Proof of editing sources

MusicBrainz
21

Yeah, I know my intentions are good, and I try to stick with that. I have all good intention with edits I make. I understand that MB is a community, and that the majority will usually rule, which is fine with me. But I changed my mentality and have now come back with edits that both the community and I can agree with, and I just avoid the ones we dont. Not ideal, but hey… I have a ton more I have not uploaded, and once I finally die, the one who gets my music will not be willing to do what I am doing, so I need to do it while I can. Squabbles need to be overlooked for the greater good of the purpose here.

Shops, you mean like the record shops that let you listen before you buy, and played the specials in the store? Stop teasing me. We in my city even years ago sold used CDs and allowed you to listen to them before you buy, on headphones…

Yes on topic. I am just going to be blunt. I am trying to place value on what I Am doing, and on what others have done with the same mindset. I would never make an edit that there is not a way I can prove it, although that way might not be something that at this tie I can not provide on the site. That is my issue. There are many artists when they were younger that I have email communications from, DJ mixes that I can supply plenty of proof of, a large collection of CDs that I to this day upload from and a larger crazy ton of digital data that MB is missing out on.

I am happy to share what I have, but I am wanting to also provide lineage to what I share, where did this or that actually come from? Here is a link to the issue of track duration not being valid on analoug recordings: https://musicbrainz.org/edit/87909561.

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22

I guess I want others to know that I chose to come back as an editor, but differently. If there is conflict, it is not appropriate to engage it. Just avoid it and move on. There have been numerous issues, including those trying to tell me that there is no audible difference between 16 and 24 bit FLAC… WOW, really? You need to consider the source. Not to mention that even with same source, they CAN sound different. I would like to continue helping with that aside and no longer engaged in.

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23

I thought there was a mention prior on if someone could write a script… cannot seem to find it. However, depending on the input and out put, I might be able to help. I already provided my utilities page (no credit to me even with my changes) at MusicBrainz Editor Tools, and I am happy to add more. While the TOC submitter has been tossed around, I have hosted it perm, and I added the iTunes artwork search, which I hope all can make use of.

If there is a script needed or wanted, please do state. I use Linux, Fedora to be exact, Ubuntu as secondary now. I claim to be NO expert, but I do state I am willing to help where I can. I can program in C/C++, Python, Perl, HTML, CSS/SCSS, JavaScript, Java, Ruby, I mean even old M-Basic/O-Basic/C-Basic, etc… back in the old days prior to Microsoft Windows.

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24

One problem I find is that sometimes an edit can come down to who shouts loudest, defeating the point of a community. There are some bullies who are allowed to break and bend guidelines. Or others who sneak edits through knowing that not enough people are looking to stop it.

I’ve learnt a long time ago to stop arguing with certain editors. As that old saying goes, never argue with an idiot as they just drag you down to their level and beat you on experience. :rofl:

Destructive edits like that example of deleting track times on vinyl shows someone who does not listen to the music. You put record on and have a stopwatch in hand. And need to accept someone else may well have already done this on an album that you do not own. This is why we have edit notes. And if you don’t like the times, you ask the old editor for proof. (It is also easy to research an artist and see how often they change LP tracks compared with the CD version. Easy to check if they release separate versions on their LPs if you are unsure of the times you see on screen)

But most importantly do notice that in that example the system worked - the edit was cancelled due to negative votes.

I get what you mean about audio differences in digital files, but it is something MB does not yet track. They only look at the original recording, not the quality or remastering of it. The mastering engineer doesn’t get much credit in MB’s eyes - but there are plenty of old threads on that discussion.

Nothing is perfect, but there is more good in the MB system than bad. Good to see you are back editing again as real critical eyes are always needed. I use the TOC lookup at https://eac-log-lookup.blogspot.com not sure if that is the same source as yours?

25

Does this apply to relationships like samples too? Often (at least the releases I come across) this information is not disclosed. If I recognize the sample I’ll still add it. If it’s disclosed it’s much easier and then there are the cases where the artist might disclose it on request

I think it was a topic by Hape40 but it seems to have since been deleted(?) (the editor account was also deleted but more recently afaik). Now I can only find a much older topic where he also happened to have posted.

In case it was indeed deleted, that wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen an entire topic disappear (and I don’t mean spam)…
Even negative feedback can be useful

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26

Maybe this one?

27

Yes, in fact it did. The other edit which was referenced passed though with support. I reviewed the argument carefully, and my conclusion is that vinyl does in fact divide tracks, you can see it on the vinyl. A CD divides tracks, digitally. A cassette however, the one point at least is valid there, although I side with leaving the times there.

I mean not to say I do not trust the system, but what I mean is that the system will only work if enough and the proper editors see the change within 7 days. To give a poor example, if I have a team of 5 people and only 2 people attend and vote yes, that does not mean the system worked, because there is easily a bias there. While this would never work here, I would see that completely different if an edit would require say at least 5 votes, majority to be yes, in order to pass vs just a time of 7 days and no activity being enough.

Yes to everything you stated there. Old topic and not worth rehashing. I have a large bias on the topic, so I have learned to let it be. I see the mastering as one of the most important aspects to the digital release. Not really the person, but the technology used, as that is the actual final determining factor of the resulting quality.

Yes, I am editing and just avoiding digital releases for the most part. I added one and if other editors want to lookup barcodes and all 100 countries of release, they can do so. I prefer to focus on things like cover art, ISRC numbers, acoustIDs, TOC, etc. For the link you provided, the original source for that portion is the same, yes. When I created the page, I just wanted it to be as all inclusive as possible without relying on third party hosts when possible.

I did not mean that I necessarily agree with it, but that seems to be common. Example, if a CD cover does not list a featured artist, that featured artist is not listed, for that release only. Other releases and even the recording might list this if it is listed elsewhere. I love this comment as it is right to my initial point. When such things are added, and the cover art does not provide a source, there should be a way to provide proof aside from the “trust me” statement. I made a few edits like this and handled them poorly when I was opposed. That is on me, but if there was a means that I could provide such proof, that would have avoided the conflict, not that it excuses my behaviour.

28

Wow, that would be amazing, but I do not think that would be productive overall as it will prevent adds from people who have the CD and maybe not a way to scan or photograph the artwork they have.

I do think there should be standards though. There was an auto editor I disagreed with some time back. The editor added a release with no track times or anything, just names as it was not yet released. I disagreed with this, as it then prevents another editor from adding the release from Picard for example, and having all of the missing stuff auto added. I did not see value in adding a release that was not yet a release as it really provides no value and creates extra work.

I get that MB is an open community, which comes with advantages and disadvantages alike. I think there would be benefit to revising submission guidelines as appropriate and having a method to have “supervisors” of sorts, that would look over new adds and changes for completeness and correctness. For example, say that I was able to see that last week 3 releases were added without track durations, I would see this and could at least mark them as a release in need, ideally fix it myself. I sort of do this my own way, when I make an edit or add for an artist, I will often do through other releases and look around to see if I can contribute to others, since I am in there.

29

I wanted to state, in general, what is prompting this so my intent can be most clear. I will not live forever and when I die, my music collection will go somewhere, most likely to someone who does not care about it as much as I do. I have a very large amount of data I can share, and I sort of feel that if I do not do it, that is just another opportunity lost as people with such data are reducing as each year passes. I currently have 29 TB of RAID 1 storage (14.5TB of real storage) that my data is kept on, excluding my “wall of CDs”. My data includes not only digital audio files, but cover art, emails, images of social media posts, SMS messages, etc… anything I could save I did. I am happy to share this data as I enjoy it, and it seems that others do as well. I just do not know how while remaining legal, ie. not just sharing my data as-is.

30

Still not valid. In MB we list the separated recordings. And a human ear can tell when there is a gap between tracks. We are documenting the music, not what a designer has created in the artwork. Common sense has to come into play. This is a Music database, not Artwork. (I assume ArtBrainz is a different project)

A sometimes useful thread is the Voting/Auto-editor Request Thread as that usually gets sensible eyes onto an edit.

I have come to accept that MB is not interested in mastering, and can see the logic in their definition of Recording. I’ll add mastering details in disambigs and annotations.

Don’t get me started :rofl:. My Picard script just changes that to Worldwide as I really don’t care where Spotify operates. But I am mainly a CD\vinyl person so avoid it. (Just get confused by the different rules on digital media)

I see the value of even the most basic of editors. Even when they add only that track list, in all caps, with typos and no times. It is at least a start point and we can come along an upgrade their work. If people want to then fill in info that is irrelevant to me like ASINs - that’s fine. I doubt most editors care where their CDs are pressed, but I’ll still add that detail as it interests me.

I am digging through a similar size of storage of many TBs of music. In my case MB editing often triggers me to massively upgrade a whole catalogue for an artist I am interested in. Especially the lesser known one. That’s when I’ll pull in the other research from elsewhere and upgrade what I learn, and feed it back into the database. Share what I know. Adding links and quotes and references. Often I’ll have multiple sites open for researching back catalogues and I link as much as possible that I am reading. I treat MB as a central pool of knowledge.

It also causes me to go off EBay fishing for more albums to fill in gaps in both MB’s details and my collection. Far too often I have bought CDs just to get discIDs and track times. :rofl:

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31

On a physical release I can understand this. On a digital release, I just cannot. A lot of work goes into mastering.

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32

At the current time I just think MB is a bit out of sync with Digital Media. Too wide a subject covered by one category. Everything from a junk 128kbps MP3 file to a 7.1 Atmos video file is in the same bucket.

All kinds of media types exist for Physical media, and one day they will let us have a similar split on Digital Media.

There is still lots of differences going on with Physical Media and Mastering. I know I have plenty of albums on CD where there is a huge difference in audio quality. I have over a dozen copies of Dark Side of the Moon where the differences between early CDs and the later remasters are huge, but these are “same Recording” in MB eyes. No point in arguing about it. Just separate it in my collection, and make notes in annotations.

2 Likes
33

You made some great points there. I have some CDs that appear to have been created from MP3 files as they cutoff at 15k, which is obviously not 16 bit.

At least for the CD though, we can distinguish them. Something must be different. In digital, it is just ignored.

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34

I do that too :grin:
But the release countries are the only distinguishing criterion applicable to Digital Media. (Apart from barcodes that are not always available)

Different quality would be a possible way out, but that is not entirely unproblematic. Many platforms offer download in different formats and also streaming. Should they be different releases then?

Maybe:
All platforms that offer the same set of formats belong to one release. Bandcamp and iTunes releases would be different. But Amazon would offer the same release as iTunes unless the tracklist or recordings are different or they offer a different barcode. That would be some ways to differentiate.

Yes*, and there’s another thing with mastering on release basis only. It’s no longer necessarily for the whole album. Even on CD you can find information like Tracks 1 to 5 mastered by… Track 6 mastered by another one. That doesn’t fit as release relationship.
But neither does it work with the concept of recordings. (…unless you accept more than one mastering credit in one recording)

*) I just started with “mastering” my vinyls :sweat_smile:

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35

I usually run this script to get the metadata of files before I start messing with them with Picard or otherwise (I also try to keep unaltered backups in case I need to revisit again in the future).

#!/bin/dash

echo "Making temp file..."
TMPFILE="$(mktemp)"

echo "Analysing files..."
for file in "$@"; do
  ffprobe -hide_banner "$file" >> "$TMPFILE" 2>&1
done

echo "Uploading results..."
#curl -F c=@- -F p=1 https://ptpb.pw < "$TMPFILE"
pasteurl="$(curl --silent -F 'clbin=<-' https://clbin.com < "$TMPFILE")"
echo $pasteurl

echo "Archiving paste..."
wget -q -O/dev/null https://web.archive.org/save/$pasteurl > /dev/null 2>&1
echo 'https://web.archive.org/web/2/'$pasteurl
wget -q -O/dev/null 'https://archive.ph/?run=1&url='$pasteurl > /dev/null 2>&1
echo 'https://archive.is/newest/'$pasteurl

echo "Removing temp file..."
rm "$TMPFILE"

See e.g. https://musicbrainz.org/edit/64358150 for an example.

5 Likes
36

This is very interesting. I need to ask first, do you mind if I play with this, and likely use bash vs dash? I Am considering a new thread as I want to add another section to the MB page I started. I want to outline tools that would be helpful to editors. Here is a brief idea of what I want to create:

  • Ripping tools - whipper, abcde, cdrdao, etc… where to get them, how to use them, user provided samples of good configurations, etc.
  • Scripts - a collection of shell scripts to do things like convert formats (FLAC → MP3 for example) and user provided suggested settings for best results.
  • Tools and scripts to allow for the conversion of different formats of cue and toc formats, like EAC → CDRDAO TOC.
  • Tools to rip a CD, store it digitally with the proper data to then recreate that CD (as close as we can that is).
  • Tools for gathering and editing metadata - mediainfo, atomicparsley, kid3, etc.
  • Digital file repair tools, such as mp3diags for mp3 files.
  • An update process to use qaac on Linux, including updated packages of the CoreAudio components

I am a Linux user, so all of my content above relates to that. I do not have proper access to CUETools, EAC and other such tools, and I have a very hard time trusting software running under Wine when it comes to direct hardware interactions, like ripping a CD.

37

Knock yourself out. I haven’t officially released it anywhere, but consider it under GPL-3.0-or-later if you intent to publish it anywhere or share it around. :slight_smile:

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38

Matrix added :partying_face:

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39

I question this, but do not argue right or wrong. How is it that we know exactly where the end product digital files result from? Are there assumptions being made here that should not be? I have seen first hand some commercial CDs that seem (by coincidence?) to have the same cutoff as an MP3 file. That is NOT 16 bit audio. In that case, most assume that the CD is made from the original source, mastered to 16 bit for a digital release. Although in that specific case, that assumption is wrong…

With digital releases, it becomes far more complex. That is a different topic, and I wish NOT to debate it here, just comment and discuss how it relates. Take your vendor of choice… iTunes, Amazon, Deezer, Bandcamp, etc… what is the actual source of their digital files? Are they taking a CD and ripping it? Are they using a 16 bit FLAC? Maybe a 24 bit FLAC? Are they using the true and original studio recordings? Maybe some version of an offering from the studio? Who are we to make such determinations, with no justifications?

A while back, it was argued to me that there is no difference between a 16 and 24 bit FLAC that a person can audibly hear. What the opposition to me failed to realize is that the source of these can in fact be different. I can generate a 16 bit FLAC from a CD, which was already been mastered. The 24 bit might have come from the predecessor to that… we do not know this. Was the source 16 bit than released on CD and the 24 bit from the source prior… or was the CD from a 24 bit source converted to 16 bit? I sure do not know.

This also brings into question… was the source already at 44.1kHz? At what sampling frequency was the source recorded at, and at what frequency was the source used to create the final product at? What sampling was done in-between, if any? I do not know with confidence that I will make an edit on this.

EDIT: I think the real issue is what determines a “recording”. Previously I was informed that if it has an audible difference, it is a different recording. This brings into account mastering, which as prior mentioned in this thread, is not considered. I see a conflict here.

I believe our task at MB is to report fact, not assumptions. All data reported should have proof. If there is no proof, it should be treated as such…

2 Likes
40

My comment was on possible criteria to distinguish digital releases, and, as you pointed out, it’s another, though very interesting topic.

The “recording” focuses on what was actually recorded (and originally mixed for release).
Transfer/conversion (“mastering”) to various formats happens afterwards and (although audible) doesn’t alter the recording - by definition!

That would be my wish too, but it will be difficult to implement. If it were mandatory to prove your release with pictures and the matrix code had to be read and entered, almost everything would be verifiable. However, we would then have significantly fewer submissions.

In the absence of evidence, the entry may be sceptical about it. But we should assume the goodwill of the submitter.

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