I am writing because I am imagining the future evolution of my music collection management tools.
I am considering the serious risk that sooner or later the local software will become unusable for some reason. Microsoft is always the harbinger of bad news and nothing excludes that some new policy, perhaps on… Windows 12 or 13, will make the software too obsolete to work properly.
I am therefore very willing to make some compromises in terms of functionalities.
For example, the impossibility of linking real audio files can be overcome… using other software, designed for this purpose.
But there is one point that I can’t get past.
Today I add albums in three possible ways:
In the case of physical CDs (increasingly rare), I scan the CD. In the future this can also be avoided by ripping the CD and converting it to liquid form (see point (3) )
In the case of vinyl, I try with Barcode or “author” and “title”.
Often, however, I have to add “liquid” albums. They don’t have a barcode and for speed I use the “Add or link music files” option. The software reads the file tags and with just a couple of clicks I can add albums with hundreds of tracks
I add that in my collection there are many very rare liquid albums, promo, independent or even self-produced… therefore impossible to find by searching by “Author” and “Title” on the web.
That said, the idea of adding such albums manually, track by track and detail by detail is impossible. 1 hour to add an album of 50 songs is really excessive.
Consider that I was, until not long ago, a fervent and accredited contributor to Discogs but I stopped for exactly this reason.
So… the question:
Is there a solution for this problem?
Certainly also from the WEB version it is possible to implement a function that reads from the local disk of your PC.
Or am I missing something I can do today?
If this issue is never addressed, I will be “stuck” on Collectorz, a software I love but whose longevity I fear considering the end of support.
Scanning a CD from web-based software is probably technically not possible. A website does not have that kind of low-level access to your hardware, for security reasons.
A possible work-around, and something we considered when we introduced CLZ Music Web, is a local tray icon that does the CD scanning and is somehow connected to your Web software. Kind of like the CLZ Scanner barcode scanner. Would be a very convoluted and technically difficult solution.
Also, nowadays most computers do not have CD drives anymore, so we would be very hesitant to invest development time in that area.
Finally, our CLZ Music mobile app has not had CD scanning abilities since the beginning (almost 15 years ago) and our mobile users have not missed that feature one bit
The same holds for scanning your computer and reading file data, that too is not possible for security reasons. Possible workaround I can think off: uploading the music files to the Web software for online scanning and parsing. Would be very slow and painful, so probably not feasible.
The most likely solution for making it easier to add albums like this: copy/pasting track lists into a text area and letting the software parse from there.
Would that be something that would work for you?
How about the ability to import a file with tracks instead of just an album list? I can easily create a CSV file of tracks with all necessary album info from a tag editor (I use Metadatics on a Mac, but I’m sure there are tools you can use on Windows.) Currently the import function in CLZ Web only imports a list of albums, but if it could also import track lists that would solve the problem.
And, I’m sure we’ve been over this ground, but just because computers don’t have disc drives anymore doesn’t mean serious collectors aren’t still buying CDs, downloading music files from Bandcamp, Qobuz, etc. I think I’ve suggested it before, why not poll your users to find out how many would use the ability to scan or import? I’d be surprised if your users are all just streamers who don’t buy discs - after all, why would you need CLZ if all you do is stream😉 .
CLZ is by far the best music collecting software, and I’m really starting to appreciate the web version in combination with mobile. Adding a track level import function would be a great tool for the serious collectors in your user base, and would let me finally drop Music Collector.
Thank you very much, Alwin, for your quick response!
I’m very grateful for your attention on this topic.
My ideas:
I completely agree with you: The CD scan feature is useful but it is definitely expendable. It’s not worth worrying about
On the other hand I believe that even the possibility of a “copy & paste” of the track list is not directly feasible. A complex text file should be prepared as it should incorporate (perhaps in a preformatted format) all the fields of interest for each track (for example, in the case of classical music, composer, artist, genre, title, duration…). Very difficult to do manually
However your comments have inspired me with two (alternative) ideas
This is what I call “creative collaboration”!
FIRST) If it were possible to extract the “tags” from the files locally, you could then send the complete extraction of all the tags to CLZ Music Web, thus completely filling in the release information. Without the need to send the entire music files
You could create a small and simple local app with the sole purpose of reading the tags and sending them to CLZ or you could also use a pre-existing application capable of generating an XML file with all the necessary information
SECOND) A bit more complex: CLZ Music Web could browse and parse releases already uploaded in cloud (i.e. Dropbox?). For example my whole (legit) collection has been uploaded to PCLOUD. I could provide link and read only credentials to CLZ Music Web allowing it to parse my collection and extract the needed informations.
Consider, for example, that DJ’s use similar technologies to access their tracks on cloud (Denon DJ does it, Pioneer the same..)
Of course, that is correct.
I don’t see your point?
I’d be surprised if your users are all just streamers who don’t buy discs - after all, why would you need CLZ if all you do is stream😉 .
Again, I don’t see your point. Of course our software is aimed at users who buy physical CDs and vinyl records.
I feel you are fighting me for something that I fully agree with you on
For clarity, I fully agree with you on the above points.
How about the ability to import a file with tracks instead of just an album list? I can easily create a CSV file of tracks with all necessary album info from a tag editor
That is basically what I was suggesting as the only solution. Either paste a track list in and parse and import a file and parse, same thing right?
Alwin, I didn’t think I was fighting you. I raised those points because you keep pointing out that computers don’t even have cd drives anymore, as if that obviates the need for scanning or importing files. I’m glad we are in agreement that people still maintain disc and file libraries - where I guess we diverge is in the need for some to scan those files or CDs to import them. For many of us who buy CDs and downloads, there are inevitably some that are not in core, and for which the ability to scan, or import from a csv file would be helpful.
Re your comment about importing a track list, I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “pasting” - are suggesting copying and pasting each track name, which wouldn’t be much better than manual entry? If you’re suggesting a simple method to import a file with tracks, then yes, we’re on the same page.
No that is not what I have been saying at all. The two are not related of course.
I said that the feature of scanning a CD in a CD drive is probably not going to come to the Web software because nowadays most computer do not have a CD-drive anymore. So I would be hesitant to invest in any development in that area. Also, because of technical challenges (web browsers do not have access to the CD drive for scanning discs).
Scanning music files on your hard drive is also not possible from a web-browser, also because of technical problems. We browsers do not have access of the hard drive for scanning folders and files.
That is all. I am not talking about the “need” at all.
where I guess we diverge is in the need for some to scan those files or CDs to import them. For many of us who buy CDs and downloads, there are inevitably some that are not in core, and for which the ability to scan, or import from a csv file would be helpful.
No, we do not “diverge” there AT ALL. I fully agree with you there.
You know, when both parties fully agree, you can stop fighting.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “pasting” - are suggesting copying and pasting each track name, which wouldn’t be much better than manual entry?
I was suggesting a tool where you can copy paste a complete TRACK LIST.
