You can specify what is meant by a duplicate, depending on what you want to achieve.
Whether you are interested in creating a jukebox of songs or preserving the integrity of albums the different options will help you. The options vary in their restrictiveness and of course you can apply different criteria to different parts of your music collection or use more than one option to hone your results.
Within SongKong you can set the duplicate criteria to be:
Same title and album (metadata only)
In this option a song is considered a duplicate if it contains the same information for the artist, song title and album in the metadata fields. This option is good if you want to be able to play complete albums because if a song appears on an original album and a compilation then no songs will be deleted.
This is the default setting. More accurate results can be achieved if you fix songs first and find duplicates based on their MusicBrainz Ids.
Same title (metadata only)
In this option a song is only considered a duplicate if it contains the same information for the artist and title in the metadata fields. This is most useful if your focus is on individual songs. More accurate results can be achieved if you fix songs first and find duplicates based on their MusicBrainz Ids.
Sounds the same only.
This option finds duplicate songs based purely on how the songs sound. This is most useful if your focus is on individual songs and allows you to find duplicates for songs that don't have a MusicBrainz match.
Same MusicBrainz song only.
This option finds duplicates if they have been identified as the same song in MusicBrainz. This is most useful if your focus is on individual songs. To use this option process your songs in Fix Songs first.
Same MusicBrainz song and sounds the same:
This option finds duplicate songs if they are the same song in MusicBrainz and if they sound the same. This is most useful if your focus is on individual songs more than albums and the acoustic matching provides an extra check that the songs really are the same.
Same MusicBrainz song and same album (any version)
This option is best if you prefer to play complete albums because if the same MusicBrainz song is found on an original album and a compilation album then no songs will be deleted, keeping your albums in tact.
Same MusicBrainz song and same album (any version) and sounds the same
This criteria is like the preceding option but with an added acoustic check to be really sure the song is the same.
Same MusicBrainz songs and same album (specific version e.g... same date/country of release)
This is a more restrictive criteria than same song and same album (any version) because it will only identify duplicates if the same song is found in exactly the same version of an album. If the same song is found in the UK and the US release of an album no song will be deleted.
Same MusicBrainz songs and same album (specific version e.g... same date/country of release) and sounds the same.
This is the strictest criteria for finding duplicates. It works in the same way as the previous option but has the added acoustic check to be extra sure that a song really is the same.
Read on for more detail about how each criteria works.
In this option a song is only considered a duplicate if it contains the same information for the artist, song title and album in the metadata fields.
This option can be used for songs that have not been fixed by SongKong because it only looks at standard metadata that is used by many applications rather than using MusicBrainz Ids.
This option is good if you want to be able to play complete albums because if a song appears on an original album and a compilation then no songs will be deleted. For example, if you have With or Without You by U2 on both their The Joshua Tree and The Best of 1980 -1990 albums, then no songs would be deleted because although the song is the same it is within different albums, thus leaving the albums complete. However, if you have With or Without You on a UK and a US release of The Joshua Tree, then one of the songs would be deleted.
This option could be less reliable than other options because if your music library contains inaccurate data with songs saved as Track 1, Track 2 etc then under this setting songs could be identified as duplicates because they have the same title even though they could be completely different. However, if your music collection is reasonably well organized this is unlikely to be a problem.
It is usually best to Fix Songs before you delete duplicates so that you get more accurate results by finding duplicates based on their MusicBrainz Id.
This is the default setting for the trial version of SongKong.
In this option a song is only considered a duplicate if it contains the same information for the artist and song title in the metadata fields.
This option can be used for songs that have not been fixed by SongKong because it only looks at standard metadata that is used by many applications rather than using MusicBrainz Ids.
This is useful if you are more interested in individual songs than albums, for example, if you want to create a jukebox of songs.
With this criteria if the same song appears on two completely different albums such as an original and a compilation, one of the songs will be deleted. For example if you have the song With or Without You by U2 on both their The Joshua Tree and The Best of 1980-1990 albums, then one of the songs would be deleted.
This option could be less reliable than other options because if your music library contains inaccurate data with songs saved as Track 1, Track 2 etc then under this setting songs could be identified as duplicates because they have the same title even though they could be completely different. However, if your music collection is reasonably well organized this is unlikely to be a problem.
It is usually best to fix songs before you delete duplicates so that you get more accurate results by finding duplicates based on their MusicBrainz Id.
This option finds songs that are the same based purely on how they sound. It compares songs only by their acoustid, a representation of what they sound like.
This is useful if you are more interested in individual songs than albums, for example, if you want to create a jukebox of songs.
With this criteria if the same song appears on two completely different albums such as an original and a compilation, one of the songs will be deleted. For example if you have the song With or Without You by U2 on both their The Joshua Tree and The Best of 1980-1990 albums, then one of the songs would be deleted.
Fix your songs before you use this option so that SongKong can create acoustic Ids for each of your songs. Using this criteria to identify duplicates allows you to find duplicates for songs that don't have a MusicBrainz match.
This option finds duplicates if they are identified as the same song in MusicBrainz.
This is useful if you are more interested in individual songs than albums, for example, if you want to create a jukebox of songs.
So with this option if the same song appears on two completely different albums such as an original and a compilation, one of the songs will be deleted. For example if you have the song With or Without You by U2 on both The Joshua Tree and U2 The Best of 1980-1990, then one of the songs would be deleted.
To use this option successfully, process your songs in Fix Songs first so your songs have been matched to MusicBrainz songs.
In this option a song is identified as a duplicate if it is identified as the same song in MusicBrainz and if it sounds the same.
This is useful if you are more interested in individual songs than albums, for example, if you want to create a jukebox of songs.
With this criteria if the same song appears on two completely different albums such as an original and a compilation, one of the songs with be deleted. For example if you have the song With or Without You by U2 on both their The Joshua Tree and The Best of 1980-1990 albums, then one of the songs would be deleted.
To use this option successfully, process your songs in Fix Songs first so your songs have been matched to MusicBrainz songs and created acoustic Ids for your music.
In this option, matching the song acoustically as well, acts as an additional check that it really is the same version of the song.
In this option a song is only considered a duplicate if it is the same MusicBrainz song and it is within the same album (any version).
This option is good if you want to be able to play complete albums because if a song appears on an original album and a compilation then no songs will be deleted. For example, if you have With or Without You by U2 on both their The Joshua Tree and The Best of 1980 -1990 albums, then no songs would be deleted because although the song is the same it is within different albums, thus leaving the albums complete. However, if you have With or Without You on both a UK and a US release of The Joshua Tree then one of the song will be deleted.
To use this option successfully, process your songs in Fix Songs first so your songs have been matched to MusicBrainz songs.
In this option songs are identified as duplicates if they are the same MB song and they are on the same album and they sound identical.
This option is good if you want to be able to play complete albums because if a song appears on an original album and a compilation then no songs will be deleted. For example, if you have With or Without You by U2 on both their The Joshua Tree and The Best of 1980 -1990 albums, then no songs would be deleted because although the song is the same it is within different albums, thus leaving the albums complete. However, if you have With or Without You on both a UK and a US release of The Joshua Tree then one of the song will be deleted.
To use this option successfully, process your songs in Fix Songs first so your songs have been matched to MusicBrainz songs and created acoustic Ids for your music.
In this option, matching the song acoustically as well, acts as an additional check that it really is the same version of the song.
If you want to be even stricter, so that songs appearing on different versions of the same album are not considered the same (for example, a UK and US version of U2 The Joshua Tree) then use Same MusicBrainz song and specific album version to identify duplicates.
This option finds duplicates if they are identified as the same song on MusicBrainz and they appear on the same version of an album.
This option is good if you want to be able to play complete albums.
With this criteria if the same song appears on two different versions of the same album, for example, if you have U2s With or Without You on a US and a UK release of The Joshua Tree, then no songs will be deleted. However, if you had With or Without You on two copies of the UK release of The Joshua Tree, then one song would be deleted.
To use this option successfully, process your songs in Fix Songs first so your songs have been matched to MusicBrainz songs.
This criteria is more restrictive than the Same MB song and same album (any version).
This is the strictest criteria for finding duplicates.
This option finds duplicates if they are identified as the same song on MusicBrainz and they appear on the same version of an album and if they have been identified as sounding identical.
This option is good if you want to be able to play complete albums.
With this criteria if the same song appears on two different versions of the same album, for example, if you have U2s' With or Without You on a US and a UK release of their The Joshua Tree album, then no songs will be deleted. However, if you had With or Without You on two copies of the UK release of The Joshua Tree, then one song would be deleted.
To use this option successfully, process your songs in Fix Songs first so your songs have been matched to MusicBrainz songs and created acoustic Ids for your music.
In this option, matching the song acoustically as well, acts as an additional check that it really is the same version of the song.