# An info storage concept for albums that were removed
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/an-info-storage-concept-for-albums-that-were-removed/41285
**Category:** Off-Topic
**Created:** [March 31, 2018, 2:46pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/an-info-storage-concept-for-albums-that-were-removed/41285 "2018-03-31T14:46:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zerow](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Zerow)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2018, 2:46pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/an-info-storage-concept-for-albums-that-were-removed/41285/1 "2018-03-31T14:46:18Z")
I used to have a list of all albums / singles / EPs that I had occasion to listen too. If liked any piece of music from them, then I would add something from them to my set of audio files. And so I had information about being acquainted with a given release both in a simple TXT file and in the audio files themselves [and by extension also in Mp3tag]. But keeping track of all of that in aforementioned TXT file was consuming my time; and I also started to spot differences [errors]. So I kind of stopped updating it, keeping order in files only; because they matter the most
But the problem was and still is this: when I am doing like a discography of one of the favorite artists, I might completely disregard existence of a given release. In that I simply do not find anything interesting for me on it [a very common thing with singles]. And as it is a favorite artist and some schmuck of YouTube fame, I would like after all to know to the day I die, what already have I listened to that was released by such artist liked by me. So in the past I used to write down in the TXT file such not-liked albums annotations- but now I know for good that I will not use that system anymore: because that is what Mp3tag I want to use for, as I use it practically every day
And so: How to keep "in Mp3tag" such information; that is not suppose to be there? Create a 1 second files with silence and tag them? But only with ALBUM, YEAR and ARTIST / ALBUMARTIST data? What about FILENAME / TITLE then? There could be multiple files [notes with info] like that in one folder [representing a given ARTIST], so they would have to be somehow unique. So to counter any issues arising from that: put the ALBUM in TITLE? And store all of such notes in a special folder and in a format that I do not use; so that they would stand out from normal / legit files?
Any ideas / comments? I practically have described here a ready to use system- but maybe someone already does something like this I can share some thoughts, that come from empiricism? Some do's and don'ts?
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### Author:  [@Etz](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Etz)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/an-info-storage-concept-for-albums-that-were-removed/41285/2 "2018-03-31T18:13:25Z")
I have similar system in use myself, but not in mp3tag.
Basically it is self-written php web interface (still work in progress) with MySQL backend, where data is stored.
I basically keep all my library data there + some extra metadata, not related to the actual files.
Beauty is, if I need quickly know if I have some album in my library, I can just search and if it is not in library, it shows either the reason why it is not there or reason to buy it 🙂
Mp3tag in this case is primarily used to generate csv (after tagging), to easily import album(s) to my DB.
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### Author:  [@Zerow](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Zerow)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2018, 11:22am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/an-info-storage-concept-for-albums-that-were-removed/41285/3 "2018-04-09T11:22:17Z")
> [@Etz](#):
>
> [...]
> self-written php web interface (still work in progress) with MySQL backend, where data is stored.
> I basically keep all my library data there + some extra metadata, not related to the actual files.
> Beauty is, if I need quickly know if I have some album in my library, I can just search and if it is not in library, it shows either the reason why it is not there or reason to buy it
> [...]
And you do not run into discrepancies between database and reality [the files themselves]?
This also gives me some ideas:
> [@Create a Master Tag file](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/create-a-master-tag-file/41326):
>
> Hi Good work BTW this is a great tool, I have sent a donation. I need to crate a 'Master' tag that has album, artist, album artist, genre, comment and front cover graphic stored as a file somewhere so that I can use it to tag new files. We generate new files daily and the method I use at the moment is to copy an existing tag and paste to the new file, this involves jumping around directories etc. Is this possible Regards Huw Peters
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### Author:  [@Etz](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Etz)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2018, 11:38am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/an-info-storage-concept-for-albums-that-were-removed/41285/4 "2018-04-09T11:38:17Z")
Sometimes it does, if I remember sync up changes.
Problem is, that currently I don't have auto update mechanism, to check Tag/File changes.
As I said, it is work in progress and far from perfection.
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### Author:  [@Zerow](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Zerow)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/an-info-storage-concept-for-albums-that-were-removed/41285/5 "2018-06-28T18:32:17Z")
Recently, with the still never ending work, I am leaning towards simply not caring about those "not present anymore" or "simply not present" albums / singles
Because for this to be a valid / accurate system, it would require for every album / single that I already have [or had at some point] to bear the information concerning the exact release; its individual ID. And there are three problems with that:
A] I do not have time machine and cannot start doing it from the get go in around 1997. I still have a lot of such old tracks
B] Services like GOG do not notice the changes they make to the music. Like for example only after a buyer of the game "Planescape: Torment" pointed in the comments the lack of the track for endgame credits, did the GOG realized the omission and added it to the additional content of that game; which was not only the OST from it. But on top of that they do not mention anywhere that this OST has been remastered- and it is both profoundly audible different from the music that can be easily ripped from the game files and has higher frequencies on the spectrogram. [But the endgame credits they did not remaster- yeah, more chaos please]
C] If the overall idea behind this was to keep a thorough track of discography of a given artist, then practically looking at it, it is possible for few of them. As there are constantly coming up new editions / re-releases of already existing albums, but not always are they noted by MusicBrainz, Discogs or Wikipedia. So a music buff would have to spend a lot of time on finding about that
All in all, what is better: spending time on the enjoyment of what you already have or on the work concerning what you do not want to have in the first place?