Problem With Sample Clearence

Nowadays it’s pretty rare to find music that does not contain a sample. Everyone seems to be sampling, be it Drake, Nick Mira, Kendrick, and a bunch of other musicians. Sampling is powerful in that it provides inspiration and direction when making music. This idea essentially revolves around repurposing. As a music producer, the problem I personally have is keeping track of the places where I sample from. At the end of the day you can’t simply release a song with a sample in it without clearing it first. This might not be a big problem for old heads that still use vinyl but it’s definitely a problem when your sampling from tiktok, and downloading it through some website that sometimes does not transfer metadata.

My Solution

The simple way to get around this issue is through scripting. Below is a simple script using python that will currently download from Spotify, Instagram, and Youtube. It has an easy to use CLI and with the library I used (click) it’s easily customizable to meet your needs. It has a bunch of dependencies which I tried to avoid, but I do not have time to make everything from scratch, also I am not fluent in python.

It is far from perfect and legit does not have any error handling whatsoever, but it get’s the job done.

Depedencies

  • instaloader
  • re
  • sanitize_filename
  • spotdl
  • yt_dlp
  • click

Code

Firstly the folder structure is as follows

media_downloader/
├─ utils/
│  ├─ insta.py
│  ├─ spotify.py
│  ├─ yt.py
├─ constants.py
├─ main.py
├─ setup.py

insta.py

import instaloader
import re
import constants
import os
from pathlib import WindowsPath

def insta_proc(url, path):
  insta = instaloader.Instaloader()
  
  url_shortcode = re.findall(r'^(?:https?://)?(?:www\.)?(?:instagram\.com(?:/\w+)?/p/)([\w-]+)(?:/)?(\?.*)?$', url)[0][0] # grabbed from here https://stackoverflow.com/a/57043055/20809108
  # the above regex might satisfy more than one sub string, the first one will always be the short code according to the instagram standards
  
  post = instaloader.Post.from_shortcode(insta.context, url_shortcode)
  
  dest = WindowsPath(os.path.join(path, constants.INSTA_IMG_DUMP))
  
  insta.download_post(post, target=dest)

spotify.py

import json
from sanitize_filename import sanitize
from spotdl import Spotdl
import os 
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()

def spotify_proc(url, file_path):
  
  obj = Spotdl(client_id=os.environ["SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID"], client_secret=os.environ["SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET"], no_cache=True)
  
  song_objs = obj.search([url])
  
  result = obj.download(song_objs[0]) # returns song object
  
  title = sanitize(result[0].name)    

  # create directory names after the title in metadata
  dir_path = os.path.join(file_path, title)
  
  os.mkdir(dir_path)

  # move default download location to it's respective directory
  default_location = os.path.join(result[1].cwd(), result[1])
  
  new_location = os.path.join(dir_path, result[1])
  
  os.replace(default_location, new_location)
  
  # now write the metadata into file
  jsonf_path = os.path.join(dir_path, f"{title}.json")
  with open(jsonf_path, "w") as f:
      f.write(json.dumps(result[0].json))

yt.py

import yt_dlp
import json
import os
from sanitize_filename import sanitize

def yt_proc(url, file_path):
    
    # save metadata
    with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
        info = ydl.extract_info(url, download=False) 
        
        metadata = json.loads(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
        
        title = sanitize(metadata["title"])        
    
    # create directory names after the title in metadata
    dir_path = os.path.join(file_path, title)
    
    os.mkdir(dir_path)
    
    # download audio
    ydl_opts = {
        'format': 'wav/bestaudio/best', # this has the list of format available https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?tab=readme-ov-file#format-selection
        # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
        'postprocessors': [{  # Extract audio using ffmpeg
            'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
            'preferredcodec': 'wav',
        }],
        'paths': {
            'home': dir_path
        }
    }   
    
    with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
        error_code = ydl.download(url)
        
        jsonf_path = os.path.join(dir_path, f"{title}.json")
        
        with open(jsonf_path, "w") as f:
            f.write(json.dumps(metadata))

constants.py - really redundant for now

# for instagram photos
INSTA_IMG_DUMP = "IMG_DUMP"

main.py

import click
from utils.yt import yt_proc
from utils.spotify import spotify_proc
from utils.insta import insta_proc
import os

@click.group()
def cli():
  pass

# Youtube sub command
@cli.command()
@click.option('--url', default="", help="enter youtube url")
@click.option('--path', default=os.getcwd(), type=click.Path(exists=True), help="enter download destination")
def yt(url, path):
  yt_proc(url, path)
  
  
# Spotify sub command
@cli.command()
@click.option('--url', default="", help="enter youtube url")
@click.option('--path', default=os.getcwd(), type=click.Path(exists=True), help="enter download destination")
def spotify(url, path):
  spotify_proc(url, path)
  
  
# Instagram sub command
@cli.command()
@click.option('--url', default="", help="enter youtube url")
@click.option('--path', default=os.getcwd(), type=click.Path(exists=True), help="enter download destination")
def insta(url, path):
  insta_proc(url, path)

setup.py

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

with open("README.md", "r", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
    long_description = fh.read()
# with open("requirements.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
#     requirements = fh.read()
setup(
    name = 'media-downloader-v1',
    version = '0.0.1',
    author = 'MiguelBBeats',
    author_email = 'leo.miguel.bantl@gmail.com',
    license = 'n/a',  # TODO update 
    description = 'simple cli that combines multiple tools in one, making sampling more efficient', 
    long_description = long_description, 
    long_description_content_type = "text/markdown",
    url = '<github url where the tool code will remain>', # TODO update
    py_modules = ['main'], # list all modules here
    packages = find_packages(),
    # install_requires = [requirements],
    python_requires='>=3.7',
    classifiers=[
        "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8",
        "Operating System :: OS Independent",
    ],
    entry_points = '''
        [console_scripts]
        miguel=main:cli  
    ''' # when someone enters miguel in console, run cli function inside the main.py module
)