A simple GUI-Script that fetches tracks and other information of your .csv vinyl database through the Discogs API.
You can give the script a .csv file that has artist and album of your collection in columns. The script will then search the album through the Discogs-API and will collect the following information about it:
- Tracks
- Duration of the tracks
- Track position on the record
A new .csv file is then created with that additional information, the GUI-Script can then show the database in an easy to navigate fashion.
You can read my blog about this project on my website.
- Set Up
- Insert own database
- Update Database
- Roadmap
To be able to run the GUI-Script a few steps need to be done in advance. The guide is for Linux but it should be more or less the same on Windows and OSX.
You will need an access code for the Discogs API, for that do the following when logged in at Discogs:
- Click user avatar on top right of screen
- Click Settings
- Go to Developers
- Click Generate new token
This is a Python script, therefore you will need the newest Python 3 version: How to install Python
Important for Windows users, check that the PATH variables are set correctly. If not it could lead to problems regarding pip and the GUI
The script needs three PIP packages to work, to install them copy and paste the following lines into your terminal:
The following is for Debian based Linux distributions, for Windows or Fedora the command could vary, a quick web search will help you.
pip3 install python3-discogs-client
pip install pandas
sudo apt install python3-tk
Open the file /src/updateDB.py with a text editor of your choice and replace "YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_HERE" with your token. It then should look something like this:
USER_TOKEN = "lknjdfg9876324bkjdfoiuh" # insert your token here
Your system should now be ready to run the script, to test it run the following command inside the src folder (at the moment the script does use relative paths, if run form an other directory it will not work):
python3 updateDB.py
If everything is OK then the script will fill the working database with test data, taken from the /database/template_file.csv file. The output should look like this:
YOUR@USER:VinylDatabaseManager/src$ python3 updateDB.py
Found entries: 39
====== 5 Sec. Pause for API cooldown =====
0 fetching: Synchronicity
1 fetching: Regatta De Blanc
2 fetching: The Doors
3 fetching: L.A. Woman
4 fetching: Ghost In The Machine
5 fetching: Zenyatta Mondatta
8 fetching: Led Zeppelin
9 fetching: Led Zeppelin (Remastered)
10 fetching: Atom Heart Mother
11 fetching: The Division Bell
12 fetching: The Dark Side Of The Moon
13 fetching: Pompeii
14 fetching: On A Plain
16 fetching: Gold (Greatest Hits)
17 fetching: Greatest Hits
18 fetching: Solar Fire
19 fetching: Falco60
20 fetching: The Best Of 25 Years
21 fetching: 1962-1966
22 fetching: 1967-1970
23 fetching: Abbey Road
24 fetching: Star Edition
25 fetching: AN 1 - Apocalypse Now
26 fetching: God Shuffled His Feet
29 fetching: Even In The Quietest Moments...
30 fetching: Who Knows
32 fetching: My Little Ghost
33 fetching: Flume
35 fetching: Skin
37 fetching: Sparks EP
38 fetching: Stadium Arcadium
Writing DB to file
title artist genre tracklist
0 Synchronicity The Police Rock $index[1] Synchronicity I $side[A1] $dur[3:23]...
1 Regatta De Blanc The Police Rock $index[1] Message In A Bottle $side[A1] $dur[4...
2 The Doors The Doors Rock $index[1] Break On Through (To The Other Side)...
3 L.A. Woman The Doors Rock $index[1] The Changeling $side[A1] $dur[4:20]\...
4 Ghost In The Machine The Police Rock $index[1] Spirits In The Material World $side[...
When this script finished successfully, you can run the following command:
python3 vinyl_tool.py
A window should now open where you can choose the artists on the left, their albums in the middle and get detailed information on the right.
Look into the /database/template_file.csv file to see what information has to be present. There can be more columns with more information, the script ignores them but artist and album need to be present.
Make a backup of your database NOW, the script should not write into the original file but better save than sorry
To insert your own database you can do it in two ways:
Rename your database to template_file.csv and replace the file inside the database/ folder. The run the update script to fill the GUI-database with your entries:
REMINDER: run this inside the src folder
python3 updateDB.py
Depending on your database, you can make yourself a coffee and wait, every few API calls the script will wait for 5 seconds to not get blocked by their DDoS protection. When the script is finished you can run the GUI-Script, again inside the src folder:
python3 vinyl_tool.py
You should now be able to browse your database with track information.
Open the /src/updateDB.py file and replace the template_file.csv path with the relative path to your database, it should look something like this:
USER_DATABASE = "../../someFolder/yourNowBackedUpDatabase.csv" # change path to your vinylDB file
REMINDER: run this inside the src folder
python3 updateDB.py
Depending on your database, you can make yourself a coffee and wait, every few API calls the script will wait for 5 seconds to not get blocked by their DDoS protection. When the script is finished you can run the GUI-Script, again inside the src folder:
python3 vinyl_tool.py
You should now be able to browse your database with track information.
To update your database you can simply update your .csv and then rerun the following command:
python3 updateDB.py
At the moment the whole database gets downloaded again, in a further update will be an overhaul of the update process, to just download the albums that are not already present.
- Fetch BPM information save and display per track
- Add/edit/delete entry into .csv file
- Add/delete new columns to .csv file