Frequently Asked Questions
Why don't you support MusicBrainz? Its new, cool and buzzword compliant!
Cowbell was originally written for MusicBrainz (and in fact, the code is still all there for it), but I found it to have the following flaws:
- TRM generation is way, way, way too slow (on the order of 30s per song on a reasonably fast machine).
- Matches returned by an untuned TunePimp are often quite numerous (with my music collection, MusicBrainz returns on average about 10 matches per song) and as such, the user has to hand-pick the correct match (defeating the whole purpose).
- Often, MB doesn't return the correct match or any match at all, despite having the same Artist/Album/Song Title or similar TRMs in the the database.
- The order of commands required to get the data from the database is _black magic_. Even though the API is publicly advertised and the code is open source, the samples provided are so basic to not be useful and the only more sophisticated examples are applications written by the primary MusicBrainz developer, Robert Kaye. This does not speak volumes for the quality of the API.
However, I am slightly biased since it took me almost a month and a half to write proper C# bindings due to poor documentation and confusing code comments.
I had plans to revive the MusicBrainz code that I wrote at some point, but to be truthful, the work that I've contorted Amazon into doing works fantastically for my music collection, so I have little motivation to dive into the depths of hellfire again.
I've heard Entagged support is on the way -- where is it and why can't I use it?
Entagged support is planned once entagged-sharp has completed the port of the writing code. This may take a while, but we'll have a version out the second they finish.
Does Cowbell work on Windows?
As of yet, no. I've made a few attempts to compile TagLib on Windows and was unsuccessful getting the C wrapper to work. However, once we integrate Entagged, we should be completely cross-platform.
What are all your release names based on, and why "More Cowbell"?
More Cowbell was a Saturday Night Live skit hosted by Christopher Walken. Walken plays a record producer (Bruce Dickenson) on a show called "Behind the Music: Blue Oyster Cult" who is assisting the production of the song "Don't Fear the Reaper." A full transcript is available as well as a video of the famed skit. All the release names are taken from that transcript.
