New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

[Slapshot]

As the title says, I am about to rip my cd collection for the first time, using DBPoweramp. I have 2500+ cd's to rip to FLAC. I have never ripped a cd, and have heard that this may literally take years to complete, which I hope is an exaggeration. From initial research I understand about metadata and tagging a bit, but not how to do it, check it, or find lost information.

My plan is to use a Windows 7 desktop pc, and an external cd burner drive, and to store all of the music files on a NAS.

I'm in dire need of a simple, understandable, tutorial for a beginner that would show me the easiest way to accomplish this. I would greatly appreciate it if you could direct me to where I could find such a thing. Thanks.


JC

[garym]

Re: New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide.htm

[Spoon]

Re: New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

And:

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

[garym]

Re: New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

each of these 6 "help" guides at this page are helpful as well.

http://dbpoweramp.com/Help/dMC/

You'll learn a lot by doing. Don't try to read 1000 things before experimenting a bit with how things work. rip a few disks, look at the metadata, see how it works, see what you might want to change, etc. Some things you read won't even make sense until you get a bit hands on.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

....heard that this may literally take years to complete, which I hope is an exaggeration.

Yeah, it is.

As garym suggested, your best bet is to use the guides as needed. but focus on "learning by doing." This is one of those things where hands on experimentation is the most effective way to get the hang of it quickly, and you literally can't ruin anything in the process!

Once you get the hang of it, and you kind of establish the workflow that's logical & comfortable for you, you'll have a pretty good idea how many of those CDs you can get through per day. I'm pretty particular about metadata, reviewing and editing for every CD, double-checking image sizes (and sometimes adding more, either found online or scanned), and making a compressed archive copy of each rip. So as a frame of reference, I'd hope to get through about 50 a day (that's optimistic, what with life intervening), and overall aim to get that job done in about two months. If you're not particular about metadata and are generally happy accepting what the online databases give you, you could get through it in probably half that time. (I'm assuming you don't have all day everyday to work on this....!)

[mjt5282]

Re: New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

for that many unripped CD's, I would use the "Batch" mode and buy a NB21-DVD by Acronova (does 50 at a time I think).

[schmidj]

Re: New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

Yes, you should do a few, listen to and look at the metadata for them, figure out what you want to do with the results, etc. before ripping them all. I started ripping CD's for my Ipod, using another free product, speed was of the essence, so it seemed. Ripped a couple of thousand over a couple of years, off and on. Paid only slight attention to metadata accuracy and none to album art. Discovered that all too many were bad rips when listening to Ipod. Very annoying.

Next I bought a new home theater receiver and started listening to the m4a rips at home with that. Discovered the value of good art and accurate metadata, also that some m4a rips were lacking fidelity.

Found dBPoweramp, bought larger NAS box to store the rips, started over. Double rip to m4a for Ipod, FLAC for home, double check metadata, set dBPoweramp up to make sure rips of albums not in the accuraterip database were good. Got or scanned missing artwork. Have redone about 500 off and on in 5 months.

Entering missing metadata can take longer than ripping. If your cd's are popular, and therefore in the accuraterip database, they should rip in a few minutes each, once you have the metadata and art the way you want. Most of mine are not, because they are from the Caribbean and not widely popular. In my setup, they take about 15 to 20 minutes to rip. I have three CD drives in my computer, and run three instances of dBPoweramp at the same time, which should triple the throughput, but often I find that straightening out/entering the metadata takes long enough to slow things down. But, I learned my lesson, do it right the first time or you will be doing it twice.

A useful trick on metadata: If it isn't in any of the databases, Google the artist and title, look at sites selling the CD. They often have a track list and art. You can cut and paste the entries into the metadata which may be faster than typing it.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: New To Ripping CD's - Large Collection - Using DBP - Online Tutorial Available?

Entering missing metadata can take longer than ripping.

Precisely. The physical ripping doesn't actually take much time or attention, once you've settled on codec, path, & naming schemes. In my experience, accelerating that process beyond the rate at which you can keep up with the metadata is ultimately self-defeating. The logical workflow for me has been to make sure each album is completely "done" before it goes into the library on my server, and a "one-at-a-time" approach has actually turned out to be the fastest way to do that.