Review/research "best" workflow

[ldexterldesign]

Hey thebradleys,

Thanks for tips

Yea, I’ve been using something like this for a while https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-oUmf4LFtExcURCODN5LWJkbm8/

Will check out your script resources

Cheers

[ldexterldesign]

Hey mulamelamup,

Thanks for reply

TBH this isn’t something I’ve been doing, so, yes, I’ll be more mindful of red releases in future before I start my method - cheers

However, when I initially add files to the left pane MBP automatically generates red releases in the right pane. After running a scan I get no additional red releases, so running the scan first doesn’t appear to offer much…?

How often do you find MBP discovers additional red releases (I’m guessing often enough to make it part of your process)?

Kind thanks

[mulamelamup]

@ldexterldesign

when I initially add files to the left pane MBP automatically generates red releases in the right pane

Those probably already have MBID’s attached, so they automatically get “shoved” right if you have that option enabled. If you want to “sanity check” your whole collection just to give it a try, you could temporarily set the option “ignore MBID tags when adding new files” and run a scan on it, to see what would change (just make a backup or be very careful not to safe anything ;)).

To clarify: I don’t mean red release icons - those are just error messages (like p.E.: “couldn’t load album art from X”). I meant the red tinted recordings: The more tags would get changed, the stronger the red tint of that recording is. This is why I use acoustid / scan initially. Most of the slightly reddish tinted recordings will just be updated data (year, accents added, featured artist updated etc), but then there’s some that will be deep red, because the tags from the fingerprint match are totally different from how it was tagged before:

(problems with the files: )

• File has (initially) been tagged VERY incorrectly
• Tracks have been switched around somehow
• Recording is actually from different artist / cover version
• File is broken / contains silence from a ghost track and bonus track that shouldn’t be there for the release it was tagged as

or (Problems with musicbrainz DB):

• Someone added an acoustid to the wrong recording
• The acoustid has simply been added to the same recording from a different release group (p.E. compilation), in which case the information attached to your files was right but sometimes it might make sense to merge recordings online if noone already has.

How often you get those depends mainly on where you get your music from. If it’s a competent & trustworthy source, the files have been tagged well before and you focus on complete / whole albums from widely known artists, you might not discover anything useful except that “those files are probably really in good shape!”.

If on the other hand you get “mixtapes” from random people sometimes or something like that, this could help detect a lot of mis-identified recordings.

Either way - it doesn’t usually take long since I can just “expand all” + scroll through it, then drag it all back if there’s no problem. I’d guess when I first add files, for every ~300 files from ~100 different artists, I find about 1 “terrible mixup” (totally wrong release + band + title) that way that I wouldn’t have had a chance to catch - ever - otherwise… and that alone makes it worth that extra step in my case.

Just scanned some of my existing files again just to see if the acoustids that have been submitted since I last checked changed anything. In ~2000 files from ~1000 releases that have already been checked several times before, I found:

• 7 recordings that were tagged as the correct work but wrong recording (/ mostly different intros/outros, radio version etc : same release group but release from a different country and something was bleeped etc)…
• 1 that was a cover / “reinterpretation” from an entirely different (less known) artist than what the tags said…
• 2 where my tags were correct but someone else seems to have submitted the acoustid from a wrong track (have yet to figure out how to report that)…
• 1 that was recognized as an obscure live bootleg by “lookup” somehow when really it was just the (non-live) “album version” from a compilation (no idea how that slipped by me - had that file for years)…
• 1 file where the last few seconds were simply missing and I thought it was supposed to end that abruptly :D…
• several recordings that should be dupes in the MB DB (have yet to figure out which ones should be merged)
• and more small stuff.

[ldexterldesign]

Hey @mulamelamup,

Wow, thanks for following up

@mulamelamup

Those probably already have MBID’s attached, so they automatically get “shoved” right if you have that option enabled. If you want to “sanity check” your whole collection just to give it a try, you could temporarily set the option “ignore MBID tags when adding new files” and run a scan on it, to see what would change (just make a backup or be very careful not to safe anything ).

Indeed, I believe you’re correct

Here are my test results…

Ignore MBID when loading new files:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-oUmf4LFtExUjRfbHhVN0lILVE
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-oUmf4LFtExVFlKN2wtem0tcjg (scrolled)

Do not ignore MBID when loading new files:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-oUmf4LFtExX0h6TXBKQWlRUm8

NB I’ve included some stats in the top right [search] form field

@mulamelamup

To clarify: I don’t mean red release icons - those are just error messages (like p.E.: “couldn’t load album art from X”). I meant the red tinted recordings: The more tags would get changed, the stronger the red tint of that recording is. This is why I use acoustid / scan initially. Most of the slightly reddish tinted recordings will just be updated data (year, accents added, featured artist updated etc), but then there’s some that will be deep red, because the tags from the fingerprint match are totally different from how it was tagged before:

Don’t think I’ve experienced much red activity, which isn’t “Could not load album…”, but I will be more vigilant in future and perhaps follow up this thread with any questions if that’s okay?

@mulamelamup

This is why I use acoustid / scan initially

In any case, I do certainly get better, initial, results from using [checking] “Automatically scan all new files” and “Ignore MBID when loading new files”, so thank you for elaborating on @tommycrock’s original point

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-oUmf4LFtExdV9LVWtrNFZJY00 - can you confirm these are the settings you’re referring to?

I will introduce this method to the start of each pass in my system

I’m glad I raised this issue

Hope to hear back

Kind thanks

[tommycrock]

@ldexterldesign

In any case, I do certainly get better, initial, results from using [checking] “Automatically scan all new files”

And I didn’t know that checkbox existed so that helps me Thanks

[1uke]

Hi I am a complete musicbrainz noob, could someone please explain gold and silver passes to me.

Thanks in advance

[thebradleys]

Gold and Silver are just the coloring of the discs in Picard. If Gold, it means there is exactly one match for every track (possibly with some special tracks excluded, like data). Silver means that you don’t have track matched perfectly - could be missing some tracks, missing an entire disc of a set, or possibly duplicates for a single track. @ldexterldesign is using that matching to describe his process of gold and silver passes.

[1uke]

@thebradleys can you help me understand something I little more,

MusicBrainz is reporting that I don’t have a file but when I check this the file exists on my hard drive (See picture below)

How do I link the files so that I can get all my discs to gold?

[thebradleys]

Try dragging it back into Picard - maybe it didn’t get pulled in the first time. If it doesn’t appear, it most likely is on another disc.

[1uke]

@thebradleys Am I right in saying at this stage I now have to manually edit everything?

Is there a way I can just show my ‘gold albums’ in the window so I can save al those and then go back to work on the silvers?

Thank you for supporting me with this

[1uke]

@thebradleys

Try dragging it back into Picard - maybe it didn’t get pulled in the first time. If it doesn’t appear, it most likely is on another disc.

Thanks for your support @thebradleys

I’ve just give this a try,

1. When I drop the file in it still comes back as unmatched

2. I checked wikipedia to check the file is part of the album (it is)

3. The file is on my computer and in the correct folder

Any thoughts on what might be causing this or what I can do next?

[thebradleys]

A couple things can be happening:

1. Is the mp3 file corrupt (e.g., too short, doesn’t sound right, etc)?
2. Sometimes you will get a match for a release other than the one you have. In this case, all the releases have this track, so it isn’t the problem in this situation:
   https://beta.musicbrainz.org/release-group/d6b52521-0dfa-390f-970f-790174c22752
3. Did you try scanning the mp3 file (Ctrl-Y in Picard, it will build an acoustic fingerprint that can be used to find the match.
4. If all else, fails and the file is good, you will have to manually drag it into the correct place. Once you’ve saved the metadata on the file, though, this shouldn’t happen again.

[1uke]

Thanks for running me through this,

1. Nope the MP3 is playing perfectly

2. I’m not sure what this means, how can I check this>

3. I just tried scanning now, what should happen? It doesn’t seem as if my computer is doing anything.

4. Would you be free to Skype or screen share with me and show me what this involved. If someone goes through this with me I am sure I can pick it up all very easily and fast.

Thank you again for all you help

[aerozol]

This is going all over the place a little bit… but a few short answers that may help clear things up a little bit:

@1uke

When I drop the file in it still comes back as unmatched[/quote]
You can manually drag the file from the left hand side pane in Picard (a ‘resting’ place for your files) onto the relevant track in the MusicBrainz database release (the gold/silver releases on the right hand side). Then it will be tagged using the data from the track in the database that you dropped it onto.[quote=“1uke, post:24, topic:63749”]
I just tried scanning now, what should happen? It doesn’t seem as if my computer is doing anything.

This means that we don’t have the AcoustID in our database/it hasn’t found a match.
Note that Lookup:
Uses your existing tags to find a match. If your files already have some existing tags, like track numbers and an album name, the best way to do it is to hit ‘cluster’, and then hit ‘lookup’ on the cluster/ the whole album.
Scan:
Uses the actual audio data on the file, and tries to find the same audio data in our AcoustID database. If nobody’s submitted the data for that track, it’s not going to find it. Note that this method ignores all of your existing tags, making it much more likely that a song from an album is going to be put into a Various Artists release, and so on. But it’s very useful if you have no information for a track and need to find out what it is, or similar situations.[quote=“1uke, post:24, topic:63749”]
Would you be free to Skype or screen share with me and show me what this involved. If someone goes through this with me I am sure I can pick it up all very easily and fast.
[/quote]

I’d actually be keen to do this, as it’ll save everyone a lot of time!
You can find me by searching for aerozol1 or try Simon Hartman, with a picture of a kiwifruit. I’m on +12 time but it should work out.

[Freso]

@aerozol

I’d actually be keen to do this, as it’ll save everyone a lot of time!

Maybe consider making a video tutorial (or several!) that we can upload to the MetaBrainz YouTube channel? We don’t currently have any Picard videos.

[aerozol]

I actually gave this a shot, and made a video, but I can’t get the quality as nice as the tutorial @caroline-g made…
If you can give me some pointers on what screen capture software and what export settings you used Caroline, then I’d be keen to give it another shot?

Let’s not even get started on my mic quality!
Still better than nothing… possibly

[caroline-g]

@aerozol

If you can give me some pointers on what screen capture software and what export settings you used Caroline, then I’d be keen to give it another shot?

Of course! I used OBS (open source!) to record my screen (it recorded the entire screen, I later edited out the browser) https://obsproject.com/. After recording, it saved to my desktop as a .MOV file I believe. You can mess around with the settings inside OBS to change how it saves. I’d be happy to share my current settings with you if that’d help. After recording, I used iMovie to edit the tutorials.

All my videos were recorded on my MacBook Air! No special mic system.

Let me know if I can help further!

[1uke]

@aerozol

I’d actually be keen to do this, as it’ll save everyone a lot of time!

@aerozol Thank you for the kind offer. I have added you on Skype

I am free from 9am Thursday (GMT). Let me know a time / day that would suit you.

Thanks again I really appreciate it

[1uke]

@aerozol,

Hello again, I am free today. Would you be free to help me get my albums all to gold disks.

Thank you

[ldexterldesign]

Hey @1uke,

Can you take your conversation to a separate, more relevant, thread or private message?

Kind regards

PS @Freso I think this thread has gone off topic a little since Review/research "best" workflow , no?