Proper use of %_recordingcomment%?

I’m trying to take advantage of the concept of the data entity that would define the difference of same titled recordings. As ‘recorded at’ and event entities available through the /ws2 JSON interface can manage those differences, would the old style of using %_recordingcomment% for date and location of live bootlegs now be outdated?

I moved this question over to MusicBrainz style, as I think this is about Style / Recording - MusicBrainz , right?

I don’t think this is “the old style”. “recorded at” relationships exist for a long time already, they are not a full replacement for the disambiguation comment.

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Here seems good, sure.

Let me explain in more detail. First off, Area, Place, and Events aren’t available to Picard as they don’t have matching metadata (I guess). If we look at Complete Live in Japan, for example, for maybe the first track, we have a disambig of “live, 1971-09-23: Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan”.

If I was to append the disambig to the filename through a filenaming script something like this

$noop(use leading zero when needed for proper alphanum sorting)
$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),
	$if($gte(%totaldiscs%,10),$num(%discnumber%,2)-,$num(%discnumber%,1)-)
)
$if($gte(%totaltracks%,10),$num(%tracknumber%,2) - ,$num(%tracknumber%,1) - 
)
$if(%_multiartist%,%_artist% - 
)
%_title%
$if(%_recordingcomment%, [%_recordingcomment%]) <-

I’ll get “01-01 - [announcement] [live, 1971-09-23: Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan].flac” as the filename.

Or I could put it into the title as a tagger script with

$if(%_recordingcomment%,
  $set(_recordingcomment,$replace_forbidden(%_recordingcomment%))
  $set(title,%title% [%_recordingcomment%])
)

The tagger script seems to make more sense, but should I default to always using %_recordingcomment%?

Is all this extra stuff important for a filename or in the title? I generate directory names from the /ws2 data directly using a script I wrote in TCL for managing this. Thus I get “Complete Live in Japan/1971-09-23: Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, JP/01-01 - [announcement].flac” and all is well. There’s no benefit for using the extra detail in %_recordingcomment% which already exists.

Maybe there uses such as Moby Dick where you’d want to append [intro & outro] to the title and filename

I have an edit waiting in the wings that would promote the use of %_recordingcomment% being put back into the title, but I’m not sure if this is the correct direction.

Edit #90990904 - Edit medium

Beside acting as a hint to selecting a recording, there doesn’t seem to be any other use for this data entity
Screenshot from 2022-07-08 11-04-35

That is the sole purpose of the field:
https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Disambiguation_Comment

Thus,

What I’m struggling with is that the ‘recorded at’ detail already exists somewhere else and you can generate all of “live, 1971-09-23: Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan” from the /ws2 JSON

Whether the information exists elsewhere is besides the point - the “correct” disambiguation for an entity is not machine-generatable:

2 Likes

and if the recording isn’t live, what use can/should disambig be used for?

Moby Dick (drum insert, take 1)

Is it wrong that I put extra detail to differentiate this edit of the recording?

Yes, that looks like it may be wrong:
https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Recording#Title

For almost all recordings, extra title information should be kept in the recording title. The exception is live recordings, where any performance information should be transferred to the disambiguation using the Live recordings guideline.

Ahh, so all it is is just a hint field for selection help and only for live recordings, not really a place to store info

An example of why disambiguation is vital: Led Zeppelin - Recordings - MusicBrainz

Trying to spot different recordings in a list like that needs a simple system like the disambiguation to let us see the differences without having to click on each and every recording to check individual details.

3 Likes

I agree, but extra details are asked not to be in disambig unless live with a date (which is detail stored elsewhere). Thus, it’s only purpose is to provide hints in searches and has no purpose in tagger or filenaming scripts. Also, not place for detail on a recording that is outside the range of the available relationships. For example, (5.1 mix) and (2014 remaster) are extra details added to the recording name, not put in disambig

Please don’t change disambigs just because it breaks your tags. (5.1 mix) and (2014 remaster) are very logical things to have in disambigs and not a recording name. I think you are misunderstanding the use of disambigs.

1 Like

This what I’m trying to get straight as it isn’t clear

As an example, how would you clean-up The Boy Next Door [AKA That’s The Way] (take 1)?

This is basically a demo as RP is working out the song. Its working title then was The Boy Next Door which later became That's the Way on LZIII. Would a properly formed recording name be The Boy Next Door (That's the Way) (take 1) with nothing in disambig? or something more descriptive like That's the Way (WT: The Boy Next Door) [demo, take 1]?

If you ask me, I’d leave it alone. If the cover shows this title, it is good. I am a fan of extra clear ETI as it describes the track. And shows it different to other variations. If you want something different on your tagged files - then manually edit it.

Personally I manually edit my tags a lot of the time. I also add the full (live, disambig) details to my tags. But leave the file names simple. I don’t know why someone would want to name the file the same as the tag. But then I also look at max file lengths with my filenames. My media centre means I look at my music via the tags most of the time.

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For me, I customize directory names on bootlegs to sort by date/location. It works for me, but I had to write a script to process the /ws2 JSON from the release MBID as not all the info comes into Picard. It isn’t perfect. I hand edit, too

I’m just trying to maximize the most info, and yeah, this is different from track title (or even filename). I’ll chill a bit

1968–12–30∶ Gonzaga '68∶ John F. Kennedy Memorial Pavilion, Spokane, WA, US/
1969–01–05∶ Live at Whisky a Go‐Go!!∶ Whisky a Go Go, West Hollywood, CA, US/
1969–01–10∶ [untitled] (2nd gen ZD)∶ Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, US/
1969–01–11∶ Psycho a Gogo!∶ Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, US/
1969–01–23∶ [untitled]∶ Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA, US/
1969–01–25∶ [untitled] (2nd gen cass)∶ Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA, US/
1969–01–26∶ A Sudden Attack, Boston∶ Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA, US/
1969–03–15∶ Two Danish Pop Clubs (1969‐03‐15)∶ DK-84, DK/
1969–03–17∶ Danish TV 1969∶ TV-Byen, Gladsaxe Municipality, DK-84, DK/
...