Hi Tom:
Have a look at a project: http://a9music.com (somewhat stale, we're working
at it now).
Try to make some search and exploration. I want to know if this is what you
need.
Any kinds of critics is truly welcomed.
Regards,
--
Baoshan Sheng
Director | International Classical Music Database
+ 86 10 5162 6468 | [log in to unmask]
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Steven C. Barr <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/arts/music/04download.html
>> This article highlights an overall interesting trend. But the reviewer
>> also points out the confusing and inconsistent tagging that happens with
>> classical music in MP3 and other tag-enabled formats.
>> I have found that cddb/Gracenote and freedb are fraught with problematic
>> and inconsistent data-entry for classical titles. There are actually tags
>> that work great for how classical music is generally understood --
>> COMPOSER, ARTIST, ALBUM ARTIST and ALBUM TITLE for instance. You can
>> customize iTunes and other database programs to list by whatever field you
>> wish, for instance by artist and album title or by composer and title, so if
>> the data is entered correctly, it need not be totally PITA to use classical
>> music in an iTunes setting. But unfortunately, most of the pre-programmed
>> metadata out there is garbage, typical of internet "group volunteer"
>> operations with no oversight or quality control. Sometimes "help" is not
>> helpful.
>> What has surprised me is that the owners of copyrighted classical
>> recordings haven't gotten together to standardize and publish correct
>> tag-entry methods and to correct at least their active catalogs. I can
>> understand how there's no economic incentive to fix out of print items, but
>> the active catalog gets lost in the shuffle (ipod pun intended) if the tags
>> aren't right.
>> Classical titles are just the most glaring examples of the problems with
>> the online auto-tag databases. I used the Catraxx catalog-database program
>> to gather and organize my jazz, rock, country and popular CD's and I found
>> that at least 50% of the auto-loaded tags needed tweaking for something.
>> Either the recording year was wrong (most common), or something that was not
>> a compilation was listed as one (also very common), or in the case of jazz,
>> the musicians weren't listed in the MEMO field (this is a convenience and I
>> don't hold it against the online databases that this information is usually
>> missing or incorrect), or the record company was incorrectly or
>> inconsistently named (very common), etc.
>> Gracenote is a for-profit entity, so there should be better quality
>> control. Apple's own database at the iTunes store has more errors than you'd
>> think in the more obscure corners of jazz, and classical selections are
>> harder to correctly indentify and locate than rock or jazz. For these
>> for-profit entities, there's no excuse for the poor quality control. And
>> what's particularly galling is, none of this should be necessary since CD
>> Text was available from the beginning of CD's and should have been used to
>> correctly identify artists and songs (which would then make filling in other
>> tags much easier and more prone to be complete and correct).
>> I wish I could propose an easy solution to this, but the only one I can
>> think of is that buyers of digital downloads demand better tagging/database
>> information from the highly profitable entities they buy from. As for
>> cleaning up Gracenote and freedb, I won't hold my breath. I do submit
>> corrected information to Gracenote from both Catraxx and the iTunes software
>> most of the time, and appreciate all other users who do so too.
>>
>> What is needed is a ACD...a classical-based equivalent to the familiiar
> ADBD!!
> Currently, there is NO discography covering the classical-music recordings
> of 19??-1943...I discovered this when attempting to include classical discs
> in my Dating Guide...?
>
> Steven C. Barr
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