TheAudioDB Music Metadata Exporter

Export TheAudioDB music metadata for recurring artist, album, and track catalog enrichment. Supply exact artist names or TheAudioDB IDs and receive one enriched artist row with nested albums and tracks, public identifiers, genres, release information, and artwork links.

What does it do?

The Actor resolves artists, discovers album links on their public pages, and enriches selected albums and tracks from public JSON detail endpoints. It does not download audio or artwork files. Each artist is one dataset item; albums and tracks have no separate event charge.

Who is it for?

Music catalog operators, playlist researchers, and media librarians can join records to an existing catalog by TheAudioDB IDs or MusicBrainz artist IDs, inspect release years, and refresh artwork URLs.

Why use this exporter?

The anonymous list API can expose only a sample of albums or tracks. This Actor discovers public page links before requesting individual metadata, so collection is not silently limited to that first API result. Source identity is checked at every artist→album→track join. Truncation flags distinguish your selected caps from missing source fields.

Getting started

1. Enter artist names, such as Coldplay, or numeric TheAudioDB artist IDs.
2. Choose album and track caps appropriate for your enrichment job.
3. Run the Actor.
4. Inspect the default dataset and export JSON for nested catalogs.
5. Use a schedule if you need repeat snapshots; compare IDs and fields downstream.

{"artistNames":["Coldplay"],"maxItems":1,"maxAlbumsPerArtist":1,"maxTracksPerAlbum":3}

Inputs

Input	Default	Behavior
artistNames	none	Up to 100 names; exact whole-name comparison after trim, whitespace collapse, and lowercase
artistIds	none	Up to 100 numeric TheAudioDB IDs as strings; processed before names
maxItems	10	Global cap on unique enriched artist rows, 1–100
maxAlbumsPerArtist	5	Select up to 1–50 albums per artist in source page order
includeTracks	true	Fetch selected album tracks; false leaves empty track arrays
maxTracksPerAlbum	25	Select up to 1–100 tracks per album; collection effect only when tracks are enabled

Supply at least one name or ID. Duplicate resolved artists emit once. No zero/unlimited mode exists. Name searches are not fuzzy or substring searches. Ambiguous exact names fail; use an ID to disambiguate. Names are processed after IDs, so an earlier ID can fill the global artist cap before a later name is searched.

Extracted data

Level	Fields
Artist	artistId, name, genre, country, formedYear, biography, artworkUrl, musicBrainzId, sourceUrl
Album	albumId, artistId, title, genre, releaseYear, releaseDate, artworkUrl, sourceUrl
Track	trackId, albumId, artistId, title, genre, trackNumber, durationMs, artworkUrl, sourceUrl
Coverage	availableAlbumCount, albumsTruncated, tracksIncluded; each album has availableTrackCount and tracksTruncated
Provenance	scrapedAt UTC timestamp

Missing source metadata is null. country preserves the source's free-text location, which may be a city rather than an ISO country. Release years are not exact release dates. Page order is not guaranteed chronological; trackNumber preserves source numbering even if links are displayed out of order.

Output example

A locally verified Coldplay export includes album 2433223 (Moon Music, 2024). A compact excerpt:

{
  "artistId": "111239",
  "name": "Coldplay",
  "genre": "Alternative Rock",
  "availableAlbumCount": 10,
  "albumsTruncated": true,
  "tracksIncluded": true,
  "albums": [{
    "albumId": "2433223",
    "title": "Moon Music",
    "releaseYear": 2024,
    "availableTrackCount": 9,
    "tracksTruncated": true
  }]
}

This excerpt omits other returned fields and track rows. The default dataset contains full objects. A SUMMARY key-value record records saved count and applied caps.

Coverage and limitations

This is a bounded public-metadata exporter, not a full music database mirror. Counts describe unique links currently exposed on public source pages, not a guarantee that TheAudioDB contains every release or recording. A source page can omit tracks; no missing metadata is synthesized. Public page discovery plus JSON detail enrichment avoids anonymous list sampling but cannot guarantee completeness beyond those public links.

No login, customer API key, proxy, cookies, or paid source subscription is required by the implemented route. There is no automatic browser or proxy fallback. No history, alerts, lyrics, private user data, audio files, or cross-source identity equivalence is promised.

How much does it cost to export TheAudioDB music metadata?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: a one-time start event and one item event per delivered enriched artist. Albums and tracks are included without separate event charges. Prices vary by Apify Store spend tier, which depends on aggregate qualifying Store spend, not this Actor's private volume.

Start fee: $0.005 per run. Per enriched artist: FREE $0.0053636, BRONZE $0.004664, SILVER $0.0036379, GOLD/PLATINUM/DIAMOND $0.0027984.

At BRONZE, estimated event charges are $0.009664 for 1 artist, $0.05164 for 10, and $0.4714 for 100. At FREE, 10 artists are $0.058636 including start. Empty valid searches incur the start fee but no item event. Malformed input is rejected before the start event. Confirm applicable live prices and billing limits before running; examples are estimates, not guaranteed invoices.

Reliability and troubleshooting

Transient network failures, HTTP 429, and 5xx responses retry up to three attempts per request with bounded delay. Permanent HTTP errors, invalid JSON, and mismatched source identities fail rather than masquerade as successful empty catalogs. Earlier delivered artists may remain in a failed run; treat those as partial output.

• Empty result: check spelling and use a numeric TheAudioDB ID. An unmatched exact name is a valid empty outcome.
• Ambiguous name: use the ID of the intended artist.
• Missing albums/tracks: inspect coverage flags, caps, and the public source page.
• Failed run: inspect logs and report the run link through Apify Store issues.

Integrations

Export JSON to preserve nested albums and tracks. Flatten those arrays downstream for relational tables or spreadsheets, joining artistId and albumId. CSV/Excel exports of artist rows may require downstream flattening. Compare successive snapshots by stable IDs, not array positions. Connect Apify dataset exports or webhooks to an ETL pipeline; keep full exports outside an AI model's context.

API usage

Keep your Apify token in an environment variable, never in a published URL.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~theaudiodb-music-metadata/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"artistNames":["Coldplay"],"maxItems":1}'

JavaScript:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/theaudiodb-music-metadata').call({ artistNames: ['Coldplay'] });
const rows = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems({ limit: 10 });
console.log(rows.items);

Python:

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('automation-lab/theaudiodb-music-metadata').call(run_input={'artistNames': ['Coldplay']})
rows = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items(limit=10)
print(rows.items)

MCP setup

Claude Code:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/theaudiodb-music-metadata"

Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code: configure an HTTP-capable client or its supported bridge with this equivalent MCP JSON, supplying authorized authentication separately:

{"mcpServers":{"apify":{"url":"https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/theaudiodb-music-metadata"}}}

Example prompt: “Export Coldplay's music metadata with one album and three tracks, then show the IDs and release year.” Discover actual names/schemas through scoped tools/list; the selected Actor also exposes run/storage helper tools, not exactly one tool. Invoke only after authorization.

Start once and retain the run ID and storage IDs. They are not rows. call-actor waits at most 45 seconds; if pending, check the SAME run with 2, 4, 8 second backoff capped at 10 seconds and a 120-second total deadline. On a client timeout recover the known run, not a duplicate invocation. Report pending at deadline and failed runs as partial, not complete results.

After success, fetch dataset items in pages of 20 with explicit offset, limit, and needed fields. Example consumer budget: at most 100 source rows and 64 KiB serialized UTF-8 result content admitted to model context, whichever comes first. Enforce that byte cap host-side; omit/summarize oversized data with disclosure. If your client cannot intercept responses, do not claim a hard byte guarantee. Report continuation offset and truncation. These consumer limits do not reduce Actor collection defaults. No universal token-savings claim is made.

Legality, responsible use and privacy

Independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by TheAudioDB. Use public music metadata responsibly and respect source/content rights; artwork URLs do not confer a license to redistribute images. Apify's standard terms apply; no extra end-user agreement is imposed.

The runtime uses no AI and sends no user input or scraped metadata to an AI provider. Source requests contain supplied artist names/IDs. Public artist biographies can contain professional personal information. Do not submit secrets or sensitive personal information as names. Run data and logs remain in your Apify storage under your retention settings; delete runs/storage when no longer needed. The Actor maintains no shared persistent customer cache.

Failed operations send sanitized diagnostic input, exceptions and actor/build/run IDs to our private GlitchTip service for repair; secret fields and URL queries are removed and reports are retained for 30 days. Apify hosts runs/storage; TheAudioDB receives metadata requests; our private diagnostic service receives sanitized failures.

FAQ

Can I export every album? Increase caps within supported ranges. Counts represent discovered public links, not a complete source mirror.

Are track lengths in seconds? No, durationMs is milliseconds, as supplied by TheAudioDB.

Can I search album names directly? No. This Actor starts from artists. Albums and tracks are nested enrichment, not standalone input modes.

Why are releaseDate and biography null? Source fields are optional. The Actor does not infer exact dates or text when unavailable.

Related Actors

Apple iTunes Catalog Search & Lookup complements this workflow with Apple's catalog metadata. Match cautiously by names/titles or established external identifiers; TheAudioDB IDs are not iTunes IDs.

Support

Open an Apify Store issue with the run link, your nonsensitive input, expected entity, and observed behavior. Never paste credentials into issue reports.