Entering data from external source

[jasustar]

One of the things that drew me to VinylStudio was it's ability to search databases such as Discogs for track names, timings, and even album art. While this works fabulously for well-known recordings, I've had disappointing results with the more arcane items in my LP collection. For example, I just digitized a three-disc set published in 1980 on the Musical Heritage Society label entitled Georg Phillip Telemann - Tafelmusik.

I tried this twice in VinylStudio, once with the manufacturer's album number in the title line, and once without. In both attempts, VinylStudio failed to find any information on Discogs. Taking the album title and number I used in VinylStudio as my search criteria, I performed a search on Google. The information I needed from Discogs popped up third on Google's search results screen.

Being new to VinylStudio, is there any way I can cut and paste this information into my VinylStudio collection?

Thank you.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

VinylStudio can import a track listing from a text file.  You can prepare this in Notepad (or Text Editor on the Mac) using copy-and-paste.  To do this, go to the Split Tracks window and select 'Import Track Listing' from the Track menu.  A window will pop up describing how to format the file to import, but essentially this is one line per track, appending the track times to each line in brackets if you have them, e.g.

    Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2:14)
    With a Little Help From My Friends (2:38)
    Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (3:29)
    ...

[jasustar]

Thank You very much. I just figured there had to be some way to do this.

[Rob-C]

Hi Paul,

Would it be possible to extend this feature in a future release? Since the track data includes additional fields, such as conductor, it would be nice to import these fields too. It would be even better if the album could be created from an import file. Even better would be for both operations to be performed together with one file. The icing on the cake would be if it is possible to link directly from a discogs own collection. 

Where I am coming from is that I have my music database in Collectorz Music Collector. Currently 1352 albums, but not finished yet. This is a great database for optical media, with a professionally administered crowd-sourced album library for CDs (and DVDs / BluRays with the companion product) for lookup and importing album details, tracklists and album art. Vinyl and shellacs are not stored in their library, but that is not a problem as it also uses Discogs for lookup and creates albums directly from the Discog data. Since I need to add many records, I am adding these into Discogs and then cand lookup / export to Collectorz. This means I have a database of my record collection online there as well. I can export as text files from Collectorz, but it is a long winded way of doing things. I have not investigated export on Discogs yet. What would be really nice is to log into Discogs through VS and then select a title from my collection, creating the album and importing the tracks.

Using the current capabilities, I think I'll create a collection within VS for adding albums. I can do this on my desktop. I'll then move/copy into my recording collection on my music centre PC. The monitor is currently a 40" TV with the viewing position (sofa) 3m away. This is not an optimal ergonomic working position for heavy data entry operations.    After recording, I then move album to my live, working collection.  Fortunately I have a SAN to keep it all controllable.

Thanks for a great product. Please don't see this as a complaint, just some features to make it even greater. I'd be happy to prove more infor through PM, or email if you are interested.

Best regards, Rob

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

So you'd like to import part or all of an existing private Discogs collection?  That seems reasonable.  Can you save your collections from Discogs as some sort of interchange file?  I'm not familiar with these beasts.

I'd like to keep the existing import facility as it is.  There's a lot of value in having such a simple file format.

[Rob-C]

Correct, in my account on Discogs I have already selected albums which are in my phsical collection.

It would seem that it is possible to export the complete album details with track lists as XML. This would seem to be easier than it sounds, as it uses the same XML structure as for the Discogs API. I presume that this is already implemented in part for the track list lookup. I can create some export files, if you need some examples.

If you implement this XML format for importing a collection, it would be great and saves a lot of retyping. I think within Collectorz I can also create XML using the same tags. This could then be a very flexible tool.

I agree that you should keep the existing import format, which is simple to work with.

Thanks, Rob

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Yes please, do please post an exported XML file.

[Rob-C]

Please see attachment for a sample of the export from Dicogs. I have stripped in down to 3 records, for clarity. These are two 78 with the minimum track information. The third is Human League - Dare, which seems to be very detailed. It has track credits, images, etc. I've scanned through it with Microsoft XML Notepad and see there is a lot of Discog library information which is not relevant and can be thrown out. It would be great if the important details which can be mapped directly to the equivalent field in VS could be imported in one hit, creating the albums automatically.

Thanks, Rob

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

OK, thank you.  I will look into this when time permits and post back here.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Implemented (at last) in V8.6.0:

http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/VinylStudio/download.aspx