Echo - Touhou Music Database

[Spike]

First I want to say that I apologize if this is not the right board to post this. All of the projects here seems to be game-related and I didn't find anything about websites. I think it's the right one though.
Anyways...

I found Touhou about a year and half ago and ever since I was fascinated by the soundtrack and music made from it. I was searching it with youtube, Touhou wiki and VGMdb, but none of them were meant to use like that, so they weren't very efficient. I wanted to search arranges by music type, original songs, list all the arranges by an artist whose song I liked. About a month ago I got an idea to create that kind of database on my own as a Summer project. Now I've finished it just a couple of days ago.

Echo, Touhou music database

The idea of the site is quite simple. Anyone can add remixes, artists, circles and albums there and these are linked to each others, so by remix you can find albums, artists and circles, by artist you can find his remixes, albums and circles and so on. Remixes are also linked to original songs, music genres and such and can be searched by them. Later I also added a rating system to separate the popular content from less liked ones. My English is kinda limited, so I really can't describe well how the database works, so I'd prefer if you just tested it. ^^

About copyrights and stuff, after I've read the copyright and piracy rules of these forums I think that they're quite similar to the ones of the music database. It's doesn't provide any download links or such on its own, but it isn't responsible for the content of user-submitted links. However the linking system is mostly used for home pages of groups and artist and Youtube links, which I think are allowed here. After all, Youtube handles videos violating copyrights on its own, so theoretically there shouldn't be any copyrights violating videos uploaded. Naturally chances for it are next to none though.

The site is quite new though, so there's not much to search yet. However the adding system should be working and adding and registering is completely free. After all, the more data added the better. And not only the most popular arranges are welcomed but the less known too.

Feedback and improvement ideas are welcomed. Any questions will be also answered.

tl;dr click the link and see.

[Ghaleon]

Looks pretty cool so far, I'll check it out sometime later when it's not 2am and I'm going to bed >=P. But as for the forum section, that's a good point. I suppose the "proper" place would be TARC, but, that place isn't typically the place you goto to look for projects or whatever like this, yet I'm pretty sure Rika's is for game explicitly.

Anyway from what I can tell, it looks kinda difficult to simply just browse the database, it's like you absolutely must search everything, I didn't use the search feature though, maybe it has a browsy UI *shrugs*. Still though, as you said it's new, and it's an excellent start so far. Heck, even if it's fully complete it's a really nice handy tool I rekon, thanks again >=)

[Spike]

The search in the main page is just a simplified one for fast searching. When you click the Search tab you'll find a search form with a few more options. And don't miss the Search content by name link, it's kind of hard to notice.

I've fixed some bugs now and added a small Youtube player to arranges for previewing them. Does the searching or adding system feel a bit complicated? There's quite many fields and options, but adding couldn't be more simple and I aimed to as efficient search system as possible. Maybe I could think about the layout again, at least the search form one.

Also that "just browse the database" feature is kinda hard to find at the moment. And I guess it needs some fixing too, at least limit for rows shown per page. Browsing all artists, circles or albums feature could be nice too, though album covers can already be browsed. I also thought about making a system that users could mark arranges they're already listened, but does the ranking the same thing? After all, it's possible to search arranges you haven't rated yet.
But yeah, it's still a new site, so naturally it's not perfect at all. Of course it isn't finished either and ideas for improving it are welcome.
Aim to perfection even when it can never be reached.

[necorelli]

I've been adding an album, but some of the genres aren't on the genre list.
Can you make it so we can just type in the genre, since there are so many?
Other than that, thanks. I'm really liking this so far.

[KrackoCloud]

Looks like it has potential. It'd be amazing if it grew into a huge database that everyone used for reference.

I do have a suggestion. Do you think you could add an instrument/sounds category for searches? But I guess it be more like a checklist.
Say, I might be looking for songs with violins, regardless of their genre or something. Or maybe something obscure, like latin choirs.

[Spike]

I've been adding an album, but some of the genres aren't on the genre list.
Can you make it so we can just type in the genre, since there are so many?
Other than that, thanks. I'm really liking this so far.

Hmm, I guess I should make users able to add genres too. I thought that the genre list would be relatively soon complete enough so it didn't feel like necessary. But yeah, isn't there always some more sub-genres and such to add. And the more genres, the more accurate search.
That feature isn't even hard to do, so I think I could do it right away. Also good to hear you like it.

I do have a suggestion. Do you think you could add an instrument/sounds category for searches? But I guess it be more like a checklist.
Say, I might be looking for songs with violins, regardless of their genre or something. Or maybe something obscure, like latin choirs.

Well, I could make one similar to the current genre list, since it would function in pretty similar way, wouldn't it? Although if we just change the Genre to Genres & Music types (or something like that) and added Violin, Piano and such as genres, wouldn't that work too? I'd prefer not to add too many add/search categories, since I don't want to get people frustrated when they see the adding page. At least I don't wanna see scary over-complicated adding form when adding a single remix.  :3

And yeah, it would be great if the database would get huge and you could find there just any kind of music you want to listen. The beginning is just the hard part, since you can't really find anything much with search yet and it's hard to get people interested. To get the huge database we just need to start adding music to this small one now. ^^

[necorelli]

Teehee, I've been adding albums like crazy now.
But what do we do is one of the songs in an album isn't completely a Touhou arrange? One of the remixes I submitted is  a medley between a Touhou song and something by Beethoven. I was able to credit Beethoven as an artist, but not the song...
Edit: Dang, you also need to add all of ZUN's music CD's to the original song list.

[Spike]

Well, if one or few of the songs in a album aren't Touhou arranges, I think you could still add them. Without any links to original songs people will know that it's not a Touhou arrange. Of course the database is focused on Touhou music, so I'd still prefer not to add more than necessary.

And yeah, I realized some time ago that I should add ZUN's music CD's too, since they're often considered as Touhou music too. The problem is only how to do it, since currently songs are just grouped by games. Some of ZUN's albums even have Touhou remixes, I think, so it's kind of complicated. '-'  But yeah, I'll figure it out somehow.

[Aiikon]

I've always tried to get a project like this going but always gave up halfway through because of the sheer amount of work involved.  You've got a public site that other people can contribute to though :)

What I've done so far is a PowerShell script for converting CDwiki pages (http://www16.atwiki.jp/toho/editx/3878.html) to xml files and I now have about 380 arrange CDs in this format.  I could send the xml to you for you to import into your database if you'd like.  They've got the circle and album, and for each track the arrangers, vocalists, lyricists and original tunes; all discrete fields.  No genre or length though.  Example: http://pastebin.com/MJRDxWB7

[Spike]

What I've done so far is a PowerShell script for converting CDwiki pages (http://www16.atwiki.jp/toho/editx/3878.html) to xml files and I now have about 380 arrange CDs in this format.  I could send the xml to you for you to import into your database if you'd like.  They've got the circle and album, and for each track the arrangers, vocalists, lyricists and original tunes; all discrete fields.  No genre or length though.  Example: http://pastebin.com/MJRDxWB7

Yeah, thanks, I'd appreciate that a lot. After all tracks, albums and circles are the important part and genres and length are easy to add after listening. Though I'm quite busy right now and after 29th I'm away for a week, so I might not be answering anything till I get back.

[Aiikon]

Alright.  Since you'll be gone for a bit I'm going to generate a few more then do a reality check against my music collection to clean up some stuff then send them to you.  This account is too new to send private messages so can you send me an e-mail through the website or give me somewhere to upload them to?

[Spike]

Okay, I sent the email now.

I've been thinking about making some kind of Favorite-system and Listened-system. Users would be able to favorite and browse their favorite remixes. And after you've listened arrange, you could mark it as listened, and when browsing new arranges you would be able to exclude listened remixes from search results. Though I've got another project now so I'm not going to make these right away. However does anyone think it's interesting or useful?
I should also edit that user system a bit, it's kinda horrible at the moment. ._.

[Beef Owl]

I've been thinking about making some kind of Favorite-system and Listened-system. Users would be able to favorite and browse their favorite remixes.

This is exactly what I was going to say, and also from that point allow your favorites to run in a playlist. But come to think of how the songs are all on Youtube, if you wanted to you could just make your playlist of choice there, but it doesn't look as nice that way :V

I think its really interesting given how diverse the Touhou music scene is in and of itself to be able to see what everyone listens to, and I'm amazed to say that despite having ~1000 Touhou songs I have yet to find a remix I've heard before :3c

Edit: Oh man, adding to Echo is almost as addicting as adding to TvTropes XD

Edit Again: By the way, when it says not to use special characters at the beginning of a title, how should I go about adding songs with Japanese titles that don't translate well?

[Spike]

This is exactly what I was going to say, and also from that point allow your favorites to run in a playlist. But come to think of how the songs are all on Youtube, if you wanted to you could just make your playlist of choice there, but it doesn't look as nice that way :V

Well, making playlist feature is not simple. First all of the songs does not have Youtube link. And the player is not very easy to control by the website. I guess I could still try to make it, but it will probably take a while. However I don't like the idea of many youtube-based features in the site.

Edit: Oh man, adding to Echo is almost as addicting as adding to TvTropes XD

:3

Edit Again: By the way, when it says not to use special characters at the beginning of a title, how should I go about adding songs with Japanese titles that don't translate well?

Well, the problem with special characters is just that when browsing the drop-down lists (add + search pages) dividing list by letters doesn't work very well. But yeah, maybe it's not right way to fix that. I should try to think for some alternative solution instead of just avoiding albums, artists etc. starting with special characters.
So, feel free to add them too. I'll try to fix that and make those favorite/listened features when I get some time to do it. Also, good to hear you like it. ^^

Edit: And yeah, I got the XML files. Thanks again Aiikon.

[Beef Owl]

So it's not a problem? I was adding some C-Clays songs and the titles don't all properly translate to English (at least not with google translate, im not fluent) so I just put the kanji in both title fields.

I think this site can be a brilliant resource once it grows large enough, glad you took the effort to make it

oh yeah, and for ZUN's music CDs, couldn't you just group them in by album? I think that'd just be the simplest way

[Spike]

Yeah, it's not a problem. Or at least it's not a problem users should worry of.

Gasp, I almost forgot those ZUN's music CDs. I'm gonna add them tomorrow or on the weekend. E: Done.

I've been thinking about those translated names. Since they're sometimes inaccurate and stuff, should original name be the "first one" instead of translated one? And the translated would be shown as the original is now, kinda like as a second name. Of course, songs like Last Remote is quite hard to recognize when it's written like ラストリモート. However if the translated name is shown when you move mouse on the original name like the name of the song is shown when you move mouse on the track number next to game abbreviation, I don't see recognizing as a big problem.
Though if the current system is okay, changing is not necessary. Is it?

[Aiikon]

I think the translations are nice if you want to know what the title of the song actually means but I would guess that most people know the songs by the Japanese title. If you're going to include both anyway with a tooltip what about letting it be a per user preference?

[Spike]

I think the translations are nice if you want to know what the title of the song actually means but I would guess that most people know the songs by the Japanese title. If you're going to include both anyway with a tooltip what about letting it be a per user preference?

Yeah, maybe that's the best solution.

I added the xml files in the database and now there's about 6000 arranges more than there was this morning. However checking all those arranges would take some time, so I ask all users of the site report if you found anything strange or wrong. I even fixed the report form for that. :3
I think I'm going to make Listening and Favorite systems next. After they're ready I'll start to browse through all albums and arranges and try to add genres, lengths, covers, links and such since there's a lot of arranges with only name, album, artist and circle at the moment.

Uh, I'm getting tired now and it's getting late so I couldn't check if there's any errors in the newly added content. If you find something feel free to use the report form to help me fix them.

Thanks again Aiikon, I'll do something about that what you asked in the mail soon.

E: Favorites and Listened features done.