Discogs - Lookup Tips

[dtc]

When looking up tracks, VS does not always find an album that is actually in Discogs. Paul explained on a earlier thread that VS sometimes misses albums due to the limits on the search option that Discogs makes available to VS. In these instances here are two options that make it easier to import discogs information into VS.

1) Lookup by Catalog Number - In Discogs when you search on an album, you will get a summary of the album and a list of versions available (see image below). In the line of information about each version there is a catalog number - see screen shot below. You can copy that catalog number to the clipboard and then in Lookup Track Listing in Artist/Performer put in #catalog number and leave Album Title blank. Hit lookup and it will find the entries for that catalog number. For example #C 3530 will look up the specific Sonny Rollins - Way out West in the listing in the screen shot.

2_Lookup by Discogs Release Number. This is a number on the upper right part of the album screen. You can highlight the number and copy it to the clipboard. In Lookup Track Listing enter +release number in Artist/Performer and leave Album Title blank. For example, +r[m174528] will again pull up all the Sonny Rollins - Way out West entries. You can use the release number for the general listing or for a specific album entry. For example, +[r2934933] will pull up just the Way Out West C 3530 catalog number.








Give it a try if you know there is an entry in Discogs but the initial VS lookup does not find it.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Thank you very much for this - I'm sure people will find it useful, Discogs is a great resource.

For our part, we will tweak the software so that if you put (for example) [r2934933] in the Artist field, it will automatically search by Discogs release ID (i.e. there will be no longer be any need to precede it with +).  You will still need to leave the title field blank (or put something in it to narrow the search).

[GaryG]

dtc,
A big "Thank You" for the tip.  I used it yesterday for an obscure album.  All I had to do was fill in the track times.  A real time saver.

Gary

[dtc]

Gary,

Glad it helped. It is great for both obscure albums and ones that have so many entries it is hard to find the right one. What continually amazes me is how many entries there are in discogs. Before I starting digitizing vinyl, I had no idea the site even existed.  Even what I think are obscure albums are almost always in discogs. Vivaldi Bassoon Concerti from 1980 - bingo. Jon Gailmor - Dirt!, of course. Monks of Weston Priory - 14 versions with album art. So many people who do not use VS end up typing all this in by hand. VS is the best!

Tom