Improving the Open Source Music Identification Services and Experience

[sushantk...@gmail.com]

Hi

I recently used MusicBrainz and LOVED it. 

I had about 75GB of Music and A LOT of it was unsorted and untagged.

While using Picard to do all this, I found a lot of flaws and gaps for improvement. Well obviously its an community effort and we all should pitch in to make things better. So I tried contacting MusicBrainz with no luck. 

There Mail ID does not work, they have not replied to my tweet yet and thankfully I came onto the core project (this) page today.

I like to suggest these points and before hand like to state that I would offer my full support to these issues.

Firstly.

Picard is becoming unstable. It started crashing, when I started to sort my Entire library. One might say that 75GB of music is too much to process at the moment, but the crashes happened AFTER it had processed everything.

Second

Picard UX is REALLY bad. I cant believe (for starters) that they don't even have a simple select all method in their edit menu. We NEED to make the app better for usage. Had A LOT of ideas regarding this. Going to make another app to showcase the same.

Third

MusicBrainz HAS to get refreshed. I KNOW that this is a separate venture, but just giving my reviews. 

They have a web service API (ok, fine) and apart from that they have a "deprecated" python library and a C library mainly. What about OTHERS?

Now I don't have TOO much experience in the software domain but I am sorry, C is not the best choice for an simple application coder. Things can be done much more faster (not talking about the code execution) and smoother in other languages and platforms too.

So I would like to request all the developers here, lets please get together and start making more API's for MusicBrainz database. Java, Android and iOS is a MUST I feel.

MusicBrainz website also kind of sucks, but since we cant really do anything about, lets not get into that :P

Fourth

I read that you want to browse the database through the website as well. That is great!

I would love to help in coding the same. 

Also I would like to suggest a few extra features. Let me know a channel where I can directly reach you or to the concerned person.

Thanks for reading through. Hope you take the criticism in a constructive way.

[Per Øyvind Øygard]

The mailing list you're looking for is
musicbra...@lists.musicbrainz.org or
musicbra...@lists.musicbrainz.org, this list is only for
AcoustID which strictly speaking isn't part of MusicBrainz. You can
also ask questions regarding musicbrainz on IRC, see
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Communication/IRC

- Per / Wizzcat

[sushantk...@gmail.com]

I know that is the mailing list for MusicBrainz.

However as i mentioned, it does not work.

Also, i haven't spoken anything about US making changes in MusicBrainz, but since AcoustID IS primarily used for MusicBrainz metadata, isnt it wide to improve what we can with a "partner service". I mean, its great that you improve AcoustID, but what is the use if the accompanying services are bad?

Also about INRELATION to AcoustID ONLY, I spoke about the prospect of improving THIS site and put a feature to go through database online. Can we do anything regarding that?

Thanks

On Friday, 22 June 2012 19:14:09 UTC+5:30, peroo wrote:

The mailing list you're looking for is

musicbrainz-users@lists.musicbrainz.org or
musicbrainz-devel@lists.musicbrainz.org, this list is only for

[sushantk...@gmail.com]

isnt it *wise to improve what we can

[Andy Hawkins]

Hi,

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 4:13 PM, <sushantk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know that is the mailing list for MusicBrainz.
>
> However as i mentioned, it does not work.

It certainly does work. What problem are you having sending email to it?

Andy

[sushantk...@gmail.com]

I sent an email on  musicbrainz-devel@lists.musicbrainz.org , i got a mail failed error. 

  I do not know if their server was down that day or what. Apart from this i have also contacted them on twitter, waiting for that.

In any case, i posted this topic not to have any arguments or disagreements. I just wanted to improve a great service. Since AcoustID is but the engine running it all, i just thought that some people here would ALSO be interested in improving things for BOTH AcoustID and as much as we can for MusicBrainz so that the benefit reaches to all.

[Andy Hawkins]

Hi,

>   I do not know if their server was down that day or what. Apart from this i
> have also contacted them on twitter, waiting for that.

What was the error received?

> In any case, i posted this topic not to have any arguments or disagreements.
> I just wanted to improve a great service. Since AcoustID is but the engine
> running it all, i just thought that some people here would ALSO be
> interested in improving things for BOTH AcoustID and as much as we can for
> MusicBrainz so that the benefit reaches to all.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'AcoustID is the engine running it all'.
MusicBrainz existed long before AcoustID did...

Andy

[Sushant Khanna]

The common error. Delivery to this ID has permanently failed. 

I know that MusicBrainz existed much since much before, However I also read that they are shifting from PUID completely to AcoustID, for reasons ofcourse.

By "The Engine" I meant that FOR music identification we need the ID primarily, and as it gets better, we will have no need of taking up any information from existing metadata of the music file in order to determine its complete info.

So basically, while MusicBrainz is HOLDING the concert, AcoustID is the one that is going to be performing mostly.

Hope you get why i feel that we should improve the experience and services in conjuction.

[Andy Hawkins]

Hi

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 4:36 PM, Sushant Khanna
<sushantk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The common error. Delivery to this ID has permanently failed.

There will almost certainly have been mrore information in the error
message than that. This information would be useful in working out why
the email failed.

> I know that MusicBrainz existed much since much before, However I also read
> that they are shifting from PUID completely to AcoustID, for reasons
> ofcourse.
> By "The Engine" I meant that FOR music identification we need the ID
> primarily, and as it gets better, we will have no need of taking up any
> information from existing metadata of the music file in order to determine
> its complete info.
> So basically, while MusicBrainz is HOLDING the concert, AcoustID is the one
> that is going to be performing mostly.
>
> Hope you get why i feel that we should improve the experience and services
> in conjuction.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying the problem with MusicBrainz
is. Lack of client libraries? Poor software?

Picard is written in Python, so there is definitely a means of
accessing the MusicBrainz API from Python. I'm am the maintainer of
the C++ / C API, and I know others have other implementations.

But this isn't really the place to be discussing MusicBrainz in any
great detail. As Luks has said, the MusicBrainz lists are the place
for that.

Andy

[Sushant Khanna]

Have u seen the MusicBrainz site? Have u seen the forums?

Have u used Picard, and how "user friendly" it is. There are gaps, and i am not asking you to fix THOSE. I am just TALKING about them (Sorry if that's a crime here).

And i DID say that they have a python library, its written as "deprecated" now.

If people HAVE other implementations, why don't they make it more publicly available and distribute through more direct channels like THIS. It will help everyone.

And apart from ALL THIS, i also spoke about developing for the ACOUSTID website. I believe that IS within the scope of this forum. Am i correct?

[Andy Hawkins]

Hi,

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Sushant Khanna
<sushantk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have u seen the MusicBrainz site? Have u seen the forums?

Yes to the first, not really to the second.

> Have u used Picard, and how "user friendly" it is. There are gaps, and i am
> not asking you to fix THOSE. I am just TALKING about them (Sorry if that's a
> crime here).

Yes, I've seen Picard. Yes, it's not perfect. No, it's not a crime,
but neither is it the best place to get your issues seen by the people
who develop Picard.

> And i DID say that they have a python library, its written as "deprecated"
> now.

Yes, but there must be a non-deprecated one that Picard is using I
suspect (although I don't know this for certain).

> If people HAVE other implementations, why don't they make it
> more publicly available and distribute through more direct channels like
> THIS. It will help everyone.

Making a library for the MusicBrainz service available via the mailing
list Acoustid doesn't seem the best way of getting the word out to me.
Far better surely for them to be publicised via the MusicBrainz lists,
where people who want to access MusicBrainz are likely to be?

> And apart from ALL THIS, i also spoke about developing for the ACOUSTID
> website. I believe that IS within the scope of this forum. Am i correct?

Most definitely.

I'm not sure how, but you seem to have taken my comments as some sort
of personal attack. They're not, I'm just saying that if you want to
raise any concerns about MusicBrainz, then by far the best way of
doing that is via either the MusicBrainz mailing lists, forums or IRC
channels.

Andy

[Sushant Khanna]

I would like to clarify this for the last time.

I never (I would put that in capital, but seems people have a problem with a perfectly normal way of stressing on words) said that lets improve MusicBrainz website or Picard itself. I just said its bad.

I do not want to get attention of the Picard developers, I want to find "just" developers. Simple. I want to make a better software myself along with other who have the same interests and NO, its not that you can only find them on MusicBrainz website, you can also find them here. Since i could not reach to MusicBrainz, i decided to post here in limited capacity, so that i might find some people who are interested.

Python library is written as deprecated, that's all i know i am afraid.

And i agree, that making a library available on the MusicBrainz website is a better choice and i actually was trying to say that to them directly, but i had no luck in reaching them so far. It would be beneficial over here as well though, people mainly use AcoustID in conjuction with MusicBrainz, why not make a little library available here too, Still seeing the "overwhelming support" from you guys, i guess its a bad idea according to you.

And no, i am not taking this as a personal attack, i am just surprised that an open source community like this is quite unsupportive of new ideas and approaches and has a problem of someone going a LITTLE (Couldn't avoid Mr Antonin) out of scope.

Thanks for your help and responses.

Lets discontinue this discussion.

TOPIC CLOSED.

And yes Mr Antonin, i hope i wasnt breaking any forum rules, but last i checked, to stress on a word when one types, he can either put them in italics, quotes or capitals. Just a friendly FYI.

Bye