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Swing DJ’s Album & Song Data Base

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 7:19 pm
by Bob the Builder
I’ve sure this idea has been thought of before, and I think there was something like it on the old Yahoo groups, but here goes.

Proposal:
Would it be possible to create a data base of the songs and albums people have which would include their song rating.
The idea is that when someone is looking at buying a CD / LP they can go online and find out about it, or talk to the person who has it.
We currently have several review sites and other data-base sites, but they are very limited. It only 50 DJ’s submitted their own music data base that would be a huge amount of information. It would also include the information vinyl recordings that people have converted to digital. This kind of information is very difficult to pick up anywhere else.
A lot of us DJ’s have gone Digital so submitting to a data base should be very easy.

Any ideas?
What are the logistics involved?
Is it worth the time and effort, some one would have to put into creating the data base?

Brian
PS – I have no knowledge of online data-bases so what ever anyone post will be new information to me. Thanks.

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 8:20 pm
by kitkat
#1 issue of logistics:
Make sure all comments on the same track-within-an-album get filed on the same page. I don't want to search for a song, get 10 results, and just find 10 comments on one track.

#2 issue of logistics:
Make a way to show that Album X Track 20 is the same recording session as Album Y Track 3. (Leave mastering discussion to comments?)

#3 issue of logistics:
Make a way to show other recordings in the database of the same song by the same artist.

#2 & #3 should make it not too arduous & cluttered to find out what a recommended song is like. It seems easier than actually making reviews from "Splanky" AlbumXTrack20 & AlbumYTrack3 show up on the same page and easier than making all "Splanky" reviews show up on the same page.

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 9:40 pm
by LindyChef
I barely have enough time to do that for myself, let alone other people ...

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 10:33 pm
by Bob the Builder
PS
When I say rating I just mean the 0-5 start rating. Like the iTunes system. I sure anyone who DJ's from computer has there materail rated.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 1:09 am
by JohnDyer
I'm trying to rate all of my songs. I keep track of tempo, style, cue points and my own rating. However I'm finding it harder and harder to have such an objective one time rating for any given song. I have heard other DJs play songs poorly rated by me (at one point in time) at exactly the right time and place and it was brilliant. I now listen to a CD that I rated 1 year ago, and have conflicting results.

I'm thinking that rating is a pretty subjective, right time and place kinda thing - but maybe if the ratings are all averaged out we might be able to quickly see "across the board" favorites and all time stinkers... if a 50 djs around the world rate any particular song, that would be helpful in my quest for spinning some tunes I don't already have.

I'm still in the process of re-listening and rating my collection, and I'm falling behind in that, so I can understand the point that some DJs don't have time to post their ratings.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 1:33 am
by SpuzBal
Maybe an easier first step would be to create such a database where people just rated albums. If that took off, then it could be turned into a song-by-song thing.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 2:17 am
by kitkat
I'd want the ratings/comments to be signed. A 5 from Smunky is different than a 5 from falty411.

Neither is better nor worse than the other, but if you read SwingDJs, you can get an idea of what the album's like simply based on who's recommending it. I think that's VERY useful before you sink $ into something.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:51 am
by Toon Town Dave
I think it would be a great idea, I was looking at something similar for my own web site (I would post reviews but others could comment on the review).

There are some overlapping resources like the database on jivejunction, the only downside is there is only one reviewer per album and as kitkat points out, not everyone shares the same tastes.

It would be a somewhat significant project to undertake. I might have some time to help after christmas although I really don't have much ambition to work on a PHP spaghetti code project (no I don't like PHP).

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:00 am
by Nate Dogg
It is come up a few times, in various incarnations; I have included a link to a similar thread I started awhile back.

I am willing to help out.

The problem with most reviews sites is that there is usually just one reviewer. So, anything that allows for multiple opinions, while still being organized and easily searchable is something I am in favor of.

The most striking example of the one reviewer situation is allmusic. Their reviews get sold to stores/other sites, they get seen by a lot of people. So, the opinion of one reviewer has a disproportionate weight. I would love to see them allow for user reviews like Amazon, while still maintaining all the good things that make it a top site (depth, search ability, being free). But, I can see why the won't, there are a ton of technical and business reasons not to. But, AMG is another topic, Back to the Swing DJ Database topic.

The thread below has similar comments to this one. In short, I don't see a perfect system, but you have to start somewhere and I am willing to help out.


http://www.swingdjs.com/phpbb2/viewtopi ... t=database

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:12 am
by Nate Dogg
Toon Town Dave wrote:I think it would be a great idea, I was looking at something similar for my own web site (I would post reviews but others could comment on the review).

There are some overlapping resources like the database on jivejunction, the only downside is there is only one reviewer per album and as kitkat
points out, not everyone shares the same tastes.

It would be a somewhat significant project to undertake. I might have some time to help after christmas although I really don't have much ambition to work on a PHP spaghetti code project (no I don't like PHP).
A few comments:

I don't think the online database needs to be PHP, as long as it is linked to this site.

I like the idea of having a master review with comments by various users linked to the review.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:24 am
by main_stem
We coulde create a blog to do this and add it as a sub-domain to this site.
I might have time in the new year to help out with this.

-Kevin

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:37 am
by kitkat
main_stem wrote:We coulde create a blog to do this
Oh, yuck. Thanks for the initiative, but that's even less organized and more difficult to reference than this board.

That's like saying,
-"We need a thesaurus! All we have is an encyclopedia!"
-"I've got blank diary! We could all scribble paragraphs in it, and people could just flip through that until they find a word and hopefully a concept around it."

How much do web database developers tend tend to charge for a job well done? We could announce what we're looking for on Yehoodi, local boards, & local Yahoo groups / mailing lists and hire someone with the best proposal if the price were low enough that we could actually get people motivated. They'd have a bonus interest in finishing the project because it's within their hobby. Of course, we'd reward them with CDs, I imagine, as well. ;-) If I knew that the programmer were going to create something I thought was truly an appropriate form, I'd throw in $20 the day it was announced.

Of course, we'd have to develop a detailed proposal:
1) with enough quirky traits that DJs would actually consider the format a significant improvement over simply searching SwingDJs.com and combing existing review sites. They're not going to contribute any money if they say, "That's not good enough," and then we'll end up with an underpaid programmer developing something no one wants to use.
2) possible for a programmer to execute. Luckily, "efficient" by human-brain organization standards is not the same as "efficient" in coding, so some DJ-suggested traits way out in left field might not be so hard to implement, so don't hesitate to keep saying what you'd like to see in it.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 10:57 am
by main_stem
kitkat wrote:
main_stem wrote:We coulde create a blog to do this
Oh, yuck. Thanks for the initiative, but that's even less organized and more difficult to reference than this board.
A blog is just a user interface to a database, which is pretty much what you're asking for. The key is having a solid Information Architecture that would allow for finding things.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 11:38 am
by kitkat
Ta-da! I made ugly pictures. Worth 3,000 words in total.

Here's what I'd like to see. I took some MP3.com (user-friendly way to access the Allmusic database) screenshots and took out everything that seemed superfluous and added in only what I thought would be essential for a database. It doesn't have to look like this, but I think this would be bare-bones functionality if it were going to last more than 6 months before people started complaining about insufficient resources again.

Image 1: Album page. There are a few unnecessary-but-convenient things on there, but I put comments next to them to indicate that.

How should the official album info (song bpm, etc.) be updated? I say by anyone who's a verified member of SwingDJs.com. I really doubt we'd get malicious posters who deliberately mess up all the track times & BPM.

Oh, and we should definitely rip information off of Allmusic.com. We'd need to keep the site on the downlow anyway so we don't get in trouble for posting pictures of album covers without asking every label for permission to do so. So what's the harm in going one extra step and citing the same track times & composer information as other catalogue sites?

Image 2: A sample Album/Song-Within-Album Reviews page. Clicking on that weird green icon to the left of a song title in the first image takes you to the appropriate place on the Reviews page.
Sorry I just put Scott Yanow's words in your mouth, Jesse, instead of coming up w/ something new. :-)

Image 3: A sample Song Information & Reviews page. This is not the same as a song search result, though I did base my graphic off one.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 11:59 am
by GemZombie
I like that... now someone go code it ;)