How can I use Music Brainz to organize my CD collection?

[tritigr]

Hello everyone,
I really love the idea of having the "ultimate2 database to unambigiously tag CD and/or audio files. However, although there is a ton of documentation on how to enter data INTO the database, I do not really see how I as a user can extract the information i want OUT of the database.

e.g. I would like to know which recordings of the Schumann piano concerto I own.
I see I can add my CDs to my collection, and I see I can query the complete database for Schumans recordings, but I do not see how I could easily combine both. I would think this would be one of the most basic usages of this database.

I might digitize some or even a large part of the collection, and also there I do not really see how I could search for and play all 3 movements of the concerto in an easy way as it seems that also the ripped files stand only for themselves, and there is no way to “integrate” them into one “playlist” automatically.

In principle, I could clone the whole database, and add some tables of my own, but this seems to be a lot of overengineering and would also lack the possibility of easily contributing to the community the data for the recordings I own, which I would very much like to do, if I could use them myself afterwards as well.

I am looking forward very much to your suggestions.

[jesus2099]

I don’t know if it fully answers your question, but I can see what recordings (and releases, and works) I own, thanks to my MB “owned releases” collection and:

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTER :: Highlight owned stuff (releases, recordings, …)

Continuing the discussion from Is it possible to get a discography completion stat/missing tracks?: The main reason I use MusicBrainz is to keep track of my collection. When I am in a flea market, second hand shop, CD shop, I want to know if that compilation or single will bring me recordings I don’t already own in this artist albums or if I already have any edition of that album, etc. There used to be such a feature in old version of MB but it was very limited as a feature, only the equivale…

Example for recordings (purple means owned):

[sound.and.vision]

Yep pretty much use the above userscript that’s the best way

To get a user script working you will need to install a plug-in like TamperMonkey or ViolentMonkey and then visit this URL

This will work with any modern browser on desktop or a variety of mobile browsers that support extensions (like Firefox on mobile)

[jesus2099]

And here is a general MB guide about userscripts, with some nice info:

https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Guides/Userscripts

[aerozol]

Sorry if I’m stating the obvious, but just in case:

The MusicBrainz database is usually used in conjunction with other programs and/or taggers to organize collections.

1. The “official” MusicBrainz tagger is MusicBrainz Picard.
2. I believe that for classical music the “Classical Extras 2.0” plugin is used almost universally, for a massive amount of tagging flexibility
3. After tagging, you will want a music player that can effectively display and sort, and possibly make playlists etc, with these tags. Here is an example tutorial of how to do so with the MusicBee player.

[tritigr]

thank you all. I will check this out, might take some time though

[tritigr]

Just to let you know.
I started ripping the CDs as I couldn’t see a real alternative.
Now, there is an option in picard to convert the composers to a “standard” language (German, in my case), which seems to work very well.
Is there a similar thing for the track titles? I read english ok, but I do not know the names for most of the classical music, so it would be nice to have the german names in the track. In a way, I guess this would be a simple SQL query against the database. If it is not yet done, can someone get me started on how to add something like this into picard?

Oh, and I did my first edits and generated some questions, maybe one of you is so nice to have a look at it and tell me what I am most certainly doing wrong…

Please advise for first time editor: add choir, and multiple work relationships

Hi, I tried my first edits by contributing to a classical release already in the database: added images, work relationships, and relationships for conductor and orchestra here: I would be grateful if someone could check if I did this correctly. Specifically, I generated some questions along editing: do i add performers to the release or the release group? I guess in most cases it doesn’t matter, but still… How would I add the choir? There is no choir relationship available. Should the choi…

Thanks again for your help,

[sound.and.vision]

@tritigr

Is there a similar thing for the track titles?

If the track listing on the original CD is in German and the correct Edition/Version is chosen in Picard then you should get a German language tracklisting without the need for any further scripting or plug-ins.

If you’re wanting some kind of ad-hoc translation of English (or other language) track listings into German then the only way I can see that work is if someone has gone to the trouble to add an alias to the recording and specified the German language, however this is ultimately quite rare.

There might be some way of getting a plug-in to do translations, but I am not aware of such a feature.

[tritigr]

Thank you, I will try again with this information. I was actually thinking of an already existing “translation”/version as an alias to the work. So maybe all I need to to is to add the language in the alias…