Multi Disc Release
In MusicBrainzTerminology, a MultiDiscRelease is a set of Releases that is packaged and sold together. This usually deals with musical works that do not fit on one disc (or tape, record, etc.). MultiDiscReleases usually have DiscNumbers.
There are exceptions:
A BoxSet; see BoxSetNameStyle.
Examples
Blinking Lights and Other Revelations:
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Blinking Lights and Other Revelations (disc 1) and Blinking Lights and Other Revelations (disc 2) Advanced Electronics, Volume 2:
Advanced Electronics, Volume 2 (disc 1) and Advanced Electronics, Volume 2 (disc 2) Wonderkind aan het strand:
Wonderkind aan het strand (disc 1: Eb), Wonderkind aan het strand (disc 2: Vloed), Wonderkind aan het strand (disc 3: Branding) and Wonderkind aan het strand (disc 4: Onderstroom)
Discussion
Just noting that plenty of vinyl albums are spread across two discs, even though they could fit on one. Dance music albums with as few as 8 tracks are commonly released as double vinyl albums (and single CDs), primarily for the better bass response associated with wider grooves. (Radiohead also used this format for "OK Computer"). I personally feel that dividing the listing of such an album into two discs on MBz is counter-intuitive, since the two discs would never be sold separately, and the complete tracklisting tends to be the same as on the CD. Having a 12-track CD along with two 6-track vinyl discs in the database (i.e. 3 entries for two formats of the same release) would require 3 ARs (instead of 1) for something as simple as the name of the producer, when it seems simpler to me to just add the vinyl release event to the listing of the equivalent CD. Splitting double vinyl LPs into 2 entries also means that there will need to be 2 identical sets of catalogue numbers, labels and dates for each piece of plastic. Separating a double CD release into 2 discs on MBz makes logical sense, as each disc makes sense in its own right, and may be marketed separately, but one half of a double vinyl album is neither an album or a release. It's half an album, that makes no sense without the other half. I think someone needs to clarify whether MBz is a database of releases, or a database of discs. --ArtySmokes
A lot of releases sold separately on vinyls are bundled on one cd for budget re-release. Would you recommend merging them in one just because that fits on one CD? Furthermore, there are a lot of double vinyl sets that contains two "albums". Why would they be grouped together? Also, what about work pieces that are too long to fit on one cd, hence are released on two (or more) cd sets? Would you group them altogether as well? Your argument that two vinyl sets are substancially different from two cd sets is moot and innacurate IMHO. In order to avoid endless discussions about wether something deserve to be "grouped" in one disc or not, the only sane way out is to stick with how the physical media is split. That is: if this set contains x discs (being vinyl, cd, dvd, cassette, ...), then represent it using x discs in the database. 2 cents. -- dmppanda 2007-07-05 23:26:21
I'm not asking for double CDs to be merged. I'm asking that single albums that happen to be pressed on two pieces of vinyl should not be listed as Disc 1 and Disc 2.
The Tourist is track 7 on the release known as OK Computer, not track 6 of disc 2. Having two additional pages for the LP version of the album is needless and confusing duplication, IMO. --"ArtySmokes"
That such a central an important issue as the data model for releases does not seem to have been discussed more worries me a little bit (at least the reasons for the current choice do not show up here). I designed a data model for storing similar kind of information in the past, and ended up using either of the two models depending on my uses; (Model a) an Album containing two Discs, vs. Model b) Releases only). To the DB purist, for those releases which are always bundled together--the great majority IMO-- it does not really make sense to repeat the artist/label/date info/relations (you could misrepresent two Releases by making a mistake in the label, for example). To work this way does, however, simplify the data model a great deal by removing one level of indirection (i.e., Album -> Release), and in the past I could never quite decide for myself if the savings in the complexity (i.e. writing scripts that use the DB) are really worth it, but I like it either way. IN ANY CASE, I think that at the very very least there should be a way to link between Releases (as being bundled/released/whatever together, disc 1, disc 2, etc) and that the Release title should never include the "... (disc X)" part, which is not only ugly and whose format ends up being inconsistent when entered by users, but which has to be removed for many uses of the database. I don't see these links in the model at this moment; where are they? [2007-09]. -- MartinBlais
Maybe it's better to discuss this in NextGenerationSchema (if it's not already dealt with there)? --Zout