatted like "m/d/yyyy" instead of "yyyy-mm-dd"

Answer 1

Picard should fill in missing tags, but I am not sure if you can explicitly set which fields to save.

I am currently using this file naming scheme:

$if2(%grouping%,%genre%)/$if($eq(%albumartist%,Various Artists),%artist%,%albumartist%)/$if(%originaldate%,$left(%originaldate%,4)) $if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),%discnumber%-,)$if($ne(%albumartist%,),$num(%tracknumber%,2) ,)%title%

To explain:

• the first path created looks at grouping tag. If it is empty, genre will be used.
• the second path will albumartist that is "Various Artists" and use artist instead. Otherwise, use albumartist
• Third path is original release date of song (year only) plus the default disc number, track number, and song title.

This thread may help for your specific Picard date formatting.