On 11/01/2012 05:52 PM, Frederic Da Vitoria wrote:
I agree we don't currently have any way to distinguish recording
quality. But if we merge them, we will lose any future ability to do
it. There exists a database of recording quality regarding the
loudness wars, maybe one day we'll link to it. But if all versions of
a recording ("original" and "compressed") are merged in a MB in a
single Recording, then we won't be able to link to such a database.
Recordings are often shared now, and arguably should be shared more
(it's frustrating to see pages full of the same work, likely dozens of
the same recording not yet merged appearing on many different
compilations, which are almost certainly sourced from one or a very few
original studio tracks together with the occasional live track). E.g.
California Dreamin'
http://musicbrainz.org/artist/ff294730-0315-440d-a543-54005779c15b/recordings?page=2
and I'm sure there are many much worse examples.
My main concern is not that there might be more merging going on, but
that we'll be expected to do less, and generate new recordings for what
is in fact the same audio source simply because of a digitalization
step. The existing guidelines already advocate merging recordings that
represent "unique audio", and that isn't changing. In fact,
LordSputnik's proposal suggests we should be more particular about what
constitutes 'unique audio', and specifically that we should separate out
analogue masters from digital ones. Those old vinyl releases will
require at least two recordings once they're remastered to a digital
format. That's what I read from case 3 in
https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/User:LordSputnik/Recording_Style_Guidelines:
3. If a CD or other digital release contains audio that was
originally recorded and released in an analogue format, the
digital release should be given a new set of recordings. The
original analogue source was changed when it was converted from
analogue to digital.
I'm seriously concerned that if this wording is accepted, new mediums I
add for digital releases based on an earlier analogue one will be voted
down because I don't create new recordings. If I do create new
recordings, and want to preserve all of the recording-level
associations, then it's a lot of extra work in the current system.
That's why I don't think we want to force analogue-digital distinctions
for recordings in the style guidelines, at least until we can provide
better tools or schema changes to permit these relationships to be
easily shared and/or replicated for recordings based on the same
recording sessions or performances.
I have another suggestion on how this might be done. At present, when
adding a new release the UI allows you to select mediums from another
release in the release group. In the case where that medium is analogue,
and we're adding a digital release, case 3 mandates that we cannot share
recordings. So, rather than just disallow this, we could automatically
generate new recordings that are "remasters" of the analogue ones. We
should of course copy over all of the performance relationships as well,
or share them (which would be my preference). The advantage of sharing
is that if someone details one of the original recordings at a later
date (adds in performance relationships etc.), they would automatically
be visible for the digital remasters as well, or at least that's how I'd
like to see it work. Unless we do some work like this in the web server
and API, though, then I think these guidelines will either be ignored,
or result in a much less complete database because we don't have the
resources to do this extra work manually.
It does seem strange that the converse isn't considered a new source
(case 4):
4. If a release is recorded digitally and released in both
analogue and digital formats then the releases should share
recordings. The audio sources for all releases are the digital
recordings.
Simply digitizing an analogue source doesn't seem to represent any more
significant change than doing an analogue pressing from a digital
source. Sure, some were "remastered", but I think many are simply
digital copies of the original analogue masters with the intention that
it be a faithful rendition. Calling this a distinct audio source is an
artificial distinction, which isn't adding value that I can see.
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