matching data to digital music

November 20, 2005 8:56 PM

I'm currently listening to track 09. It's good. how do I find out name of the artist? I'm asking a general question here, I have a dozen track 09s. When I pop a CD into iTunes it gets it's info for me online. Is there any way to do that for individual tracks? Since it's digital isn't there a way to do a look up?
posted by Mr T to media & arts (11 comments total)

I still have about 100 "track 09"s to sort out and have been doing them the hard way - using Google and whatever dregs of info I have - either song title, lyrics or artist and use those to find the rest. Tedious and slow, not to mention the problem that about 30% of song/artist information on the 'net is just plain wrong. I wish I had a better memory, then I would be able to remember the details myself.
posted by dg at 9:00 PM on November 20, 2005

Perhaps MusicBrainz can help you?
posted by soundslikeobiwan at 9:06 PM on November 20, 2005

The CD information retrieval and MP3 information retrieval are different. MP3 information is supposed to be in the ID3 tags, which would show up in your player if they were there. CDs do not have this information, but by reporting the number of tracks and their duration you can arrive at a somwhat unique identification of the disc. This depends on having all the tracks, though, and having them all be the same length for all people, so it's not really done with MP3s.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:13 PM on November 20, 2005

You could post it here and have us play name that tune. This is most likely illegal though.
posted by null terminated at 9:43 PM on November 20, 2005

Well Tim, get to work on it and email me when you've got working prototype.

*looks at watch, taps foot*
posted by Mr T at 9:47 PM on November 20, 2005

Google the lyrics?
Also, I second MusicBrainz. It's pretty scarily good at identifying things unless they're really obscure.
posted by exceptinsects at 9:51 PM on November 20, 2005

Thanks soundslikeobiwan, MusicBrainz is brilliant - MR T - Try it if you haven't already...
posted by loquax at 9:51 PM on November 20, 2005

As suggested, Musicbrainz should help you. It uses the raw audio data to calculate a semi-unique fingerprint of the song, and then it looks that up in its database. Only problem is that it sometimes suggests several options, which may be hard to decide between if you have no idea at all.
posted by smackfu at 9:53 PM on November 20, 2005

You might want to try http://www.musipedia.org/
It has a search engine using Parsons code, which basically means you only need to know if the note is higher, lower, or equal to the preceeding one.
It seems to be mostly geared towards classical however, which may not help you much.
posted by scodger at 10:01 PM on November 20, 2005

null: I'm in a complicated position vis a vis posting music online. I think it's great, but my employers don't (actually they do but their overseers don't (actually they don't give a shit either but the committee managing their budget does (actually they don't care a wit either but the constituents who voted them in to office does (actually they/we don't care either but we do know that when the bell rings a lawyer gets his wings.)))

Thanks for the Musicbrainz link.

Googling the lyrics would not work in this case, instrumental song.
posted by Mr T at 10:03 PM on November 20, 2005

Gracenote might be able to help you. At least it claims to be able to ID individual songs, but I can't vouch for it personally.
posted by AwkwardPause at 10:15 PM on November 20, 2005