Linking Instrumentals to Originals

(Or regular recording-of, of course, if partial explicitly only means partial duration and never partial contents)

Naming/UI would be a separate discussion.

First two are not adding new recording while third one adds some recording (some sound).
It is no longer only just a change in the mix of existing tracks.
All three are linked to the same work, partial for the two first ones, instrumental for the third.
First two are linked to that regular complete recording they are edited from.

IMO. For me nothing is badly missing here, and we do not need new works for each new recording as we have relationship attributes like partial and instrumental.

The first two indeed are simply different edits of the same mix. So different recordings, same work. There’s a third, probably rare, case too: one where the lead track(s) of a vocal-less piece are isolated (sort of an instrumental acapella).
For the r-r rel, flags on edit-of seem appropriate. For the r-w rel, the current instrumental-recording-of is too ambiguous; I’d want mutually exclusive flags with a clearer meaning (“vocals only”, “backing tracks only”, “lead tracks only”?) I suppose simply adding an acapella flag also works (with both together covering the lead-tracks-only case), but then the descriptions of the flags needs to make their use clear.

But the last type to me will almost always warrant a new work; arrangement-of seems like the proper w-w rel to use. Here too there is a case I missed: a vocal-less piece that later has vocals added (either new addition or replacing existing lead tracks). So adding mutually-exclusive “vocal” and “instrumental” flags on arrangement-of seems to cover that.

It’s not ambiguous for me if you are talking about those two cases:

The first one is clearly what the instrumental attribute is made for as indicated by the documentation:

For works that have lyrics, this indicates that those lyrics are not relevant to this recording. Examples include instrumental arrangements, or “beats” from hip-hop songs which may be reused with different lyrics.

In the second case I’d choose instrumental + cover.

PS: Since the partial attribute was also mentioned: The way I understand it this is not for instrumentals or acapellas of the entire work, but rather for small parts of the work:

This indicates that the recording is not of the entire work, e.g. excerpts from, conclusion of, etc.

Maybe you’re editing classical where there are works for new arrangements.
But in non classical, arrangements are done on recordings, otherwise, works would have no more reason of being.
An instrumental cover, a live recording, a dub version, a different genre cover, … all these will be linked to the same work, I don’t need/want one work per new recording version.

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You mean like “instrumental” and “acapella” attributes?