FreeDB- am I the main source?

Any ideas why submitting to FreeDB in EAC would be greyed out? I do have an email in my settings

 

After ripping around 500 CDs, I'm annoyed at how common it is with compilation albums for people to list the artist of all the tracks as "Various Artists" and then put both the title and artist into the Title field. Or they enter the year the compilation was released as the year of all or most of the tracks. That's not how it's supposed to work!

 

I think I get that if I put in characters FreeDB doesn't like. Do you have any slashes or other special characters anywhere?

 

What metadata plugin do you have set for "get cd information from"?
Some of the metadata plugins can get data from FreeDB but cannot submit.

 

I often offer changes to freedb, via dBpoweramp, CD Ripper and these seem to be accepted. Has anyone had success with freedb using the Composer entry?

If several people offer changes with subtle differences, which one gets used?

I think many people have been a bit confused with Submit changes to freedb and submitting to AccurateRip.

In dBpoweramp, until a few months ago, if you hadn't submitted regularly and the number of CDs offered to Online Database was too big, the submission was not accepted - I amongst several others had this scenario. A recent change in setting size meant that my 2,000 odd CDs were accepted in the AccurateRip database, so recently there have probably been hundreds of thousands CD gone into the database, which will obviously aid EAC users too.

Slightly off subject, but possibly useful for users of the excellent dBpoweramp software, is to increase the cache size so more than the last 20 discs details are remembered.

Here is the link: Remembering details I have inputted

 

From experience of how friends and colleagues use EAC and dBpoweramp, as long as the artist, album name and cover are vaguely correct, they will accept the default data. Because of this, one ended up with 170 odd different genre - I would suggest that the majority don't care that much.

Yes, I have inputted artists into compilations where Various Artists has been used, but if a comp. is from 1995, I will only enter 1995 for the Date. Ultimately I rip music to listen to it, and I am not going to look up dates for 40 different tracks, same with Genre. If I did, where would I enter this information?

Compilations with all artists inputted as Various Artists, may have come about to prevent an album being split into multiple single track albums by some who haven't changed settings.

The biggest problem with metadata and tags is that there are no standards and a number of players have only basic tag support, many not using Sort Tags. In this day and age, surely manufacturers could implement something as simple and useful as Artist Sort?

 

There are no special characters. I always edit those out so it doesn't leave a blank space in Windows.

Under Metadata settings in the MetaData Provider tab "CueTools DB Metadata Plugin v2.1.6" is what is selected.

On the Freedb tab I have an email set and this is the database it connects to: http://freedb.freedb.org:80/~cddb/cddb.cgi

I didn't even know that CueTools has metadata. Could this be causing the problem?

I have noticed that EAC is not pulling up tags from FreeDB (probably why I am manually entering more CDs now) but these will show up on FreeDB in dbpoweramp. This might just be the culprit!

 

The CueTools metadata plugin is one that can't submit to FreeDB. So that's why it's not working for you. However, the CueTools plugin is able to also query MusicBrainz and some other metadata providers. So I like the CueTools plugin. It gets better data. Even though it can't submit to FreeDB.

If you want to submit to FreeDB you'll need to switch to one of the other FreeDB plugin options. Enter your data you want to submit. Submit it. Then switch back to the CueTools plugin.

I'm not sure why the FreeDB plugins aren't working for you. They do need an email address entered. If you haven't put in an email address then that may be why it isn't working for you. You can enter a fake email address if you want to. If you enter a real email address you'll get an email if your submission was rejected. I give it an email address I use as a spam address so I can check to see if a submission was rejected.

 

Interesting. I didn't know dBpoweramp or the AccurateRip database would have problems if you submitted too many at one time. I wonder if the EAC AccurateRip plugin also has had that problem? I hadn't noticed that as a problem, but I also don't submit large batches at once. Hopefully they've got that fixed.

 

Here is the link.
Impossible to submit the results to AccurateRip

 

The FreeDB database doesn't actually have a composer field. The composer field is in EAC and dBpoweramp for the other metadata sources like MusicBrainz which do have a composer field.

The FreeDB database is actually rather crude. Designed back in the old days of PCs. It doesn't have many fields and the fields are all in text format rather than a true database format. Rather crude. But standard procedure for how things were often done 30 years ago. The database format isn't going to be changed now because that would break backwards compatibility. So the fields it has and the way they're formatted is the way it has been and the way it will be.

The FreeDB database doesn't even actually have a separate artist field. That almost seems unbelievable. But it is the way the database was designed. If it didn't even have the forethought to have a separate artist field it certainly never had the forethought to have a composer field.

The artist is actually encoded in the Disc Title (DTITLE) field by convention. The convention is to have the DTITLE named in the format of "artist / disc title" The info before that first slash is the artist. The info after the slash is the disc title. Crude.

The FreeDB site has a page that has info about the database format and guidelines if you want to dig in and learn more: freedb.org > Download > Miscellaneous

You can also use the FreeDB search page to find a disc and look at the metadata for that disc.
Search page: freedb.org > FreeDB Database Search
Find a disc in the search. Click on details to expand. Then click on the hyperlinked Disc-ID to get to the actual database text entries for that disc.
You'll see that there is no composer field. And also no separate artist field.

 

Nice! so it was a server side fix. That's good because clients won't need to be updated to take advantage of the change.

 

It works fine after I changed the Metadata Provider tab settings to be FreeDB and not CueTools. It is a bit annoying having to change them around in settings, something like dbpoweramp's window where it brings up all the database tags would be really welcome. And dbpoweramp does not have access to CueTools' ripping database checksums so it still warrants the use of both programs I'm not sure why Spoon won't incorporate CueTools plugin in dbpoweramp.

I personally like to err on the side of caution and use EAC secure test and copy if a rip does not come back at least AR 2 in dbpoweramp. I've also repaired two CDs using CueTools, another reason I like EAC.

 

I doubt dBpoweramp is going to support CTDB. dBpoweramp is built around how AccurateRip works. AccurateRip was developed by Spoon so dBpoweramp could verify rips and implement a secure ripping method that is faster than what EAC can do (that faster ripping method relies on AccurateRip data).

AR1 and AR2 are both just as reliable for verifying a rip. If a rip verifies with AR1 data that is just as good as verifying with AR2 data. The main advantage with AR2 is that it better handles offsets and different pressings.

If a disc isn't in AR1, AR2, or CTDB I import the FLAC tracks into my music library (JRiver) and also save that rip along with its CUE file to an archive directory named something like "need to verify". Then come back in a few months and check that archive with CUETools to see if it's now in CTDB and can be verified.

 

I meant if a rip doesn't come back with at least AR Confidence 2

 

Thanks for that. I was fairly sure that freedb doesn't have a Composer field, but not the reason and history behind it.

 

Anyone else having problems with free dB? Seems to have been out of order for the past week or 2.

Google yields no meaningful info.

 

FreeDB lookups have been working fine for me over the past two weeks. I've been doing some ripping and getting results from FreeDB lookups.

Perhaps your ripping software is configured to look for a freedb server that is now offline?
Point your ripping software to look at "http://freedb.freedb.org:80/~cddb/cddb.cgi"
instead of looking for a specific freedb server.
The above URL picks a random freedb mirror to do the lookup. If you're using a different URL you are picking a specific server that may be down. Let freedb.org pick the server for you.

It's also possible that a new firewall rule or security software you're running is blocking access. Make sure you're firewall is allowing your ripping software to access freedb.org.

 

I also have been having problems with freeDB when using EAC for about a month. Will try Ham Sandwich's idea to see if that clears it up,

 

In EAC, select the bluilt-in freedb engine.
Then go to EAC >> Metadata Options...
Select the "freedb" tab
Then click on the "Get active freedb server list" button
That should get a new list of servers and hopefully work
I just did that and did a freedb lookup in EAC using the built-in freedb engine and it worked

You can also configure EAC to use the "freedb Metadata Plugin" or "CUETools DB Metadata Plugin" and be able to get freedb lookups using either of those metadata options.
To configure those metadata options go to EAC >> Metadata Options...
Select the "Metadata Provider" tab
Select the plugin in the "Selected metadata provider" drop-down
Then click the "Show options for the selected metadata provider" button

Give freedb an email address. It doesn't need to be a real email address. A made-up name at example.com will work.

 

It turns out my problem is actually with “freedb Metadata Plugin”. It hangs up when I ask it to get cover art. Any suggestions as to what I should do? The “built-in freed engine” retrevies the track listing but does ask for or get a cover.

 

The latest Windows 10 cumulative update has been causing problems problems for some systems. Problems with explorer integration, scripting, start menu crashing, edge browser, and other problems. The latest version of that update was released about two weeks ago. Maybe that cumulative update is breaking the freedb metadata plugin on your system? The timing with when that update was released and your problems with EAC would seem to coincide.

Try the "CUETools DB Metadata Plugin V2.1.6" instead. The CUETools plugin grabs metadata from FreeDB, MusicBrainz, and Discogs all at the same time. And also can search for album art.

If you don't see a metadata option for the CUETools plugin, make sure you're running version EAC version 1.3. Version 1.3 includes the CUETools metadata plugin as part of the regular EAC install.

 

My EAC install seems to be picking up CD data just fine lately but I gave up having it look for cover art about three months ago as it was unable to find art for some classic common albums. Clearly something is very wrong with its image search these days.

-s1m0n-

 

Leaving ripping software to the side, I can't even get the search function at freedb. org to work.

Type in something like David bowie young Americans and no results are given.

Tried browsers on Windows 10 and Android with same results.

I'm at a loss.