Notice About Prefixes During Song Upload?

[ASocialyAwkwardPony 299]

So I see a number of people are doing the same mistake as I did when first uploading my tracks in that they add a prefix with their artist name to the song title. In case of covers, remixes and such I can see why (X befriends Y, X covers Y, etc. so you are sure the other artist involved get the credit they deserve), but for original songs I guess it could look messy.

So basically, maybe adding a small text next to the song name entry box about avoiding prefixes for normal original songs could be an idea to avoid this and educate us first time users?

Oh and I wondered, when will the next major site update be and will you make a notice in the news feed for every update by any chance?

Edited May 10, 2013 by Nightmare Lyre

[CloudFyre 848]

So I see a number of people are doing the same mistake as I did when first uploading my tracks in that they add a prefix with their artist name to the song title. In case of covers, remixes and such I can see why, but for original songs I guess it could look messy.

 

So basically, maybe adding a small text next to the song name entry box about avoiding prefixes for normal original songs could be an idea to avoid this and educate us first time users?

 

Oh and I wondered, when will the next major site update be and will you make a notice in the news feed for every update by any chance?

I wouldn't call it a mistake at all - in fact, I'm all for it. It's a pretty standard thing to do, and in terms of functionality it makes sure that downloads have proper naming conventions. ("ArtistName feat. SingerName - SongName.wav")

 

It might seem a bit redundant at first, but that's the primary reason why I add my artist name to the song. Also, it's handy in the event that there are two different artists collaborating on a song. (Noisecontrollers & Showtek - Get Loose as a real world example.) If only one of them had an account, then they really couldn't give proper credit unless they drop a sentence in the description (but not everyone reads the descriptions).

 

Long story short, downloads and collabs are the main reasons why most people add their name to a song again.

Edited May 10, 2013 by CloudFyre

[ASocialyAwkwardPony 299]

I wouldn't call it a mistake at all - in fact, I'm all for it. It's a pretty standard thing to do, and in terms of functionality it makes sure that downloads have proper naming conventions. ("ArtistName feat. SingerName - SongName.wav")

 

It might seem a bit redundant at first, but that's the primary reason why I add my artist name to the song. Also, it's handy in the event that there are two different artists collaborating on a song. (Noisecontrollers & Showtek - Get Loose as a real world example.) If only one of them had an account, then they really couldn't give proper credit unless they drop a sentence in the description (but not everyone reads the descriptions).

 

Long story short, downloads and collabs are the main reasons why most people add their name to a song again.

 

Ah I see, I guess that is fair then. Though I did get a PM about it not being necessary from Feld0 so I thought it was not recommended

[CloudFyre 848]

Ah I see, I guess that is fair then. Though I did get a PM about it not being necessary from Feld0 so I thought it was not recommended

Really? I find that surprising...I'll ask about that next time I see him on Skype.

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,520]

Prefixing song titles with your artist name isn't a good idea because it screws up the track's tags. Your track is actually named "My Awesome Theme Song", not "MyName - My Awesome Theme Song", right? It also clutters Pony.fm's interface when a track displays the same piece of information - the artist name - twice. This can result in some awfully bad-looking listings:

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't call it a mistake at all - in fact, I'm all for it. It's a pretty standard thing to do, and in terms of functionality it makes sure that downloads have proper naming conventions. ("ArtistName feat. SingerName - SongName.wav")

 

Screwing up the title tag is not the right way to "fix" downloaded files' names. If you don't like the current naming scheme for downloads, please tell me about it rather than quietly trying to find some way to work around it. Pony.fm's programming can be changed.

 

I looked into this topic, but I couldn't find anything about "standard" or "proper" naming conventions for music. The way downloads are currently set up, they mirror how I organize my own music library: "ArtistNameAlbumName## - TrackName.ext" for albums, and "ArtistNameTrackName.ext" for singles. Singles are served directly, so I don't have a way to throw a directory in as a namespace with those, but playlist downloads reflect this structure. With the artist name as a namespace, I figured there was no point in having it in the filenames of audio files. But it looks like I'm missing something?

 

 

 

 

It might seem a bit redundant at first, but that's the primary reason why I add my artist name to the song. Also, it's handy in the event that there are two different artists collaborating on a song. (Noisecontrollers & Showtek - Get Loose as a real world example.) If only one of them had an account, then they really couldn't give proper credit unless they drop a sentence in the description (but not everyone reads the descriptions).

Long story short, downloads and collabs are the main reasons why most people add their name to a song again.

 

I'm working on a rewrite of the way Pony.fm handles track ownership to make it possible for collaborative works to be properly credited and tagged, while remaining fully normalized and searchable in the ways you'd expect (ex. the track appears on all involved artists' profiles). It's a relatively complex feature to build, but it should solve this problem once and for all.

[CloudFyre 848]

Screwing up the title tag is not the right way to "fix" downloaded files' names. If you don't like the current naming scheme for downloads, please tell me about it rather than quietly trying to find some way to work around it. Pony.fm's programming can be changed.

 

I looked into this topic, but I couldn't find anything about "standard" or "proper" naming conventions for music. The way downloads are currently set up, they mirror how I organize my own music library: "ArtistNameAlbumName## - TrackName.ext" for albums, and "ArtistNameTrackName.ext" for singles. Singles are served directly, so I don't have a way to throw a directory in as a namespace with those, but playlist downloads reflect this structure. With the artist name as a namespace, I figured there was no point in having it in the filenames of audio files. But it looks like I'm missing something?

 

 

I'm working on a rewrite of the way Pony.fm handles track ownership to make it possible for collaborative works to be properly credited and tagged, while remaining fully normalized and searchable in the ways you'd expect (ex. the track appears on all involved artists' profiles). It's a relatively complex feature to build, but it should solve this problem once and for all.

Oi, calm thyself down. There's no malicious "exploitation" going on here - until you mentioned it, I had no idea that adding an artist name to songs even changed anything behind the scenes.

 

While you might go about sorting songs in that manner, not everyone does it that way. (I don't.) Websites usually adopt one of two general formats: Itunes or YouTube.

 

Itunes/Beatport/Bandcamp/etc. do what Pony.fm is doing right now. They always make sure that the artist name is somewhere in close proximity to the song name, that way you always know who wrote the song. It's fairly simple to maintain and does a good job of avoiding clutter. It works well for websites but slightly less so for personal music libraries (which I'll expand upon in a bit).

 

The second format is what most every YouTube music video in existence uses (look at MonstercatMedia, Liquicity, VEVO, etc.) , and it's generally held that names are written as follows.

• ArtistName & SecondaryArtist (feat. VocalistName) - SongTitle
• ArtistName & SecondaryArtist - SongTitle (feat. VocalistName)

(The parentheses are optional.) If the song has any remixes of it floating around, then these are usually tagged onto the end:

• (Original Mix) - indicating the first version of the song
• (Radio Edit) - a shorter mix intended for non audiophiles or places (like radio shows) where the song needs to be shorter
• (Extended Mix) - longer versions which are sometimes aimed more at DJ's. Longer intros/outros for mixing, etc.
• ( _____________'s Remix) - where the remixing artist puts their name in the blank
• Artists will also sometimes do multiple versions of the same song and name them as such. Deadmau5 - Brazil (2nd Edit) is one such example. If it's a genre change, it's usually the genre name + the word "Mix" after it. (E.g. "Trance Mix")

Those same tags also apply to Itunes/Beatport/etc.

 

 

Now, the obvious question is this: why in the world would anyone choose to adopt the latter naming method? The answer is personal music libraries.

 

With the exception of a few select artists, most musicians will really WOW me only so many times. For each of those times, I'll buy the song to support the artist.

 

With a few hundred different artists and only one or two songs from each one, I'm not going to create special folders and subfolders for each artist/album name. It's just too much work. Thus, I group by genres - and the only way to really sort them is by name at that point.

 

DJ's will also sometimes sort by genre, and usually leave them in one big list so that they can jump to various songs without wasting precious time clicking in and out of folders. (Though some DJ programs can skip part of that step.) Genres will be subdivided into smaller groups by tempo, key signature, and so on. It's the DJ's preference at that point. In any case, whether it's someone listening to 400 songs on shuffle, or a DJ wanting to quickly scan his crate/folder (some programs use the word "crate" instead), having them all in one place requires some form of sorting order, and as you can probably guess, that falls to the song title in most cases.

 

 

 

Long story short: the Itunes/Beatport/Bandcamp method would probably work better for Pony.fm. The other method is used when one has massive lists of songs all in one place that they want to sort quickly. I'm not sure how most people sort their music libraries, so I write my name in front of all of my songs, that way I can attribute any guest artists/vocalists immediately. (That can change whenever the collab feature is implemented.)

 

And on that note: being able to link a song to two different artists on Pony.fm is cool, but it only works if the artist is on Pony.fm in the first place. If they're not on the website, then we're going to need to drop their name into the title or description in order to give them credit. Any ideas on how that will be dealt with?

Edited May 12, 2013 by CloudFyre

[ASocialyAwkwardPony 299]

Umm it wouldn`t be possible to keep the naming system that Feld0 wants for the actual site but do like Bandcamp and add the additional artist info in downloads though? For example, when you download the song the file would be named "Artist - Album - 01 - Song Title" but it would still be only named with song title on the site?

Edited May 12, 2013 by Nightmare Lyre

[DusK 1,264]

I don't think you guys are fully grasping exactly what Feld0's doing here.

 

A while back, I suggested a multiple artist system for collaborations:

 

 

 

Collaborations between musicians are frequent in this remix culture as well as any other. However, the current setup on Pony.fm seems to be geared solely to solo musicians or artist groups with their own profile.

 

What I'm suggesting is a way to possibly add co-artists whenever uploading/editing a track, in a way that:

• All artists show up in the song descriptions and, if those co-artists are on Pony.fm, are appropriately linked.

      

• Those songs to show up on co-artists' profiles with their other music.

      

• The ID3 tags display artists correctly (i.e., for my "Becoming Popular acoustic/orchestral cover, the tag would display as "DusK, Corralfur").

It could be an input field labeled something like "Co-contributors (leave blank if you did this song alone)", with some sort of way to "tag" other Pony.fm artists (an @ symbol before the username in that field?), and maybe could give those co-contributors a notification to acknowledge the collaboration wherever user notifications will be on the site.

 

Dunno how tricky this would be, but I think it would be an awesome step up compared to other sites that don't have this kind of thing.

 

 

As far as I know, that's what Feld0 is implementing right now. Like Feld0 said, when you actually name your music, you don't put your name in the song name. That's what that field is for; the song name, not your name.

 

There are no "standard" naming conventions for music across websites. You name a track, and it's done. Artist names end up in the titles of YouTube uploads because a lot of people nab tracks off of YouTube without being able to properly attribute those tracks to their creators, and have no way to explicitly define collaborators within YouTube.

Edited May 12, 2013 by DusK

[nlaq 180]

See: http://mlpforums.com/topic/58912-acapella-and-instrumental-downloads/?p=1457184

 

Are either of these suggestions what you are looking for?

[Jack "Fox" Grayson 27]

 

 

The ID3 tags display artists correctly (i.e., for my "Becoming Popular acoustic/orchestral cover, the tag would display as "DusK, Corralfur").

This is precisely why I personally oppose a multi-artist system. A lot of music libraries separate the artists "DusK" and "DusK, Corralfur", for example, so when you're browsing by artist everything is fragmented. I prefer having one "primary" artist and all secondary artists noted in the title (probably at the end, not at the beginning). Example: "My Song (with Another Artist)"