Possible new release group secondary type: sample CD / sample library

MusicBrainz Style
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Hi everyone!

So, sample CDs: not to be confused with record labels giving away compilations. The kind of sample CDs I’m talking about are ones filled with breakbeats and other instrument solos, single notes, that kind of thing, sold to electronic musicians for them to sample in their own music. Back in the 90s there were whole catalogues of them, some in regular red book audio CD format, some in proprietary sampler formats (Akai, Roland, Yamaha), some as yellow book CD-ROMs. These days, they’re .zip files of .wav files. (Or more often proprietary Kontakt sampler files, but that’d be beyond this scope.)

Sample CDs themselves aren’t really whole music, so much as parts of music, the raw building blocks.

Given that you can specify which recordings sampled which other recordings, and that red book sample CDs are technically regular recordings, I thought it might be interesting to be able to note which songs sample which sample CDs, in the same way you can currently see which songs sample which Ultimate Breaks and Beats records.

Does anyone have any strong feelings about this? Sample CDs themselves aren’t albums of complete music, they’re a lot closer to instruments, but adding them into the database would be pretty interesting for nerdy sample spotters such as myself.

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I think it would be great to have. I don’t see how this could be implemented as instruments in a satisfactory manner anyway, and MusicBrainz has been about far more than just music for ages. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of CDs with nature sounds (sampled or not), for example.

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Thanks! I’d like to properly identify nature sounds with their own secondary type too, as a separate request. :blush:

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I’m not sure I’d be keen to have a release where the physical medium is a data disc containing zips of wav files, unless there is a clear unambiguous ordering defined for them. Without that, I’d consider them standalone recordings, possibly joined via a Series.

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But that is a release. If such a medium has be sold or otherwise “widely” distributed, it’s a release. We have multiple media formats that allow for just this, such as data CDs, SD cards, or USB flash drives. We have a number of these without “a clear unambiguous ordering defined for them” in the database already.

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