getmusicbee.com
Support => Questions => Topic started by: darkred on February 25, 2021, 02:18:44 PM
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In the wiki (https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Track_Specific_Elements#Album_Cover_and_Artist_Picture) it says that:
"The Artist Picture panel draws images from fanart.tv, htbackdrops.org, theaudiodb.com, and last.fm (in that order)."
( htbackdrops.org doesn't work anymore)
Could someone please clarify what search engines query is done for Artist Biography photos?
Is it only the 'Artist' tag used, or is it a combination, e.g. 'Artist+Genre' tags?
I mean:
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist or
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist+%Genre
And, are there any preferences regarding Artist Biography photos ? I couldn't find anything.
An actual example: https://i.imgur.com/rqX6ifY.jpg
Band: Jorn
Album: Out To Every Nation
Year: 2004
Genre: Heavy
As you may see in the screenshot, the biography matches ok, but that specific artist photo is of an irrelevant band, "Mayhem", a black metal one.
What query was made that fetched that specific image?
(The next/rotating photos are ok).
Using latest MusicBee 3.4.7721 on win10
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The source is Bing Images and I believe the query is <Artist>+Music or something similar. I don't even know if fanart.tv is used for it any more to be honest, I think it's just a plain text search on Bing Images.
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I've tried all possible queries I could do in Bing Images, and that irrelevant photo (https://i.imgur.com/ZKudipG.jpg) is never displayed, no matter what. Maybe it's not Bing Images being used?
(I am asking because I want to understand how it works, and if there's some tag to change, that could help stop getting irrelevant artist photos.)
And, is there any option in Preferences regarding Artist Biography photos ? I can't find anything.
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Update:
I've used a tool (SmartSniff) for find (by seeing inside the TCP/IP streams) what URLs MB is sending data to, to get artist photos:
My findings:
when I start playing one of the mentioned tracks by Jorn:
musicbrainz.org
http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/artist/?query=artist:"Jorn"&limit=1 (http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/artist/?query=artist:%22Jorn%22&limit=1)
ws-origin.audioscrobbler.com (last.fm API)
(encrypted -- can't find the URL)
bing.com
(encrypted)
fanart.tv
http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/music/91022966-c8de-4f0c-863c-10d026f6c843?api_key=_______________________________________
The 4th (fanart.tv) has 6 hi-res artist photos, all correct (none of them is the irrelevant one).
The musicbrainz found photos are used for all artists as first choice.
The 1st (musicbrainz.org) contains various tags (in XML), regarding the band, such as:
<disambiguation>Norwegian metal band</disambiguation>
Maybe these tag values are used in bing Images search?
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Two more examples:
example 1 (https://i.imgur.com/Ny0S5SM.jpg)
Band: Obituary
Track: 'A Dying World (single)'
Genre: Death metal
Year: 2019
The biography is correct, but the artist photo is irrelevant: it's of the nu metal band, Korn .
example 2 (https://i.imgur.com/TH3cdP0.jpg)
The biography is correct as before but the artist photo is irrelevant: it's of the different death metal band, Morbid Angel .
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I don't understand your point here. MB has no control over what the provider returns. If it's not correct you should be contacting the provider. All MB does is send out the data that's in the relevant tag(s).
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All MB does is send out the data that's in the relevant tag(s).
Yes, but how is the query made ?
I just can't understand how these irrelevant photos come up.
If I'm not mistaken there are no preferences regarding Artist Biography photos retrieval.
I know for sure (see my comment above) that most Artist photos displayed are retrieved by fanart.tv, and they are all hi-res, and always correct.
Is it Bing Images the secondary source that gets the irrelevant photos?
Secondly, what tags are used in the query?
The ID3 tags metadata contained in the audio files themselves?
Or tags contained in the retrieved musicbrainz XML (http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/artist/?query=artist:%22Jorn%22&limit=1) ?
e.g. <disambiguation>Norwegian metal band</disambiguation>
And, finally, how is the actual query being done? Using which tags?
I've tried all possible queries I could think of in Bing Images, and that irrelevant photo is never displayed as first.
Example URLs:
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist+%Genre
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist+%Genre+%TrackTitle
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I just can't understand how these irrelevant photos come up.
Because the Internet is a mysterious place.
Have you never gotten irrelevant information when searching the Internet?
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There's nothing "mysterious" about making queries in search engines.
You make a query, i.e. you enter some criteria, and get results.
If the criteria you entered are relevant, you'll get proper results. Even if not exactly relevant, but close enough.
But, if the criteria you entered are wrong, then you'll surely get irrelevant information.
In my case, all these music files are always properly tagged (Album, Artist, Genre, Year, everything).
Therefore the criteria for the search should be ok (the bio is always correct). But still I frequently get irrelevant Artist photos, and in some cases totally irrelevant.
I've tried myself all possible queries I could think in various search engines, and these irrelevant photos are never displayed.
SInce, MB doesn't have any preferences regarding Artist Biography photos retrieval, (apart from defining the location of C:\Users\user\Music\MusicBee\Artist Pictures\Thumb)
I want to understand how these queries are made, so, maybe it's something that could be avoided, maybe by some tag modifying?
And maybe, if Steven could allow configuring the Artist Photos search queries in Preferences, to customize them making them as specific as I want.
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And maybe, if Steven could allow configuring the Artist Photos search queries in Preferences, to customize them making them as specific as I want.
What criteria would you use to improve the results if you could customise artists image search?
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Using my previous example:
for the death metal band, Obituary,
it displays an irrelevant photo, of the nu metal band, Korn.
If I the query that made that irrelevant photo is generic like:
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist+music
i.e. Obituary+music
(which uses just 1 tag and the word "music")
I'd change it to:
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist+%Genre
i.e. Obituary+'death metal'
(which uses 2 tags)
or
https://some_search_engine.com/?q=%Artist+%Genre+%Year
i.e. Obituary+'death metal'+''2019'
(which uses 3 tags)
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Have you tested this?
Do you get considerably better results on Bing if you add 'death metal' instead of 'nu metal' in your image searches?
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Yes, I got better results, much better.
If the Genre is correct, I get the right results.
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Interesting.
It's still strange why you would get images of Korn when the band is called Obituary.
That certainly won't have anything to do with genres.
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For reference, here are the tags of the files in my examples above:
Example 1:
track tags: https://i.imgur.com/3RBYkrp.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/3RBYkrp.jpg)
MB: https://i.imgur.com/Ny0S5SM.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/Ny0S5SM.jpg)
Example 2
track tags: https://i.imgur.com/PHna4Cl.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/PHna4Cl.jpg)
MB: https://i.imgur.com/TH3cdP0.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/TH3cdP0.jpg)
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Nice skin ;-)
Steven is probably the only person that can shed some more light on this.
Maybe your input is helpful to improve things for specific requirements of some users, if they realistically can be improved upon.
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And maybe, if Steven could allow configuring the Artist Photos search queries in Preferences, to customize them making them as specific as I want.
That'd be fun. Like I could add "supermodel," and then my pictures would be all my favorite bands posing with supermodels! 8)
Seriously, though, since last.fm took away the API for it, the only 100 reliable solution for artist photos is firing up a search engine on your own and pasting whatever good images you find into your own instance when the auto retrieval fails. Last.fm still provides the biographies with no problem, which is why they're mostly always right.
Ban the ones you don't like, save the ones you do like, manually search when the automatic method won't bring anything relevant. No one said there's no work in collecting. :)
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Pipe dream, surely not realistic at the current state of affairs:
Wouldn't it be great if the image of an artist would match the period a song/album was released.
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Wouldn't it be great if the image of an artist would match the period a song/album was released.
Now -that- would be a nice feature.
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In my case, all these music files are always properly tagged (Album, Artist, Genre, Year, everything).
Therefore the criteria for the search should be ok (the bio is always correct). But still I frequently get irrelevant Artist photos, and in some cases totally irrelevant.
I've tried myself all possible queries I could think in various search engines, and these irrelevant photos are never displayed.
Regarding Bing, it's "similar images" results are usually terrible, so that's probably why you're seeing other metal bands.
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Nice skin ;-) Steven is probably the only person that can shed some more light on this.
Maybe your input is helpful to improve things for specific requirements of some users, if they realistically can be improved upon.
...
Wouldn't it be great if the image of an artist would match the period a song/album was released.
I wish he replies, and I'd be glad if my input would help in improving MB.
And, that would be awesome.
since last.fm took away the API for it, the only 100 reliable solution for artist photos is firing up a search engine on your own and pasting whatever good images you find into your own instance when the auto retrieval fails. Last.fm still provides the biographies with no problem, which is why they're mostly always right.
Ban the ones you don't like, save the ones you do like, manually search when the automatic method won't bring anything relevant. No one said there's no work in collecting. :)
The functionality you describe (paste/save and ban) is of the "Artist Pictures" element.
I've been using the "Now playing bar" | "Artist Biography" instead,
and that's because unfortunately, "Artist Pictures" + "Artist Biography" cannot be combined and fit together horizontally in the 'main panel',
and because it has a bug, which I reported (+made a suggestion) here (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=34442.0) .
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Seriously, though, since last.fm took away the API for it, the only 100 reliable solution for artist photos is firing up a search engine on your own and pasting whatever good images you find into your own instance when the auto retrieval fails. Last.fm still provides the biographies with no problem, which is why they're mostly always right.
Ban the ones you don't like, save the ones you do like, manually search when the automatic method won't bring anything relevant. No one said there's no work in collecting. :)
The bug I reported, "'Now playing bar' panel | Artist Photo - wrong context menu at launch", has been fixed in latest beta, 3.4.7743 .
frankz, I never said that want everything to be made "automatically", without me doing anything. On the contrary, I want to be able to keep my collection as organized as possible.
Your method ( "Paste/Save Artist Picture" and "Ban Picture") is a very useful workaround, in order to hide irrelevant photos:
I didn't know this functionality was available due to the bug I mentioned (that context menu on the artist photo in the "now playing bar" was never available in my case).
Thanks for the help, and everyone for the replies.