Topic: MC, Relational databases & AMG - oh my! (Read 4907 times)

darichman · « **on:** July 30, 2007, 03:42:34 am »

Hi guys. I've spent the last few days tagging genres and styles for my popular music. So far I've made it about a tenth of the way through the letter 'A'

I know J River's aware of AllMediaGuide (AMG), a database full of metadata for music and movies. It's the page linked to when you click on artist info from within MC12. A quick search through the MC forums shows that there has been a lot of user interest in the past for pulling metadata from the site. @l@n's aTagger was one of the more popular plugins before a cease & desist was issued (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=32276.0)

More recently, scthom of flac plugin fame approached them re licensing for a MC plugin. That thread can be found here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40471.0

A few months ago I posted a thread suggesting the possibility a relational or hierarchical database for MC (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39943.0). This would involve changing MC from file-centric to group-centric. Users could create groups (eg artists, albums, movies etc etc as they currently do fields) and tag these as separate entities. Once a 'group' is created, users can simply add files to the 'group' and all relevant metadata will be applied to the file (because it now belongs to that group). The advantages of such a change are discussed in that thread.

On the AMG site, they state that their information is stored in a relational database. It is all original and content is monitored by AMG. Coverage statistics are viewable here: http://www.allmediaguide.com/all_stats.html If the AMG database were more integrated, or at least more accessible, into MC, I believe this would make J River's Media Centre an extremely powerful piece of software. Users could import an album (or indeed a film), execute an AMG lookup and simply select which artist or album the files belong to. All associated metadata would then be available to the user (for use in fields etc)

Not only this, they also have acoustic fingerprinting (check out this article: http://www.stereophile.com/news/022607amg/
MC users could also benefit from the thousands of artist and album images.

I don't know how much they'd want for data licensing for J River, but I'd pay for this service and I'm certain other users would as well.
Check out http://www.allmediaguide.com/data.html for information for software developers.

ThoBar · « **Reply #1 on:** July 30, 2007, 06:48:09 am »

d'man has summed up two of my most desired features to be added to MC. - Object (album/artist/collection/period/....) based grouping, and hooking into the All Music (or similar) site.

While I (think I) understand the reasons behind JR's decision to go with their own DB's, ultimately I find the YADB database limited, esp. when it comes to classical music.

I too, would be willing to pay a bit extra for this functionality, but understand that others may not. Perhaps an official JR plugin, purchaseable separately may be the answer.

At the end of the day, I think the points that darichman has presented would significantly add to the polish of the product, and attraction to new users.

Just my 2c.

hit_ny · « **Reply #2 on:** July 30, 2007, 09:34:02 am »

Is there any info regarding subscription charges for such features or is it a one time thing ?

Their site talks bout the tech but i can't see any 'Partners' as yet.

Otherwise, very interesting and thx for the heads-up.

Was going through similar thoughts about the moods thing and wondering whether it was worth it to do all this work. If you listen to music that's been out for a while, then the descriptions of theme, moods etc is fairly close. But if you are on the cutting edge as electronic is nowadays, there is very scant info on that site, which is understandable i suppose.

Tapestry looks like a fun tool to play with,

only thing missing is the link that says 'click here to stream'

JONCAT · « **Reply #3 on:** July 30, 2007, 09:39:37 am »

Count me in...both AMG and the grouping feature would save users a lot of time; time that could then be spent making small or personal changes to the data AMG provides.

AMG has 6 million fingerprints? Could come in handy.....

DC

hit_ny · « **Reply #4 on:** July 30, 2007, 09:48:49 am »

I'm seeing in this fingerprint tech, the potential end of a major obstacle to tags based music systems...

that MC & its ilk are all nice & dandy if only *SOMEONE* would verbosely fill in the tags

JONCAT · « **Reply #5 on:** July 30, 2007, 09:56:03 am »

Not the end really. I'm not leaving my metadata wholly to the caprice of some mass media conglomerate...it's a starting point; the user always has to make corrections and changes, but it will make for a much more felicitous endevour.

Right now I use Gracenote, FreeDB, and YADB with MC when ripping (grabbing .INIs with Player & Audiograbber).

I have a lot of rare, OOP, and live shows as well and I wonder how much of this is really going to be in AMG....eventually I guess it will for posterity.

DC

MrHaugen · « **Reply #6 on:** July 30, 2007, 10:24:47 am »

It would be a step in the right direction, but not a perfect solution at all.

For Genre and possibly sub genre (or style as AMG calls it), it would probably work. When it comes to Moods there are just WAY to many of them. If you put that data in a list style field and would make a playlists with those moods, and or themes, you would end up with a crazy result. Another BIG problem is that the Genre, Style, Theme and Moods are based on the whole album. Each song on one album can, and often are alot diffrent.

I have tagged all my music (14000 tracks) with Genre and Sub Genre. Not for each track, but per album basis. I'll leave the individual track tagging for my Theme/Style/Mood tagger, wich I will complete in the end of this summer I hope. If enough people are willing to use it, I think we are one good step closer. I'll present a beta within a month or two so you can look at it.
As for the Genre and Sub Genre I found it better to study the genres (mainly at answers.com) and tagging it manually per Album. I completed my project in only a few days.

Here is a sample of the AMG data for Perl Jam - Vitalogy. Look at the Moods section. It's wild.

Genre     Styles
Rock     Hard Rock
Alternative Pop/ Rock
Grunge

Moods        Themes
Provocative Introspection
Reflective Loss/Grief
Playful Heartache
Messy
Volatile
Raucous
Aggressive
Angry
Brooding
Angst-Ridden
Cathartic
Melancholy
Quirky
Poignant
Bittersweet
Freewheeling
Complex
Searching
Tense/Anxious
Urgent
Earnest

neFAST · « **Reply #7 on:** July 30, 2007, 01:18:32 pm »

@Darichman: The PM function seems broken on this forum. Is there any way I can contact you ?
BTW do you know if there are example of AllMusic integration in any music application ?

Thanks a lot.

mlefebvre · « **Reply #8 on:** July 30, 2007, 01:43:56 pm »

Quote from: neFAST on July 30, 2007, 01:18:32 pm

@Darichman: The PM function seems broken on this forum. Is there any way I can contact you ?

PM seems to work for me. Maybe it was just a blip...

Michel.

neFAST · « **Reply #9 on:** July 30, 2007, 02:01:28 pm »

The page always stays on the PM form when I validate my message ... That's weird tabarnouche !

mlefebvre · « **Reply #10 on:** July 30, 2007, 02:04:07 pm »

Quote from: neFAST on July 30, 2007, 02:01:28 pm

tabarnouche !

You MUST be from around here! (I'm in Montreal...) :-)

Michel.

neFAST · « **Reply #11 on:** July 30, 2007, 02:08:13 pm »

Sorry for this off topic message. working PM would have been useful ... feel free to delete our messages

Mlefebvre would you please send me a PM so that I can check that responding to PM is worling.
BTW I'm sorry but I'm just a "maudit francais" who spend one year in Montreal. Spent a great time there and made unforgetable friends.

mlefebvre · « **Reply #12 on:** July 30, 2007, 02:11:58 pm »

PM just sent to you.

Michel.

darichman · « **Reply #13 on:** July 31, 2007, 05:19:35 am »

Wow lots of posts!

Quote from: MrHaugen on July 30, 2007, 10:24:47 am

I'll leave the individual track tagging for my Theme/Style/Mood tagger, wich I will complete in the end of this summer I hope. If enough people are willing to use it, I think we are one good step closer. I'll present a beta within a month or two so you can look at it.

I'll be looking out for this!

Quote from: hit_ny on July 30, 2007, 09:34:02 am

Is there any info regarding subscription charges for such features or is it a one time thing ?

As far as I know it'd be a monthly subscription. If implemented by J River, the licensing would naturally be at their end and they'd have to decide whether to charge the user more for a single product purchase or consider a monthly subscription for users who wish to use the service.

Quote from: neFAST on July 30, 2007, 01:18:32 pm

@Darichman: The PM function seems broken on this forum. Is there any way I can contact you ?
BTW do you know if there are example of AllMusic integration in any music application ?

I sent you a PM as well.

No I don't actually! And that's why I really think that MC could benefit from this association -- it would create a truly unique product. And AMG generates a lot of media interest -- a partnership certainly couldn't hurt sales and would probably increase exposure.

The list of partners (see http://www.allmediaguide.com/partners.html) are all websites, media vendors or larger companies like MSN,Virgin and Google.

Just to be clear... doing this wouldn't replace YADB. YADB remains useful for identifying a CD and generating album, artist and track names. What we're interested in is extended metadata which YADB does not support (styles, moods, instruments etc etc). I do not believe an AMG subscription would compete with the YADB for this reason.

Also, while YADB also has a form of "fingerprinting", it relies on the properties of the file itself, and not the audio contained within. Thus it is not true audio fingerprinting as offered by services like AMG's lasso and some of the ones discussed here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40114.0. Unless J River invests large amounts of financial and time resources into developing their own acoustic fingerprinting software solution, licensing and subscriptions are the only way to go if J River ever plans on providing this form of service.

Listener · « **Reply #14 on:** July 31, 2007, 02:48:35 pm »

I've used AMG for tag info with the dBpoweramp ripping software. For classical music CDs, it is a bit more consistent than FreeDB, CDDB or YADB. Still not right though. For example,

- Sometimes the Composer field is filled out and sometimes not.

- The album tag is usually whatever the label (Phillips for example) chose as a name for the CD. Not a work name is most cases.

- Composer names and work names are often stuck on the front of the movement name in the track name tag. The movement name is often very long. I have to edit it manually.

- In dBpoweramp, using these tag values to create folder and file names for a ripped file sometimes produces long file names that are truncated. The truncated names are no longer unique so you have to abort the rip and fix the tags and rip again. Some of the fault is with dBpoweramp but the AMG info is not in the right format either.

I found that the AMG tag info needed extensive editing before I could start ripping. The result has been that it just isn't very useful. I find that ripping in YADB with YADB lookup turned off and setting all the tag info manually is the least annoying way to rip classical CDs.

Bill

Quixote · « **Reply #15 on:** July 31, 2007, 03:35:39 pm »

I would pay for some kind of service like this. The Relational Database side is what really interests me the most though. I really like tagging my stuff, but I spent countless hours re-entering information that is more object based than purely track based.

hit_ny · « **Reply #16 on:** July 31, 2007, 03:39:00 pm »

Quote from: Listener on July 31, 2007, 02:48:35 pm

I find that ripping in YADB with YADB lookup turned off and setting all the tag info manually is the least annoying way to rip classical CDs.

Seems that DIY is *still* the best way about it.

Someone else was saying the mixes were a bit 'interesting' too, no replacing feel & knowledge here with a machine (yet), i think we're safe for some time to come

AMG might have trouble getting monthly fees for their service, from end-users, only for the big corps and their free underpowered aps.

robydago · « **Reply #17 on:** August 01, 2007, 02:07:02 am »

Quote from: Quixote on July 31, 2007, 03:35:39 pm

I would pay for some kind of service like this. The Relational Database side is what really interests me the most though.

Me too. I'd pay extra for it!

tunetyme · « **Reply #18 on:** August 02, 2007, 09:01:15 pm »

I use AMG frequently to identify information about the artist, album and song. I primarily use it to select an ablum for an artist that I may not be familar with but I like a couple of their songs and I want to check them out.

In my opinion, the genre/styles are not adequatly defined and refined for use to select music. Many artists will experiment with several different styles within a given album. Especially those artists who are "singles" oriented as opposed to a cohesive album. AMG applies multiple styles to a single album. In my opinion the need is to to label each song with style(s) and mood(s). Add the release year and charting information then I would be in music heaven.

They do provide a "tier rating for some songs and albums that best illustrate a particular style. I find this far more useful than a list of labels that could fit almost anything.

As for me I am working on my own relational database that stores the information that I use. Besides it is a good exercise in putting a database together.

Tunetyme

neFAST · « **Reply #19 on:** August 24, 2007, 02:12:44 pm »

Is there a way to include amg (artist bio for instance)/amazon/lyrics auto-search in the now playing template?
I know it's easy to include a link but something like an IFRAME would be more relevant.

MajorTomKY · « **Reply #20 on:** August 27, 2007, 07:22:39 pm »

I noticed tunetyme's comment about experimentation within the album and while I use AMG to have all the 'styles' I consider that to just be at an Artist or Albhum level and after a few more years of tagging ;-) hope to note a similar set of styles at a song level.

It would indeed be sweet to get those emotions, themes etc automatic but they tend as well to be at best at an album level album and generally true for the Artist at some point in time.

I'm afraid such detail is pretty much DIY. I use playlists to represent ALL the AMG styles and they do make for interesting shuffled playlists when interested in spending time within a style.

I'd be wild to get bio from WMG for the whole group and review for each album into either the notes ( where they are at present ) or a custom field. I only just converted from Jukebox after years and years of use and now find MC12 has some better solutions. All I need is another couple thousand hours to sit around and change it all in my current database ;-) Hmmm I wonder if my girlfriend will leave me if I start one more MP3 project ;-)

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Author Topic: MC, Relational databases & AMG - oh my! (Read 4907 times)

JONCAT

JONCAT