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Collection manual

identify and tag.

How rpm finds the details, artwork and articles for your albums, and how to change them.

Look up a release

Look up release searches the rpm database and Discogs at the same time. Search on any of:

  • Album and artist
  • Catalogue number, for example SHVL 804
  • Barcode, for example 077992730625
  • Country, for example GB
  • Media: vinyl, CD, cassette, digital, SACD, DVD, Blu-ray, reel-to-reel or 8-track
  1. Pick the release that matches your copy. Where there are more photos of a pressing, rpm says how many; some show the disc itself.
  2. Check the track listing. rpm matches the release's tracks to yours and shows what will change.
  3. Choose Apply. Tick Also set album, artist, year and label to fill those in too, and Overwrite artwork to take the release's cover.

You can also copy the details from an album already in your collection. Searching the catalogues needs an rpm account.

Recognise tracks

Select tracks and choose Recognise to name them from the sound itself. rpm sends a 15 second clip and tries three sources in turn:

rpm database
rpm's own fingerprint catalogue, built from the collections of everyone who uses rpm.
AcoustID
The open fingerprint database behind MusicBrainz.
AudD
Advanced recognition, for supporters. Tracks the first two could not name are sent here, and the result is saved so a track is never sent twice.

Each result shows how sure rpm is and where the answer came from. Accept them, edit any track, or choose Edit all.

rpm fingerprints your collection in the background, anonymously, to help name other people's music. You can switch it off in Settings.

Cover and disc art

Find cover art searches every source at once and shows how many covers it found from how many sources. Pick one and rpm downloads the full size picture. Connect a Discogs account in Settings to also search its release scans, and add your own fanart.tv key if you have one.

Find disc art looks for a picture of the disc itself. Not every release has it, and only some sources label disc art apart from covers. When there is disc art, the record spinning in rpm wears its real label; when there is not, the record takes its colour from the sleeve.

You can always choose a picture of your own.

Artist photographs

Artist pages and the header above the player show photographs of the artist. Step through them, choose your own, refresh, or remove one you do not like. Position artwork lets you zoom and move a photograph so it sits right in the header.

Edit details

Track details
Basics, credits, work, sound and artwork; lyrics; ISRC and other identifiers.
Edit album
Disc subtitles, whether the album is classical, and how it is levelled (default, always or never).
Edit selected
One change on many tracks: release, publishing, credits, track, work, sorting, pressing, identifiers. A field you tick is set on every selected track.
Tags from file names
Build a pattern from fields and read them out of each file's name and folder.
Tags from tags
Write one field from others, for example the album artist from the artist. A preview says how many files change.

Folders and file names

rpm files your music by a naming template. Five are built in, and you can make your own from fields:

  • Artist / Album / ## - Title
  • Artist / Album / Artist - Title
  • Artist / ## - Title
  • Artist - Title (single folder)
  • Artist / Album / Work / ## - Movement, for classical

New files are always filed by the default template. When you change it, choose Only new files, or Re-file collection now to move what is already there. You can stop at any time; files that already moved stay where they are.

Genres and subgenres

rpm places every album in one of 35 genres and 394 subgenres, and reads styles from Discogs to fill them in. The subgenre is a field in every editor, so you can set it yourself.

Tempo, key and loudness

rpm listens to every track once and measures its tempo, key (with Camelot notation), energy, loudness, true peak and beat grid. These drive volume levelling, DJ mode and the mood playlists. You can have rpm write the tempo and key into your files' tags.

A measurement is made once per recording and shared, so a record someone else already owns does not have to be measured again.

Where it comes from

Releases
The rpm database (with SonoVault and MusicBrainz), Discogs
Album and artist facts
Wikipedia, Wikidata, MusicBrainz
Popularity
ListenBrainz play counts; Discogs collectors for an artist's most popular albums
Cover art
Cover Art Archive, fanart.tv, TheAudioDB, Discogs, iTunes and others, up to eight at once
Disc art
Three sources that label disc art separately
Artist photographs
TheAudioDB, fanart.tv, Wikimedia
Lyrics
Your file's own lyrics first, then LRCLIB
Recognition
rpm database, AcoustID, AudD (supporters)