Retrieving Album Information

There are basically four main methods used to retrieve album information from the MusicBrainz database.

This is the preferred method of automatically identifying the album to retrieve, and should be used when you have the CD or supported ripper log available. Typically this would be used right after ripping the audio files from the CD. When initiated, the table of contents (TOC) is read from the CD and a request is sent to MusicBrainz to return a list of the releases that match the TOC. If there are any matches, then they will be listed for you to select the one to use. If there are no matches or none of the matches are correct, you can search the database manually for the matching album, and are given the option of attaching the TOC from your CD to the selected release for future lookup.

Lookup Files

If you don’t have the CD available, and your files are grouped by album, this is the preferred method of automatically identifying the album to retrieve. This is done by grouping the files into album clusters in Picard and then perform the lookup. Picard will try to match the entire set of clustered files to the same release.

Scan Files

If your files are not grouped into albums and you don’t have the CD available, this is the only remaining method of automatically identifying the album to retrieve. This is done by scanning the files to obtain their AcoustID fingerprints and then perform the lookup for the individual files by fingerprint. The album(s) matching the files will show up in the right-hand pane based on a “best match” using the Preferred Releases settings in the Metadata options.

Lookup in Browser

If none of the automated methods are available, or don’t produce the desired results, you have the option of retrieving the album information by having Picard initiate a search on the MusicBrainz website using your web browser. There are two methods of initiating this search. The first method searches based on the tag information from the selected files.

Manual Lookup

The second browser search method uses manually entered information as the search criterion.