[dm21912]

 

• No album into disc splitting
  
• Split album when DISCSUBTITLE is not null
  
• Split all multi-media albums
  

i would say those three, you are giving the option for all, none or conditional

albums that have subtitles of "disc 1" "disc 2", could be argued they are badly tagged in line with musicbrainz approach of "do not call things disc 1, disc 2)

[BatterPudding]

But of course that does not mean contributors have not put "Disc 1" in there sometimes.

Big loud TICK here. Users at MB shouldn't put "disc 1" or "CD 1", but some do. As a MB editor myself, when I have seen that kind of daftness, I'll delete it everytime. But there are always some who ignore guidelines.

Split album when DISCSUBTITLE is not null

One advantage of this is it means someone can stop a Release being split by blanking their DISCSUBTITLE. I do like the look of the rest of those options.



I have a few examples I can pull out of my own collection that are variations on a theme. Including some of the "don't be bloody awkward" ones. 
(ARGH!  This FSCKING STUPID Forum just lost a complex reply.   These stupid lookup things that the browser keeps trying to do killed the reply.  Attempting to retype it but have lost the details now )

The Sisters of Mercy - Original Album Series
https://musicbrainz.org/release/85c8f5ad...63a7b2a09b
5xCD
This is a "simple" one.  Just five separate back catalogue releases in one card sleeve.  Each are identical to the original CD release.  These discs could just be catalogued on their own as the boxset sleeve doesn't bring anything new.  I currently have these in my KODI as the five separate albums tagged with separate MBIDs to avoid the "play all" issue.

Peter Gabriel - So (25th Anniversary Deluxe Boxset)
https://musicbrainz.org/release/17cbddd3...151a905017
4×CD + 2×DVD-Video + 2×12" Vinyl
These are getting more and more common.  Anniversary cash-in releases with heaps of added extras.  Most of the time I only want to listen to the first disk.  Currently when I hit "Play" in KODI it chunders through all of this.  Most of the content of the extra discs are "interesting curios".

This is sitting in my KODI collection alongside the original CD release of the album.

Pink Floyd - Discovery Boxset
https://musicbrainz.org/release/e2d8bb4d...8f1495d6ae
16×CD
Fourteen separate albums with no connection to the next.  This is just a whole back catalogue discography.  Though watch out as there are two double albums in there. The Wall will cause trouble here as some awkward user will want that treated as a pair (I'd tell them to "Get Stuffed" as this is complex enough as it is ) 

This is another one of those cases where I own many of these albums individually, sometimes multiple editions.

Pink Floyd - The Early Years
https://musicbrainz.org/release/220fbaf4...d75a7391e3
11×CD + 9×DVD-Video + 8×Blu-ray + 5×7" Vinyl
Yeah - a boxset of boxsets.  Or how to give the Devs an even bigger headache as we disappear further down the rabbit hole.


Some random thoughts:

* Maybe an initial hack would be to treat the MBID+DISCSUBTITLE as some kind of unique combo.  Would be nice to see these titled as "Boxset Title : DiscSubtitle" in the GUI listed with the albums.  A five part boxset becomes five albums in that list.  (Or TITLE : DISC NO : DISCSUBTITLE to make sure discs are listed in order)

* Most boxsets have separate art for the separate disks.  Sometimes separate covers too.  The newer the release, the more likely you'll see a ton of artwork at MB.  (Just look at the huge heap of Art for the Floyd Boxsets!)

[scott967]

I see the problem is that "release" is a physical realization while "album" (and for that matter EP, single, etc) are descriptors that may or may not correlate 1:1 to a release.  While it might be nice to show "albums" as separate from "releases", that seems like a really complicated design issue, as the next thing is the idea of a "recording".  In that sense a box-set isn't that much different from a compilation, except that the track layout mimics the "original" release.

So I can see the value, but it's getting more and more complex and maintaining it will be a b****.

From looking at MB, it seems like when a box set is a group of physical media identical to existing releases, editors can link the "stand alone" release to the box set release, but not a specific medium (disc x of y) in the set.  In some cases a box set does not exactly correspond to a group of other release media (eg digital "box set") and the link isn't made, as the digital release is considered single-medium.

But for us, I think that the ability to at least group a Kodi "album" into media (if the media have their own names) goes a long way towards user-friendliness.  Then rely on filter logic on album title or medium title if user wants to find all instances of album x.

scott s.
.

[BatterPudding]

From looking at MB, it seems like when a box set is a group of physical media identical to existing releases, editors can link the "stand alone" release to the box set release, but not a specific medium (disc x of y) in the set.

I wouldn't rely on those relationships being in place.  To add those extra relationships takes specific work that not everyone bothers with as it is outside of Picard and the tagging brigade.  That data relies on the database geeks in the MB membership.  Only a few of the artists have those kinds of links in place.

You'll also find they are not much use as the "Includes" relationship is at the Release Group level.  That makes it no use for things like the "25th Anniversary Boxsets".

Even when it is in place, it links to another Release Group and not a Release.  So can't even be used to reliably give a number of tracks on a release.

I've spent the last couple of years hanging out there as I have been updating my tag data.  As I have some odd music it means I have been doing lots of editing of MusicBrainz.  So I am very used to all the weird quirks and oddites.  (Ironically I headed that way to make a start on sorting out the tags in my music to better handle those boxsets. )

[black_eagle]

Personally, I'd be quite happy with a manual method of creating sets, something similar to how the videodb does it.  Right click an album/single and choose 'Manage -> add to set/remove from set.  Sets would be shown in the GUI under albumartist if viewing by artist with some sort of overlay to indicate it's a set.  Opening the set would show all of the albums and/or singles attached to that set.  Albums in a set should use DISCSUBTITLE where possible, prompting the user for a suitable title when not.  This should occur when the album is added to the set initially.

I think a major stumbling block to trying to do it automatically, is that everyones idea of a box-set may be different.  A manual method of doing it would lend flexibility to those who wish to take advantage of it whilst also leveraging any extra tagging that may be available from mb and at the same time, remain invisible for those who don't want or need such a feature.

[dm21912]

But of course that does not mean contributors have not put "Disc 1" in there sometimes.

Big loud TICK here. Users at MB shouldn't put "disc 1" or "CD 1", but some do. As a MB editor myself, when I have seen that kind of daftness, I'll delete it everytime. But there are always some who ignore guidelines.

Split album when DISCSUBTITLE is not null

One advantage of this is it means someone can stop a Release being split by blanking their DISCSUBTITLE. I do like the look of the rest of those options.



I have a few examples I can pull out of my own collection that are variations on a theme. Including some of the "don't be bloody awkward" ones.    

The worst culprit at the moment is McCartney and his archive collection. This is one example of an album that without splitting into separate discs is a mess. 

RAM - https://musicbrainz.org/release/a15fd67a...25c40b7bd7
Disc 1 - The original album
disc 2 - Outtakes
disc 3 - The original album again, this time in mono
disc 4 - The original album again, this time an orchestral version (with a pseudonym as the artist)

(So two versions of the original album, a stereo remaster and a mono version, and then another version by "Percy Thrillington")


And Bob, although this one is beautifully done on MB with full discsubtitle tags


I certainly think that DISCSUBTITLE could be the way forward with this issue. Sure there will be people who dont have their music collections tagged fully, but if there has to be some standard then MB is as close as there will be to a standard to adopt.

[BatterPudding]

Personally, I'd be quite happy with a manual method of creating sets, something similar to how the videodb does it.

Can't do that when the current advice is to use Picard to do the tagging and add MBIDs to everything. These releases do not exist as separate parts.  See McCartney above - there are not separate MBIDs for the separate disks.

Whereas manually saying "This one should be split up into separate discs based on DiscSubtitles" would seem possible and maybe a little simpler.  If the flag is KODI's to set, then it can allow different values for different handling.

There are some thoughts ticking in my head to try and work out a way to assist with this... I also have rusty C\C++ skills from the previous century but don't always have the time.  But I do want nice boxsets in KODI so part of me may be tempted to try and help out in some way.  Especially as I have spent the last two years making sense of the madness that is the MB website and their "unusual ways".

[dm21912]

if nothing else this thread has finally convinced me to spend some time tagging all my music properly.

The last few months Ive been doing it in bits and pieces, any artists that weren't on AudioDB (Which is a LOT of the artists I have music by) I have gradually been working through and adding artwork on AudioDB and release info on MB on a very random scattergun approach. This has finally persuaded me to just start at "A" and do it properly

[black_eagle]

Personally, I'd be quite happy with a manual method of creating sets, something similar to how the videodb does it.

Can't do that when the current advice is to use Picard to do the tagging and add MBIDs to everything. These releases do not exist as separate parts.  See McCartney above - there are not separate MBIDs for the separate disks.

Whereas manually saying "This one should be split up into separate discs based on DiscSubtitles" would seem possible and maybe a little simpler.  If the flag is KODI's to set, then it can allow different values for different handling.

There are some thoughts ticking in my head to try and work out a way to assist with this... I also have rusty C\C++ skills from the previous century but don't always have the time.  But I do want nice boxsets in KODI so part of me may be tempted to try and help out in some way.  Especially as I have spent the last two years making sense of the madness that is the MB website and their "unusual ways". 

Errr, I looked at the McCartney RAM collection, as referenced in the thread, but it does indeed have disc subtitles for each individual disc.  As does Queen - The Platinum Collection, The Joshua Tree - 30th Anni. Deluxe Set. Even Pink Floyd - A tree full of secrets (bootleg) has disc subtitles.  Alternatively, if you're into jazz, there is the 21 CD box set from The Art Ensemble of Chicago, also with a full set of disc subtitles.

After a very quick look around on MB, I think I have to revise my opinion and say that auto-splitting using the disc subtitle looks eminently feasible. Of course, there are bound to be exceptions, such as Dylan which distinctly says 'Deluxe Box Set' on the back of my case but has no disc subtitles in the tags from MB - perhaps this is because the actual discs inside are just disc one, disc two & disc three ? In spite of the packaging, I'm inclined to consider it an anthology rather than a box-set anyway.

[dm21912]

Personally, I'd be quite happy with a manual method of creating sets, something similar to how the videodb does it.

Can't do that when the current advice is to use Picard to do the tagging and add MBIDs to everything. These releases do not exist as separate parts.  See McCartney above - there are not separate MBIDs for the separate disks.

Whereas manually saying "This one should be split up into separate discs based on DiscSubtitles" would seem possible and maybe a little simpler.  If the flag is KODI's to set, then it can allow different values for different handling.

There are some thoughts ticking in my head to try and work out a way to assist with this... I also have rusty C\C++ skills from the previous century but don't always have the time.  But I do want nice boxsets in KODI so part of me may be tempted to try and help out in some way.  Especially as I have spent the last two years making sense of the madness that is the MB website and their "unusual ways". 

Errr, I looked at the McCartney RAM collection, as referenced in the thread, but it does indeed have disc subtitles for each individual disc.      

Disc subtitles yes. Which is why splitting by Disc Subtitle is being proposed as a workable solution

But it doesnt have individual disc/album MBID(music brainz album release ID), So you could not manually split the box into 4 albums assigning each one a MBID because the id's don't exist for them.



Manually splitting a Box set that contains all the Neutral Milk Hotel albums is possible because each album in the set also has its own unique MBID. Manually splitting RAM is not possible because there are not unique MBID's for all four albums

[dm21912]

Of course, there are bound to be exceptions, such as Dylan which distinctly says 'Deluxe Box Set' on the back of my case but has no disc subtitles in the tags from MB - perhaps this is because the actual discs inside are just disc one, disc two & disc three ? In spite of the packaging, I'm inclined to consider it an anthology rather than a box-set anyway. 

Yeh, Dylan isn't a box set, its a greatest hits compilation package, there's no reason to split the various discs. There's no point of differentiation between disc 1 and disc 3. This is exactly the situation where "no disc subtitle" would apply and not separate the discs

Compare that for instance with this Bob Dylan 4 disc set where the first two discs are outtakes, demos and unreleased songs, the third disc is a complete live concert, and the fourth disc is the original album remastered. This is a situation where you would want the discs split into their very distinct discs

https://musicbrainz.org/release/3ab5df5c...2f2affabdb



This of course brings in the additional complication of how we would deal with a situation where two discs have subtitles and the other two dont. (the solution would probably be that MB should have disc 1 and 2 titled as "Outtakes, Demos and Unreleased"

[black_eagle]

@dm21912   You can always add the required tag(s) yourself with picard in that case. Or better, edit it on MB and see if it gets accepted.

[BatterPudding]

But it doesnt have individual disc/album MBID(music brainz album release ID), So you could not manually split the box into 4 albums assigning each one a MBID because the id's don't exist for them.

Manually splitting a Box set that contains all the Neutral Milk Hotel albums is possible because each album in the set also has its own unique MBID. Manually splitting RAM is not possible because there are not unique MBID's for all four albums 

Thanks @dm21912  - you got my point and highlighted it better.

@dm21912   You can always add the required tag(s) yourself with picard in that case. Or better, edit it on MB and see if it gets accepted.

@black_eagle - you cannot add new MBIDs for separate CDs which are part of a larger package.  MBIDs can only exist for an actual physical Release.  MusicBrainz editors will actively delete\remove separate discs added like that.  It is against the guidelines.  (I have actively seen this happen when people are trying to find a way to fix their boxsets)

In my earlier example - "The Sisters of Mercy - Original Album Series" can work in the exact way you suggest as they are just a cheap sleeve around old albums.  (The albums in the sleeve even have their original barcodes still attached)  Each of those albums have unique MBIDs in the MusicaBrainz database.

BUT many anniversary boxsets, like the McCartney one mentioned above, are collections of unique material only available in the boxset.

Hence the need to focus on a "unique ID combo" of ((Boxset MBID)+(Disc Subtitle)) to identify those separate discs.

[BatterPudding]

There are different *types* of boxsets to handle.  That is what I tried to highlight in the examples post above.

1\ Boxset of old albums repackaged for re-release.
2\ Boxset of old albums remastered and repackaged.
3\ Boxset of old albums remastered and extra tracks added to each disc.
4\ Boxset of old album with lots of other discs of unique cutting floor extras thrown in to made an new anniversary release package
5\ Box set of oddities (see the Pink Floyd - The Early Years).  None of that stuff exists outside the box (baring a few bootleg releases, etc).

Probably a few more to think about.  Even the "Deluxe Release" can drop into this category sometimes with a second disc of "extras"  (More like a "type 4")

Type 1 and type 2 there fit easily into the suggested "list of MBIDs" method as they are all old discs also existing with their own MBIDs.  (But will need a lot of user manual editing to happen.

Focusing on the DiscSubtitle is the key.  That Dylan example above shows an edge case to catch - disc 1 and disc 2 are the original album to be played as one thing.  disc 3 and 4 are those extras.  This is like a "type 3" where the main album is disc 1+2 with the extras on disc 3+4.  I have seen other cases where that can happen that the "main" album disc in the package doesn't get a title.

(Yeah - you can see I have been thinking about this for a while... )

[dm21912]

@dm21912   You can always add the required tag(s) yourself with picard in that case. Or better, edit it on MB and see if it gets accepted.

well yes, that's one solution (although it would probably incur the wrath of mb editors). but there's a lot of sets on MB at the moment where some of the discs have titles and some dont, so if the subtitle route is the route that is taken its something to be aware of. 

situations where there is both "no subtitle" and "subtitle" could cause issues or at least has to be accounted for..