Liner Notes

Posted by: Frank Abela on 15 March 2012

One of the main arguments for the streaming paradigm is that you can have all the information pertaining to a track or album easily at hand in a form you prefer to read on your choice of wireless device. iTunes only really offers rather basic information courtesy of the Gracenote database, but Naim's implementations offer quite a bit more information which include all the participants/players etc, and Naim have imlpemented the rather sexy ability to search by any musician etc.

 

But nowhere have I ever seen the ability to store the liner notes. Am I missing something? If there's one thing I love doing it's reading the liner notes and/or the lyrics printed in the booklet that comes with a CD. And let's face it - if you're playing Journey to the centre of the Earth, you can't do it without reading the booklet and looking at the marvellous pictures! This aspect of the physical form seems to be completely missing from the experience. True, I may select the bass player as being outstanding and search for him elsewhere but that's a rarity. I'm far more likely to re-read the liner notes.

 

Also, this seems to be a missed opportunity. Modern electronic liner notes could include online links to resources and so provide a far more engaging experience than the physical forms ever could, yet we're missing this.

 

Or have I missed something ever so badly?

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Guido Fawkes

> But nowhere have I ever seen the ability to store the liner notes. Am I missing something? 

 

A Meridian Soloos - it even tells you the bass players shoe size. You can do something similar with iTunes and Doug's Apple Scripts, but I haven't done it. The Meridian is astonishing in what it tells you, but it should be astonishing for the price. 


I think Naim may go in a similar direction, assuming it keeps on with the server development. Ideally, it should merge ripped music with downloaded music, but Naim may not have the resources for such a project. 


Meridian searches lots of databases not just Gracenote and ... well have a look. 

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by lawoftrust
Frank, I agree, this is one reason out of many why I would not part with vinyl. Having a booklet on the IPad though... Georg
Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Hello Frank,

 

I still buy CDs precisely because I want to have the full package. I rarely use the CD once it's ripped onto the UnitiServe. 

 

I don't download much music, but sites such as Analekta provide free downloads of the PDFs of CD booklets. While viewing on a screen will never be as tactile as turning a printed page, reading a hi-res PDF on the new iPad 3 with its retina display should be quite seductive. I've managed for over a year with an iPod Touch with retina display, as I found the iPad2 display too grainy. Looking forward to the iPad3.

 

Jan

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Hook

Hi Frank -

 

Agreed 100%, but the thought of scanning all of those booklets into PDF's....not going to happen.

 

It isn't nearly as good as having the booklets, and it's certainly no Sooloos, but keeping a window open to the discogs database can be useful for seeing basic info, like who's in the band, and where and when an album was recorded and such.   As it is a community project, it keeps getting better, with more and more comprehensive submissions.   A lot better than nothing.

 

I usually read the booklets once, often while I am ripping, and rarely if ever go back to them.   As I listen to music mostly at night, and in a darkened room, whatever I use has to be viewable with the same iPad I run N-Stream on.   I too heard that a future release of N-Stream was going to have hooks into some of the online databases like Gracenote, so hopefully that is not too far off in the future.

 

Hook

Posted on: 16 March 2012 by Jack

Integrating Lyrics with n-Stream would be brilliant - imagine swipping to another page and hey presto!

 

Posted on: 16 March 2012 by Geoff P

Its a small start but Linn music downloads come with a .PDF version of the album booklet plus .PNG images of the rear and front of the 'CD' sleeve.

 

Obviously this means a few taps on an I-pad for example to view but quite acceptable in low level room light.

 

Needs others to do the same to become ubiquitous unfortunately.

 

Geoff

Posted on: 16 March 2012 by Frank Abela

Hmmm, the thing is the PDF version is separate from the actual product. Surely the thing should be linked? It just seems really crazy that this is all so disjointed.

 

So the Sooloos does it? I didn't think it offered more information than the Naim rippers given as it uses the same databases. I've just been through the Sooloos video and apart from the participants being shown 'just like in the liner notes' there's no mention of the liner notes themselves. Of course, it's a very sexy system and I suspect most manufacturers could learn a thing or two from that interface.

 

But still...no liner notes from what I can see.

 

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Posted on: 16 March 2012 by pcstockton

Scanning is really your only option for full liner notes.

 

When i started seriously ripping my collection I ignored this.  But much of my music has either gorgeous (Zorn/Tzadik) or relevant (Zappa) liner notes/art.  So I scanned all of those types of liner notes to .jpg 

 

It was actually kind of fun to go through all of them.

 

Then you would use a media player that will display whatever you ask it to.  You could scroll through the liner notes, or have a slideshow etc...  Whatever you want to do.

 

But yes I think you will need to scan them.  I dont know of any online or free sources for complete liner notes.

 

Although you can easily, in a player like J River, have links to things like wikipedia or AMG or whatever.  You can set up the links to "auto-Search" these sites for Album or artist info, or pics, youtube, etc...

 

For example, you set up a links at the top of the Media Player window called:

- AMG

- Wiki Aritst

- Wiki Album

- Youtube Artist

- Google Pics

etc.

 

You could be listening to John Zorn - The Circle Maker, and those links will give you exact info for artist or album or whatever.  You could have the album art area show the liner notes.  You could have a sexy full screen display of the art or a slideshow.

 

lastly, I should note that these links are brought up in a browser inside of the media player.  It doesn't pull up an external application.  it is FULLY integrated.

 

Money.

 

-Patrick