AcoustID not returning any data

MusicBrainz Picard
1

Hi,

Trying to submit some cassettes and CD’s I made of bands in Perth in the early 90’s, I’ve converted them to MP3’s and have them tagged correctly, but I don’t seem to be able to get an AcoustID back when I right click them in Picard and select “Generate AcoustID Fingerprints”.

Example file: http://neophytte.mine.nu/audio/mp3/Fantastic.mp3
Example file: http://neophytte.mine.nu/audio/mp3/Gypsy%20Fair.mp3

After loading the files and clustering them, the debug log shows:

D: 09:45:54,883 ui/mainwindow.set_statusbar_message:438: Clustering - step 3/3: Album (100%)
D: 09:45:54,884 file._move:598: Moving <MP3File 'Fantastic.mp3'> from <Cluster 'Unclustered Files'> to <Cluster 'Neon Ceiling - Demo #1'>
D: 09:45:54,885 file._move:598: Moving <MP3File 'Gypsy Fair.mp3'> from <Cluster 'Unclustered Files'> to <Cluster 'Neon Ceiling - Demo #1'>
D: 09:45:58,164 config.get_config:391: Instantiating Config for thread 123145342898176 using /Users/neophytte/.config/MusicBrainz/Picard.ini.
D: 09:46:01,852 acoustid/__init__._run_next_task:225: Starting fingerprint calculator '/Applications/chromaprint-fpcalc-1.5.0-macos-x86_64/fpcalc' '/Users/neophytte/Desktop/MP3 original Files/Neon Ceiling/Gypsy Fair.mp3'

and never returns …

Runing a version on fpcalc shows:

MacBook-Pro:chromaprint-fpcalc-1.5.0-macos-x86_64 $ ./fpcalc -version
fpcalc version 1.5.0 (FFmpeg Lavc58.54.100 Lavf58.29.100 SwR3.5.100)
MacBook-Pro:chromaprint-fpcalc-1.5.0-macos-x86_64 $

Because I have no AcoustID, the ‘submit’ button stays greyed out and I can’t move any further.

Any clues as to what I’m doing wrong?

Thanks

Richard

2

I’m moving this over to the Picard category, I can explain the behavior.

If you run “Generate AcoustID fingerprints” Picard only runs fpcalc against those files to generate the fingerprint. It does by itself neither submit anything to AcoustID nor do a lookup for matching AcoustIDs, it’s a purely local operation. If you want to see which files have a fingerprint generated you can enable the AcoustID fingerprint column in the list views.

The main use for this is for submission, once you have the fingerprints generated you can submit the fingerprint / MB recording ID combination to AcoustID. This requires you to first match your files to the correct MusicBrainz recording, afterwards the submit AcoustID button will be available.

If you want to do a lookup for matching AcoustIDs use the “Scan” function. It too will generate the fingerprint using fpcalc, but the actually do a web request against the AcoustID database to find matching AcoustIDs.

1 Like
3

Thanks for moving it to the correct location in the forum; I thought the issue was with fpcalc, but I may have been mistaken.

I’ve enabled the Fingerprint status column as suggested, and after doing a scan, I can see the fingerprint symbol is there, but could I request you to elaborate on this line:

This requires you to first match your files to the correct MusicBrainz recording

When I press the Lookup in browser button, I don’t see it listed on the website, or did I miss a step there?

Thanks

Richard

4

When you want to tag a file with data from MusicBrainz you need to load the data from MusicBrainz first, which will be shown on the right side, and then associate the file with the proper track of the loaded release.

This can either be done automatically with “Lookup” (metadata search) or “Scan” (acoustic fingerprinting) or manually, by searching the release on MusicBrainz, loading it into Picard, then dragging the file on the loaded data.

See also the documentation: Retrieving Album Information — MusicBrainz Picard v2.10 documentation

Anyway, in regards to AcoustID submission the important part is that you need to have your files attached to one of the recordings on MusicBrainz in order for being able to submit the fingerprint. What Picard does send to AcoustID are pairs of acoustic fingerprints together with the MusicBrainz recording ID.

The AcoustID then tries to match this fingerprint to existing AcoustID (by similarity with existing fingerprints) or creates a new AcoustID. Then it links the AcoustID to the MB recording.

See also Understanding Acoustic Fingerprinting and AcoustIDs — MusicBrainz Picard v2.10 documentation

It either means it isn’t there or you haven’t found it. The search uses your file’s existing metadata. Try maybe just searching for e.g. the artist and browse the artist’s releases or recordings.

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