CDDB problems (Gracenote Services No Longer Work In Winamp: Reason Why Explained)

[olynth]

Yes I've asked them a couple of days ago and they replied with this thread that we're posting on here. They also said "The software developer unfortunately has not renewed their license to use the Gracenote music recognition service, and their license term has now expired."

[chrisrr]

Oh, how I wish I'd seen this thread earlier. I've been transferring music from burned cdrs and dvdrs to my hard drive and external hd, and tagging them in winamp. They're mostly Japanese, and the gracenote tagging has been quick, mostly accurate, and a saviour for actually finding out the artist name and song title for a lot of songs that were complete mysteries. I've gone through 122 cds, with approximately 288 to go. After the tagging issue suddenly arose a few days ago, I googled for a solution, and found a few old threads by people with the same problem, with a few suggestions for fixes - update addons, do a complete winamp uninstall and clean install, roll back computer to a previous restore date, and so on. Needless to say, none of them worked. I've downloaded mp3tag, and the mp3 source for amazon.co.jp, so it sort of does the job, but it's quite tedious, and can't identify any of the unknown songs by unknown artists.

Thank you for explaining what the problem is. I was getting pretty frustrated trying to find a solution when there isn't one. I didn't even realize winamp had new owners. That's good news, as I've been using it for as long as I've had a computer (with the old mac osx aqua skin), and don't care for any of the alternatives I've used. The autotag function, however, is one of the best things about it, so I look forward to the day it works again. Hopefully it will be as helpful and intuitive as the previous one.

[MrSinatra]

I guess this thread is as good as any other for these comments, hopefully they help the devs:

1. check out EAC. it uses plugins to do track lookups, and I believe the service is free to EAC, (as it should be). I never understood why winamp would pay for gracenote when free services evolved that were just as good and money was tight.

freedb is the obvious one.

http://www.freedb.org/

CTDB (cuetools) is another, both come with EAC.

http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CUETools_Database

http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CTDB_EAC_Plugin

This plugin verifies your rips against CTDB database, and submits new CDs to it.

It can also serve as a metadata plugin, providing access to MusicBrainz, Discogs and FreeDB metadata via CTDB. CTDB replicates Musicbrainz database hourly, Discogs and FreeDB - monthly. In addition to direct discid search, it supports the same fuzzy search algorithm as Musicbrainz, and also uses it for Discogs and FreeDB data, increasing the chance that correct metadata will be found.

I have had that plugin offer me different results from different providers, and I pick the one I like best, which is great.

EAC also allows other plugins, including paid for ones, to be installed / used.

http://www.getdigitaldata.com/GD3.aspx

2. the reason I have never used picard / musicbrainz apps is b/c they spam a lot of musicbrainz specific fields into one's tags, and I don't like that, esp since some apps will use those tags for sorting and so on over, or instead of, the obvious ones you can easily see and edit.

let me clarify that I have np with musicbrainz as a source for normal tags, which is what EAC inserts, I just don't want winamp to insert MB specific tag fields/frames that I don't want, or at the very least have the option to opt out of those frames being inserted.

3. EAC will parlay the metadata it find into album image lookups, and I almost always find my art with it. it looks to me like it searches via web searches, like google, but of specific sites. just a guess. mp3tag also has image lookup.

4. it would be a really great idea to use a system that does use these multiple sources, and also does its own thing. what I mean is a system that adds a tag for the md5 hash value, audio fingerprinting, degree of confidence comparisons and so on...

what I am suggesting is you could do a lot beyond just metadata lookups, but as a byproduct of them. exact file matching, audio fingerprint comparison (good for eliminating dupes as well as metadata lookup), and adding a tag with the hash so the analysis of the file need only be done once.

winamp could also allow users to opt in to a system where winamp creates its own DB, and social network where users can share the metadata of their own collections, meaning not just a freedb clone, but kind of like winamp cloud without the music, so that users could say "here is my stuff, look at it" or compare ratings, and that could serve as a music recommendation engine.

so anyway, just throwing it all out there.

some links:

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Fingerprinting

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/206507/Duplicates-detector-via-audio-fingerprinting

[joshm662]

well this friggin sucks! WINAMP has been my go-to player for so long I can't even remember a time when I used anything else... but now it appears to be that time.

I've downloaded every suggested MP3 tagging program and they are super bloated and incredibly difficult to use. Rename&Tag was one, i think.. then Magic Tagger... then the one mentioned a few posts up, MP3Tag... there is no way to simply play a song within those programs and click one button and BAM, tagged.. no, of course these people make it incredibly difficult and explain nothing.

is there ANY other player out there that is ACTUALLY user friendly and easy tag or am I stuck using WinAMP and manually tagging my albums? This really sucks, I wish WinAMP had thought of the millions of users it has and maybe set some things up for a smooth transition to another owner.. there are thousands of companies that are purchased that you wouldn't even realize because they don't want to lose customers to rivals... it's really too bad because I love WinAMP and to read that things won't be back to normal until 2015 (more than likely), it just sucks.

[Aminifu]

... I wish WinAMP had thought of the millions of users it has and maybe set some things up for a smooth transition to another owner... there are thousands of companies that are purchased that you wouldn't even realize because they don't want to lose customers to rivals...

Last November AOL announced they were going to shutdown Winamp in December. 1 month notice to shutdown, not sell. AOL has yet to provide a reason(s) why. Anyway, Radionomy stepped up and offered to buy it. There was no time for a smooth, seamless transition. As a 15 year Winamp user, I'm happy it has survived and can wait a few months for it to get back to normal or even better than it was.

As you are finding out, there is no other app like Winamp or even close. I think it will be worth the wait. That said, I've heard that MediaMonkey's tagging feature is not too bad.

[DrO]

let me clarify that I have np with musicbrainz as a source for normal tags, which is what EAC inserts, I just don't want winamp to insert MB specific tag fields/frames that I don't want, or at the very least have the option to opt out of those frames being inserted.

i have noticed that as we could probably only get away with 2 or 3 of the ones that are added by Picard for example. though i'm leaning towards adding anything which can be calculated so we offer as much compatibility with other players / services which rely on those tags as well as having to minimise the amount of further remote lookups than is needed to be done.

4. it would be a really great idea to use a system that does use these multiple sources, and also does its own thing. what I mean is a system that adds a tag for the md5 hash value, audio fingerprinting, degree of confidence comparisons and so on...

there will be a finger print aspect, most likely provided via the AcoustID system which then allows us to obtain Musicbrainz ids and go from there. the overall aim is we rely more on Musicbrainz ids which allows for better interoperability with other systems so we can swap and change services as needed down the road without too much pain (unlike the situation we're now under).

[chrisrr]

By "audio fingerprinting", do you mean digital file identification? About 14 years ago I downloaded a lot of music from a Japanese independent radio site - they were playable on the site as .rma files, but I was unable to find the actual .rm files, so I recorded them in real time using total recorder, saved them as wav files, then converted them to mp3. As I couldn't read much Japanese at the time and online translators weren't particularly good, many of these songs were mysterious mp3s with no song or artist information, until I discovered that even after all the conversions, I could click "autotag" in winamp and it could identify them. I found that pretty amazing.

There's no chance of striking a deal with the new owners of Gracenote? According to wikipedia, Sony sold Gracenote to Tribune Company earlier this year. Or is there some reason for not wanting to use Gracenote? I have no experience using MusicBrainz, but my main concern is that its autotag/file identification system is as fluent in Japanese as Gracenote is.

[DrO]

we [Winamp] will not use Gracenote as its too expensive and limits what can be used in the player for other aspects (and is one of the ways that will allow us to keep Winamp free - unless everyone wants to pay to use such features...). and I was not aware that they [Gracenote] had changed ownership like we have as well.

for fingerprinting I'd suggest having a looking at the acoustid details from the link mrsinatra posted.

obviously we don't know how the replacement will fare since it all depends on the quality of the information in the system (like I'm finding artwork lookup via musicbrainz's service very hit and miss whereas last.fm's gets something most of the time but the image sizes can really vary). and just like how what was used worked well for some, for others and myself included it often gave poor results (which is annoying when I've got the physical CD and case with me to find someone has entered crap into the system).

[MarkRH]

I still use an old CDex v1.51 to burn CDs with when I don't use Winamp. http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/

It uses freedb.org to lookup Disc information. I used to use it a lot more often in the past because of the normalization you could do with it which Winamp did not do at the time or handle as well (some of my classical CDs you can barely hear because the overall volume is so low). It also allowed me to enter start/end sector offset values because Winamp would record the start of the next track at the end of the current track on the system I had at the time.

Regardless, usually, I had to manually edit the results with both programs as the data was only as accurate as it was entered by someone. The old "garbage in, garbage out" saying applies.

So, I guess if I rip any CDs now, I'll need to go back to CDex to do the initial lookup.

[Aminifu]

So, I guess if I rip any CDs now, I'll need to go back to CDex to do the initial lookup.

I suggest you take a look at the app MrSinatra mentioned above, Exact Audio Copy (EAC). It is an excellent ripper (it can adapt itself to the CD/DVD hardware being used). It does a very good job with CDs that have been heavy used and can search for and add metadata from various sources.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

[DJ Matt]

Such a bummer, Winamp's gracenote engine was VERY good at identifying which CDs some rare oldies people would send me (or find untagged in a newsgroup) came from.

[Aminifu]

This thread is proof for the old adage, "You don't miss your water, til the well runs dry".

It's also interesting that most of those posting had good experiences with Gracenote tagging, unlike I and others. I guess those with bad experiences are just not bothering to post.

PS.
That's a great avatar, Matt.

[DrO]

or maybe we were the minority when it came to issues with it. either way what's stopped working cannot be undone now (and is the last of the online based services to finally stop) and I know its going to cause more people to move away from the desktop client but there's little that can be done with all the other work which needs to be done before we're even close to having a new public build available.

[Aminifu]

... (and is the last of the online based services to finally stop) ...

Perversely, the Gracenote supported service that analyses and generates playlists from a 'seed' file is still working for me. I'm frequently not happy with the lists made, so when this finally stops working it will be no great loss for me.

[chuckjmoore1991]

I don't blame DrO for not wanting anything to do with Gracenote. Though Gracenote has a new owner, they're still an independent subsidary. That means no matter who is the owner of Gracenote, the developer zone guidelines won't change. The problem I have with Gracenote is the way they determine whether developers are considered commercial or non-commercial. Because there is a both a free and pro version of Winamp, Gracenote is more that likely say the developers of Winamp are commercial, though Gracenote software would be a free feature and not a premium feature. If MusicBrainz was used instead of Gracenote, I believe the MetaBrainz Foundation would also consider Winamp developers commercial, but would only ask 10% profits made from the pro version to be donated. MusicBrainz is a better option for being a free feature of Winamp over Gracenote.