User:Pankkake

I'm pankkake, a MusicBrainz Auto-Editor.

Thing to do

Loosely ordered by priority.

• Have at least a release with acoustids submitted for every artist in my collection, then subscribe to the artist. DONE, including all compilations! This took me a long time but is the first step I would recommend for anyone.
• Merge duplicate recordings of all my subscribed artists. Mostly done.
  • Add live disambiguations.
• Process Reports on my subscribed entities. Some done, but there are a few useful ones left.
• Redo a pass on all releases I own, upload my scans (I should also redo my scans with a better scanner and settings, and scan the CD matrixes). Add all information from the booklet, Discogs, etc. Add to a Collection. Set the quality to High.
• Clean up all labels I'm subscribed to. Add Discogs, fix country, missing details, etc.
• Upload cover art for all releases I have in my collection and all releases from my subscribed artists.
• Convert all releases in my collection and my subscribed artists to the proper punctuation.
• Create an almost automated process for retagging my collection.

Things to know

Interface

• The direct search is the only search that has real-time results. So you should not be surprised if some things do not appear right away in the normal search. Avoid making duplicates!

• You can paste URLs in most search/select boxes! This is much faster and safer than searching by name.

Other databases

• There is only one metal database: metal-archives.com. Ignore all others unless the band you want isn't there. Why? Because it has the most editors, and I think many bands actually check the accuracy of the data on it. Some other databases seem to have shamelessly ripped off their database. The number of bands it knows is also overwhelming.

• Discogs is targeted towards release owners, buyers, sellers, etc. As such, it is pretty good at knowing releases. Not so much at track listings. Be sure to get an account and check the edit history though; most recent additions are of lower quality and voting became almost nonexistent. Nevertheless, some artists and many labels actually link to Discogs for their official discography. Be sure to add Discogs links to labels, releases, release groups and artists, as it helps greatly (for future reference, for reports, for bots…).
  • It is also a good source for cover art. Beware that it has an imposed limit of 600px image width, making some scans hard to read or useless; sometimes you can find the bigger scan by using the Google Image reverse search.

• Amazon has common mistakes:
  • Wrong release dates especially for older releases (sometimes the date Amazon added it)
  • Wrong label (confused with distributor)
  • Don't try to add a release just by searching its name, you risk adding the wrong one. If you have a barcode, you can use it to search instead; this is probably the best way to do it. You can also check barcodes on existing ASINs by using one of the following tools:
    • http://erwinmayer.com/emlabs/asin2ean/
    • http://lmfao.org.uk/asin-barcode

• iTunes does not provide labels but copyright holders. In case of doubt, do not add a label.

Miscellaneous

• MusicBrainz Slang

• Miscellaneous Guideline / User:Jacobbrett/English Punctuation Guide

Data Quality

Some parts of the MusicBrainz database are pretty messy. Popular artists are especially concerned, probably because they are less appreciated by music fans. Conversely, some very obscure artists can have all the information that no one else has.

Recordings

I love the Recordings view of an artist. It helps me find mistakes (if they belong to another artist), or find exclusive recordings and thus the releases I should acquire to have them.

However, many Recordings views are full of duplicates.

Merging recordings

The question is, what recordings should be merged, and how do I know I'm not making a mistake?

First, use userscripts (see below).

TODO merging dos and donts, acoustids and corner cases. also argue on why merging remasters is good

DiscIDs

DiscID are computed from an original CD, considering the exact track time of the audio tracks. Due to this, it can be used to identify releases, or even reissues that have the same audio (at least from a human point of view).

• TODO explain http://eac-log-lookup.blogspot.com/ and when (not) to use it

Userscripts

• userscripts.org is dead. need to check if what I use is available elsewhere
• https://greasyfork.org/scripts?set=9
• https://github.com/jesus2099/konami-command
• https://github.com/murdos/musicbrainz-userscripts
• https://greasyfork.org/scripts/search?q=musicbrainz
• https://bitbucket.org/mwiencek/userscripts/