Need Some Advice on Ripping

[R.J.]

I purchased the Music Ripper, CD converter, and Perfect Tunes suite. I've always just stuck a CD into Window Media player and let er' rip. I'd like to change all of that as my CD collection is quite large and plan to invest hours doing rips.

I'm planning on using my 5 bay Qnap NAS to store the music, however being this software has many more options, I do need some advice as to the best way to proceed.

I was looking into a lossless codec like FLAC, but what is an ideal rip Level? Obviously, an increased rip level also increases size of the file. In this case, I would have to use the batch encoder for use with media devices like a phone or a portable media player due to size limitations?

What exactly is Meta data and ID tags? I see different configurations that you can choose from but what is an ideal choice?

How about file normalization. Will all cds ripped play at the same level or will some clip when played back?

There are so many other settings and feel a bit overwhelmed. Is there perhaps a guide on this?

Thanks.

[Spoon]

Re: Need Some Advice on Ripping

This will help you:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm

if you still have questions post here.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Need Some Advice on Ripping

I was looking into a lossless codec like FLAC, but what is an ideal rip Level? Obviously, an increased rip level also increases size of the file. In this case, I would have to use the batch encoder for use with media devices like a phone or a portable media player due to size limitations?

What exactly is Meta data and ID tags? I see different configurations that you can choose from but what is an ideal choice?

I'll try a couple of your questions.

There's no ideal rip level for FLAC....the audio content and quality are exactly the same. A higher level saves a little bit of space by using more processing time to achieve slightly higher compression, so if you're really concerned about conserving space, that'd be the way to go. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter.

If you want alternate versions for your portable devices, you have a few options. (1) Use the multi-encoder to produce both the FLAC files for your NAS library and the lossy files for your portable library. (2) Rip your FLAC library, and then use Music Converter later to make lossy versions of the music you want to transfer to mobile devices. (3) Many programs that you might use for loading your portable devices can encode to lossy versions on-the-fly. (iTunes does this for iDevices, but I'm assuming you're not talking about Apple products here....iTunes doesn't use FLAC files.)

I don't know about you, but I don't want my WHOLE music library on my portable devices....I usually want some subset, depending on the device. Because of this, I usually don't need to convert the selected songs/albums to lossy versions. (With the exception of my 30+Gb of Beatles music.....I have a separate folder of lossies for that and just load the whole thing.) So consider the capacity of the device and what music you want on it. That'll help you decide whether you need to convert the music, and if so, how much compression you'll need.

Metadata is all the descriptive information associated with an audio file. Each "chunk" of information like artist, album, track number, etc etc, is stored as a "tag" embedded with the file. It's important to have your files tagged accurately and consistently, since this allows easy organization & navigation of your library and accurate track info display during playback. I'm not sure what you're referring to re: multiple configurations and ideal choice, but generally, the audio codec you're using determines the ID tag format (Vorbis, ID3, etc) and dBp applies the proper format automatically. Regarding the information itself, you should take the time to review it before ripping to make sure everything looks accurate. There are a number of tag format settings in dBp....for things like track number, year, etc. There's no "right" or "ideal" approach- the options just allow each user to set things up the way that works best for them and their playback equipment.