DDEX ERN
General
A release can be turned into a DDEX ERN NewReleaseMessage and checked against the official schema before it goes anywhere. The controls sit at the bottom of Full DDEX metadata on the Release edit view.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Version | The ERN version to build. 4.3 for now |
| Validate | Builds the message and reports what the schema rejects |
| Download XML | Builds the same message and saves it as a file |
Both read the saved release, so both are disabled while the page has unsaved changes, with a note saying to save first.
What the check covers
The message is built from the release's real data and validated against the vendored DDEX XSD - the schema files as published by DDEX, not an approximation. Failures come back as a table of line numbers and messages, so an error can be traced to a place in the XML rather than to a yes/no.
This is structural XSD validation only. DDEX's Schematron business rules are not applied. XSD is the gatekeeper - a message that fails it will not be accepted anywhere - but passing it is not a guarantee that a particular partner will take the release.
Reading the errors
Errors fall into two groups, and only one of them is yours to fix.
Real gaps in the release. Fields the catalog does model but this release or its recordings leave empty - missing label, no main artist, no duration, no UPC, no ISRC - are left out of the message and come back as validation errors. That is the signal the check exists for.
Placeholders. Message-level fields that the catalog does not model at all - the sending and receiving party identifiers and the message id - are filled with obviously fake values so that validation reflects your data rather than missing plumbing. Ignore them.
Where the mapping is not one to one
A few of the catalog's simplified values have no exact DDEX counterpart and are mapped to the closest match:
| Catalog value | DDEX value |
|---|---|
| Compilation | Album, flagged as a multi-artist compilation |
| Producer | StudioProducer |
| Publisher | MusicPublisher |
Roles with no DDEX counterpart at all are left out of the message rather than guessed at.
Main artists and feature artists become the release's display artists, in the billing order set on the Parties card. Everyone else becomes a contributor.
Genres
Genre and sub-genre come from the DDEX Allowed Value Sets, so they carry across into the message as DDEX identifiers rather than as free text. The sub-genre list is filtered by the genre chosen above it, which is why changing the genre clears the sub-genre.