iPod default sorting questions

[StonedMedusa]

Here's a "problem" on which I hope some of you can shed some light. I don???t think this is even a problem, as I'm just trying to figure out how to use this amazing toy better so any help would be appreciated.

Basically, I want songs of a compilation album (e.g., soundtrack) to be displayed based on the alphabetical order of the songs and not the artists that made them. If that made no sense, please read on.

Let???s say, I have a compilation album, e.g., Animatrix soundtrack. The files have tags for artist, album name, and song name. The song name consists of the track number and the name of the track itself (## - name, e.g., 01 - Song Name).

I noticed that when I played that album on the iPod by going through the "Album" menu, for some reason the tracks were not in alphabetical order of the song name, (01, 02, 03, etc.), but instead the songs appeared to be in random order. However, they were actually in order, but were instead sorted by the artist name tag. I verified this by using iTunes -- when the album's songs were sorted by artists' names (by toggling the "Artist" tab of that specific album), the order of the songs was exactly the same as they appeared in the iPod. As you know, in iTunes this is easily fixed, files can be sorted by using any category, there you???d simply need to toggle the "Song Name" tab. However, no such feature is available in the iPod.

Obviosly this problem would not affect a "regular" album by a single artists, e.g., U2's Achtung Baby. Since the artist is the same, the songs would be sorted by their name.

Anyone have any ideas on how to sort by song names in albums consisting of various artists? Because Apple's tech support had none even though he understood my question.

New podder

[baggss]

Here's a "problem" on which I hope some of you can shed some light. I don???t think this is even a problem, as I'm just trying to figure out how to use this amazing toy better so any help would be appreciated.

Basically, I want songs of a compilation album (e.g., soundtrack) to be displayed based on the alphabetical order of the songs and not the artists that made them. If that made no sense, please read on.[

Is this compilation album a real album, or one that you are making up yourself?

Let???s say, I have a compilation album, e.g., Animatrix soundtrack. The files have tags for artist, album name, and song name. The song name consists of the track number and the name of the track itself (## - name, e.g., 01 - Song Name).
I noticed that when I played that album on the iPod by going through the "Album" menu, for some reason the tracks were not in alphabetical order of the song name, (01, 02, 03, etc.), but instead the songs appeared to be in random order. However, they were actually in order, but were instead sorted by the artist name tag.

Alphabetical order of the Song name (01, 02, 03 etc). Do you mean NUMERICAL order based on track number? If so, you need to add the track numbers to the appropriate ID3 tag fields. Otherwise iTunes gets funky when you put the track number in the name field.

Have you verified that the Album name is the same for all the songs?

I verified this by using iTunes -- when the album's songs were sorted by artists' names (by toggling the "Artist" tab of that specific album), the order of the songs was exactly the same as they appeared in the iPod. As you know, in iTunes this is easily fixed, files can be sorted by using any category, there you???d simply need to toggle the "Song Name" tab. However, no such feature is available in the iPod.

Obviosly this problem would not affect a "regular" album by a single artists, e.g., U2's Achtung Baby. Since the artist is the same, the songs would be sorted by their name.

Anyone have any ideas on how to sort by song names in albums consisting of various artists? Because Apple's tech support had none even though he understood my question.[

I have a few compilation albums on my iPod and when I brows via album, they all come up in the correct album order (i.e track 1,2,3...). If you remove the track number (from the appropriate ID3 tag field), they should all show up in alphabetical order IF the Album info in the ID3 tag is correct

New podder

[unknownsoldier]

try entering in the track number into the rtack number field in the itunes library

[StonedMedusa]

That did the trick. Thanks for the advice guys. I removed the track number from song name and input it directly into track fields. Now I just gotta do it 990 more times.

[Galley]

Originally posted by StonedMedusa
That did the trick. Thanks for the advice guys. I removed the track number from song name and input it directly into track fields. Now I just gotta do it 990 more times.

Just use renaming software, such as Tag&Rename, and generate tags from the filename.
http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm (Windows)