(newby warning, just ramping up to MB)
I want to make use of MB’s schema to populate a local DB of music on my local disk. i find lots of scripts for importing from online sources, but how would you recommend crawling and importing from local files?
the QuickGuide also seemed like it might be where i should start, but after importing a local directory my screen does NOT look like the one described?
The “quickguide” you have found is how to use Picard to identify and tag digital files. It is not going to help much for copying the whole database to your local computer.
I don’t have a CLUE about the database dev side of MB, but I make lots of use of Picard to tag and identify music tracks. A VERY different task.
Thanks @IvanDobsky. To be clear, my goal is to simply use the MB data schema to describe my digital files, not download the MB database. But my music is organized in the typical artist/album/track hierarchy and so i figured others must have parsing code for this?
The first step is to use Picard or another MB-compatible tagger to identify your music. Even if your files already have some tags, they need MB tags in order to uniquely identify them, and to associate each one with a specific album release.
Based on the screenshot you posted, you’re on the right track if you want to use Picard. Select the folders you want to match, then click “Scan” or “Lookup” (I have more success with “Scan”).
As for the database: When a music player reads your local collection to create a library, it builds a searchable database from the tags. Quod Libet is one player that is particularly powerful for search and cataloguing. (Its database format is described here.)
There is also a third-party MB client called beets, which is an alternative to Picard. It scans your files, matches them to MB records, and creates an SQLite database of the matches. You then have the option to allow beets to change your tags to sync them with its database. You can query the database using beets, or through the SQLite client of your choice.
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VERY helpful, thanks so much @sibilant. i’ll check out both Quod Libet and Beets. There’s a rich ecology around MB!
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