User:LordSputnik/Recording Style Guidelines

Status: This page describes an active style guideline proposal and is not official.

Proposal number: RFC-Unassigned Champion: LordSputnik Current status: RFC Initial Discussion JIRA ticket STYLE-159

Introduction

This proposal is designed to improve the guidelines on merging recordings. It is felt that the current guidelines are too vague, and that they don't cover all cases where recordings might be merged. This proposal seeks to expand these guidelines and make them clearer.

Proposal

Edit http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Recording to change the section "What should and shouldn't be merged together?" to the following.

What should and shouldn't share recordings?

A recording is intended to represent distinct audio. This means that generally two tracks should only share a recording if the audio that they contain sounds the same. If it isn't clear whether to merge two recordings or not, keep them separate. Where two recordings of the same work are separate for a reason, a meaningful disambiguation should be provided for one or both of the recordings.

Specific Cases

1. Tracks containing different performances of a single work should each use a separate recording, since each performance will result in distinct audio.
2. Releases of live performances that are recorded by different recording devices should each use a separate set of recordings.
3. Versions of a release that are mastered in audibly different ways should use separate recordings.
4. If audio restoration is used to create remastered audio from an earlier recording, a track containing the remastered audio should use a recording specific to that remaster.
5. A track containing edited or remixed audio should always use a recording specific to that particular edit or remix.
6. Tracks which contain different numbers of audio channels should always use separate recordings. For example, a mono recording and a stereo recording should never be merged.
7. If a track begins or ends in silence and a second track changes the length of the silence, but is otherwise identical, these two tracks should share a recording, so long as the silence isn't a significant part of the audio.

AcoustIDs and ISRCs

Both of these identifiers can be incorrectly attached to recordings. For this reason, neither AcoustIDs nor ISRCs should be used as the sole reason for merging two recordings. Different AcoustID fingerprints and ISRCs may be used as a reason for not merging, but bear in mind that they can sometimes be wrong.

Before attempting to work with AcoustIDs, please read the AcoustID Guide.