Freedb.org

I decided a couple of days ago to rip all the CDs in the collection to the hard drive.  Perhaps I'll get an mp3 player for Christmas, or maybe another 1 terabyte hard drive, so having all the CDs in mp3 format is going to be very handy indeed.

It's a gradual process, but I'm a long way towards completion tonight.  I have ripped 253 CDs so far, which is totalling 4,460 individual files on the disc; and roughly 9 gigabytes.  About 20% of them had already been ripped, but needed consistently renaming.  I also have put both ID3 version 1 AND 2 metadata into the mp3s.  This will come in handy when I finally get a programme to run over them and create a database of them for searching (I'll probably use Windows Media Player for compatibility I'd say).

During all this I have been accessing the freedb database to get filenames for the mp3 files and it has saved an inordinate amount of typing.  I am absoloutely stunned at the comprehensiveness of the database.  It has contained listings for every CD so far except for four.  They are:

Col Joye - Most Requested
Shakin' Stevens - This Ole House
Barry O'Dowd - Best Loved Christmas Songs    and
The Ventures - The Very Best of the Ventures Disc 1

Mind you, the Ventures' Disc 2 was actually listed, surprisingly enough.  Funny that someone has typed up the second disc, but not the first.  And I can't believe the ole Shakin' Stevens CD isn't in there!  Poor ole Shakin' Stevens - has no-one typed up "This Ole House" for us?  The other two are reasonably obscure I suppose and no-one's gotten around to typing up track listings for them yet.

I am going to find out what's required to send away submissions, as I've typed up the titles and info for these four CDs and for the sake of completeness, would really like to send the listings up to freedb.

I have probably another forty or fifty CDs to go before the project is over, so I'll wait to see what else might be missing and chip in my 2c worth for possible use of others out there.

The surprises never cease in that despite Barry O'Dowd's Christmas CD not being listed on freedb, when I went and played a song or two from the album, Windows Media Player was able to access the album art and download an image of the album cover for it!  So someone out there knows about it.