below is partial readout of liner notes for
This is not totally surprising. Some merges just happen based on a title and length.
The only way to split is to now make three recordings - 1942, 1947 and Unknown Year. Name the current one “Unknown Year” in the disambig, then start splitting out the known recordings into the separated years.
The problem though is you end up with a mess of AcoustIDs that need handling in separate ways. You’ll need some fresh AcoustID samples for those new recordings…
Have seen this many times, and had to try and untangle similar problems. Stick lots of notes in the annotations and maybe people will stop attaching things to the wrong recordings…
Ouch - FIVE pages of recordings. That is a LOT of confusions!
Quoting from wikipedia:
The version most often heard today on the radio during the Christmas season is the 1947 re-recording. The 1942 master was damaged due to frequent use. Crosby re-recorded the track on March 19, 1947, accompanied again by the Trotter Orchestra and the Darby Singers, with every effort made to reproduce the original recording session.[8] The re-recording is recognizable by the addition of flutes and celesta in the beginning.
So a full artist credit including the singers and orchestra doesn’t help distinguish the recordings in this case. 
That wikipedia quote makes me think to just make the current recording the 1947 one, and split out the known 1942 versions as there is going to be less of them.
Wait, they haven’t been merged. They are both still there.
I guess I misunderstood your post.
Bing is my latest project in organizing database, after Gene Autry, Hank Williams and Bob Wills. I reduced 130+ recording tabs of Gene to 10. Bing currently has 99.
Let’s take our time doing this. I have detailed research on all Bing’s recordings, releases and compilations. He has re-recorded many of his songs twice over 50 years. Many are duets and as band vocalist.
The goal is to accurately reduce his catalog so users can find stuff.
For each song, I do a recording search, and make sure each has work with recording date if I know it.
For compilations, I use Google Lens to get an OCR of the liner notes, and add timings and recording date for each track.
All is in preparation for merging
“You’ll need some fresh AcoustID samples for those new recordings…” <<< how?
“Have seen this many times, and had to try and untangle similar problems” << please be my consultant and co-merging manager
tigerman325 and highstrung both needed too
I will do most of grunt work
I need your brains and advice
Dave
The re-recording is recognizable by the addition of flutes and celesta in the beginning
Cool. Was down on my list as well. Glad to see you taking this on. At one time, they both were all the same and I started separating out a few years ago, but there are so many that are messed up.
That would be nice to say in the annotation that we can recognise this new recording thanks to intro with flute and celesta.
One trick is to manually add known AcoustIDs to the top of the recording page. I assume you own a few of these recordings yourself? So you can extract those and use them as a reference. Even better if you have examples of both 1947 and 1942 recordings.
Then if you have a “known” 1947 acoustID, you can safely untick that AcoustID from the 1942 recording. And vice-versa.
Often you will find if you add a few, others will follow.
I know little of Bing, so can’t assist in any detail. In this example you have had others walk ahead of you creating the initial split. And they will have learnt much on those earlier trails.
This task is made trickier as both recordings are the same length. But you can also look for other patterns. For example, the label who is releasing the track on a compilation. You will find they will generally stick to using the same version for many years. There will be a pattern as to who uses the 1942 recording, and who uses the 1947 version.
Also watch out for the badly credited cover versions… a messy situation I’ve been learning of in the past few months. Again it is the Label that helps make those stand out.
Another trick, is to get some better feel of Bing’s output by working on the lesser known tracks. That way you’ll soon work out which are the labels to trust. Once you have a clearer picture from that angle, you’ll have more knowledge for the big tracks like this one. This will certainly assist in that search for the original recordings.
Being slightly certifiable, I just had a dig through all the AcoustIDs attached to those two recordings. This is an impossible task. You cannot make use of AcoustIDs as too many years have gone by where AcoustIDs are being attached to both the 1942 and 1947 recordings. This makes it almost impossible to separate by that method (without getting your hands on a lot of CDs).
When going through them, I also saw the other classic lazy editor problem - “Christmas” AcoustIDs attached to all kinds of other songs that only shared the word “Christmas” in the title. I’ve chucked in a bit of the old Napalm to many of those to clear the obvious errors away.
I will need all that info so will send you email address
Bing project huge job, and bringing up editing issues
But the major decision issue will be mergers, as I identify different versions, bad mergers, and hopefully with help of senior editors, fix and re-organize. There are many problems not at level of White Christmas, like “Where the Blue of the Night”, his theme song, which has 4-5 versions, plus radio recordings, circulating. Fixed that up, now just worried about making my own mistakes.