In a thread from several years ago, @SheamusPatt wrote:
A CD or other original digital source is really the only reliable source for an acoustId. Analog sources aren’t trustworthy, and I avoid submitting acoustIds from an analog source eg. from digitizing an LP. I do make an exception for albums I have that are rare and out of print, where often an original digital source is simply unavailable.
I’ve been digitizing some of my vinyl collection, including some that have no listed digital versions. Is there general support for the approach described above of submitting acoustids generated from an analog rip when there’s no other option? Or would it be better to leave the recordings with no acoustids?
4 Likes
Your situation is pretty similar to what I’ve described - albums that aren’t readily available as CDs or digital recordings.
I had my turntable professionally tuned up a few years back, including a speed calibration which I think it desperately needed, and since then I’ve found that perhaps 80% of the AcoustIDs Picard extracts from my recordings are a match for what’s on MusicBrainz (usually from some CD source). So, if you have well calibrated equipment and have pulled tracks from an album in good condition (few scratches etc.) then you stand a good chance of pulling AcoustIDs that other users can match.
I still don’t submit AcoustIDs when I know a better (digital) source exists. But I do when I have an album that doesn’t have an official digital version (CD or whatever). I think it’s useful to do so.
I don’t know if there is an official position on this, though.
4 Likes
I don’t see any issue with submitting AcoustIDs for Vinyl rips etc. The biggest problem for AcoustID seems to be that both start of the track and track length are not exactly defined, so you’ll get slight variations here. But AFAIK AcoustID can deal with small differences here. I’d argue submitting those IDs could improve the match results for other also having the music digitalized from analog source.
8 Likes
I think that fingerprinting analogue recordings is definitely something that should happen (certainly for stuff that has never been released on CD), but the submitters must have a duty to make sure the fingerprints they are submitting are “clean” to as best as possible.
Do we know how sensitive acoustic ID is to various artifact’s present in analogue recordings (pops/clicks for vinyl, wow/flutter/hiss for tape)?
3 Likes