I happened to discover this tool two weeks ago and have been trying to get my head around this software, but looks like I am going to take more time than I expected. Understanding scripts or syntaxes are not that difficult, but the outcomes are. I tried a couple of scripts by myself, and it didnât work that well. Then I happened to find the below script from âThebradleysâ through this forum. It works well for the most part but still has some issues.
Issues:
I was trying to tag The Best of Eddie Cochran (2 CDs - 40 tracks) album. MB clustered it into 7 different albums. Not sure why would it do that although it exists in MB database (MBID: 35edcc27-a9c9-47bd-8abc-69df3f149fca). Is it because of the scripting or some settings that is conflicting? Isnât there a way to manually tag an entire album with MBID instead of a cluster, lookup, and scan approach? Itâs going to be hard to review the changes if I run it across 100 albums. Do I need to enable use release/tracks relationship for a better match? How do I troubleshoot if I donât get the desired results? Where should I start from?
I am not able to get genres in spite of enabling last.fm and MB Mood genre plugins to refresh the tags.
I do not want to have multiple artists in the album name, so I have enabled standard artist names, and the script only uses album artist. Hope itâs not conflicting.
I have enabled âclear existing tagsâ and âremove id3 from FLACâ - is that a bad approach? I just want to retag/rename with better metadata from MB.
Also, it was confusing whether the script should also be pasted back into âfile naming menuâ or only in the âscriptâ tab? I have it on both.
Sorry for the long list of questions, but I would greatly appreciate if someone can take time to help me out. All I am looking for is - Root folder / Album Artist (no featuring or multiple artists) / Album [Year] / Title. If more than one disc exists, then disc number followed by a track number 01-01 (02-01) in the title name would be helpful.
To answer your last question first, the filenaming script should be pasted in the file naming menu only. The script tab is used to change tags or set variables. For example, I use it to set all my tracknumbers to use leading zeros.
In answer to your first question, Iâd bet that you used âScanâ to find matches for your files. I donât know what your tags originally looked like, but if you have at least the artist and album already filled in, using âClusterâ then âLookupâ is almost always better. Whatâs even better than that, is pulling up the release in your browser and dragging it to the right pane of Picard. Then, drag your files from the left or middle pane directly to that release in the right pane.
Hi Billy Yank - thanks for your quick response and clarifying script tab issue. I initially tried cluster and then lookup approach, it did not show appropriate results.
Can you please elaborate - âWhatâs even better than that, is pulling up the release in your browser and dragging it to the right pane of Picard.â How can I drag a release from the browser into the right panel? Here is the link I was referring to: Release âThe Best of Eddie Cochranâ by Eddie Cochran - Details - MusicBrainz
Allow me to slip in a question too:
Iâve seen people mentioning the âmiddle panelâ before.
But Iâve never seen it, is it perhaps hidden by default? Does it appear only at certain occasions?
I think itâs the left pane that can be hidden, so the center pane would look like the left pane. On my Picard, thereâs a pane to the left that shows the folder tree, one in the center where unmatched files and clusters live, and the right pane where the matched files end up.
This is brilliant. This also answered one of my questions - manual tagging.
Just to be sure, I am doing it right - after I drag the https into right panel, should I perform - cluster and lookup? or manually drag to the right match? I kinda tried both because lookup ended up listing additional albums on the right panel and matched some tracks to the incorrect ones. I then moved it manually.
Let me know if I got it right, and a big thank you for your time and suggestions.
Scan uses acoustic fingerprinting to try to locate a match for your songs, while cluster/lookup uses the existing tags in the files to try to match the release. If you have half-way decent tags already, this usually produces better results. Because scan is essentially dealing with individual files, it more often produces the results you are seeing, where songs may be scattered across several different albums and compilations.
The method I use however, is to find (or add) the release on the website and drag it to Picard. This is without a doubt the most accurate method. Of course, itâs also the slowest. I started 9 years ago, and Iâm up to the Râs.
Thanks Billy Yank for clarifying that. It makes sense now. I am surely going to follow your method - it may be the slowest, but I think it is the best approach to get the right tags at one shot! Thanks again!
The other benefit, is it improves the database. I joke about how slow Iâm tagging my collection, but really, Iâm ripping or re-ripping all my vinyl and CDs. Iâm adding or checking all the releases and adding any relationship info I have. And Iâm scanning or photographing all the cover art for the archive. Tagging the files then becomes one small part of a fairly long and labor intensive process.
Even if all you do is add the releases and front covers of the stuff in your collection, that would still add to the accuracy of the database.
If your tags have information like comments, replay gain, encoder information, or any tag that will not be added by picard you will lose that information with clear existing tags checked. The remove id3 from flac is a good practise. Also I have found id3v2.3 with utf-16 for MP3 to be the most compatible with most applications and streaming services that let you upload your own music.
Does your browser view not have the button to open release in picard?
Thanks @The_King. This is very helpful. Regarding the button to open release in picard, I donât see that option. I tried in both Chrome and Edge browsers for the same album. That would be another great alternative.
I think that I tend to do it much the same way as @Billy_Yank, by looking up the release in the web browser and then copying the url (or just the release id) and paste it in the lookup box on the right hand side of the toolbar.
Picard will then retrieve the information for the release.
Another option is to append â?tport=8000â to the url on your browser, and reload the page. This should provide a green âtaggerâ arrow for the release. Clicking the arrow will send the release information to Picard. Generally, as long as you donât close the browsing session the green tagging arrow feature will remain active as you browse the MB site looking up other releases. Eventually it will time out after a (lengthy?) period of inactivity, but itâs easy enough to just do the â?tport=8000â thing again to get it back.
EDIT: This is the green arrow that @The_King was referring to in his earlier message.
If you use the âLookup in Browserâ button in Picard, the Tagger button will appear on the website. It will continue to appear on all release pages you go to in that browser, so you only have to do it once per session.
Thank you @rdswift and @Billy_Yank for your guidance. This is now getting fun! Hopefully, I will have a better organized media library with all your suggestions.
I tried a couple of scripts by myself, and it didnât work that well. Then I happened to find the below script from âThebradleysâ through this forum. It works well for the most part but still has some issues.
