Ditch the Freedb and use Cddb

twodutys · Post by **twodutys** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:37 pm

One of the best Freeware programs out there is Cdex. Its a ripper that uses Lame encoding and CDDB. Iv'e been ripping CD's for years and if you are only going to use one data base it needs to be Cddb. If you are going to use Freedb use Musicbranz also. Musicbranz is a good secondary database and Magic MP3 Tagger uses Musicbranz along with freedb and freedb2 (good tagger program by the way).

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:17 am

search the forum for freedb posts you will see sometime ago there was asked a question of which to use.

and you will see there is two freedb's unless the one is gone now.? leaving the second one.

but cddb last i heard was not free anymore. maybe i heard wrong but i don't believe i did.?

junglemonkey / rovingcowboy / keith hall. / and some times guest. like now

is that alright for you pah68?

pah68 · Post by **pah68** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:37 am

Surely signing in would have been quicker than that signature

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:43 am

then stop your hounding and go answer some unanswer'ed questions. people are waiting for your help.

onkel_enno · Post by **onkel_enno** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:15 am

@twodutys
If you have a look at the cddb-setting of CDEx, you'll find out that CDEx uses freedb only too (My Version does it 1.50), it's only called cddb.

mattisse · Post by **mattisse** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 2:41 am

The original CDDB (now Gracenote CDDB) is free for non-commercial software developments only. For others they charge a fee.

The freeDB seems to quickly loose relevancy after Magix bought it. It's missing lots of recent releases already.

In my opinion, musicbrainz will become the leading Music DB soon (if it isn't already). The Releases there are more up-to-date and the data quality is much better since users can object any edits.

NiteWatchman42 · Post by **NiteWatchman42** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:47 pm

I haven't yet tried MusicBrainz. I do like CDDB. I have been using MusicMatch since ver 3, and I mostly use it to Rip and Tag mp3z. MusicMatch uses CDDB for tagging. I strongly support the suggestion to incorporate CDDB searches for ID3 tagging.

I just started using MediaMonkey. So far, I like it. But I am looking for that one program that does it all when it comes to my music collection. I want a program that handles a large collection; which MediaMonkey seems to handle much better than MusicMatch. I want a program that will tag, organize, and get rid of duplicates; MediaMonkey seems to be doing a good job with that, except I would like more customization to how things will be organized. I currently have my collection broken down by genre\sub-genre\Artist\Year-Album. EXAMPLE... Rock\_Heavy Metal\Iron Maiden\1982 - The Number Of The Beast. CDDB really helps with getting that sub-genre category right.

twodutys · Post by **twodutys** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:21 pm

onkel_enno wrote:@twodutys
If you have a look at the cddb-setting of CDEx, you'll find out that CDEx uses freedb only too (My Version does it 1.50), it's only called cddb.

I stand corrected. However CDEx also uses WinampDB and MusicBrainz I see as well. Maybe that explains the reason it works better than searching with MediaMonkey? I'm using version 1.70 beta2. I need to do my home work before posting. I appologize.

Teknojnky · Post by **Teknojnky** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:28 pm

MM can use Musicbrainz for CD look via the CDDB Gateway.

If Musicbrainz does not have the disc id or release, you can add it to MB yourself and then it will be available to MB and MM for all.

james.faction · Post by **james.faction** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:16 pm

I thought freeDB is good? They allow you to submit an album if it can't be found.

I've copied lots of new CDs recently and it hasn't missed one yet.

onkel_enno · Post by **onkel_enno** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:15 am

I'm a fan of freedb too, love every open source project.

Steegy · Post by **Steegy** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:44 am

Yeah, MusicBrainz is waaaaaay to overestimated anyway. It's like FreeDB isn't good anymore and people want something new to play with (although MB has great potential, it isn't there yet).

james.faction · Post by **james.faction** » Tue May 01, 2007 4:32 pm

I've just done some testing with some more CDs, and I found MediaMonkey to be the thing that was lacking. I have another application for ripping CDs called Audiograbber, it also uses freedb.org to look up titles. It looks them up perfectly every time. Further, it will show you multiple matches for a CD if it finds them, which is fairly often, and allows you to select the correct one. However MediaMonkey tends to miss the occasional title - and never gives you any options.

This strongly suggests to me that freedb.org is not the problem, it's the way MediaMonkey looks up CDs which is the problem, and needs improving.

Rayi23 · Post by **Rayi23** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:29 pm

[quote="NiteWatchman42"]I haven't yet tried MusicBrainz. I do like CDDB. I have been using MusicMatch since ver 3, and I mostly use it to Rip and Tag mp3z, ...... I want a program that handles a large collection; which MediaMonkey seems to handle much better than MusicMatch.

I also still use MusicMatch (7.5) for Rip and Tag; it does a decent job of locating the album cover as well. I also like it's overall organization and ease of use. Dragging mp3 files onto the the "Now Playing and Burn" window is easy. I especially like the way individual CD's collapse and expand. I favored version 7.5 and always felt it was the best and most stable version. I did notice that MusicMatch will handle larger collections if you turn off "watch folders". As the library got larger, it seemed to take alot of processing power to automatically enter the mp3. I started using MediaMonkey because it does CD text, as well as viewing mp3's within folders on a CD/DVD. But I never found it especially easy to use. It does seem that it is impossible to find one that has it all.

Eli · Post by **Eli** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:46 am

The CDDB/Gracenote is far from having the best metadata. AMG is better, GD3 is good, musicbrainz is alright, and freedb passes. The thing is that none of them are perfect. The best solution, IMHO is to use multiple resources:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17684

Ditch the Freedb and use Cddb

Ditch the Freedb and use Cddb

CDDB vs. MusicBrainz

Re: CDDB vs. MusicBrainz