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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: Polonio on August 03, 2003, 11:31:26 am

Title: OT - Music databse
Post by: Polonio on August 03, 2003, 11:31:26 am

Hello,

I have my collection pretty well tagged, so I tried to go one step further: I tried to know the albums I miss from my favourites artists.

To do so, I need a complete music database, with tons of artists and its albums names, with as much information as possible (at least: year and genre). So I decided to download FREEDB database and import it to a SQL Server database.  

I did it. And the result was disappointing. FREEDB database is useless for my proposes. It has hundreds of duplicates, with missing tags and many erroneous tags albums. I am not talking about weird, unknown or non-comercial albums. I am talking about Michael Jackson, U2, Madonna, Bryan Adams or Beatles albums. It does not matter, anything that can be bad, it is done badly: Any album can be jazz, rock, misc, blues, classic, reagge and newage, and everything at the same time. And it can be released at 5 or 6 different years. It is a mess.

I know FREEDB database is build with anonymous collaborations, and I know it is the best way to have a huge database. But I thought some kind of cleaning was made.  I thought album information that will be downloaded hundreds, thousands, or millions of times would be checked to ensure a minimum of quality.

For instance, “Bad” from Michael Jackson appears about 40 or 50 times, some misspell the artists, some misspell the album, some both, each “Bad” album has different songs, or belong to a different genre, and so on. Bad, very bad.

How many albums have released Michael? I can’t say looking at FREEDB database.

Well, I realize there is not any quality control. Bad luck.

Do you know an open database I can access to get the information I am looking for (every album of every major artist)?
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: KingSparta on August 03, 2003, 11:39:45 am
well if you write a program you can delete the dups, and completely remove the ones without tags.

I basicly wrote a program to scan the FreeDB database and just get the artist name and song name, then filter out the dups so i only have one.

you can basicly do the same thing with the info you need.


Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: jleerigby on August 03, 2003, 11:50:54 am
Writing programs is cheating.  It took me 15 months to carefully tag all my 20K tracks with artist, album, genre, coverart, rating, decade, tempo, year.  Everyone should do the same.  Get typing and stop taking short cuts.

...BTW King your chartfinder and coverart finder work great.
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: zevele10 on August 03, 2003, 11:53:34 am
You may try to find out if the Swann Catalogue has an online edition.

In fact ,it is only available albums that are listed . But for top 10 artists ,it is not  a problem
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: Polonio on August 03, 2003, 11:54:12 am
Quote
well if you write a program you can delete the dups, and completely remove the ones without tags.

I basicly wrote a program to scan the FreeDB database and just get the artist name and song name, then filter out the dups so i only have one.

you can basicly do the same thing with the info you need.




Hello, KingSparta.

I knew you did that. Actually, I didn't know I has able to download FREEDB database until I read you did it.

By the way, your Lyrics plug-in is great. Cool. Fantastic. I have about 4000 songs, and your plugin find about 1000 lyrics for them. I was amazed.

Well, about cleaning FREEDB database, I am not enthusiastic. I can select distinct albums, artists, and so on to remove duplicates. But it is not easy to detect and clean misspelings. I will figure out what to do.

Thanks anyway,

Polonio
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: Polonio on August 03, 2003, 12:00:36 pm
How many posts I have to write to become Senior Woodchuck?

A hundred?  ;D
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: KingSparta on August 03, 2003, 12:10:19 pm
Quote
How many posts I have to write to become Senior Woodchuck?

when you go over 9,000 J River Will Send You A Yogo, Mine is Blue.

Gateley And Matt drove it to my house
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: zevele10 on August 03, 2003, 12:13:26 pm
On the bike ?
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: Deivit on August 03, 2003, 01:11:38 pm
Polonio,

The best source of info for your purposes will probably be checking out www.allmusic.com

I think I read something about someone having written a piece of software to query the amg database, but unfortunately I cannot recall where I read it  :(

Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: Steef_V. on August 05, 2003, 12:28:55 pm
Quote
The best source of info for your purposes will probably be checking out www.allmusic.com  



Great link Deivit!
This site really suits MY needs - hadn't found it yet.

Thanks  a lot...
Steef.
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: Deivit on August 05, 2003, 01:13:01 pm
Glad you liked it, Steef. Enjoy it!  :)
Title: Re: OT - Music databse
Post by: Polonio on August 05, 2003, 01:24:04 pm
Yes, great music database.

It is exactly what I was looking for. Thou I expected to have in my HD, to query as I wish...

I've tried to scan it using a program I made, but they seems to control if the requests come from a "regular" explorer... So nothing I get.

I may look further when I have more free time.

Thanks any way.

Polonio