[mb-style] Composition/Performer/Production ARs at Release or Track level? - PROPOSAL

[Philipp Wolfer]

On Jan 2, 2008 11:13 AM, Olivier <viapanda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Liner notes AR can perfectly apply to track level as well, and there
> are cases where there are liners *for the release* by Artist A, and
> separate liners for each tracks by artists B, C, ...
>
> > But Brian explicitly limited his suggestion to "performance and
> > production ARs", and for those I think he's absolutely correct. I now
> > really think there is value in allowing the "fuzzy" ARs on release
> > level and that viewpoint 2 is the way to go.
>
> The Producer AR is part of the Production ARs I assume :-)
> And it pose the same problem as above.
> That view just doesn't work for it...

I did not take a closer look at the individual ARs that are available
on release and track level, but currently I think this discussion
should be limited to performance ARs. Currently there are the 2
viewpoints that the release level performance AR either applies to all
the tracks or to the release itself but not necessarily *all* the
tracks.

This second viewpoint is somewhat similar to the differences you
mention for other ARs. Just like a production AR can have slightly
different meaning on the release and track level the performance AR
has different meanings.

IMHO that's the more natural approach, as the general statement
"Artist A performed drums on Release X" is valid no matter if A played
drums on all the tracks or just a few, just as "Artist A performed
drums on track T" is valid even if he plays the drums only for half
the track duration.

If we take that approach it has two advantages:
1. We can enter release level information from the liner notes in a
structured way without creating inconsistencies
2. We have a clear distinction between track level and release level
performance ARs

The disadvantages are:
1. We always must enter ARs on track level whenever possible. But with
the new UI this is not much more work as entering them on release
level
2. There are currently many releases that have information added on
release level which must be moved to track level. I doubt that this
can be automated, but leaving the information on release level does
not result in invalid data. We only improve it by moving the
information to the track level and therefor create more specific
information. So this can manually be done.

If we would use the first viewpoint, that release level performance
ARs apply to all tracks on the release, we end up with much bigger
problems and no benefits:
1. Currently not all release level ARs follow this rule. Those would
need to be removed, resulting in data loss!
2. All release level ARs would need to be copied to the individual
tracks to avoid ambiguity. As there would be no need anymore for
release level performance ARs they should be removed. This could
surely be automated, but unless problem 1 has been solved it would
result in incorrect data!
3. We would have no possibility anymore to enter information like
"Artist A performed drums on Release X", which can often be found in
liner notes, in a structured way.

-- 
Philipp Wolfer