I downloaded the data dumps and imported into Postgres, and what I have noticed is I can query by media id (31 for vinyl) just fine, but it skips over releases that are stated as 2×12" on the website. Does 2×12" Vinyl have a medium format associated with it? I don’t see one when I view the medium_format table. Hope that makes sense!
Thank you.
Such releases have 2 mediums, both of them being 12’’ vinyl, one at position 1 and the other at position 2.
See Medium - MusicBrainz and the schema at MusicBrainz Database / Schema - MusicBrainz
Thank you this is helpful.
I think what my issue is my confusion with release groups and releases. I want to get all major albums that are on 12 inch vinyl only by artist. My query is clearly off.
You can do this with the advanced query syntax.
When you make a search, at the bottom of the page which it opens, there is a checkbox, “Indexed search with advanced query syntax”.
Here’s an example:
arid:5c95f00a-439e-47e4-8c7b-89d853d860bf AND format:"12\" Vinyl" AND primarytype:Album AND -secondarytype:compilation
This matches the following artist: Don Rendell Ian Carr Quintet - MusicBrainz, only searches for 12" Vinyl as the format, the primary type is album, and the secondarytype is not compilation. (Note the dash before -secondarytype, to inidicate that we certainly don’t want to match that field.)
This returns five LPs by the Don Rendell Ian Carr Quintet, and excludes the reissue compilation box set: Search Results - MusicBrainz
On the latter point, I supposed that that’s what you meant by ‘major album’, any album which is not a compilation. You can exclude live albums by doing the same thing -secondarytype:live.
If I wanted to match all artists with that name (better for much more obscure artists like this one), do something like artist:“Don Rendell”. This produces additional albums as it matches the individual and other groups:
Hope that is helpful. The advanced query syntax is really powerful and effective. (If somewhat frustrating if one has never used it before).