MusicBrainz

There are several music databases on the web that you can go browse and look and information related to music. Some include the Gracenote CDDB, The All Music Guide, FreeDB and MusicBrainz. What are the differences between them? I've posted about the CDDB and All Music Guide before. Both of these databases are used frequently by the musicians I work with and around every day. You can read more about them by clicking these links.

MusicBrainz

CDDB

AllMusic

Metadata

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iTunes Cover Art Specs

Recently, I had a client that ran into some problems with the cover art for their project. It seems iTunes has some rather stringent (in my opinion) requirements for the cover art. Part of me understands that there needs to be some requirements or checks in place and I agree with Apple that people should not be 'misleading' in the representation of their music. But, I felt this particular case may have been a bit ridiculous.

Why are my track names not showing up?

A question that is asked to me routinely several times a week is, "Why do my track titles show up as 'Audio Track 1' etc. . . when I put my CD in the computer?" There are several explanations for this occurrence.

Mastered For iTunes Requriements

Independant artists have difficulty getting into the Mastered For iTunes program, but if you wanted to try to deal directly with apple to get in here are the requirements directly from Apple. Even if you meet the requirements they may still referr you. On top of that, they also have payment thresholds and you may never get paid if you don't meet the threshold for your first payment. And now the requirements.

Technical Requirements:

iTunes

digital distribution

MFiT

Apple Digital Masters