As we’ve mentioned before both in this blog and on the regular MXTabs blog, one of the biggest problems we’ve been facing in getting additional songs onto the MXTabs site is the fact that the data from old MX just isn’t enough for our new licensing system.
In the past, it was ok to have a song title and a performing artist – but now that we are dealing with publishers and songwriters in getting actual licenses to display tabs on the MXTabs site, we need to have more data than we previously did. There are a lot of songs in the MXTabs database that currently don’t have enough information for us to get a match with our licensing system, and there are over 100,000 tabs in the MXTabs database… so updating all of this is a pretty daunting task for us to accomplish.
This is why we are asking for your help. As you go through MXTabs you will now see (on some tabs) a message asking for more information on a song. These songs are the ones that we need updated data on before we can even try to get a “yes” or “no” answer on if we have approval to display them.
Basically, if you get to a page that asks for more data, it would be extremely helpful if you would find the missing information and submit it. There are instruction as to how to input this data on the page. Just make sure it’s accurate, otherwise it won’t be of much help.
Thank you all for your assistance in this. The more you can help us with this, the more we can focus on the site itself (as well as add more tabs to MX!)
Tags: licensing, metadata, songs, tabs
Filed in: Alpha Announcements
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i noticed when viewing a drum tab it says on the flash part, see __ other versions, which encompassed all instruments, perhaps put __ other (instrument) versions and then another line with __ other versions (all instruments), just a thought, when im lookin at a drum tab for a song usually not worried about other instruments :) haha
I noticed that whenever on the homepage I am searching for say, the Rolling Stones guitar tab, as i had selected the guitar choice under the search bar, it still brings up the selections for bass and drum. This isnt a major thing nor a problem, it’s just that when I searched using the search box i had hoped to bypass those options.
Sure, I’ll help out :)
But only because I like the word “daunting” ;)
Hey where the heck do we find the UPC Number and the Record Company Catalog Number?
Well, I figured out the UPC Number thing, haha, :P, but if we submit information for one song by an artist, will it apply to all the other versions of that song?
It may ask you for it on other versions, but when we go through the user-submitted data we can auto-populate other version so long as a song has additional data that we can match it on. For example, if you added data to a song called “Hero” and we had five songs called “Hero” but by different artists, we probably couldn’t auto-populate it since there would be no way to know if it is the same song.
A real example is the fact that we have Baba O’Riley up by Pearl Jam but we we don’t really know that it’s a cover of The Who. Once the actual songwriters are added the system will understand that it’s the same song as the one by The Who and we should be able to get license for the song through BMG.
If, on the other hand, we don’t have information on Baba O’Riley by The Who and you add the details on one of the versions, we should be able to then apply that same data to all versions of Baba O’Riley by the Who because then the system can understand that it’s a certain song by a certain artist, and then assume that they are both the exact same song.
Does this answer your question?
are we supposed to just randomly select bands and tabs we want?
so far, with the bands i’ve chosen(social distortion and rancid), i have to fill out the survey thing that includes the UPC code, and catalog ID number, which i don’t know.
is there anyway to help the testers know what tabs are currently working?
I stole this from one of bill’s posts in the conversation thread
“One of the reasons we don’t list which tabs are available is because there are a lot of tabs that also need data and that might go up once we get the data. Maybe we can figure out some way to display how many tabs need data vs. how many are available vs. how many are not available at all right now.
If we do this, we’d have to do it on a song-level though, as we may have rights to some songs by a band but not others, depending on the quality of data and who the songwriters are or what publisher they were with for that specific song. ”
As for the catalog ID number, on those sites that it refers you too you can find that information. For the UPC Code, I’ve had to pull up as much as I can from google, but even that doesn’t always have the answers. I agree that we may need to find a better way to get the UPC Code.
Right. I try to find all of the information as much as I can for the ones I submit though. Either way, if you can find a system like you described earlier, I think that would be very useful, then we could go from a list rather than look for random songs not knowing if we’ll already have the information or even be able to put the information in.
Ok :]
Its a relief that we don’t need all the information. The UPC code is hard to find! :]
I’ll log on from time to time to add song information :] Good Luck MxTabs
http://shopping.yahoo.com is good for upc codes.
Try using ebay for the UPC code. I just type the name of the band into google and the word “upc” and an ebay page usually has it. Question: There are some songs that I have added info to, but when I check the page again, it appears that I haven’t added anything to it. Shouldn’t there be a message or something that says that which information has been added?
With Mxtabs to the end!
uh, i dont mean to sound like a complete doofus, but whats a upc?
How long will it take for a tab to be up and running after info has been submitted on it?
Hmmm…
I was wondering about internet released songs or those rare songs that weren’t on any cds. Revolution, by Tool and Rage Against The Machine, is not on any album, unless it is on a live cd or dvd. What do we do with those rare songs. (I understand there’s not a tab up for this song yet. But I was wondering for the sake of wondering.)
Conor: Just get as much information as possible. The most important stuff we need is who the songwriter is – and on live songs or B-sides it’s especially useful as it is common for these to be covers of other bands’ songs. See my Baba O’Riley example above for more info on those.
Alrighty then.
I just wanted to say that you guys are doing a great job with this and it is very rare to find people that care so much about a certain thing.
MX is the best place on the internet.
i appreciate how willing they are to listen to ideas, rather than just say ‘i want it this way’ theyre making it really tailored towards the user input
You guys are the ones who will be using the site – so we want the site to be what you want. Of course there are certain things we have to do due to the legal parts and advertising / cost requirements… and there are some things we are going to do differently from other sites because we think in the end they will lead to a superior experience (and if we mess up, we can always fix it).
Having trouble submitting drum tabs. I click submit tab and it takes me to the top of the page. What is that all about?
Hey Guys,
I can’t find a button for “post new thread”, so I will post here.
–If my search fails, how do I request a TAB?
–How do I upload a TAB?
–aIn the search box, I can search for “band” or “song.” What if I want to search for a single musician? I’m trying to search for “Jerry Reed,” and he is neither a band nor an artist. I assume I search for “band,” but I tried that and my search failed.
–Sorry, but I still feel there is a design flaw in the visual layout of search results. I can’t see the outcome of my search unless I do a scroll. With all respectfulness, having to do a scroll is annoying. Can you move the search results to the top of the page?
–The website is the visually cleanest TAB site I have ever seen. Awesome!
Joe
@ Shaldares
Not every bit of information is necessary, it’s just that the more we get the better the chance of matching. If we have UPC code that will be extremely useful, but it’s also one of the hardest ones to find… so if we don’t have it, it’s not the end of the world.
@ Joe:
There is currently no way to request or upload a tab – the site isn’t that far yet.
If you want to search an artist, you have to search for the actual name of the band or solo performer. If it is a member of a band you cannot search on that currently.
The design for the ads is not changing. We could have a perfect website with no ads, and then go out of business and shut the site down because we don’t make any money… but that kind of defeats the purpose. The ad spaces are designed with a combination of usability and ability to support the site and the songwriters/publishers we get licenses from financially as well.