Release status of Peter Gabriel Encore Series

Then my appreciation again, I try to order too, that’s part of my job and I like it, but I just would not “find the time” to work on artists, I don’t want to listen to. But it very good, that you do such things. :+1:
(2009 tour had only 7 regular concerts)

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It sounds a little daft, but if I am having a bad day then coming in here and doing some tidying up is very therapeutic. Bringing that kind of sane order to chaos gives me a strange satisfaction. Repetitive tasks like that help calm my head. Some people may grow a garden, I tend to the weeds in MB. Mad as that is to any normal person. :crazy_face:

I can’t even remember what initially sent me down that rabbit hole. Something probably appeared in my Subscribed edits. Maybe was in the “So” 25th boxset.

It was probably caused by broken USA dates mixed in with proper dates. I am a big fan of live gigs and often see confusion caused by bad naming. Hence all those cleaned up disabmigurations on the tracks themselves. So that a clear 2003-04-05: appears on the tracks to take away confusion as to when it really happened.

And I didn’t say I don’t want to listen to Peter. I do have some of his studio albums. And was impressed as to how many live official releases he put out.

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Every concert! It’s a nice feature to get a recording of the concerts that you’ve seen, even if sometimes they are poorly recorded or otherwise far from perfect. (Peter is notorious for his “fuck ups” as he tells… I exclude them from playlist for that reason)

This is a repetitive task? There’s research to do. But I known what you mean. Even concentrated work can help to calm down.

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Amazing work guys. Have fun :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I know this has already been said, but I also think that although it undoubtedly looks messy it is still correct to have them as official albums.

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The repetitive parts was because I had to go deeper. I wanted to make sure the dates and locations were fully tied in.

For each track on each release I had to:

  • Link all tracks to works
  • Add in the correct Location to recordings
  • Add correct gig location as disambiguration text
  • Add gig dates where relevant
  • Add missing writer credits
  • Add artwork
  • Clean up Release titles to match covers while following guidelines
  • Go back and change the dots, dashes to better unicode compliance

Sure there were a few other steps. Was certainly nice to see the final results. I should have taken a screenshot before I started. Some of the releases were comical in how bad they were. It was the mish-mash of dates that was the weirdest thing to see. Especially confusing when a gig is dated 04.02.03 as there was no way to tell WHEN it happened as one didn’t know how to read it. Was it USA date? European date? Year first?

I know not everyone is as fussy or completest. I like a bit of clarity.

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For relaxation I prefer to lay down a while listening to my music from correctly tagged audio files, provided by you repetitive tasks. That’s ideal! :wink:

I would love to have complete information in MB, but that’s impossible in principle. And I’m satisfied, if I have my own audio files represented, as complete as possible. But I promise I will try to make my contributions complete - including relationships, following guidelines and buying a desk scanner to be able to add artwork in acceptable quality. :innocent::laughing:

(is it allowed to use any downloaded images?)

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Yes, just quote the source in the edit note, and a why you think it is correct. The 2007 tour is an example of why you have to be careful as to what you match up as there is clearly different sources of the covers

The Gabriel images mainly came from Discogs and Peter’s own site. Trustable sources.

Ebay can be a good source at times when people are selling the product. Amazon is a bit risky as it is a shop and doesn’t really care about accuracy.

Real Scans are always the king though. MB artwork is about identification.

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But real scans have usually lower contrast and are less suitable for tv screens ore reduced to icons. For private purposes I prefer Amazon images, even if they are not 100% correct. So, most of my cover art stored with my audio files are downloaded from unknown sources. They will be not useful for MB edits.

And I had a look at my CDs and found out, that my Latin American Tour cover are not like the one from Caracas or Monterrey. In fact there’s no Place & Date printed on any cover. And the box is a plain cardboard box, with only “Peter Gabriel” and some letters and numbers printed on it (no codes - design!).

But thanks for the information. I have avoided to add cover art until now unless I had real scans (only few).

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But back to release status:

… but they are rather strange official releases. They have no barcode, no catalogue number (at least printed on it). They have no real release date. Okay, you might say, you can order them on the day after the concert, so that’s the release date, but you have to wait a few weeks before they are available. And if you order one half a year after the concert, you have to wait several weeks again, so I think, they are not on stock but printed on demand. [Later (now) they are only available in boxes]*. That’s not how official releases are usually distributed.

*EDIT: not true: Only 2014 is available in boxes, all others are available as single concerts.

Can promos not be sold at an event?

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I can appreciate your desire for higher contrast but correctness is critical for MB. :wink: As @IvanDobsky mentioned, if you insert a image, please quote the source. If you were to replace an actual editor supplied scan with another that was even slightly different you would be defeating the purpose of specificity.

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It doesn’t fit the MB definition of promo:

promotional
A give-away release or a release intended to promote an upcoming official release (e.g. pre-release versions, releases included with a magazine, versions supplied to radio DJs for air-play).

It’s actually not that unusual for releases to not have catalog numbers or barcodes, although it’s much more common with small, self-released CDs than someone with the stature of Gabriel. Such releases often don’t have a formal release date either.

If you got it from an unknown source but can confirm that it exactly matches the release in question, it would be okay to add (with an editor note to that effect).

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… I will …

… I will do so, but probably I will add self-made scans only for physical media. My downloaded, incorrect covers are only for private use and will not go to an online database.

I got it. Promo is only a free give-away for professionals. And furthermore Encore series do not promote an upcoming album. In contrary there are no encore series from tours of which a real official live album is released (2010 New Blood Tour).

Unluckily it’s neither promo nor bootleg release, so there would have to be added a new status to get order. :wink:

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When surveying my downloaded zip packages of the Encore Series I found that there was a special Folder.jpg included, different from the CD front cover. So I could provide an original front for a separate digital media release … but is it a separate release? It’s sold only together with the CDs. A gimmick for the fans.
(and it’s unnecessary - same content but 96kHz)

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This is a good solution for your wanting the digital cover.
I don’t think it’s been ‘officially’ decided whether download codes should be their own release, as they are sold with the physical media, but does anybody really want an identical digital medium tacked onto every CD/vinyl release… I don’t think so? I add them seperately.

Note that you can then set the release group to use the cover that’s best for tagging, and you can change the Picard settings to tag using the release group image. Easy!

Adding the physical scans as well would then be doing the community a solid :slight_smile:

Primary I add the CDs. But then I really have to look how to get scan in acceptable quality. My available office scanners produce a horrible quality, from my parents’ scanner I get pictured a scratch in the center and none of my friends have a scanner anymore. :slightly_frowning_face:
But I know - they are sold everywhere. :relieved:

And I will add the digital media as well … for a brighter cover available (for Kodi I use it from local data anyway). But it’s only two concerts 2013 Vienna and 2014 Berlin. Earlier Encore Series I bought had no additional download code.

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I do 600dpi scans which give me images of 3300 x 3000 pixels. They look fine on a 50" TV screen. Okay, I am only a 1080 HD screen but certainly better than an Amazon image.

Look closer at your office scanner. It is probably set at 150dpi for PDFs. Have a dig in the scanner options and you’ll find 600dpi in there somewhere.

I guess your covers are different as the CDs are in the boxset. Yet the CD is pretty certain to be the same disk.

Adding art from odd sources isn’t too bad as long as it is quoted. But do expect it to get replaced by real scans when they appear.

And yes - the downloads are separate release. It is a separate media, so the folder.jog only really applies to that.

They look fine enough, but digital images are brighter and look more impressive.

But I don’t know how many 1000 dpi resolution our huge multifunction devices offer, but the colors are nearly vanished. And it’s the same with all of these machines. It’s barely enough to print presentation handouts but not for scanning artwork.

This is no big problem for Encore Series scans of course as the design is plain cardboard and there is nearly no artwork included.

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It’s frequently but not always the case that they are aimed at professionals; CDs given away with a magazine, for instance, are considered promotional. Another example would be this Black Pumas live EP which was given away with purchase of their full length CD at certain independent record stores.

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Thanks! I hope, I’ve got it now.

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I finally set all Encore Series releases to [worldwide]. So if someone wants to avoid that, he/she may vote “No”. :+1:

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