SoundExchange reporting problems

I mistakenly received a check from SoundExchange for royalties from 2009. Lots of errors (over 70) in the report due to grouping many of movie soundtracks under the same artist name. Notice how all of the artist names are given as MT while the track names are "XMSDTK-NP-MTS (MOVIE TITLE)". The dollar amounts vary greatly with the most going to the Star Trek soundtrack. Just a couple of typos can cause massive delays in payments. If I never had signed up for SoundExchange, I'm not sure any of these errors would have been discovered. And that leads to the question, why don't more places require/support ISRC's.

Exporting your Rhapsody library to CSV

This is a tutorial on how to export the songs in your Rhapsody library to a CSV format for backup purposes or to possibly import to another music service.  This article assumes you are using the PC-based version of Rhapsody and not the web-based version.  You also need Firefox installed.

1. Rhapsody uses a SQLite file to store the library info. Now it is time to look for a file called local3.seb. On Windows XP, it goes under the C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Real\rhapsody\1.sqlite folder. Of course, replace USERNAME with your Windows logon username.
2. Copy this file to the desktop and rename it local3.sqlite
3. To export the Rhapsody library, install the SQLite Manager add-on for Firefox.
4. After Firefox restarts, go to the Tools menu -> SQLite Manager.
   
5. From the menu choose Database -> Connect Database and choose the local3.sqlite file that was copied to you desktop.
   
6. Click on the "Execute SQL" tab on the right side of the screen. Type in the text "SELECT ARTIST_NAME, ALBUM_NAME, TRACK_NAME FROM TRACK ORDER BY ARTIST_NAME, ALBUM_NAME, TRACK_NAME" and select "Run SQL"
7. To export this data as a CSV file, click on Actions -> Save Result (CSV) to File. The file will be called output.csv by default.
   
8. This csv file can be opened in Excel to add/remove new songs.  There can be problems exporting songs with characters not in the English alphabet.  These have to be fixed manually.
9. There are some sites that can take this file (or a slightly modified version) to create playlists on other music services like Spotify.
10. UPDATE 8/15/2011 - You can export your playlists by using the sql "SELECT PLAYLIST.PLAYLIST_NAME, TRACK.ARTIST_NAME, TRACK.ALBUM_NAME, TRACK.TRACK_NAME FROM TRACK, PLAYLIST, PLAYLIST_TRACK WHERE (PLAYLIST.PLAYLIST_ID = PLAYLIST_TRACK.PLAYLIST_ID AND PLAYLIST_TRACK.TRACK_ID = TRACK.TRACK_ID) ORDER BY PLAYLIST.PLAYLIST_NAME, PLAYLIST_TRACK.SEQUENCE"

Review of Spotify

I've been fortunate enough to get a preview of Spotify. Here's a review while comparing it to Rhapsody and Last.fm.  I'm mostly a Rhapsody user having rated over 5000 tracks.  Last.fm has just seen a few months of use from me.

Search

• The search is blazing fast.  Much faster than Rhapsody and slightly better than Last.fm.  One annoying thing I've noticed is that certain artists with odd spellings. !!!, M/A/R/R/S, and Ke$ha are impossible to find if you don't remember to type in the symbols.  This is also a problem on Rhapsody but Last.fm seems to get it right most of the time.
• While the search is fast, an autocomplete feature would be greatly appreciated to help with typos. Rhapsody and Last.fm have it.
• An annoying issue that seems to pop up on all music searches is the lack of an artist ID. This causes confusion when you see a new album by an artist only to see that it's from another group with the same name. Spotify isn't immune to this problem and related problems (Cream, MT, Beethoven or Ludwig van Beethoven) but they do a good job (Nirvana vs Nirvana) of fixing it when it happens.

Listings

• For each artist, all of the albums and tracks are listed on one enormous page which isn't a problem for more recent artists... but when you start playing artists from before 1970 it can become a pain to keep scrolling through giant lists of compilation albums (Ray Charles, Elvis, Mozart). Shortcuts/filters are going to be needed here to go through so much data.

On Demand

• The ability to play any song on demand is how I use Rhapsody the majority of the time.  Spotify kind of allows this but has no instant queue meaning if I just want to listen to three songs, I have to create a playlist first (not convenient). I say kind of because there is a "Play queue" that you can drag songs into but if you start playing an album directly, then all of the songs in the album get added to the queue.  It feels like it tries to figure out your queue based on context but if you can't clear the queue and it ends up being rather awkward.

Rating System

• Ratings are kept simple, similar to Last.fm. You give stars to songs that you like. There is no banning tracks like Last.fm allows for in the radio station. There isn't the overly complex rating system of Rhapsody. The KISS principle rules here and for much of the UI.

Radio Station

•  The UI for the customizing the radio is one of the nicest around. You can choose the artist radio which plays music similar to that artist or you can choose a custom radio based on any combination of genre/time period (e.g. Funk/Techno/1990's or Heavy Metal/Hip-Hop/1970's/1980's).  The only missing hole here is deeper level genres and allowing users to save radio presets so as to not manually re-enter different radio station settings.

- MT

Music Watch 11/8/10

The Juliets - The Juliets

• Sweetheart
• The Letter

Music Watch 10/31/10

The Fool - Warpaint

• Undertow
• Set Your Arms Down