freedb.org

[Joebugs]

freedb.org and its services will be shut down on March 31st of 2020.

I saw this notice on the freedb website.

Is there an alternative?

[gurnemanz]

freedb.org and its services will be shut down on March 31st of 2020.

I saw this notice on the freedb website.

Is there an alternative?

I also spotted this and wondered about consequences. Over the years I have found a way of using a CDDB enabled player (http://www.vuplayer.com/player.php) to download details of CDs not on freedb, as can be the case with more obscure or niche recordings. You can export the details to cdplayer.ini (now virtually defunct on Windows but can still be used even on Windows 10) and import from there to Orange CD. A little bit fiddly but much quicker and less tiresome, for me at least, than manual entry of details.

The effect of losing Freedb will be annoying but not actually so huge for me since I now buy very few CDs and use mainly downloads and streaming.

[Balok]

freedb.org and its services will be shut down on March 31st of 2020. I saw this notice on the freedb website. Is there an alternative? MusicBrainz, in general (if you use a tool like dbPoweramp to rip). Discogs for Orange. I don't expect any updates to OrangeCD, but if Andrei reads this forum, updating it to allow downloading from MusicBrainz would be welcomed by me. I found Andrei's public profile and it says he hasn't been here since 2018.

[j_castellano@comcast.net]

So my Orange CD database just stopped yesterday. Over 7,000 records listed. Tried to reinstall and i get a message that Norton 2009 isn't compatible with the program. I've had Orange for over 7 years and I have had Norton 360 for the last 2 years. Is the program really dead? I read that Collectorz may not be too bad, but can i import my database to Collectorz? Kinda of stinks that Orange just stopped supporting. Any help or guidance will be much appreciated.

John

[Jazz_North]

I tried Collectorz on my Android tablet and didn't much care for it. Importantly for me there is no easy way that I found to include all the sidemen, much less indicate what tracks they play on. It is also not very adaptable in that you are pretty much stuck with the displays that were programmed in. It does, on the plus side, make it easy to add albums as it has a large database of its own that it draws from.

And as for Norton, is there any program it doesn't make run worse? I haven't used it for years once I found Avast.

[slaKfish]

Man, i haven't posted in a long time. Anyway...is there a way we could get a freedb replacement to work? Like gnudb.gnudb.org or whatever Windows is using? I know Windows Media Player on a Windows 10 OC still downloads songs/titles. I really wish i could get this going again because i got stuff to enter.
Thanks for any help on this issue.

[gurnemanz]

Man, i haven't posted in a long time. Anyway...is there a way we could get a freedb replacement to work? Like gnudb.gnudb.org or whatever Windows is using? I know Windows Media Player on a Windows 10 OC still downloads songs/titles. I really wish i could get this going again because i got stuff to enter.
Thanks for any help on this issue.

The method I described above (#2) does work.

[Jazz_North]

Use Add from Discogs under album.

1) Search in the Add albums from discogs box using artist or keyword (use album title here)
2) Select the entry that matches your cd release code (discogs usually has several entries for any album)
3) Might also check for which discogs entry has the best credits, musician and recording data (discogs is much better on this than freedb)
4) Change the format to CD if it isn't that already
5) Under the Misc tab add the album path

I was using this even when freedb was still available as discogs provides more - and more accurate - information than freedb

[slaKfish]

Thanks guys. I actually finally stumbled on adding via Discogs. At first i didn't like it, but once i got a system down it wasn't much slower. I usually enter the label # from the spine. The only issues so far is 2CD's take some extra steps to break in to two discs. (i have to add the album twice and edit the tracks.) The other issue is unlike before where i put in the CD for freedb there seems to be no record of the actual physical CD. So i can enter it in and get duplicates if it has been entered previously. So now i've added the step of checking my catalog first to see if it's already been entered. Hopefully that made sense to you.
Have a nice day wherever you are!

[Jazz_North]

An alternate to entering it twice from Discogs (which is what I interpret you doing), you can duplicate the album - it's under Tools. You then have to do all the things you do when adding it twice plus making sure the titles of the two albums are the same (OCD adds a (1) to the duplicate). One of the longstanding, never fulfilled, requests was to have a function that would break an entry into separate discs.

[slaKfish]

OH, thanks!

[Basilmusic]

Very disappointed that OCD has virtually stopped allowing any new albums to be catalogued.At least Andrei could have given us an alternative or some advice-especially those who aren't brilliant at this technolgy. Have read about Collectorz,etc. but i really don't know where to begin.

[Jazz_North]

How is it not working for you? I added a couple of CD releases using Discogs yesterday and some downloads last week. I tend to use Discogs no matter whether I am adding a new cd or a new download because the Discogs entry often has lots of data already filled in. Once I have the properties to my liking I then link to the actual digital files using Misc - Album Path - Add. Because Discogs provides, in my experience, a lot more useful data than freedb ever did, I am not missing freedb at all. I have tried out several other cataloguers and found none as easy to use as OCD, none to provide as much information, and none to be as adaptable.