[rawender]

I am new to Picard.

I have a cluster of music tracks in MBP which has all the tags wrong except for the length of each track. The release is on MB database with track lengths missing and I clicked on the 'Tagger' green button and the album opened in my MBP on the right pane. How do I automatically get the 'Length' info from my Cluster in the left pane and update the corresponding tracks in the album release in the right pane and then save it to MB database? I understand that a script can be written to accomplish that, but I am lost in it and can't find much help.

[DaveBlake]

Really questions about using Picard belong on their forum not Kodi, but its Easter and I assume you are working towards building a Kodi music library so I'll try to help

The track durations do not get written as tags by Picard, but MB database (often, but not always depending if others provided it) has track duration to help with correct recording identification and Pucard displays this along with the duration of the music file you are tagging for the same reason.

How do I automatically get the 'Length' info from my Cluster in the left pane and update the corresponding tracks in the album release in the right pane and then save it to MB database? I understand that a script can be written to accomplish that, but I am lost in it and can't find much help.

It is good that you want to contrinute to the community and improve the accuracy of Musicbrainz data, but I don't think you can update the Musicbrainz database from Picard. I think you need to create an account with Musicbrainz , logon to their site and edit in this case the release adding track durations. At least that is how I would do it.

There are site script tools that can aid making entries, I assume that they run from web browser and not from Picard but I don't know. If it was trivial to press a button on Picard and radically change the Musicbrainz database then I'm sure novice users would have wrecked the data by now!

[BatterPudding]

I am new to Picard.

I have a cluster of music tracks in MBP which has all the tags wrong except for the length of each track. The release is on MB database with track lengths missing and I clicked on the 'Tagger' green button and the album opened in my MBP on the right pane. How do I automatically get the 'Length' info from my Cluster in the left pane and update the corresponding tracks in the album release in the right pane and then save it to MB database? I understand that a script can be written to accomplish that, but I am lost in it and can't find much help.

Firstly - if you have the CD or and EAC Rip Log there are much quicker answers I can give.  So let me know if you have either of these available. (See note at end of this post)


If you are just working from a heap of digital tracks, then do the following:

In Picard, Go look at OPTIONS \ Plugins and tick the one to COPY CLUSTER TO CLIPBOARD

Now drag your release back to the LEFT hand side. 

Hit CLUSTER to make sure it is grouped together.

Now RIGHT CLICK that cluster, from menu select PLUGINS > COPY CLUSTER TO CLIPBOARD

Now away to Musicbrainz and find that release without the times.

Edit the release.  Go to the TRACKLIST page and use the TRACK PARSER button

This opens a window where you can now PASTE your clipboard contents over the top of what is already there...

Untick the options for the items you don't need to update.  So in this example we focus on the track lengths.

DOUBLE CHECK that all is well... make sure you haven't swapped any capitals around or messed with a layout.  Ideally if you set the ticks correctly then only the items you have ticked will get updated.

Did I say - don't touch the text?  Capitals, Apostrophe's, elipses all have rules as to how they are handled at MB so don't try and "correct" them...  (That is Picard's job)

Now you can update all the times in one hit by hitting PARSE TRACKS button.  Then go and save the edits.

On that Edit Note page check that the only changes are the times.

Don't forget to leave a note to say the track times came from your digital files.


Ask me to refine the above instructions if you need.

(*) If you have proper media, uploading accurate times is easier.  A CD can have its details directly uploaded from within Picard.  An EAC Rip Log is almost as good and I can give you a web page to paste into that will gather the same track length details.  It is still left to you to be careful about making to you really are matching the exact same release,.

The advantage of a CD or EAC log is the times are more accurate and include the original lead-in and lead-out times.


Yeah... I've spent the last couple of years over there improving the details on my ripped files, and in return improving their database and what they know about my CDs and images.  You do need to be a member to edit the database.  So if you only have this one to update, then let me know more details on the release and I can do it for you.

And you will also get better assistance over there.  There are certainly a collection of odd people over there with odd rules, but you'll soon get the idea of it.  Just be patient

[BatterPudding]

It would also be easier to help if you can paste a link to the actual release you are attempting to work on.  I can then help walk you through it a bit clearer...