Yate fully supports multi-value fields as according to the ID3 2.4 specification. It is supported in all audio formats and ID3 versions......wherever possible by an existing specification or convention. This support was in Yate's first release.

In ID3 2.4 multiple value are separated by a single binary 0. This cannot be represented in a UI as:

Eric Clapton\0J.J. Cale

would appear as:

Eric ClaptonJ.J Cale

Yate uses the Multi Value Delimiter to visually represent the breaks. Originally ;;; was chosen as it was used in the past by a variety of other applications. While this is configurable, it is not a good idea to change the value as certain "multi-value deficient" audio formats actually have the delimiter written out. The delimiter can easily be accessed in an action by \m (backslash-m).

When Yate reads a file, the binary separators are replaced with the Multi Value Delimiter so that you can see things in the UI. This also makes it possible to manipulate the multiple values in actions. When the files get written, the Multi Value Delimiter sequence is replaced by whatever is appropriate for the audio format. So, any application properly supporting the standard will see the correct values.

You can manually separate artists, etc. by inserting the delimiters yourself. The "Choose Value" functionality allows you to enter values, one per line, and inserts the delimiters when exiting the dialog. Lots of functionality in Yate is "Multi Value Delimiter" aware.

ID3 2.3 never had a "defined" method of handling multiple values and as such some applications used "/", some used ";;;" and general chaos ensued. If you choose to write ID3 2.3 files, Yate will write use the Multi Value Delimiter in text form.

There is a complete listing of all tag mappings used by Yate. The table can be viewed on the main help page under Reference/Frame Mapping Table. The FLAC (Vorbis) comment column displays the out-of-the-box values. The FLAC mappings are 100% configurable.

You can see the raw data being written by enabling the Preferences-Audio-Verbose log raw data setting and doing a File>Log>Raw Data on a track with multiple values.

The only thing to be aware of when going "multiple value" is that most players do not handle it correctly (iTunes!). They typically either truncate or concatenate the names. The next release of Audirvana is supposed to have full multi-value support.

Thanks a lot for your detailed explanation!
I’m happy Yate does everything so well! I am aware that most players don’t fully support multiple values, but as in most cases it will not break things – «ArtistA;;;ArtistB» will just be displayed as «ArtistA ArtistB» I’m fine with that. For me it’s much more valuable to habe the real tags.

I posted my first answer before I saw yours… thanks 🙂

Good idea.

In ID3v2.3 the delimiter simply gets written to the file. The biggest improvement in ID3v2.4 was the fact that it handled multiple values well. The answer as to whether or not you should use the delimiter is really based mostly on your player. Many players accept ; as a multi value delimiter. (so ;;; works). No Apple application does. The benefit of keeping the delimiters around is that Yate uses them all over the place to be able to differentiate values. However, base your decision on the player, not on Yate.

FLAC always handles multiple values well as any low level FLAC comment can handle multiple values.

As far as APE goes ... I'd rather not talk about APE tags at all. I once saw an article on Google titled something like "Ape Tags are an Abomination". I agree.

MPEG-4 m4a (AAC and ALAC), m4v, etc., depends again on your player. Yate allows to to encode in three different ways. The out of the box setting of Single writes a single atom for every field. This means that the delimiter gets written. This is the most common implementation as that's what iTunes/Music/TV expects. However there are other players out there which understand the ;;; delimiter. The worst case scenario is that you see the ;;;s in the player. Single Atom / Multiple Data is what every player should implement. It is fully within spec and supports multiple values. The number of players which actually implement this is low. Certainly MiminServer does and I assume others as well. If your player does not support this you will only see the first item in the delimited list. Multiple Data writes multiple separate atoms with the same identifier. This is totally invalid according to the MPEG spec but a number of taggers do it regardless and some players support it. If this is not supported by your player you will typically see the first or last item in the list.

The only reasonable way to go is to try different encodings and see what happens on your player. I used to try and keep a list but it took far too much time to keep it up to date.