Using iTunes with ripped CD's

[technophobe]

I have ripped a collection of CD's in wave format but, while all the meta data including artwork is present and shows in Windows media player I can not get iTunes to recognise any album or artist data. Because of this iTunes moves the albums to a folder marked unknown making them impossible to access easily.

These CD's are going on a Mac and need to be compatible, anyone know what i should do?

[Wayne]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

I do not think that iTunes recognises tags in wav files and you'll going to have to use the apple lossless format.

[technophobe]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

This is what should happen when I rip a CD, all the Artist/Album details etc are all in the correct columns, this works with iTunes.



This is how the CDs are being saved, no Artist or Album info in these columns although it is all there in the file name. I am wondering whether it may be a computer issue as it used to work correctly?



Help this is doing my head-in! :cry:

[Spoon]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

Your first picture is MPEG which is mp3, not wave.

[technophobe]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

Does that make a difference to the metadata then?

[garym]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

Does that make a difference to the metadata then?

yes. virtually any program will read mp3 tags. But WAV tags are not universally supported and, if used at all, tend to be read only by certain limited programs (usually the one that created the WAV "tags" or database).

p.s. As many folks are likely to mention, use of WAV files is very inefficient. First, the size is about double other LOSSLESS files (FLAC, Apple Lossless, etc.) and as you have learned tagging is a problem. Google WAV versus FLAC or something similar and you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know as to why saving your music in WAV doesn't make sense.

[technophobe]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

Ah that makes sense now, thank you.

So the big questions is what format do I record in to retain the very best quality for playback that will allow iTunes or even a UPnP device to see the album and artist etc?...and can the recorded wav files be converted using the DB converter to that to restore the metadata?

[EliC]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

Apple Lossless is what you want.

[garym]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

And I don't use apple lossless, but I'm pretty sure that dbpa will convert from wav to apple lossless. I assume ITUNES will as well. Not sure about apple lossless on UPnP devices. I use ITUNES to manage a mirror image mp3 library for my ipods/iphones, but keep my main music as FLAC files and use either foobar2000 or my Squeezeboxes (with SqueezeboxServer software) for playing through my home stereo. Other than ITUNES, FLAC is likely your most widely accepted LOSSLESS format.

[rayvenn]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

...snip ....
p.s. As many folks are likely to mention, use of WAV files is very inefficient. First, the size is about double other LOSSLESS files (FLAC, Apple Lossless, etc.) and as you have learned tagging is a problem. Google WAV versus FLAC or something similar and you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know as to why saving your music in WAV doesn't make sense.

I completely accept the idea that WAV is inefficient. HOWEVER, for someone who was ... errr ... un-knowledgeable enough to put WAV format on his hard drive ... is there any way to steer dMC to those WAVs and convert them to lossless? That way I could use the data on the hard drive instead of loading 280 CDs ... sigh ...

Or, if using WAVs from the hard drive is possible, BUT gives poor rips/conversions ... I'd like to know that, too.

Thanks!

[garym]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

I completely accept the idea that WAV is inefficient. HOWEVER, for someone who was ... errr ... un-knowledgeable enough to put WAV format on his hard drive ... is there any way to steer dMC to those WAVs and convert them to lossless? That way I could use the data on the hard drive instead of loading 280 CDs ... sigh ...

Or, if using WAVs from the hard drive is possible, BUT gives poor rips/conversions ... I'd like to know that, too.

Thanks!

You can use dbpa to convert from wav to apple lossless or FLAC. Conversion will be lossless and perfect. You may have to do some editing of your tag data.

[moley6knipe]

Re: Using iTunes with ripped CD's

If you're sticking with using iTunes/Mac, then you'll find it easiest to use Apple Lossless instead of FLAC as iTunes doesn't read FLAC files. That leaves you with the problem of getting the information about your files from WMP's database (it'll have stored what you've entered about each wav file in a separate database, I think, as I don't think WMP has the ability to tag and/or read wav 'tags').

This may work... convert your wavs to WMP Lossless using WMP (make sure you set it so that it doesn't copy-protect your files, I don't think it does by default any more). Assuming WMP is smart enough to copy your 'tag' data from the wav files to the new WMP Lossless files, you'll then be able to use dBpoweramp to convert the WMP Lossless files to Apple Lossless, and retain your tags.

Try the whole process on a few discs of varying types (i.e compilations, 2+ disc sets) as there'll be lots of variables to get working like what tags things are writing, folder/file path of resulting Apple Lossless files and so forth!

From then on, for new CDs rip to Apple Lossless using dBpoweramp, assuming you still have access to a PC and not just a Mac! Oh, and use AccurateRip in dBpoweramp, and you really are only ripping that disc once!