Tagging by sound signature not working

[Satyrical]

Hello there,

I'm trying to rip some CDs with no album or track info. They are popular songs but I just want to get the meta data put in automatically. Unfortunately, I can't get the "identify the track artist and title using the digital sound signature" option to work. I have downloaded the fpcalc.exe and placed it in the MusicBee directory. It analyses the files so quickly that I sincerely doubt that anything is actually being done.

I have gone to my windows firewall and created exceptions for musicbee.exe and fpcalc.exe. I also tried disabled the Windows Firewall completely and also disabling the SPI Firewall on my router, but that didn't do anything so I put them back on. There's not any other security stuff running.

"Unable to identify the track from its digital sound signature" for all files. I'm not sure exactly what to do but I'd really like this feature to work in MusicBee. Any help is appreciated thanks!

[psychoadept]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

Are you doing this with individual tracks that are already ripped?

[sveakul]

Also, be sure you are using the latest fpcalc.exe just in case (1.5.0, 2020-04-15, from https://acoustid.org/chromaprint).  This is working here anyway via the "Auto-tag by track" dialog options.  Be aware that only the track artist and title can be ID'd via fpcalc.

[Satyrical]

Well I am on the latest version of fpcalc and these are tracks ripped from a mix-CD I found.

[sveakul]

Test if fpcalc.exe is working for files other than the ripped CD tracks you mentioned:

1.  Copy a "known and loved" file from your MusicBee library with File Explorer (i.e. not within MB) to another location, and rename it something to keep it from getting mixed up with the original.

2.  Strip all tags from it using an external tagging tool like Kid3, Mp3tag, or TagScanner.

3.  Import it into your MB library as-is without any auto-tagging enabled in MB.

4.  Right click it, Auto-Tag by Track-->Identify Track and Update Tags.

5.  In the Identify/Update window put only Artist and Title in the "update fields" box

6.  Check "Identify using digital sound signature", and hit Proceed.  Results?

This will at least tell you if it's working on your system--if it is, then the issue is something in the original ripped tracks, not in if fpcalc is working or not.  Hopefully, "It'll work for you, it works for me" (Brain Salad Surgery!).  Then I would recommend you upload one of the non-working ripped CD files so others can take a look at it and maybe find the problem.

[sveakul]

Whether this is sit before a plate of crow time, I don't know, BUT...  I decided to repeat my test of above (which was successful when I last tried it a few months ago, can't recall the test files) on three other mp3 files that should be fairly common--Green Day's "American Idiot", The Go Go's "Our Lips Are Sealed", and Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer."  None were identified after the analysis, which did take about 10 seconds per.

I know that Steven is not responsible for the performance of 3rd-party plugins, but I have to ask if there has been anything changed in MusicBee that may affect the sourcing/lookup performed by fpcalc.exe?  Or could its hit-or-miss nature be that extreme.

Using MusicBee 3.4.7564P Windows 10 v1909

[Steven]

It looks like something has changed in the results returned. This handles the results as returned now:

https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee application files

v3.4 has been updated as well

[sveakul]

Thanks Steven for taking a look at this.  After updating, I re-did the test with 5 files that cover several types of music but that should be commonly known:  John Hiatt - Slow Turning, Lacuna Coil - Our Truth, Liz Phair - Polyester Bride, The Runaways - Cherry Bomb, and Zero 7 - Pop Art Blue.

There was a difference in that this time the analysis window stayed open with the results, which it did not before.  However, all 5 files returned "Unable to identify the track from its digital sound signature."  So I'm left with the unfortunate conclusion that the plugin, if it's now interfacing properly with MusicBee, "ain't worth much" as far as track identification.

I encourage others to give it a try though and report their results.  Maybe I'm just picking the wrong horses.

[Satyrical]

I tried the update as well but there is nothing changed. I downloaded MusicBrainz Picard which as I understand it should also be using the same utility for digital fingerprinting, and it was able to identify the songs rather quickly.

[Icetoseeyouu]

Can confirm it doesn't work.

I used Picard from musicbrainz, and sure enough there is a version of fpcalc.exe in the folder, so... I tried copying this one in the musicbee folder ?

Still doesn't work, at all. I tested a popular song (Green Day - American Idiot) in Picard, it instantly found it. With Musicbee ? Keep telling me there's no match for artist.

So i suspect that musicbee isn't even attempting to use sound signature at all, and instead search for "unknown artist" which will of course get no results.

[sveakul]

Can confirm it doesn't work.

I used Picard from musicbrainz, and sure enough there is a version of fpcalc.exe in the folder, so... I tried copying this one in the musicbee folder ?

Still doesn't work, at all. I tested a popular song (Green Day - American Idiot) in Picard, it instantly found it. With Musicbee ? Keep telling me there's no match for artist.

So i suspect that musicbee isn't even attempting to use sound signature at all, and instead search for "unknown artist" which will of course get no results.

I just d/l Picard Portable 2.44 and can also confirm your results--the songs that would not ID with fpcalc in MusicBee, DO identify in Picard using fpcalc.

Some communication needed between fpcalc.exe and its MusicBrainz sound signature database has been broken somewhere along the line in one of the MusicBee updates.  This should probably be moved to the "Bugs" forum.

[Steven]

I tested this and confirmed it working so i wont be able to help further with this.

[sveakul]

OK, here is some clarification.  I went back to the fpcalc forum thread here https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=28838.0 and downloaded the fpcalc posted by Steven in the first post.  And found that one DOES INDEED WORK.  This version is dated  12/22/2011.  So actually the compatibility with MusicBee became broken somewhere AFTER this posted version.  The oldest version available at the chromaprint site I could download to test was 1.4 from 12-03-2016, and that does not work.  So the only info I can contribute is that the issue began sometime before that version.

Anyway, Steven has supplied a working version for today's MusicBee at the link above.  This proves that "self-updaters" like myself risk cutting off the limb we sit on  

[Steven]

Yes it looks the the behavior of fpcalc.exe has also changed between versions. I have updated MB to handle the older and newer fpcalc.exe file outputs
https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip
same for v3.4

[sveakul]

Hoo-ray!!  MusicBee 3.4.7568 now identifying/tagging tracks fine with the latest 1.5.0 fpcalc.exe!  THANKS Steven for not giving up on this!  This is what makes MusicBee a class all to its own, your personal involvement/dedication.