Help Please - noob question - how to install/use MusicBrainz freedb download?

I downloaded the “basic” database mbdump.tar.bz2 - but no idea what to do with it.

Have CDex on Windows 10 (64-bit) - (which has Local freedb) - how do I “install” the database so CDex can use it, please?

Sorry for the very noob question - but I cold not find this simple thing in the documentation or MusicBrainz website.

Be grateful for simple instructions, or a url pointer to the page of instructions?

Many thanks for any help.


Vincent

That dump file is not a freedb dump, it is part of a dump of the musicbrainz.org website and would allow you to run a full mirror of the website.

Musicbrainz did have a freedb comparable gateway that it operated for 11 years but this was shut down last year. see freedb-gateway-end-of-life-notice-march-18-2019

It does not look like CDex supports musicbrainz so you could file a bug with them or try using another ripper that support musicbrainz.

Musicbrainz has a public api that programs can use to pull metadata and tag music.
See this list of MusicBrainz_Enabled_Applications for rippers and music taging software that uses musicbrainz data.

8 Likes

Sorry for my tardy reply -

Thank you for the clarification.

I thought I’d post my installation of a LocalCDDB for CDex.

Please remember I am a total noob in all this, and even now really had no idea of what I was doing - so any feedback comments are welcome.

Having been told MusicBrainz’s freedb was not supposed to be compatible with CDex - I had downloaded the actual freedb database - freedb-complete-20200301.tar.bz2

Put on an external (portable) HD, and on a whim tried to expand/unpack it on Windows 10 PC (not Unix/Linux) used 7-Zip.

Took nearly 12 hours to uncompress it (not a slow PC - i5-8400 cpu, 8GB RAM) - quick peek in the uncompress folder seem to show the same structure as the default LocalCDDB directory in CDex - C:\Users[UserName]\AppData\Local\CDex\LocalCDDB\

Let it run to uncompress.

By lunchtime today - 7-Zip had finally finished. Renamed the directory/folder to LocalCDDB and located it in the root directory of the portable HD - went into CDex as administrator and changed the location of the LocalCDDB to the newly extracted directory.

Lo-and-behold as soon as I put a CD in to CDex - it almost immediately showed the CD information - like I did a remote query with freedb, but much, much quicker.

This was so quick that I thought perhaps I put in a CD I had ripped before, and the info was already in the LocalCDDB.

Tried another - and the same instantaneous thing happened - which confirmed CDex was getting the info from the LocalCDDB!

It does work for me - and I really had no real idea of what I was doing.

Comments suggestions and corrections more than welcomed.

Thanks for your patience.

Vincent

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Hi Vicente!
My name is Alberto, I am Brazilian and I have little experience with this software too.
Is it possible for you to make this unzipped “file” available to me?
Thank you for your attention.

(My English is terrible, so I’m using a web translator).

Alberto.

Hi Vicent.
Help me please.

Thank very much.

Alberto.