Music CD visibility in Picard

I have just added a new release:

Music That Inspired The Blues Brothers - 75 R&B Classics

What steps still need to be taken to make this disc visible in Picard for MP3 files?

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Thank you for adding another carefully-edited Release entry to MusicBrainz!

I am not sure what you mean by “make this disc visible in Picard for MP3 files”. What are you doing in Picard? How do you tell that the disc is not visible?

When an entity like a Release or Artist gets added to MusicBrainz, there is a delay of a few hours before the search indexes incorporate the change. You seem to have edited this release over six hours ago, and I can find it using an indexed search. Thus I think this delay is not a factor for your situation.

I don’t have a problem with time. :wink:

It’s not important to me.

Let me ask you this:

If someone has a rip of this CD and uploads it to Picard, will Picard give their MP3 files the tags from my edition?

Also, will individual files sometimes be tagged with this compilation?

And what about the cover?

After all, I added an imperfect real photo. :wink:

When a Picard user opens MP3 files in Picard, Picard tries to find a MusicBrainz Release entry which matches the MP3 files. Picard can use a variety of clues to choose which Release entry to use:

  • Generating a DiscID from a CD in a drive attached to the computer, and looking up a Release entry which has that DiscID
  • If there are MusicBrainz ID tags within the music files, using the Release corresponding to those IDs
  • Generating an AcousticID from an analysis of the music content, and finding Recordings which match those AcousticIDs
  • Using the audio length of the MP3s to look for similar track lengths
  • Using the name of the MP3 files to look for similarly-named tracks and releases
  • Opening a MusicBrainz window in the user’s web browser, with a setting which tells MusicBrainz to put a green “Tagger” label by Release entries. The user searches, selects a MusicBrainz Release entry, and presses the “Tagger” label. This tells Picard to use that Release entry.

Once Picard has somehow chosen a Release entry, then it inserts tags into the MP3 files based on the metadata in the Release entry.

So, what you did is to add a Release entry to MusicBrainz, corresponding to your copy of a physical CD. If someone opens their MP3 files in Picard, and those MP3 files resemble your Release entry, Picard will give those MP3 the tags from your Release entry.

Even if those MP3 files are completely different from the music of your physical CD, the user could essentially force Picard to chose a completely wrong MusicBrainz Release entry, such as yours, and insert that metadata into their MP3 files.

Does that answer your question?

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No need to wait 7 days for voting to close?

And the second more important question:

And what about the cover?

After all, I added an imperfect real photo. :wink:

So it sounds like your question is, if there is an existing entry in MusicBrainz, and I make an edit to improve that entry, but the edit has to wait some days for voting to close, what happens to a Picard user who tries to tag using that entry? Will they get the existing entry, or the entry with my edit which is waiting for votes to close?

The answer is, they will get the existing entry. Your edits are not part of the MusicBrainz database until voting closes.

So, if the person tagging MP3 files wants the result of the edit, they have a few choices:

  1. wait for voting to close on edits which are important, and for the edits to get accepted, before doing the tagging.
  2. do the tagging immediately, with imperfect metadata; be sure that Picard writes the MBID for the Release to each music file; then after voting closes, open the music files again in Picard and redo the tagging. This will be fast and reliable, because the MBID in the music file tells Picard exactly which Release entry to consult.
  3. Make a post in the forum’s Requests For Votes thread, asking for other editors to vote on your edit, or for an autoeditor to apply it immediately.

This same advice applies whether you are correcting the text of a Release title, or replacing imperfect cover art with better cover art, or changing a Relationship.

Does that answer your question?

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And what about the cover?

After all, I added an imperfect real photo. :wink:

As I said above, “This same advice applies whether you are … replacing imperfect cover art with better cover art….”

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Just to mention, I’d say there’s also a 2a option: manually copy-and-paste the results of the edit into Picard’s “New Value” column before writing the files. It’s a bit tedious, but I sometimes do this when I notice typos while tagging new files.

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Good point. That is also an option. Thank you for mentioning that.

@Jim_DeLaHunt

I will repeat the question differently.

Which photos will Picard choose to paste into MP3?

For cover art specifically there is an option " Download only approved images. If this is not checked then also pending cover art will be used. See also Cover Art Archive — MusicBrainz Picard v2.11 documentation

Note that this option only exists for cover art. There is currently no way to access the data for other pending edits via the MusicBrainz API.

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@outsidecontext

But I guess I’d have to crop my photos without the table background :slight_smile:

And I guess it’s best to use a scanner?

That would be nice.
Most important (at least for me) is that a cover exists.

Because with this cover (including a part of your table) I can use Google and find a (for me perfect) picture like this:

Please do NOT upload this 950x949 pixel cover as first cover.
(There are plenty of existing threads describing why this is considered wrong here at MB.
Hint: Have a look at the number of tracks printed on the cover…)

This one would probably match better.

4 Likes

@InvisibleMan78

If record labels provide their recordings to e.g. Spotify, can we ask them to provide us with the graphics of their albums straight from the designer?

You could try it.
But to be honest, I don’t think the record labels are interested do support such requests.
They could also provide all the metdata, including lyrics, but they don’t.

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