Tracklisting in multiple languages

Hello,

I would have a look back on the Soundscapes releases from Frémeaux & Associés https://musicbrainz.org/label/cafee478-ec00-413d-8865-9b78661a829c
Considering the amount of releases I would prefer to agree with community on style before reediting everything.

To start there is one problem generic to all Fremeaux releases: Booklets and Back covers often differ in huge difference, I use to mixing both with priority on booklet if no error

Then we can divide in two categories:

  1. Pure soundscapes with titles, ex: https://musicbrainz.org/release/324eda53-4751-4a1a-a22b-12871d18a89f
  2. Soundscapes dedicated to birds, ex: https://musicbrainz.org/release/93db0bb4-8fc2-4042-9cbe-ad519307989b

For 1. booklet/covers show both English and French (and sometimes more)

  • Should I keep one release with both languages or split one release per language?
    I used to create them in both but realized titles can become really long adding all the booklet detail which could lead to issues while tagging ex: https://musicbrainz.org/release/c269963d-7b25-47aa-bf51-bbfe301afa45
    I tend to think would be betther to split them

  • Linked to first point but should I keep all the details from booklet titles per track or should I try to reduce to minimum and add extra info as relationships? For example it means removing dates & locations even if they are part of titles

  • If keeping both what should be the separator between langages (Label use " / " but this could be misleading with guidelines regarding multiple songs per track

  • For Capitalization Should I apply normal guidelines or consider all track names as a description? (so only first letter capitalized and proper names)

  • For recordings should I have them in both languages or only keeping native language from the recorder?

For 2. I use to make one release with all languages: Latin / French / English
Should I continue to do so?
Should I use another separator? (Avoiding issues with multiple songs per track guidelines)
Should I set artist name to the recorder or to the animal species?
Then there are problems with updates of species which prevent me to add/fix the species names in case of latin missing or error on name so:

  • Should I create on official release as on booklet + one pseudo release with the updates on species names?
    or Should I create only one officialr elease with the updates?

Last question, some of the releases mix case 1 and 2 in their tracks titles, which one should I keep for official release?
As of now I was relying on release name, recorder and other extra information to decide if the intent was to record a sound or the specific sing of a bird.

Thanks for your help

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I think one release with both languages, even if it becomes unwieldy. It’s the most ‘accurate’, and will be the most useful if/when alternative tracklists are implemented. But it is up to you - as you know consistency is the most important thing anyway.

I would keep everything in the title. Even if the titles are stupid long, it accurately represents a release with stupid long titles :stuck_out_tongue:

I think it’s clear enough what the ‘/’ is there for

Good question! I don’t know… I would probably err towards title case.

Having both may help with searchability? Not sure if it hurts - I tend to put more into recordings, rather than less.

re. 2, generally the same as above (eg use all languages imo).

I had a little dig around and it seems like using the special artist [nature sounds] and using the ‘recorded by’ relationships for the person doing the recorder seems like the way to do it (?)

I don’t quite understand this! I’m guessing either they made mistakes or bird names change over time (interesting)? I would fix it on the recordings but not the tracklist of the release, where I usually go with as printed.

Hope that helps :S

As existing I created again the [nature sounds] as artist and it was fusionned to [no artist]. Why?
I would to consider audio engineer as technicians and don’t get on main artist, which are birds.
We are many nature sounds collectors. The question need to be discussed.

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Thanks for you answers,

Regarding the update of species that s what you guess: There are errors on some and/or the name chang ein time (a specy is later subdivided into 2 or removed which force to look at information or worst case lsiten to the records to recognize).

Wil lwait a few more time in order to see if someone else want to share his view and also waiting for the solving of [Nature sounds] artist name

It was merged? That’s weird because it is referenced in an official style guideline:
https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Unknown_and_untitled/Special_purpose_artist

@ulugabi issues can take a long time (or forever) to be ‘solved’ around here so I would just go ahead with whatever you can change for now… and keep an eye on the [nature sounds] one.

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Seems it was merged last september: https://musicbrainz.org/edit/73307886

Question is what should be the style to apply for artist credits seems guidelines were not updated?

  • Recorder name (if available)? and set Nature as genre? but I kind to agree with Nicolas as they are not really the artists --> We look for sounds for a specific location or animal, not from the recorder. And this name already appears in credits of release.

  • Species name but in this case how to handle the huge amounts of new artists (ex: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus just the number of subspecies for Crow)
    Also theorically if we have one subspecie but 2 different locations it should be 2 different artists are it wont be the same bird singing :slight_smile:

More seriously it would require someone with knowledge to create all the species name, , alias and links between then following updates which is not the main MBs objective
Then would still remain problem for sounds of water, wind, churchs,… so keeping a generic [Nature] seems consistent the more I think about it.

  • Other?

As suggested in the edit which merged “nature sounds” into “no artist”: link performer to “no artist”, but set “credited as” to the animal / bird species. No information is lost, and no exponential proliferation of artists as it would be with “separate artist for each animal species”.

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See also Edit #73294945 where it was re-created.

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Perhaps need to create a new discussion for the nature sounds in credits or as artist. As we are a few people to have some ideas. I have others recordings to add, and I am waiting.

I quote:

Subsets of [no artist]
Similarly, it may be useful to be more specific when using [no artist]. You can use one of the following as the artist credit if applicable:

  • [church chimes]
  • [language instruction]
  • [nature sounds]
  • [news report]
    They should only be used if the category is applicable, and if you would otherwise use [no artist].

Example of result after filtering.

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Considering the different opinions expressed here I found interesting to take back problem at start: What is the definition of [no artists], how it should be used and why it is important to avoid the creation of multiple subsets?

So I looked back at:

Guidelines:
[no artist] - There is no artist. (Recorded silence or noise, if it is attributed to any artist, should be assigned to that artist and not to [no artist].)
–> For nature sounds there are actually artists so it s kind of wrong to credit to [no artist] (cf @ alex_s7 below).

Current releases inside [no artist]:
They are mostly nature sounds, sound effects or unknown artists releases (other sub sets [church chimes] & [language instruction] are still split out, cf @Fabe56 below)
–> As of today there are 1,753,183 artists already in database so (sorry if topic was already answered) why it is necessary to merged them?
Then even merged it can be found with the filtering function as shown in previous msgs so (excluding it requires more click) keeping merged avoid the creation of special purpose artists that wont make sense (limited number of release, unclear definition that matches mutliple subsets,…)

From a technical point of view (correct if I m wrong as I m far from an expert on MBz database) it is a potential bug source to have an artist linked to thousands of releases/recordings (ex: Loading the artist increases loading time and waste bandwith, memory could become saturated,…).

Then from an user perspective there are needs to have some of those subsets split.

And after this review and few hours thinking about how to handle the different cases here are my conclusions:

  • This field should definitly not be used :slight_smile: (if considered as Performer)
  • It could be used for recordings involving a human performance not considered as artistic. Ex: SFX, Language instruction as the recordings should “sound” the same no matter the person performing it
  • It could be used for recordings where performers are clearly not identifiable after researchs and/or clear intent to not have anyone credited to it (ex: seems why [church times] are in this category and some other unknown artists releases) but personally I would transfer them to [unknown] as they remain artistic performances
  • Nature sounds could have their specific categorie [nature] as [traditional] & [dialogue].
  • I we consider [no artist] should not be used/deleted we could put all sounds in a generic [sounds] or splitting them between [created sounds] & [nature sounds] (ex: Door slapping in SFX vs. Waves in the sea).

Happy to see your views

@alex_s7
For the animal songs crediting to specific species without a defined and maintained list would also become a mess. Then it is not the main objective of MBz to have so. Maybe in future if there is a partnership with some specialized association/project interesting to rely on MBz db and follow edits it could provide value else better to keep a generic term I think.

Regarding the pure nature sounds (water, wind,…) there is indeed no physical artist so relying on [no artist] would make sense but conceptually the artist is “Mother nature” and it is a different one than the persons creating the [no artists] releases.

In a more pragmatic thinking problem there is that soundscapes releases mix pure nature sounds and animal songs and it would require to listen to all tracks to split between [animals] and [nature] or credits to two. But first are users really interesting in doing so?
So i would rather keep an [nature] artist for all those releases.

@Fabe56
Why some of the subsets are merged to [no artist] and some not?

@Nicolas_ANCEAU
For now I will create/update release as agreed for now:

  • Track names as credited in booklet (multiple languages, long titles,…)
  • Artist using [no artist] credited to [nature sounds]

Because we haven’t gotten to merge them all. The intention was always to merge them, but keep the credits intact, so they can be filtered as needed (if you only want [nature sounds] you filter by that credit, for example).

That said, many wildlife / nature recordings are actually clearly credited to a field recordist who effectively picks, mixes and chooses, and in that case I’d just keep that credit. Something like this album for example is clearly “Andrew Skeoch” for me rather than “[nature sounds]”. I’d probably only use [nature sounds] if we really have no artist at all (so, no info about who did the recording and choosing).

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Remind me of this case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute where we could indeed refer to say animals/nature didnt click on button to record :slight_smile:

Ok for me as anyway process is not destructive and so could still be later reviewed in case of new topic. Also personnally all those records are in a special folder/playlist