There are a lot of albums where musicians are credited with just ‘vocals’.
So I would like to be able to add just that: ‘vocals’.
But I don’t see ‘vocals’ as an option in the drop-down menu.
I must choose between lead, background, tenor, etc.
But often vocal roles are not that clearly defined.
Also you will not go and listen to every single track to decide if a vocal is lead, background, soprano, alto, etc.
The only option that I see as a remaining choice is ‘other vocals’.
But that looks odd to me.
If a singer is credited on a release to have done the ‘vocals’, ending up with ‘other vocals’ is weird.
Thanks for the fast reply chaban.
But it’s not clear to me what that means? Should/can I do something?
Or is it agreed that ‘vocals’ should not be an option and should I just forget about it?
Not meant to be criticizing, but in the link I saw the year 2013 when this was raised before.
Is the democratic process here that slow and/or complicated?
Or is there perhaps a lack of developers or something?
I was confused about this topic fist, since it’s not a problem to set a relationship just for vocals on recording level and also on release level (because the detailed “vocal” is optional).
Also the linked ticket (MBS-6184) confused me at the beginning, but it’s (only) for linking one artist to another artist (typically to a Group) and set it to vocals (e.g. for the singer for a band).
So it’s possible to set the role e.g. for the drummer, but not for the singer (unless you chose none of the defined vocal-roles, e.g. lead vocals, background vocals, tenor vocals, etc.).
I don’t really see why the attribute should have a “vocals” option, that looks strange. This attribute basically specifies what kind of vocals. That it is some kind of vocals is already clear by the relationship. There are lead vocals and background vocals, but no vocal vocals
Maybe such an option shod rather be named “not specified” or something. The ticket mentions the need for this to allow using the “credited as” option. That’s a valid use case, but would be also fulfilled by the “not specified” value.
Otherwise this starts looking really redundant if a generic “vocals” credit gets entered like this:
What was the performers role (the relationship type): vocals
What kind of vocals (the attribute): vocals
How was the performer credited (credited as): vocals
In 90% of the cases when I am using a CD booklet to enter the vocals the specific type of singing is rarely defined. “vocals” means “vocals”. Please don’t change this to “vocals [unspecified]” as in most cases I’m dealing with it is just a single singer in the band.
With many of the CDs I add there is only a single vocalist on the album. But as they are listed as “vocals” then it would be a guess to change that to “lead vocals”.
I don’t really see what the confusion is. Having “vocals” implies “unspecified”. Any time someone then selects a specific type of vocal it will be because it is one of those cases they have read that somewhere.
I edit mainly rock and punk music. I realise this is very different in the classical world where artists will have much more defined titles for the types of vocals they are doing.
I agree with you @jesus2099, and this is why I would always want to preserve a “vocals” base level. Most CDs and vinyl I deal with don’t mention who is on which track. Sometimes they do their own double tracked backing vocals. Sometimes a different band member may step forward and add lead or background vocals on other tracks.
But most of the time the credits are just “vocals”. This is why MB still needs to allow the generic response for those cases where we cannot be sure if this artist is on lead or backing at the time. Forcing someone to choose when they don’t know will lead to incorrect guesses.
