New recording category?

Thanks Steve, that was the point I was trying to make. You did it wonderfully.

I think that perhaps there is a misconception, caused by listening to all the quantized and de-humanized MIDI files that sound so awful, that anything which says it is MIDI is going to sound like that. Not true! A MIDI file recorded by playing live to the MIDI recorder and making corrections, is going to sound like a recorded LIVE performance, unless someone quantizes it. If you understand that MIDI records the keystrokes (and in some cases how hard the keys were struck) and faithfully plays it back just as in an audio recording, then you realize that there is no difference in a LIVE recording of the audio and the LIVE recording of the MIDI file except that the MIDI file can be tweaked a bit easier. I maintain that if you know what the LIVE audio is supposed to sound like that you can create a MIDI file that creates sound that is indistinguishable from LIVE.

Pax,

Thomas

I don't think anyone asked for a "police state" nor the creation of "a lesser page" for anything...

Some only asked for more transparency... and -honestly- I have difficulties to see whom it might harm to have (some) more categories. It is only a matter of targeting interests more precisely and knowing which way you are going to (like those not interested in politics who would go directly to the sports page, or vice-versa).

Some only asked for more transparency... and -honestly- I have difficulties to see whom it might harm to have (some) more categories.

One of the reasons I have never uploaded to ContreBombarde is because I feel my playing abilities aren't really up to the standard at which I'm happy for everyone else to judge my performances. I think it is very easy to get elitist about how exactly a recording was made - e.g. "I won't bother listening to that live recording because he corrected 3 duff notes in the MIDI, so it clearly isn't worth listening to.". Whether that is the intention of the request for new categories or not I don't know, but that is certainly how it would make me feel, and indeed would make me even less likely to actually start uploading.

Hi Chris,

sorry I didn't answer earlier... only 24 hours in my days, unfortunately

I don't think the request is based on "judgment", at least I don't feel it that way.
It's more a question of volume; there are now more than 6000 tracks on Contrebombarde : did you listen to each of them ? Will you ever ?

So what's wrong with some transparency (i.e. telling everybody exactly what they can find in the category) ? Each and everyone of us has a different way to approach information, and transparency is only a means to get quicker where you want to go...

To take your example : what's the problem of telling out loud "I'm not Helmut Walcha nor Edgar P. Biggs... but I like playing the organ and I want to share my progress" ? Those NOT WANTING to listen to the kind of music you post will only listen once, anyway... and those JUST WANTING to listen to the kind of music you post might NOT FIND you...

To take my concern : I do fully respect those whose hobby is playing with music editors... but it is not my focus, when I come to Contrebombarde, to listen to these results; instead, I am an amateur organ player and I want to listen to the people like me who are enjoying playing and sharing their recordings.

Or to take another example : somebody might like (for the moment) to listen to romantic organ music but not baroque, or a specific composer, or or or...

I don't think categories will change anything... it will only allow us to target our interests faster.

IMHO, of course...

contrebombarde.com has a very good search database system plus the option to get an email notice if someone upload something in the style you like etc. or to get an email if somebody of which You believe (because he or she said so) playing everything live without any editing.
To me this is enough to find what I want on contrebombarde.com.

To me this is enough to find what I want on contrebombarde.com

Yes, but to others it isn't enough, that's the whole point

Perhaps another idea is to use "tags"... when uploading a file to CB, one would just select a bunch of labels / tags that describe the piece in more detail, those descriptions then become filters that one can use in the search page. Same sort of idea as categories, but probably less restrictive (both in programming / implementation, and also from the uploader's viewpoint it's not something that absolutely has to be used, it's just a group of hints for others). If this is implemented though it may also be a good idea to somehow prevent or restrict users from adding everything under the sun as a tag because then it just becomes "noise" that is less helpful.

Exactly ! BTW, that's what (and I think others) meant by "categories"...

To me this is enough to find what I want on contrebombarde.com

Yes, but to others it isn't enough, that's the whole point

Perhaps another idea is to use "tags"... when uploading a file to CB, one would just select a bunch of labels / tags that describe the piece in more detail, those descriptions then become filters that one can use in the search page. Same sort of idea as categories, but probably less restrictive (both in programming / implementation, and also from the uploader's viewpoint it's not something that absolutely has to be used, it's just a group of hints for others). If this is implemented though it may also be a good idea to somehow prevent or restrict users from adding everything under the sun as a tag because then it just becomes "noise" that is less helpful.

The point was actually how do I find something that wasn't edited or how do I call something that was edited slightly. Assuming that people are honest enough to indicate this, three instead of two labels should be enough even if it is for me already three too many.

One can also implement the upload description into the search machine instead of only the tittle maybe that can be helpful too.

The point was actually how do I find something that wasn't edited or how do I call something that was edited slightly.

I was responding to the specific points you made about getting email notifications... I use this feature myself (and you happen to be one of the performers that I follow though I use a different login name on CB), but that doesn't work for everybody. And how do I find music back at a later date? CB has an excellent search feature, but that search feature relies on people writing specific data into specific fields, and the more specific one is when creating the upload, the more specific one can get when searching for music.

Exactly ! BTW, that's what (and I think others) meant by "categories"...

Yes, that's probably me just being lost in the semantics and not explaining myself very well... But I was suggesting removing 'recording category' from the metadata all together, and instead of having fixed 'metadata categories' such as 'recording category', just let people apply a bunch of values / tags when uploading that describe the piece in more detail... one of these tags might be 'live-no-edits', another tag might be 'sleepy' or 'upbeat' (for moods), another might be 'beginner level' etc etc, I'm sure someone else could come up with a bunch of better tags than that but you get the idea. Carrying the idea forward a little more; when setting up email alerts, I could just say "email me when one or more of the following tags are applied on a new upload" and then select some tags from a list. Searching as well, just select a bunch of tags and hit search. Creating a playlist? Select some tags and hit 'play this list'.

The whole beauty of tags is that you just need to build it into the system once, and then let users build on to it... we wouldn't need to bug Rob or Darryl every time someone comes up with a new way of describing or classifying the content; as long as there are some useful / predefined tags in the system (and possibly letting certain 'moderators' add more in the future) we would be free to apply what ever labels we want to the music. In fact Prof Maier wouldn't have even had to start this thread in the first place as it would just be a matter of creating the appropriate tag in the system and letting users use it as they feel necessary.

There would be no obligation to provide any tags upon uploading music, but whatever tags are used can become value pieces of information when searching or creating playlists or email notifications. "Genre" and "Recorded in" could also be moved to the tagging system. Only those metadata fields which are defined as 'required values' (so I'm guessing 'performer', 'composer', 'organ sample', 'title', and 'date' which is probably auto filled) would still need to be defined separately in the database.

From a programming perspective, probably easier getting tags working than having to constantly had new metadata fields / categories to the database and UI.

(well, maybe all of that was just a waste of keystrokes and far more of a solution than the problem requires, but it's an idea that solves not only the original problem in this thread, but also the original problem abstracted a little more: how do I find very specific music on CB as the amount of uploads starts to grow (exponentially?) in the future, and finally, it is a system that once implemented would not require a lot of overhead from the maintainers everytime some one wants to add a bit of metadata to the music...)

@ sonar11

Well You've certainly got a point there about the growing amount of uploads, and this idea of You sounds like a good solution after all.