Hey everyone 
I just started using Picard and I am wondering on how I should deal with tracks which are unknown in the database, like small releases on Soundcloud which are simply not public.
Because right now, MusicBrainz will always try to tag those incorrectly. Is there a way to let the software remember those tracks? With for example some sort of “ignore”-tag
you could add them to the database. I can’t tell you how many small SoundCloud tracks I’ve added to the DB while going through my collection… 
the easiest way to do it would be to load the tracks into Picard, (cluster them if it’s a full album), and right-click. depending on if it’s an album or an individual track, you’ll select “Submit cluster as release”, “Submit file as standalone recording”, or “Submit file as release”. I usually add a Single release when there’s artwork attached to the SoundCloud recording (not just the artist’s profile pic). otherwise it’s usually a Standalone recording, unless you want to add the release date to the database too.
the best practice is to also track it down and add the SoundCloud link to the recording on MusicBrainz, but you don’t have to… it is highly recommended though, that way anyone who finds it later on MusicBrainz can easily get to the SoundCloud page.
as far as I know there’s no such “ignore” tag, but you could just not look up those recordings.
welcome to the community~
2 Likes
@UltimateRiff 's answer is a good one - the Musicbrainz database is crowdsourced and relies on users who have new tracks to add them to the database for the benefit of others in return for having access to the data that already exists - a win-win partnership.
That said, I think the idea of having a Picard ignore tag is a good one in principle. The benefit would be avoiding making API calls to MB when you are reasonably certain the data doesn’t exist. The downside is that if it ever gets added, then you won’t get to know about it until you manually request the data.
There would be a few practical issues to resolve before it could be coded:
a. When we were loading files, if the ignore tag is found, we would have to add code to avoid doing the MB API call? What are the rules for this if e.g. some tracks in the cluster have an ignore tag and others have no tag or have an MBID tag (which would otherwise be used to request specific data)? How would this apply to auto-clustering or auto-loading into the right-hand panel?
b. If we decide to load the data because other tracks in the release/cluster are not ignored, presumably we ignore data for that track?
c. How do we indicate in the GUI that the release / track has been ignored?
d. How does the user request a manual update of the release or track? How would this work when only some tracks in a release are ignored?
e. How does the user tell Picard to ignore tracks in the future?
f. (Easiest part) How do we store the ignore flag as a tag? (Recording MBID set to a special value?)
1 Like