Sort Order of Artists

Dim question BUT

What order determines Artist Sort when the tag is empty ?

I have loads of albums where [Artist Sort] is empty Audirvana seems to have some default which splits an Artist into 2 groups First, Last and Last, First

Equally orchestral records often have the orchestra and or conductor included in the sort order.

This makes finding an individual artist a nightmare

I assume there is no Global setting , and I have no desire to start adding [Artist Sort] where its missing , it will be 10’s of thousands of tracks

hi @MikeO,

When there is no sort in the metadata, Audirvāna takes the artist’s name. Can you confirm if that’s the case on your end?

I will need to check but no definite rule will mean one way for no data and possibly another sort if ArtistSort is set

I am seeing artists in areas where its Surname , and in other areas where it’s first name , finding an album is chaotic . There are examples where one artist is in multiple tags eg where playing with another artist. Often an artist neve appears as a single artist !!

Defining ArtistSort = Last Name, First Name or First Name , Last Name would help

I simply don’t have the appetite to go through thousands of albums setting a standardize ArtistSort tag when the Artists tag is accurately set. It will mean backing up my entire library

Take this as an example, my only source of John Williams is a single box set , it contains Cd’s recorded with other artists.

All CD’s have the Artist set as a semi-colon delimited string (which is JRivers way of creating a collection. AS has converted these semi colon’s to “/” In some cases and commas in others and now shows 6 individual sort artist tags (last column), some starting J others W .

Equally the other Artists are only shown as part of a composite string. Take Itzhak Perlman, this recording would be lost

What do I do next ??