FreeDB- am I the main source?

I can't search freedb.org either, it's just hanging until the website times out.

 

The freedb.org web site is now displaying an urgent notice that the service is going to be shut down on March 31st of 2020.
That would explain its slow behavior lately. Why upgrade or update the servers if everything is just going to be shut down early next year.

Time for me to switch over to sending track info to MusicBrainz instead of freeDB.

 

I find it interesting that some 2 disc sets only have data for one of them. I just got 'Waiting For Miracles' from the Flower Kings like that.

 

I will need to figure out a change inside EAC.
Funny, I have entered over 50 albums of data in the last year.
Will the entire freedb go kaput?

 

The urgent notice reads like the entire freeDB database and server setup will go kaput.

You can change over to the CUETools DB Metadata Plugin in EAC. The CUETools metadata plugin will do lookups in MusicBrains and Discogs. The CUETools metadata plugin is included with the default install of EAC. So you should already have it. Info on the CUETools metadata plugin is here: CTDB EAC Plugin - CUETools

You can also try using CUERipper instead of EAC. CUERipper is capable and does secure rips and verifies rips using AccurateRip and CTDB. CUERipper is part of the CUETools package. CUERipper can do lookups using MusicBrainz and Discogs.

 

Bad news indeed. I've been using MusicBrainz since frerdb has been dodgy, but it's more of a faff.

 

I'm using EAc v0.99 prebeta 5.
Might be a challenge for my computer.

 

Use EAC to rip to a WAV and CUE file. Don't worry about tagging.

Then open the CUE using CUETools. CUETools will do a lookup using MusicBrainz and Discogs to identify the album and artist and track names. Then use CUETools to split the WAV into separate tracks and save as FLAC or ALAC.

Your ripping process will become two steps. Rip in EAC to CUE. Open CUE in CUETools to get metadata and split to separate tracks.

 

thank you, mr/ms ham. i will check it out. Guess I have unitl March to decide to try another program or upgrade my ancient, functional workstation with Windows Vista.

 

This is a huge blow. I hope they'll make it so the data can be saved and someone else will take up the project, I'd gladly donate.

As much as the other databases are super useful, it was FreeDB that would more often than not have the tags for CDs when others didn't.

 

CUETools should run fine on Vista. CUETools needs the correct version(s) of the Microsoft .NET Framework installed. The .NET Framework versions that CUETools uses still support Vista. So it should work.

Here's the download page for CUETools with links to the .NET Frameworks installers: CUETools Download - CUETools

The CUETools download is just a zip file. There is no installer. Unzip the CUETools zip file to a separate directory. Then manually double-click on the cuetools.exe or cueripper.exe to launch. You can manually create shortcuts to the exe files and put those shortcuts in the Start menu.

 

The freeDB software, server software, and data are all licensed with a GPL license. It is open source and free as per GPL. You can go to the download section on the freedb web site and download the server software, the full database, and the documentation. The data will live on.

 

I'm a big fan of dBpoweramp CD Ripper and always have maximum secure settings enabled for bit-perfect rips. AccurateRip almost always fills in the metadata so I just have to double-check it with the packaging and find the corresponding release on Discogs, because I am a stickler for correct credits, spelling and punctuation in my tags. This week I got a couple relatively obscure Japanese glitch electronica CDs from the early 90s and sure enough both loaded metadata. Sometimes it misidentifies certain discs, usually CDs which have one long track on the disc and get ID'd as the wrong release entirely. When I come up with empty tags and the notice "Not In AccurateRip" it is usually because the release is brand new, day of release, so I fill in all the data and submit AccurateRip data after ripping. And it's set to automatically submit the data every 30 days.

I never used FreeDB or EAC so I can't offer a comparison.

 

I'm on dbpoweramp 16.6, was this ever updated to be able to use (or submit to) CTDB tag database after freedb shutdown?

When I go to submit tags to freedb under "submit changes to" it's greyed out, so it's unable to submit tags to the new host of freedb.

edit: actually I'm on 16.6, I see the 17.3 was what it was telling me to upgrade to.

 

V17.x is where you want to be to sure the databases are fully covered and the encoders are up to date. If you still have all your order info from that you *may* be able to get a discount on upgrading.