Introducing FMDB - Mapping the world of soundtracks (a new soundtrack focused database)

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

 

After a very long time I am very proud to introduce the fully redesigned FMDB - you can find it under https://www.fmdb.net

 

The vision of this non-profit project is to provide a comprehensive and detailed database of soundtrack releases and recordings. Each release contains at least one production (e.g. a film) with its own credits. This makes it possible to accurately list the various credits. General credits for the entire release are listed separately. Individual tracks are assigned to productions, so you can see which film, TV series or video game they come from. Want to see which episode the tracks from the many STAR TREK releases are from? No problem at all.

 

But all this only works with people who are as obsessed with detail as I am. And I'm looking for you. To make sure the quality is right, there should be a group of people who take care of it, like curators in a library.

 

The next feature will be the ability to create your own user account. You will then be able to report errors in records.

 

I'm happy to receive any kind of feedback to help make FMDB a viable tool for the soundtrack community.

[Jay 45,565]

FanTAStic!

[Tallguy 7,170]

Looking forward to it. Star Trek? I've heard of that.

[Thor 9,343]

Ambitious project, Marcus. Will be interesting to see it develop along. I suppose it will be different from, say, soundtrackcollector.com or soundtrack.net?

[Bespin Copilot 10,672]

Finally, it's a Discogs++, minus all the bullshit.

 

I LOVE IT!

 

What is lacking in Discog is a sort by Date (and you need to offer a SORT BY DATE, but the all the dates, the date of the recorded material featured, and the date of the actual release).

DATES, WE NEED THE DATES!

[Nick1Ø66 7,897]

50 minutes ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

And I'm looking for you. To make sure the quality is right, there should be a group of people who take care of it, like curators in a library.

 

Send up the @Chen G. signal!

 

[Rachael Foley 9,808]

18 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Send up the @Chen G. signal!

 

It's not this?

 

 

 

[Nick1Ø66 7,897]

Now that's a pairing you don't see often.

[Tallguy 7,170]

Oh dear.

[Rachael Foley 9,808]

I contemplated other options... Thorin, Lucas, etc.

[Chen G. 5,934]

28 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Now that's a pairing you don't see often.

Easy. You just do the Star of David thing AND sound Siegfried’s horncall! 🤣

[Rachael Foley 9,808]

2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Easy. You just do the Star of David thing AND sound Siegfried’s horncall! 🤣

On one of these?

[Chen G. 5,934]

On that one you could do Hagen’s call to the vassals, probably. A little menacing, but I guess it works too! 😅

 

 

[Holko 11,972]

2 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Now that's a pairing you don't see often.

If I were a Reich man...

 

Wait, what was the topic?

[Nick1Ø66 7,897]

We haven't had that spirit here since 1939.

[Rachael Foley 9,808]

[Nick1Ø66 7,897]

30 minutes ago, Holko said:

If I were a Reich man...

 

Wait, what was the topic?

 

[Tallguy 7,170]

4 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

We haven't had this spirit here since 1939.

Were you just going for the rhyme? 

[Nick1Ø66 7,897]

3 hours ago, Tallguy said:

Were you just going for the rhyme? 

You can check out any time you like.

[QuartalHarmony 978]

13 hours ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

But all this only works with people who are as obsessed with detail as I am. And I'm looking for you.

Oh, you won’t find any obsessive types here. No, sirree.

 

Nothing to see here. You don’t need to see our identification. Move along.

[ThePenitentMan1 1,507]

At first glance at the thread title I almost mixed this up with the IMFDB: https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Raiders_of_the_Lost_Ark

[Sunshine Reger 3,711]

14 hours ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

 

After a very long time I am very proud to introduce the fully redesigned FMDB - you can find it under https://www.fmdb.net

 

The vision of this non-profit project is to provide a comprehensive and detailed database of soundtrack releases and recordings. Each release contains at least one production (e.g. a film) with its own credits. This makes it possible to accurately list the various credits. General credits for the entire release are listed separately. Individual tracks are assigned to productions, so you can see which film, TV series or video game they come from. Want to see which episode the tracks from the many STAR TREK releases are from? No problem at all.

 

But all this only works with people who are as obsessed with detail as I am. And I'm looking for you. To make sure the quality is right, there should be a group of people who take care of it, like curators in a library.

 

The next feature will be the ability to create your own user account. You will then be able to report errors in records.

 

I'm happy to receive any kind of feedback to help make FMDB a viable tool for the soundtrack community.

Thank you for your work!

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

All jokes aside thank you all very much for the kind words.

20 hours ago, Thor said:

Ambitious project, Marcus. Will be interesting to see it develop along. I suppose it will be different from, say, soundtrackcollector.com or soundtrack.net?

 

Ambitious? Absolutely. I think different in the way one can browse through all the data.

 

20 hours ago, Bespin said:

DATES, WE NEED THE DATES!

 

You'll be able to sort by date - ascending, descending - in the coming days. And comparing FMDB with Discogs is a great compliment.

 

7 hours ago, QuartalHarmony said:

Oh, you won’t find any obsessive types here. No, sirree.

 

Oh, what a pity. It was worth a try.

[Thor 9,343]

13 minutes ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

Ambitious? Absolutely. I think different in the way one can browse through all the data.

 

Cool. Will be interesting to see what you have in mind. There are many things that work in soundtrackcollector.com, soundtrack.net or Discogs, for that matter, but also room for improvement in terms of interface.

[Jurassic Shark 16,256]

22 hours ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

I'm happy to receive any kind of feedback to help make FMDB a viable tool for the soundtrack community.

 

Perhaps you could write out the meaning of FMDB somewhere on the website (and yes, I get it).

 

Also, the logo with just an f is quite nondescript. 

 

As a way of finding the title one's looking for, I suggest a menu where one can choose the first letter of the title.

[Stark 943]

Interesting - may I ask what aspects of this will be different from soundtrackcollector?

[Tallguy 7,170]

If I can finally look up some massive TV score with 72 tracks and actually tell what episodes the tracks come from? You will have done a real service to humanity.

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

22 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Also, the logo with just an f is quite nondescript. 

 

The logo is intended to be remarkable. I think it takes a while to get used to it.

 

22 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

As a way of finding the title one's looking for, I suggest a menu where one can choose the first letter of the title.

 

I had this system in place a couple of years ago. It works for western languages but gets difficult when you have titles in japanese, chinese, russian and so on. The search should be the tool to find what you are looking for but I already know that there is a lot of room for improvement. This will take some time but I had to start somewhere.

19 hours ago, Stark said:

Interesting - may I ask what aspects of this will be different from soundtrackcollector?

 

Sure. This main differences are that each release has its own page. This makes it easy to point to a specific release instead of having a page with all possible versions of a release.

The linked productions are another aspect. This provides a further dimension of linked information. In addition, as many credits as possible are listed on a single release page.

 

17 hours ago, Tallguy said:

If I can finally look up some massive TV score with 72 tracks and actually tell what episodes the tracks come from? You will have done a real service to humanity.

 

Exactly this. Sometimes this information is already provided by the labels (e.g. for many of the La-La Land Records releases) or it is done by people like @JNHFan2000 in various threads like

This is an ongoing effort and I hope that some people - maybe from here - will be interested in helping FMDB growing further.

[Nick1Ø66 7,897]

10 minutes ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

The logo is intended to be remarkable. I think it takes a while to get used to it.

 

I tend to agree with @Jurassic Shark that the logo is a little, well, unremarkable. I didn't realize right away it was supposed to be an "F", it looks like, I don't know, an upside down ribbon to me. 

 

That said, you're the creator, and you should absolutely stick with your vision if you're committed to it, no matter what we lot say. Cool idea and I shall watch your progress with great interest. 

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

Just now, Nick1Ø66 said:

I tend to agree with @Jurassic Shark that the logo is a little, well, unremarkable. I didn't realize right away it was supposed to be an "F", it looks like, I don't know, an upside down ribbon to me. 

 

That said, you're the creator, and you should absolutely stick with your vision if you're committed to it, no matter what we lot say. Cool idea and I shall watch your progress with great interest. 

 

Yeah, you are right - it ressembles a ribbon. I'm open to make it more remarkable when I get the chance to do so. Let's see what the future holds.

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

On 16/02/2024 at 9:01 PM, Bespin said:

the date of the actual release

 

This is now possible for releases of a label. Example for La-La Land Records: https://www.fmdb.net/labels/bc873b93-4c11-44f5-934b-37199ae9ea53?sort[release_date]=asc

[Bespin Copilot 10,672]

4 hours ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

 

This is now possible for releases of a label. Example for La-La Land Records: https://www.fmdb.net/labels/bc873b93-4c11-44f5-934b-37199ae9ea53?sort[release_date]=asc

 

We need that for all kind of researches.

 

And the date have to be added on the left bar too:

[Richard P 5,186]

On 17/02/2024 at 9:08 PM, Stark said:

Interesting - may I ask what aspects of this will be different from soundtrackcollector?

 

I had a quick skim on Friday and a similar thought to this came to mind. Soundtrackcollector is good at listening all manner of releases in existence for a soundtrack. Not that there's anything specifically wrong with this one but it's not completely clear to me what new information there is to present.

[Thor 9,343]

My understanding is that this is more about a different form of interface than presenting more information than soundtrackcollector. That seems like a tall order, anyway, and probably won't be achieved for many years, if ever.

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

32 minutes ago, Bespin said:

We need that for all kind of researches.

 

The various sortings will be rolled out to artists, productions and search results.

 

32 minutes ago, Bespin said:

And the date have to be added on the left bar too

 

This is already on my list. Something like Discogs is doing grouped by year. I'm also open for suggestions to make it really useful.

 

17 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Not that there's anything specifically wrong with this one but it's not completely clear to me what new information there is to present.

 

To which movie/television series/videogame does a release belong to?

Who worked on a release?

To which movie/television series/videogame does a track belong?

Is a track a variant, e.g. Alternate?

1 minute ago, Thor said:

That seems like a tall order, anyway, and probably won't be achieved for many years, if ever.

 

Yes, that is the vision. And with all visions it is not certain this vision will realize in its full form.

[Richard P 5,186]

7 minutes ago, Marcus Stöhr said:

Is a track a variant, e.g. Alternate?

 

Certainly, more detailed information on how the alternates and film versions fit in the film would be valuable. I think like Thor said, this sounds like a long-term thing but if it got to the point where a major, complex score had an entry that broke an album down to help readers identify a piece they heard in the film, that would be extremely helpful.

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

On 21/02/2024 at 2:23 PM, Richard Penna said:

if it got to the point where a major, complex score had an entry that broke an album down to help readers identify a piece they heard in the film, that would be extremely helpful.

 

I'll write this feature request down. But there need to be some more brainstorming rounds before this can move forward. And thinking about it, such a feature would be more suited for the wiki (pinging @enderdrag64) with crosslinking.

 

In other news I just released a very small improvement: hovering of the Hi-Res badge now shows the resolution. The information was already there and is now exposed. Might be useful for some.

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

Hey there,

 

small update from my side:

 

1. You can now join a Discord to discuss anything related to FMDB: https://discord.gg/NYuuhgm9EA

2. There is also a changelog for all updates made to the site: https://docs.fmdb.net/

 

More updates soon. ✌🏻

[Bespin Copilot 10,672]

Still no search by date, nor sorting by date.

 

This is totally useless.

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

On 24/02/2025 at 1:52 PM, Bespin Copilot said:

Still no search by date, nor sorting by date.

 

This is totally useless.

 

You are right, I messed this up. We talked about that and the code was burried in a development branch.

 

However, the change in question is now available: You can now filter by release year or release decade. Example: https://www.fmdb.net/search?q=jurassic park&filter[release_decade][]=2020&page=1

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

New blog post online highlighting the latest changes and what is coming in the last months of the year: https://docs.fmdb.net/changelog/2025#2025-09-29

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

For those who want to know what's up? Here is a small breakdown. Enjoy.

 

1. Productions now have a poster and description. Also the composer is shown at the overview and listings.

2. You can now filter releases by duration, format (physical or digital)

3. When you are logged in, you can add a release to your collection or wishlist.

 

This is from the last update in https://docs.fmdb.net/changelog/2025#update-for-q4-happy-holidays

 

In the meantime I have worked on the User Collection & Wishlist feature quite a bit. It is now the Collection Management. To get an idea I have added a dedicated feature-page: https://www.fmdb.net/features/collection-management

 

If you are interested in trying it out and give feedback, please drop me a message here and I'll invite you to the beta.

[Bayesian 1,593]

On 14/3/2026 at 12:13 PM, Marcus Stöhr said:

For those who want to know what's up? Here is a small breakdown. Enjoy.

 

1. Productions now have a poster and description. Also the composer is shown at the overview and listings.

2. You can now filter releases by duration, format (physical or digital)

3. When you are logged in, you can add a release to your collection or wishlist.

 

This is from the last update in https://docs.fmdb.net/changelog/2025#update-for-q4-happy-holidays

 

In the meantime I have worked on the User Collection & Wishlist feature quite a bit. It is now the Collection Management. To get an idea I have added a dedicated feature-page: https://www.fmdb.net/features/collection-management

 

If you are interested in trying it out and give feedback, please drop me a message here and I'll invite you to the beta.

@Marcus Stöhr, your website/database is wonderful. It's a truly impressive achievement--like Discogs for film music enthusiasts, but far nicer to look at. My deepest thanks for creating this and sharing it with all of us!

[Marcus Stöhr 59]

Thank you very much for your kind words, @Bayesian. Feedback like this is one of the reasons I'm doing this.

 

In other news:

 

Thanks to @Quppa for the feedback: Releases, Artists, Labels can now have direct links to https://www.musicbrainz.org to enhance the overall information richness.