SPARS codes (part 1)

Let's talk about SPARS codes used on CDs (or CD-like formats). You have most likely seen it used, but maybe don't know its name. The SPARS code is a three letter code indicating if recording, mixing and mastering were analogue or digital.

For example they could look like the ones below. There is not a fixed format, so there are other variants as well.

Personally I am not paying too much attention to these codes (I simply do not care), but in the classical music world if something was labeled as DDD (so everything digital) companies could ask premium prices. That makes it interesting information to mine and unlock, which is something that Discogs does not allow people to do when searching (yet!) even though it could be a helpful filter. I wanted to see if it can be used as an identifier to tell releases apart (are there similar releases where the only difference is the SPARS code?).

SPARS code in Discogs

Since a few months SPARS is a separate field in the Discogs "Barcode and Other Identifiers" (BaOI) section. Of course it had been present in other forms for many years and people put it in all kinds of formats and places, such as various fields in BaOI:

• Barcode
• Label Code
• Rights Society
• Other

but also in the Notes field and the format description. A friend looked through many entries to fix them and noticed some interesting patterns: in some instances the SPARS code was in the free text field of the Other field in the second to last edit, but had been changed into Price Code in the last edit, while the commit message said "SPARS code" which was odd. Looking at the drop down box explained it: SPARS Code is directly underneath Price Code. The person who changed it simply picked the wrong option and never bothered to check before submitting to the database!

BaOI free text field

I looked at the values of the free text field of the various BaOI fields to see if there were some hints that the value for the field could possibly be a SPARS code: the free text fields are descriptions attached to the field and often give useful information. There were indeed plenty of releases (around 45,000 in the October 2017 dump, down from 49,000 in the September 2017 dump) where the free text field indicated that there could indeed be a SPARS code, but it was not always consistent.

On October 1, 2017 there were around 45,000 SPARS code entries that needed to be fixed.

While "SPARS code" was by far the most common, I also encountered some variations in the data, including:

• SPARS-code
• SPARScode
• SPARRS code
• SPARE code
• SPAR code
• SARS code
• SPARSE code
• SPARCE code
• SPARC code
• SPARCS
• SPARKS code
• SPARD code
• SPARTS code
• SPAS code

and more. Most of the mistakes can be attributed to people not knowing the correct name for the code or keyboard misses. Having a fixed field is a lot more accurate and convenient for datamining.

SPARS code spelling variations

In Discogs there is a rule to stick as close to the text on the release as possible. Since there is no standard for how SPARS codes should be printed many variations can be found and that translates into lots of variations in the database. Some examples found in the database (non-exhaustive list):

• ADD (normal, seen most of the time)
• A D D (spaces, as seen on the release)
• A.D.D. (dots, as seen on the release)
• A|D|D (pipes to emulate box)
• [ADD] (square brackets to emulate box)
• ADD / DDD (two SPARS codes used on a release)
• A•D•D (bullet points in between the characters)

and then there are also various lower/uppercase variations.

SPARS code on vinyl and cassette?

Since the SPARS code was very obviously made with CD in mind I wondered if there were also other releases that used these codes, so I asked some of my friends who are doing some Discogs cleanup to keep their eyes open for any unusual data. It didn't take long before they found a few vinyl and cassette releases where a SPARS code was used.

A few examples:

• vinyl with AAA code
• cassette with DDA code
• cassette with AAD code

which shows that it is not always as clear and that you cannot assume that a SPARS code automatically means that the release is a CD, or is CD-like.

Future work

Some of the research I want to do in the near future includes digging into the Notes section and in the format description, but I am leaving that for another time. I also want to look at how many releases have a SPARS code and a wrong year (SPARS codes started to be used from 1984 onwards), and so on. I am certain quite a few more errors in the data will be uncovered.

Finally, as said in the introduction, I want to see if the SPARS code itself is useful for identifying releases and if there are releases that are otherwise identical except for the SPARS code. Stay tuned!