Option to empty fields when data is unavailable from source

[l-t-k]

Is it possible to scrub or remove tags from files that should be empty following the musicbrainz database, but comes with some value prior to tagging?

For example, I tagged some files which contained a (wrong) composer, but the composer field in the MB database was empty. Therefore, the tagger didn't removed the composer-tag from the files. In my view, the tagger should remove the composer-tag from the file by default if it is empty in the MB-database

[sampsyo]

Thanks for the feedback. What you're seeing here is just because we don't currently fetch the composer from MB at all (#506). You can use zero to clear it out if you like.

[l-t-k]

I have some albums which contain a label-tag in the file. However, MB says these albums have no labels at all. In that case, beets is not removing the label-tag from the files.

I think this should be an option somewhere. For example, Musicbrainz Picard has an option to remove tags before writing the new ones. Such an option, for example within the scrub-plugin, should solve this problem.

[sampsyo]

OK, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining further.

An option like this makes sense—although I'm not sure whether it would go in the scrub plugin. The logic there is quite specialized to remove tags that are otherwise "invisible" to beets, even if the effect is intuitively similar.

[l-t-k]

#934 Basically the same

[Freso]

Not quite the same as I read the two issues. 934 is about tagging the file from a completely blank slate, ie., removing all data from the file before writing new data to. I read this issue more like "file has cat. no. data but MusicBrainz doesn't, so clear local data". Using composers as example: with 934 composers would (currently) always be wiped, but with this, they would not be touched, as beets has no knowledge of composers from MB. There's a subtle, but IMHO important, difference between the two approaches.

[sampsyo]

Agreed: related but slightly different. They should perhaps be solved both at once.