[mb-users] Pre-gap tracks / duplicate albums

[Bogdan Butnaru]

I think my position is obvious, since I took that couple of releases
in its current form. And I think Lauri and I argued at some length
about a hidden track at some point  :)

But to be clear: In case where CDs use any of the oh-my-so-original
tricks, including but not restricted to (a) pre-gap tracks, (b) hidden
songs on the same track with another song (maybe (b'') after a period
of silence), (c) tracks with long silences before them, or (d) some
number of silent tracks as filler between real songs, I support
having:

1) An accurate representation of the _tracks_ on the CD, i.e.
something we could attach a discid to. (And we probably would in most
cases.) This is necessary for both discographical and tagging purposes
(i.e., what and how exactly was released, and tags for CD players).

2) An accurate representation of the _songs_ (or at least audio) on
the CD, i.e. a list of the songs, including all hidden features,
separated as different database items, with silent tracks (and, in
some cases, large silent passages that are obviously not part of the
song) removed. This is necessary for both discographical and tagging
purposes (i.e., ARs and length for each individual song released,
hidden or not, and file tagging).

So, in my view, both are necessary. I other words, I consider (2) to
be just as justified and accurate representation of a released disc as
(1), showing a different aspect of the release, i.e. content versus
form. (Though I'll be surprised if nobody will disagree.)

*However*, in the interest of consistency and accuracy, I think it
should be mandatory that version (1) be added to MB first in _all_
cases where this situation is applicable. This is because form is
easier to define unambiguously (for CDs!) than content.
*Then* I think it should be explicitly allowed to add the second form,
with the exact same release info—but without a discid, unless it just
so happens that a physical release has the same layout. (We can argue
forever about which cases this makes senses for. I'd be satisfied if
criteria a-d above would be picked as acceptable (there are others,
too), and probably with just a&b, too.)

The only thing that's missing (other than having the above in the
guidelines...) is an AR that means "X is the same release as Y" as
opposed to "earliest release of". (That would be also useful for
translations and multi-lingual releases.)

-- 
Bogdan Butnaru — bogdanb at gmail.com
"I think I am a fallen star, I should wish on myself." – O.

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Brian Schweitzer
<brian.brianschweitzer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > i don't really have an opinion as such, but i've seen one example in
> > the DB of this and it's done with the pre-gap track as the 1st track
> > of a duplicate release:
> > http://musicbrainz.org/release/bc71aa3c-da45-455b-bb97-79bf9cc37a1e.html
> > (inc pre gap track)
> > http://musicbrainz.org/release/188d704b-678d-499d-b488-516a7247cc01.html
> (not)
> >
> > not sure if there's enough of these releases to make any kind of
> > precedent, though! i just try and ignore them :)
> >
> > 2008/4/21 Lauri Watts <krazykiwi at gmail.com>:
> > > Does anyone have an opinion (well, of course you do) on keeping
> > >  duplicates of pre-gap albums, where the duplicate has the hidden track
> > >  appended to the end?
> > >
> > >  Since the specific one I just came across has puid's and trm's attached
> > >  to the hidden track, and without it there's really no way to tag it,
> > >  I'm inclined to
> > >  let it be with an annotation connecting them and pointing out the
> situation.
> > >
> > >  And there's the remote possibility that it was reissued somewhere with
> > >  the hidden
> > >  track appended instead of pre-gap, but in this case, I don't think so,
> because
> > >  instructions how to access it are a 'hidden' feature in the liners
> > >  too, and it's also this
> > >  way on the japanese release, which does also contain traditional
> end-of-cd
> > >  bonus tracks.
> >
>
> I'm not really a fan of slapping the track on the end - it makes it look
> like a hidden last track, not a pre-gap track.  On the few of these I've
> worked on, I've added the pre-gap tracks as NATs, with an annotation on the
> NAT as to which release it belongs to, and a release annotation on the
> release, identifying the pre-gaps tracks, their pre-gap order (when there's
> more than 1), and linking from the annotation to those tracks in NATs.
>
> Brian