TrackType.org (beta)

TrackType.org is known to work with CDex, Foobar 2000, Grip, HMusicCentre, kAudioCreator, kJams, lltag, Magic Tagger 2.2.3, Melomania, Mp3splt, OrangeCD, Ripstation, Tag & Rename and VisiTrax.

TrackType.org has been reported to not work with ID3-TagIT at this time.

This list will be updated as reports of success or failure are received. Please be sure to report any problems which you do encounter and they will be fixed as quickly as possible.

Please show your support for TrackType.org by placing a text link or button on your website, or by making a donation.

Sunday, January 9 2011, 03:30+11

In response to a bug report from one of our regular users I've been doing some testing of the Tag & Rename music cataloging software and found it to work very well with TrackType. Accordingly it has been added to the list of working clients above. The bug turned out to be due to some software upgrades of the TrackType server which were performed last week, and it required a minor change to the TrackType software to compensate.

Tuesday, September 9 2008, 01:30+10

Mp3splt version 2.2 and Mp3splt-gtk v0.5 (using libmp3splt version 0.5) have been released. These are the first releases to use tracktype.org by default to search and download .cddb files.

Wednesday, January 9 2008, 15:00+11

David Cotter, the author of kJams has kindly agreed to host a copy of the TrackType database dump. You can now download the data from the alternative location here. Thanks David!

Sunday, January 6 2008, 11:15+11

Since http://freedb.org seems to have been experiencing problems with its download server lately, I've posted copies of many of the archives on my server at http://tracktype.org/archives

Although I haven't kept a copy of the freedb-complete archive you can reconstruct something similar to that by downloading all the freedb-update archives and extracting them in date order. You can also download the freedb howto documentation and the latest TrackType database dump from there.

Friday, October 5 2007, 10:30+11

Melomania is music collection software that now supports TrackType. It provides serious music collectors with a set of tools and features for organizing their collections fast. To learn more about Melomania, you can visit its home page at http://www.ableapples.com/melomania/

Thursday, January 11 2007, 15:30+11

There is now an updated version of the database available from cddb-disc-20070101.html using BitTorrent. This is similar to the previously published dump, but adds new entries received from freedb.org, up to and including 2007-01-01 so it is now 400 MB in size.

In addition to normalising all white space, disc numbers (e.g. "disc 2") have been parsed and removed from Album titles and placed in a separate field to simplify clean up of the data. An updated script is available from cddb-disc-20070101.sql

The script includes a function which converts the extracted disc information into a format which is standardised according to the MusicBrainz.org style guide, although it is easily modified to suit your own taste. Note that although the new table definition also includes a field for extracted volume info, that field is not being populated yet. Time permitting, it will be ready for the next update.

If you download the file via BitTorrent and you are in a position to mirror it for others to download via HTTP and/or FTP, please let me know and I'll post a link to your page.

Tuesday, November 21 2006, 11:45+11

Ripstation from Ripfactory now fully supports TrackType.org. Ripstation is a professional level ripping application which robotically rips, encodes and provides metadata for volume transfer of CD's and is aimed at CD ripping companies, retailers and prosumer applications. Ripfactory has recognised the quality of data within Tracktype.org via its metadata validation system and recommends it as a valuable data source.

For more information visit http://www.ripfactory.com/ripstation

Tuesday, November 21 2006, 8:45+11

Thanks to a problem report from a software developer there has been another bug fixed. This one was causing intermittent problems with some CDDB client software. In cases where an album had some tracks with artists and some tracks without artists, a spurious '/' was being inserted in the track title lines before the song name. Please be sure to email the database administrator if you find any problems which are impeding your use of TrackType.org and they will be attended to as quickly as possible.

Saturday, November 18 2006, 17:00+11

Major update! More than 1.5 million records have now been updated to significantly improve the quality of the TrackType.org database. In addition to the white space clean up featured in the data dump which was released a few days ago, there are now widespread changes to the formatting and capitalisation of disc and track titles.

Many months of analysis and testing have gone in to making these changes, but in spite of that, there are likely to be some glitches that have slipped through quality control. If you are contemplating a large scale retagging of your music collection using TrackType.org, please take the time to verify a random sample using the web based search before you proceed. If you find any changes for the worse, please email the administrator and they will be fixed as soon as possible.

Friday, November 17 2006, 16:30+11

lltag is a command-line tool manipulating MP3 ID3, OGG or FLAC tags. It may be used to tag multiples files at once by comparing their filename or pathname against a configurable list of formats, or by getting tags from the CDDB database. lltag may also rename files according to a configurable filename format. The interface has been designed to be as automatic, efficient and smart as possible.

Friday, November 17 2006, 7:30+11

TrackType.org is currently making its search engine available to MusicBrainz in support of their freedb data import facility. This allows users of the MusicBrainz client software to choose to import metadata from TrackType.org or freedb.org in the event that a record is not yet present in MusicBrainz' own database. While the current arrangement may only be temporary, it is certainly providing plenty of incentive to continue improving TrackType.org so that it might become a more permanent partnership between the two sites.

Friday, November 17 2006, 2:15+11

There is now a copy of the complete data set used by TrackType.org which can be downloaded from http://s19.quicksharing.com/v/200860/cddb_disc.7z.html

The actual download link is not all that obvious — it is the small grey Download File just under the main heading. Note that from next month, TrackType.org will have a much faster internet connection and it will become practical to serve such large files directly from the server here.

The file is 389 MB in size and contains more than two million CD metadata records. It has been extracted from the update files released by freedb.org and has had a considerable amount of cleaning up applied to it as well. In particular, all redundant white space has been removed, only leaving line breaks in disc and track comments.

Once it is decompressed, the data can be loaded into a PostgreSQL database in one step. Here is a short SQL script that will take care of that. You will need to have PostgreSQL and 7zip installed. Please email if you have any further queries about it.

Friday, November 10 2006, 3:15+11

Today we have a new sponsor with Magic MP3 Tagger, and a new name for the web site. To avoid confusion I've changed most of the references on this page to the new domain name, but the freedb2.org domain name will also continue to work with your client software. There is no need to change any of your settings for your software to continue to use this music database.

Monday, October 9 2006, 17:45+11

HMusicCentre is a new music client which not only displays the lyrics of songs as they are played, but highlights each line of the song as it is being played! A clever piece of software, it was a year in the making. Please check it out.

Sunday, October 8 2006, 17:45+11

In view of the fact that all these files are likely to start disappearing from other sites on the internet soon, I've placed them in an archive on the server here. Software and instructions for using this data can be found at http://asmith.id.au/freedb.html

The files in question are all of the original freedb.org update files and are exactly those which were used to build TrackType.org. While they can only be of historical interest to most people, I feel that they are a valuable part of our internet heritage and should be preserved.

Some of the files are still available from these sites:
http://ftp.ticklers.org/pub/freedb/old_updates/
http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/freedb/old_updates/
http://python.planetmirror.com/ftp/freedb/old_updates/

Friday, October 6 2006, 1:45+11

After receiving feedback from the author of the VisiTrax music organisation software, support for the 'cddb sites' command has been added to TrackType.org's implementation of the CDDB protocol. Please take a good look at this product and try it out with TrackType.org

Tuesday, July 11 2006, 1:00+10

Thanks to a detailed problem report from a user and very prompt help from the author of OrangeCD, I have been able to correct a problem with TrackType.org which may be affecting a number of client applications for the Windows operating system.

Records that are retrieved normally from TrackType.org use the linux convention for delimiting lines (a single line feed character) as this is almost universally acceptable nowadays and it saves a little bandwidth. However some software running on the Windows operating system still expects to see files using the DOS convention for delimiting lines (a carriage return character followed by a line feed character).

To avoid problems TrackType.org now returns all CDDB records that are requested by the 'cddb read' command using the DOS file convention. Records that are retrieved directly from TrackType.org using HTTP still use the Linux convention.

Saturday, July 8 2006, 12:45+10

I am very pleased to announce the release of Magic Tagger 2.2.3

This powerful software provides a set of tools to organise your mp3 collection, and rename and retag all your mp3 files to suit your own preferences and needs. The author has moved quickly to take advantage of the new capabilities of TrackType.org. Use Magic Tagger 2.2.3 in conjunction with TrackType.org to update and correct missing or erroneous information in your music collection, quickly and conveniently.

Friday, July 7 2006, 1:00+10

What methods are provided for software to search TrackType.org? The 'cddb query' command from the old freedb protocol is implemented and is the means by which your client software is able to search TrackType.org for records matching an audio compact disc.

TrackType.org also provides a new command 'cddb album' for searching for records using the artist name and/or the album title. The command is invoked using the CDDB over HTTP protocol exactly as for 'cddb query' and returns a list of exact or fuzzy matches in exactly the same format as 'cddb query'. Some examples of the command where the artist name is "artist name" and the album title is "album title" look like this:

cmd=cddb+album+artist+name+/+album+title

cmd=cddb+album+/+album+title

cmd=cddb+album+artist+name

In each case TrackType.org will do its best to find an exact match for the artist and title of the album. If it fails to find an exact match then it will revert to fuzzy matching on the words and phrases that you have requested. The result code returned for the search reflects whether or not an exact match was found, as for the 'cddb query' command. Use the 'cddb read' command to retrieve the contents of a record, or alternatively use one of the methods documented below. If you experience any problems please email the database administrator for assistance.

Thursday, July 6 2006, 6.30+10

What does the future hold for freedb2.org? Most urgently, to make the freedb data and TrackType.org software available under the most free possible terms, preferably as public domain for the data and under the new BSD licence for the software.

Short term, finish implementing, testing and deploying the remaining freedb features and more of the planned TrackType.org features that have been requested by users and developers over the past six years.

Medium term, a name change. While not required by any reasonable law or code of ethics, I believe it will help to restore confidence in the project and encourage everyone to look forward to a brighter future.

Long term, I would like to see the TrackType.org ideal grow into a decentralised and distributed system, much like Jabber or some other kind of peer-to-peer network.

Thursday, July 6 2006, 1:45+10

Can I submit new records to TrackType.org? Yes, you can submit new records to TrackType.org via email submissions. The preferred address to use is submissions@tracktype.org although freedb-submit@tracktype.org is also accepted.

Please note that I am currently trying to establish whether or not the freedb data can or should be released in to the public domain. For the time being, new submissions will be kept separate from the main database and will not appear in TrackType.org until the matter can be resolved one way or the other.

Unless public opinion is strongly opposed to it, new submissions will be released in to the public domain at that time. The existing database will remain under the GPL if it is not possible or desirable to bring it in to the public domain.

Wednesday, July 5 2006, 7:15+10

The PostgreSQL Company, Command Prompt, Inc has generously donated hosting and bandwidth to help TrackType.org become a great success. This distinguished company has been chosen to sponsor TrackType.org for its extensive experience with managed hosting of PostgreSQL database solutions, and because it is impartial and independent of the businesses and software developers which depend on TrackType.org.

Tuesday, July 4 2006, 10:15+10

Can I use my freedb client software with TrackType.org? In most cases, yes. TrackType.org supports a subset of the CDDB over HTTP protocol used by freedb.org. To use your music software with TrackType.org go to the preferences for your operating system or client software and change freedb.freedb.org and/or freedb.org to tracktype.org. You should also make sure that the HTTP protocol is selected for accessing the database.

How do I access the TrackType.org database directly? You can access the TrackType.org database directly in a number of ways, and more methods will be added over time. If you know the freedb category (e.g. misc) and the disc id (e.g. 7306110a) of the record that you want then you can retrieve it via a URL like
http://tracktype.org/freedb/misc/7306110a for the freedb record or
http://tracktype.org/xml/misc/7306110a for the XML version of the same record.

Tuesday, July 4 2006, 06:15+10

Where can I download the data for TrackType.org? The data for TrackType.org is exactly the same as the data for freedb.org as of July 1st 2006. For the time being you should still be able to download it from the old freedb.org mirrors. At present TrackType.org does not have the bandwidth available to serve large files or seed a bittorrent, but I am working on a solution.

Will TrackType.org remain free? TrackType.org will be even more free than the old freedb.org. In particular, new submissions will be released into the public domain and there will be no restrictions placed on timely access to the data, such as those that were imposed by freedb.org. New submissions will be made available in real time via a number of mechanisms such RSS and XML as the resources become available to support them.

Where is the source code for TrackType.org? There is extensive documentation, scripts and source code at http://asmith.id.au/freedb.html for converting freedb.org data into a PostgreSQL database. One of the most important components of TrackType.org is published under the BSD licence at http://asmith.id.au/mod_libpq.html

Further components will be published under the BSD licence as they become ready. At this stage I do not intend to release the source code for the TrackType.org website, but I do intend to release everything that you will need to set up your own local TrackType.org server and mirror. In many cases you won't need to do that because you will be able to obtain a live feed for your website directly from TrackType.org.

Tuesday, July 4 2006, 05:45+10

Welcome to TrackType.org. This page will contain news and information about the present status and future direction of TrackType.org. Please check back regularly for updates. The next post will contain answers to the most frequently asked questions that have been received so far. There are many people waiting on these answers, so please spread the word.

The tagging solution.
Organize and sort your music collection.

This page Copyright 2006, Andrew Smith