Metadata provider questions [split out from artist equivalence issues]

Support Metadata
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Since suffering from multple of such issues Mike informed me about roon has choosen allmusic and musicbrainz. And I was adivced to read kb articles which I did this morning.
Found some limited info about UPC and I’m aware Product Code in the settings might be the intersting one for deeper investigation.

Lets try to find out at which stage the misery arises from. Could be me, roon or even the metadata service provider, let’s see.

Quick test using one artist/album roon failed, better said provided completely wrong information

9399603025222 (GTIN number, eg. a pretty unique number you could scan from the tray using a smartphone if you fancy)

open up a web browser, and try some metadata providers asking what they do return if being queried with that number.

allmusic … nothing. I already wonder they are still alive. from being the best they turned into final follower.
musicbrainz … had to provide additional info that I want to look for releases. 1 match 100% accurate. good.
discogs … the number on it’s own works, 100% match. They seem to have some AI implemented.

conclusion: it’s dead easy to get the correct entry from metadata service providers this way, which doesn’t impress me at all, such numbers were invented for that purpose, that simple.

The big point I’m after is something differnt in the end.
The linkage between artists and releases is quite good at the metadata providers, incl. allmusic. if you know which exact release you’re looking for the linked artist (even if 20 have an identical name) gets found nex to 100% accurate. This then means … bio, date,s location, artwork … all matches as expected.

Conclusion (back to my initial question who’s responsible for wrong info.

a) the metadata provider?
Definately not. All do serve correct release<->artist linkage even allmusic which is a bit more tricky to handle since not allow for such sinple queries such as a tradenumber.

b) me since just learning how roon works, and I might have either made a mistake in the settings for the import stage or missed the information about which name the import expects the metadataframe got which does hold the tradenumber information in the files embedded data.

c) less likely, since the programmers at roon surely have no spare time
Trade number/product codes were invented to ensure that global trading allows to identify each single product with 100% accuracy. Thus no need for re-inventing it. There surely must be some clever code in case no unique identifer is available, but that’s a differnt story on how to solve that.

Comments appreciated, especially since I still would vote that I did run into the conclusion b) issue.

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Hi stefan if I have understood you correctly you are asking why Room cannot correctly identify albums when they have this unique code (barcode)
The thing to realize is that your digitized music files most probably don’t store this info so it cannot use this to match.

Now there are many ways that matching can be done. For example my own SongKong tagger does matching based on tracklengths and track order, acoustic fingerprinting and existing metdata. Multiple methods are needed as each method is incomplete due to deficiencies in the database or deficiencies in users rips or metadata. Like yourself I find MusicBrainz and Discogs to be the best sources.

But I don’t know what method Roon uses.

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Sure, but it’s not perfect (as you might think). A good number of MusicBrainz users enter the barcodes incorrectly (typos / incomplete / wrong code), or split a boxset into multiple individual CDs and use the boxset barcode for the individual CDs :roll_eyes: . That said, barcodes are extremely useful when used in combination with other identifying factors.

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@paultaylor I do know Jaikoz and it’s not that bad, while I can’t say that I do like the idea let it be AcoustID nor songlength, simply because from experience throughout the years they are more or less randomn things I won’t give much on them.
I got a number or vinyls, which
a) have less or more titles on the vinyl but what the booklets / metadata providers say or indicate
b) have complete differnt playlength but what’s mentioned on booklets/tray/metadata providers.

sure I could update the metadata providers, but I could also not do so.

Now assume 10 poeple bought that vinyl and each of these were quite familar with ripping vinyls. Now make a ssumption about the playlength of the title being ripped by these 10 blokes. Ok, 2 might end up the same length if ever.
Should I mention that depending upon the setup these use the AcoustID differs between all of them? You know that.

Now 2 of these tell a friend about that cool album they recently bought which even got more tracks but mentioned. 2 others go to the next dealer and are frustrated since being sold a differnt version. Dammit.

3 others simply asked for the trade number, ordered it and were served accurate.
My personal conclusion. I tend to give nothing about information which is (in genealogy speaking ‘secondary source’) means, if there’s info on discogs or allmusic fine, but I can’t qualify it not could I say if it’s wrong or right. Means nice to see that but nothing to be considered to be adopted for my collection.
And if 3 tell the same, wrong information won’t raise in terms of being more valid if spread 3 times but once.

One should rely upon facts not fiction.

@joel I didn’t say a trade number is the holy grail. I’m far from that. Thought since you mentioned wrong number … you’re aware it got some sort-of-checksum?
Means a number is either valid or invalid and yes of course I could stick a wrong but valid number to an album. I could also rename “The Beatles” into “Beatles” which isn’t any better but easier to be solved since done by brain besides other things.

I started this subject because of two facts:
1.) with a trade number the accuracyis pretty high. You could write the wrong number but you could do the same with artist albumtitle and so on and you still take these into account.
2.) I wanted to get an idea what “technically” roon does make use of. Since if that’s known I might be able to ensure that info which is available would be taken into account, while at the moment it’s also possible that I have information but stored in a way roon won’t read that. And that’s a misery which could be easily addressed from my side.