Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

[Number 7]

Looking for a little guidance please: Yesterday I bought the CD ripper and spent several hours reading and attempting to rip some discs. This was less successful than I had hoped. One gave errors on the first track, so I eventually aborted that after a couple of tries, although oddly, the album now appears in the NAS but without any tracks, once ordered by artist as The Beach Boys and once ordered by artist as Beach Boys, The – this was without any other changes by me to the configuration. I’ll come back to this. Discs 2 and 3 seemed to rip fine. The final attempt was a double album (all the same artist). Ripping the first disc gave the correct artwork. Ripping the second disc returned a message that no artwork could be found. In addition, the band was listed as The Yardbirds, not Yardbirds, The, and all of the tracks were shown in a list without numbers, and with artwork against each track. Finally, for each album ripped, all track listings are alphabetical.

Bering in mind most of the technical stuff is over my head, is there a way to order bands with “The” in the title by the second word of that title, how do I get the double album to list properly, and how do I get the track listings to be in album order? Apologies if this is simple stuff, but I did spend several hours reading and setting up, but couldn’t see (or didn’t understand) the answers to these points.

If it helps, everything has already been ripped once some months ago using Windows Media Player onto a WD NAS with Twonky feeding a Naim streamer. For the bulk of these rips, the track listings have been re-ordered from the album order to alphabetical, with the exception of the last few rips which were done using the latest version of WMP under Windows 8, and for these, the track listings are in the correct album order, albeit with the track numbers doubled up against each listing, which I can live with (i.e. 1 – 01 track name , 2- 02 track name etc.)

[Spoon]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

>Ripping the second disc returned a message that no artwork could be found

dBpoweramp would not show a message no art could be found, simply there would be a blank cover image where the art is shown. Are you using dBpoweramp CD Ripper?

When Ripping you can set The XXXX as you like, look for sort tags such as ArtistSort (click the meta tab in the bottom middle to see), if you not want these they can be disabled in the Options >> Metadata & ID Tags

[Number 7]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Thanks - yes, it is dBpoweramop CD ripper that I'm using. Now managed to fix the "The" artist naming problem, but despite several more hours researching and ripping, I still can't get it to sort tracks into album order, not alphabetical order. Some seem to think this is a Twonky problem, but having used Windows Media Player to rip successfully in the correct album order, that seems unlikely. Can dBpoweramp really not do this?

[garym]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Thanks - yes, it is dBpoweramop CD ripper that I'm using. Now managed to fix the "The" artist naming problem, but despite several more hours researching and ripping, I still can't get it to sort tracks into album order, not alphabetical order. Some seem to think this is a Twonky problem, but having used Windows Media Player to rip successfully in the correct album order, that seems unlikely. Can dBpoweramp really not do this?

when you say sort in correct order, sort where? In your player (and what is the player you are using?) or in file explorer (sorting by file names, etc.) I suspect your player may be sorting by file name itself and your file names probably start with the track name (e.g., trackname.mp3). Have you used dynamic naming to put track number as the beginning of the file name (e.g., 01 - track name.mp3, 02 - track name.mp3, etc.). I use the following as my dynamic naming string (it handles compilations, mulitdisk, etc. automatically).

[IFCOMP]Compilations\[album] [IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track]-[title]-[artist][][IF!COMP][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track]-[title][]

(and just above the dynamic naming entry, I put the parent directory where all this goes: (e.g., X:\music\FLAC\)

NOTE: you should set options to use 2 digit track numbers for above (i.e., 01, 02, 03, rather than 1,2,3)

[Number 7]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Ripped albums are sorted in album track order when viewing the actual FLAC file, but appear in alphabetical order when using the player (Naim Unitiqute). I couldn't find a dynamic naming option in any of the menus = where is it please? Once I've found it, is it just a case of selecting the above from a list of options? Sorry if these a basic questions, but most of this is way over my head.

[garym]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Ripped albums are sorted in album track order when viewing the actual FLAC file, but appear in alphabetical order when using the player (Naim Unitiqute). I couldn't find a dynamic naming option in any of the menus = where is it please? Once I've found it, is it just a case of selecting the above from a list of options? Sorry if these a basic questions, but most of this is way over my head.

on the cd ripper page, lower left you should see the dynamic naming options. click on "set" to the right of dynanmic naming row and you'll be taken to a page where you can cut/paste my naming string into your setup and see how it works with the "madonna" example. Obviously you can modify the string to suit you. There are help screens on that page to show you the various parts of the naming string and what they do. this is all related to naming when ripping CDs. You can use the same sort of thing with [ARRANGE AUDIO] DSP with the dbpa batch converter if you want to change the names of existing digital files.

I'm not familiar with your player, but I suspect it is using DLNA and may be using the file names (rather than metadata) to show you the album order. Take a look in a windows file explorer at the actual file names of some of your files. I suspect they start with the song name (name.flac) rather than track no (01-name.flac). Experiment with renaming files to be 01-name.flac, 02-name.flac, etc. and see if your player now puts songs in right order.

[Number 7]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

No luck with using the naming thing which you kindly supplied - copied and pasted it into the naming box ok, ripped a few tracks and although they are still in the correct album order when viewing the FLAC files (which already includes 01, 02 etc. before the track title) they are still being shown by my streamer in alphabetical order. Any idea why WMP can do this right but not DBPA?

[garym]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

No luck with using the naming thing which you kindly supplied - copied and pasted it into the naming box ok, ripped a few tracks and although they are still in the correct album order when viewing the FLAC files (which already includes 01, 02 etc. before the track title) they are still being shown by my streamer in alphabetical order. Any idea why WMP can do this right but not DBPA?

Are the names of the WMP created files exactly the same as the DBPA created files? I'm guessing no, as something about your streamer is interpreting the two differently. This is not a dbpa problem, but something about the interaction of your streamer and the file names and/or metadata created by dbpa. I have no issues with my players listing albums in correct track order (various squeezebox network music players, foobar2000 computer player, or mp3 versions created from FLAC in iphone/ipod/ipad). Do some careful comparison of the albums created by WMP and dbpa in terms of filenames and tags.

[Number 7]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Having looked as you suggested at the file names and tags, this is the result for an album ripped in DBPA for which the tracks do not show in the correct album order when viewing them under the "Artist" list via the streamer:

01 -track name.flac
dBpoweramp: '01-track name' ID - Tag


And this is how a track ripped using WMP for which the track listing is in the correct order when viewing the Artist list:

01 track name.wav
dBpoweramp: '01 track name' ID - Tag

(although why it says dBpoweramp when it was ripped in WMP I don't know)
The difference seems to be the addition of a dash in the file name ripped using DBPA. Can this really be the cause of the problem, and if so, how can it be corrected?

[garym]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Having looked as you suggested at the file names and tags, this is the result for an album ripped in DBPA for which the tracks do not show in the correct album order when viewing them under the "Artist" list via the streamer:

01 -track name.flac
dBpoweramp: '01-track name' ID - Tag


And this is how a track ripped using WMP for which the track listing is in the correct order when viewing the Artist list:

01 track name.wav
dBpoweramp: '01 track name' ID - Tag

(although why it says dBpoweramp when it was ripped in WMP I don't know)
The difference seems to be the addition of a dash in the file name ripped using DBPA. Can this really be the cause of the problem, and if so, how can it be corrected?

I doubt the "-" is the issue (my FLAC files have "-" in the name too. As a test, take an album ripped by dbpa and edit the file names to remove the "-". Then let your streamer find these renamed files. Are they in the correct order? If so, it was the fact that your streamer didn't like the dash. You can remove the dash by editing the dynamic naming string.

[IFCOMP]Compilations\[album] [IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] [title]-[artist][][IF!COMP][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] [title][]

If this doesn't fix the problem, then it is something else (most likely in my opinion). Test by ripping with dbpa to WAV files instead of FLAC. Then see if handled correctly. If WAV from dbpa are correct and FLAC are not, then it is something related to how your streamer handles WAV vs FLAC. Do keep in mind that all of this discussion really relates mostly to how your streamer is reading file names, directory locations, metadata etc. Are there settings within your streamer for options on these things?

[Number 7]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Removing the dash in the file name made no difference to the alpha order that the streamer sees the tracks in. Re-ripping as .wav files correctly orders the tracks on the storage medium (as are the .flac files) but now the streamer can't see the .wav rips at all, despite them being in the same location as the .flac files. Thoroughly confused. Will see if there is anything in the streamer set-up that might help.

[garym]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Removing the dash in the file name made no difference to the alpha order that the streamer sees the tracks in. Re-ripping as .wav files correctly orders the tracks on the storage medium (as are the .flac files) but now the streamer can't see the .wav rips at all, despite them being in the same location as the .flac files. Thoroughly confused. Will see if there is anything in the streamer set-up that might help.

I didn't think the dash would matter. I'm not sure what's happening on your end. It *shouldn't* matter that the files are FLAC or WAV. But I'd step back to the beginning and make sure I've got the files where they belong and I'm pointing the streamer to the correct location, and that any streamer options are set appropriately. I don't think this is ultimately a file name issue, but some other settings. Good luck.

[garym]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

I see you are using a NAIM. See this post with reference NAIM issues with track order.

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?32030-Track-out-of-album-order&p=140087*post140087

[Number 7]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

Unfortunately I'm not getting anywhere with this. Is there an idiot's guide to the naming of files somewhere, as I just don't understand it. For example, for some reason in the profile I have created the naming is all about compilations and various artists, whereas the default naming is dynamic artist folder. However, this latter choice is not available to select if I choose "set" under the naming option for my profile.

[dbfan]

Re: Configuration for "The", non-alpha track order and double album probs

If you are using multi-encoder then the path is set on the multi encoder page.