Some MusicBrainz irregularities that I'd like to tackle

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Hi,

I think I’ve noticed a few irregularities with using MusicBrainz and I like to find out if other users have had the same experience and know how to solve this. It could also well be that it’s just me being new with Beets.

  • I’ve noticed that ‘Remastered YEAR’ is often not recognized as a disambiguation by MusicBrainz. Are there other databases that I can differentiate remastered and non-remastered versions better?

  • I also noticed that with samplerates like 96kHz or 192kHz that could never come from a CD Musicbrainz sometimes still thinks that it’s a CD. Is there a way to prevent this? Or is MusicBrainz not yet up to date enough with all the high definition/high resolution releases from HDTracks etc?

  • It looks like albums from an artist where the album name is blanc or named after the artist like Paul Simon-Paul Simon are rarely correctly recognised. Does anyone have the same problems? How do I solve this?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Jan

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What do you mean ‘not recognized as a disambiguation’? That MusicBrainz disallows mastering information in the disambiguation field? True. That information belongs in the Remaster Relationship Type.

  • I also noticed that with samplerates like 96kHz or 192kHz that could never come from a CD Musicbrainz sometimes still thinks that it’s a CD. Is there a way to prevent this?

Just point the tagger to a correct digital release when importing. But MusicBrainz stores no data about sampling rates, and therefore there’s no way for beets to identify the correct release.

Or is MusicBrainz not yet up to date enough with all the high definition/high resolution releases from HDTracks etc?

Probably not and will hardly ever be. MusicBrainz identifies music by the textual metadata and acoustic signatures. The sampling rates will have no influence on those.

  • It looks like albums from an artist where the album name is blanc or named after the artist like Paul Simon-Paul Simon are rarely correctly recognised. Does anyone have the same problems? How do I solve this?

The sure-fire way to get a correct match is to find the release on the MusicBrainz website, copy its URL, and paste it into the beets importer (‘I’).

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Hi @dorade, thanks for your answers, that clears things up. One follow-up question if you don’t mind.

Do you know if Beets can read this Remaster Relationship Type from the MusicBrainz website so that I can add e.g. “(remastered YEAR)” to a path?

Ouch that hurts. I missed completely that there was a front end to the MusicBrainz database where I could look up albums myself.

Thanks again Dorade, really appreciated.

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Hmm… Never thought about it, but I doubt that it can. Maybe Adrian (the developer) will have an idea. My hunch is that if the solution exists it will lie in album disambiguation. Or maybe Discogs stores mastering data and beets can pull it from there?

I missed completely that there was a front end to the MusicBrainz database where I could look up albums myself.

Oh, yes, Jan. And not only look up, but edit the data there. To understand beets and fully tap into its potential, you’d better get acquainted with MusicBrainz. Once you do, you’ll understand and appreciate the software so much more. I came to beets just to tag my music, but now I’m rather a MusicBrainz editor who happens to happens prefer beets to other clients.

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I’m going to have a look at it, thanks!

@adrian Do you know if this is possible? and how?

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Hmm… do you have an example of a remaster that isn’t getting the right data in the $albumdisambig field?

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I have the following album that doesn’t get the right $albumdisambig info namely ‘remastered 2015’
Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) (Remastered 2015) (FLAC 24-96)

So I’ve searched for this specific release on MusicBrainz and I discovered that it isn’t there. There are no digital releases for this album after 2010 in the database. Discogs also didn’t have it.

But it does exist ;-):
http://www.hdtracks.com/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-255659 See 'about this album for more info about the remastering.
So I guess nobody has taken the time to enter the info in both databases and that’s causing the ommision.

I’m not sure I’m willing to invest a lot of time to get this correct, but if anyone knows of an easy way to achieve it that would be most welcome.

Are there additional sources besides MB and Discogs that I could query via Beets that could have this data?

Thanks, Jan

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Hi! Yep, missing from MB would cause that. :slight_smile: I think the “right” thing to do is probably to edit MusicBrainz—that way, you can help future users get the right data too.

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I have to dive deeper into MB to see how I can submit this information in a valid and approved way but that is surely a good idea.

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