Day to day · Chapter 12

Music: artists, albums and tags.

For music nexcrate thinks in artists, albums and tracks. The names come from MusicBrainz, the covers from the Cover Art Archive. For each album nexcrate picks the edition that suits it best, searches for a release, matches every file to a track and, if you like, writes the tags. Music has exactly one version with a profile of its own.

What to have ready

• Online services. MusicBrainz and the Cover Art Archive are on out of the box. Without MusicBrainz nexcrate finds no new artists, albums or editions, and without the Cover Art Archive the covers stay blank. Files that tags, number and name cannot match to a track are recognised through AcoustID, and only a fingerprint leaves, never the file. All of it sits under “Settings › Online services”, see TMDB and the other services.
• Indexers with music categories. An indexer without them is skipped for music, and the search says so.
• A default folder for music. Below it nexcrate creates one folder per artist and one per album, see Folders.

You do not have to create the music version. It appears by itself as soon as you add the first artist, the first album or a Lidarr connection.

The music profile

Without a profile nexcrate judges no music release, and no album counts as one that could be improved. You set it up under “Settings › Versions” in the tab “Music” with “Set up profile”. It is four questions, no score tables, and the summary below changes with every answer.

• “Which quality should it be?” The options are “Lossless preferred”, “Lossless or high, both fine” and “Lossy is enough”. Lossless means FLAC, ALAC and their relatives, “high” means MP3 at 320 kbit/s or V0 and AAC from 256.
• “Take what is there first?” With “Yes” a step other than the target counts as “for now” and is replaced later. With “No” only what meets the target is taken.
• “24 bit?” “No preference”, “Prefer” or “Avoid”. This only orders releases and never shuts one out.
• “Source?” “Avoid vinyl rips”, “Does not matter” or “Prefer CD”. nexcrate reads the source from the name of the release.

Some rules are fixed. An album as one single file with a cue sheet is refused, and so is a release holding several albums, such as a discography. More tracks in worse quality replace nothing that is already there. Audiobooks and radio plays are not covered.

Adding artists and albums

1. Search

   Click “Add” and choose “Add artist” or “Add album”. nexcrate searches MusicBrainz. “Add album” adds just that one album with a watched version. If it belongs to an artist who is not in the library yet, the artist comes along without being watched.

2. Say what to watch

   For an artist “What to watch” offers “Only future ones”, “None”, “All studio albums and EPs”, “Albums without files”, “Albums with files”, “First album” or “Latest album”. Under “More choices, as in Lidarr” you set which kinds count.

3. Confirm

   With “Add” the artist is in the library, and nexcrate loads their albums and editions from MusicBrainz.

On an artist's page the albums are grouped by kind: studio albums, EPs, singles, live, compilations, soundtracks, remixes, audiobooks and audio dramas, other. Each album can be watched on its own. “Watch new albums: studio albums and EPs” takes future releases on by itself. Switching off “Watch this artist” freezes the artist: nothing is searched, and switching back on brings back exactly the watched albums.

Artist

The target release of an album

MusicBrainz knows an album in several editions: on CD, digital, on vinyl, as a deluxe or as a box. nexcrate picks one of them, the target release. Its track list is the one files are matched against. The rule takes the edition with the most tracks but leaves out boxes with many media. In a tie digital wins over CD over vinyl, then the country listed earlier in the country list, then the earliest edition. The reason is on the album page, for example “Most tracks, without a box”. The interface calls these editions “releases”, like the downloads from your indexers.

• Countries for a tie are set under “Settings › Versions › Music”. Out of the box the English interface has GB, US, XE, XW and the German one DE, XE, XW. XE means Europe, XW worldwide.
• “Choose a release” on the album page lets you pick another edition by hand, and “Back to the rule” undoes it. If another edition brings more tracks but the rule left it out, the page points it out with “A bigger release is available.”

Searching and downloading

The search on an album asks every indexer with music categories, matches each release to an album of the artist and checks the ones of this album with the music profile. Releases of other albums by the same artist are listed apart under “Of other albums of the artist”. If the artist's name is not enough, “Also search under other names” asks once more with up to two more names from MusicBrainz. With the switch “Search and load music automatically” this runs on a plan, see Automation.

How nexcrate matches files to tracks

A finished download is not filed blindly. nexcrate matches each file to a track of the target release, by the first way that is unambiguous:

1. MusicBrainz id in the tag

   If the file carries the id of the recording, that settles it, even if the number in the tag is wrong.

2. Number and length

   Medium and position from the tag, the folder (“CD2”) or the name (“1-03”), with a length at most ten seconds off.

3. Track name and length

   The name agrees with one track, and the length fits.

4. Fingerprint

   If a file stays open, nexcrate computes a fingerprint and asks AcoustID. This is the last resort, and only with “Look up fingerprints” on.

On the album page each track says whether it is there or missing and “Matched by” which way. What stays open holds the download under “Downloads › Problems”. There you assign the files yourself with “Assign by hand”, see Downloads. An album that is not better than the one there is never replaced by itself: neither the quality nor the number of tracks may get worse.

Writing tags

Under “Settings › Versions › Music” the switch “Write tags” is on out of the box. When filing, nexcrate writes title, artist, numbers, the MusicBrainz ids and the cover of the edition into the file. This applies to FLAC, MP3, M4A, Vorbis and Opus. Fields of others such as ReplayGain stay. A torrent is copied for it instead of linked, so it keeps seeding unchanged. Without tags no player knows the order when there are several media.

On the album page “Check tags” shows which files differ from MusicBrainz, and “Write tags” writes them once at the push of a button, even with the switch off. If the Cover Art Archive is switched off, no cover goes into the file.