I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

[L'enfer]

Greetings All,

I've used dBpoweramp for many years now but ever now and then I go back to iTunes normally because of my partner she finds it easier to use. However due to illness I now work mostly from home and I hope that over the coming months I can finally rip my CD collection (some 20,000 albums and counting) to my storage device for the last time and only and only ever have to rip new material.

I have purchased a Acronova Nimbie USB Plus NB21- BR. It actually came with a free trial of dBpoweramp which I thought was neat. I know the owner of the store so I have it on a trial basis for a month if it doesn't rip well I can return it not cost to myself.

I have also just discovered JRiver Media Centrer which sadly is not freeware but it is very good from what I've been able to gather I've literally on installed it about 3 hours ago but I will upgrade from the 30 day free trial when it expires.

It works with Windows, OS X and Linux as my main machine is a Mac Pro and I use a Mac Mini to with iTunes when not on the Mac Pro it pains me I have to go onto my gaming PC to rip my CDs HINT HINT. *cough*

It am not audiophile but it has some great audiophile-esque features that I haven't seen on any other media player and I've tried them all for Windows, OS X and Linux.

If the above was TL:DR please start reading from here:

So now I will be using JRiver with OS X I am thinking of re-ripping all my CDs as uncompressed FLAC files as I was never truly happy using AIFF. I'll use the Nimbie to batch rip 100 CDs at a time; Even then it will take me some time. I listen to Classical music this many of my albums are often box sets etc the biggest box set I own contains 280 discs.

dBpoweramp always lets me down when it comes to the metadata if you know of anything that can help improve the tagging of files then please let me know. I'd even consider paying for Gracenote although that isn't perfect either

Finally if you think I am doing something wrong or if there is any way of anyway improving the process of ripping or the quality of my ripped tracks I would appreciate your advice.


Thank you for your time, take care.

Kind Regards,


L'enfer

[SIZE=1]Disclaimer:

I am aware I have linked to external websites in my post; I have also mentioned products that are not freeware.
However I am not intentionally adversing and do not stand to gain in anyway from mentioning them.
If I have broken forum rules I apologise and I will gladly edit my post accordingly.[/SIZE]

[garym]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

When it comes to classical music, lots of manual editing will be needed for your metadata. None of the online databases have really good (correct) information for classical releases. Large box sets are even more problematic. But your idea to move to FLAC is a good idea.

[Dat Ei]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

Sorry, that I don't have any advices for improving your ripping or tagging. I just wanted to ask you, if you know OpenELEC? This is a free media center software, which can be used on several hardware platforms. I use OpenELEC in combination with a Mini PC which is attached to my Hifi components. I control the media center with my mobile phone and tablet. It is easy to setup, easy to maintain and easy to use.


Dat Ei

[mjt5282]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

I re-ripped my CD collection last year using DBPA V15 (I have a little over 10% of yours, so around 2,600 CD's) and I was very happy though only 15% is classical/jazz . I think the metadata standards have improved and their is a Mac OS X DBPA ripper in beta right now. I have completely switched to using it to rip my new CD's. By far my bigger problem was scratched CD's rather than metadata. Luckily I found a USB BD drive that was able to rip some discs that the standard Mac DVD could not. good luck with your project and familiarize yourself with a flac metadata editing tool (I bought Tag for $5 on the Mac app store and it is good enough, not as good as mp3Tag but that isn't available on the Mac).

[BrodyBoy]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

So now I will be using JRiver with OS X I am thinking of re-ripping all my CDs as uncompressed FLAC files as I was never truly happy using AIFF. I'll use the Nimbie to batch rip 100 CDs at a time; Even then it will take me some time. I listen to Classical music this many of my albums are often box sets etc the biggest box set I own contains 280 discs.

dBpoweramp always lets me down when it comes to the metadata if you know of anything that can help improve the tagging of files then please let me know. I'd even consider paying for Gracenote although that isn't perfect either

Like the others, I have no easy solution, nor even good news, for you. The simple fact is that all rippers rely on online databases for metadata, and none of the online databases (including Gracenote) are reliably accurate and thorough. They just aren't. So here are the key points I'd make regarding your situation:

1. If you want a more user-friendly codec than AIFF, there are several lossless options that fit the bill. FLAC is obviously great and widely-supported, but if you still want to remain compatible with the Apple universe, you would probably be happier with ALAC.
   .
2. Ripping the actual audio files is already the easiest and fastest part of what you're doing. While the Nimbie will speed up that process even more, it cannot do anything to streamline the more tedious, time-consuming part of the task, which is.....
   .
3. Metadata. Accurate, consistent metadata will be THE MOST DETERMINANT FACTOR in how easily you, and your players, can navigate and use your library. There aren't any shortcuts here. Any ripper will fill in metadata from the databases....and dBp does this as well if not better than the others...but it's entirely on you whether you take the time to ensure that that metadata is accurate, complete, and consistent in ways that work best with your particular players. Skip this part and your library will be sloppily-organized, full of errors, and much harder to use.
   
   Many of us around here, who are meticulous about this, have a ripping workflow that includes processing the metadata in a separate tag editor. Between setting up detailed ripping profiles in dBp, then creating an even more detailed set of processing macros in my tag editor, I've literally spent years perfecting the metadata-processing part of my workflow. And there's still no way around the final "eyeballs" test just to make sure it's all right. I say that not to impress or discourage you....it's simply an acknowledgement of how important that part of it is, and how there's no magic program that can just do it all for you. :(
   .
4. Okay....last bit of bad news, I promise....classical music is much more difficult to tag than all the other genres combined. I believe this is because the metadata "systems" have been developed for recorded pop music, where things like ARTIST, ALBUM, and TRACK are usually self-evident. But classical music was written before the conventions of modern recorded music pertained, so applying "pop" tags often feels like a proverbial square-peg-in-round-hole situation.
   
   Yes, you can go ahead apply tags like PERFORMER, COMPOSER, ORCHESTRA, SOLOIST, and so on, but be forewarned....players won't recognize most of them, so you have to figure out what information to squeeze into the few "pop" tags available in order to make the files reasonably navigable. Honestly, I'm not trying to scare you, but tagging classical music really, really sucks. (And don't even get me started on opera! Oy vey....)

So okey-dokey, that concludes my downer-post-du-jour. Even I'm left kinda depressed.....I think I'll go down a pot of coffee now.

[L'enfer]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

Thank you all very much for your replies. Although I didn't get my silver bullet answer I wasn't expecting someone to come up with the metadata solution. I was hoping someone would spot any flaws or errors in the actual ripping procedure I had worked if if there were anyway and I don't think that's the case so far at least...

@Dat Ei there is no need to apologises you took the time to reply and I am grateful for that. As it happens I did toy with OpenELEC for a time but as with the now renamed XBMC I didn't like it but thanks for mentioning it it's better to say on the off chance I reckon.

@BrodyBoy I mainly use Apple computers for work and always have done so I am aware of "Apple Lossless". I did use if for a few years but I read that it uses an algorithm to compress the file slightly (I don't know the truth in this) this was enough to make me switch to AIFF. as I have storage coming out of my ears. I also have discounted cloud storage my disposal ready for use when I am statified with that my collection has been ripped properly.

I don't frquent the forums but if I recall correctly advertising is frowned upon so I will not mention the name of the company. However some friends of mine are currently designing their first High-Fidelity digital sound system. It will play all of your hard formats as well I believe and as we are like minded it is being designed around "Classical" music. Not being a Jazz fan I'm not sure but I would think the same rules would apply to Jazz music when it comes to metadata.

If they ever finish it I do not know they have been working on it for 3 years to-date but I have provided some funding and hope it gets going.

Kind Regards,

L

[BrodyBoy]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

@BrodyBoy I mainly use Apple computers for work and always have done so I am aware of "Apple Lossless". I did use if for a few years but I read that it uses an algorithm to compress the file slightly (I don't know the truth in this) this was enough to make me switch to AIFF. as I have storage coming out of my ears. I also have discounted cloud storage my disposal ready for use when I am statified with that my collection has been ripped properly.

Most lossless codecs compress the data a little bit....it has no effect whatsoever on the audio data in the file or the sound quality when played back, since it's identical data. I understand that you don't care about storage space, but you do seem to care about metadata. As with WAV, tagging AIFF is considerably more troublesome than it is with the lossless codecs (FLAC, ALAC especially) designed with better metadata support in mind.

[garym]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

Most lossless codecs compress the data a little bit....

But to be crystal clear, the lossless files are DECOMPRESSED back to full bitperfect lossless files before playback (and are bitperfect compared to a WAV or AIFF file or the original CD data). That's the entire point of all lossless codecs.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

Excellent point, Gary.

I think that important bit of info is often left out of the discussion (as I just did!), opening the door to a lot of the misconceptions about lossless music and compression. All digital music is played back the same way.....digital bits are fed into a DAC, where they are converted to analog, which is then played back through an amp and some speakers. All lossless music files, regardless of codec, regardless of compression, contain the exact same digital data bits, and they are fed into the DAC exactly the same way. The DAC has no knowledge of what kind of package they were in before that.

[garym]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

Excellent point, Gary.

I think that important bit of info is often left out of the discussion (as I just did!), opening the door to a lot of the misconceptions about lossless music and compression. All digital music is played back the same way.....digital bits are fed into a DAC, where they are converted to analog, which is then played back through an amp and some speakers. All lossless music files, regardless of codec, regardless of compression, contain the exact same digital data bits, and they are fed into the DAC exactly the same way. The DAC has no knowledge of what kind of package they were in before that.

And this is all very DIFFERENT from compression in the *lossy* codec sense. That is, with a lossy codec (mp3, AAC, etc.), the compression is "throwing out bits" to get to a smaller file size. Those bits are NOT restored upon playback. The use of the term "compression" leads to this confusion. In the case of LOSSLESS, the compression is about file size, but the ultimately played file is bitperfect back to the CD. Whereas compression in the *lossy" sense is about file size *and* throwing out data that is never restored.**

**of course with most music and most listeners, there is no ability to *hear* the loss of information. That is, in double blind tests, users can't reliably tell the difference between a good mp3 above a certain level (say, 128 or 160kbs) and the lossless original.

[gdk]

Re: I'd Like Your Advice/Opinion: Ripping My Collection for the Last Time (Hopefully)

I also would also advise ripping to a lossless codec. Whatever new codecs emerge in the future that you might want to use for playback you will be able to start from the original perfect lossless copy and, barring accidents to the data, you will never have to go through the tedium of re-ripping CDs.

In my case I went with FLAC and I maintain an AAC copy (for Apple my mobile devices) using Batch Converter to convert from the original FLAC rips. I try to keep the folders and filenames identical on both versions to make it easier to port playlists between iTunes and my Squeezebox server. I use mp3Tag to edit and maintain my tag data as needed.

I chose FLAC because I knew I wanted lossless for my archive (for the reasons above) and I knew it would be played mostly from my Squeezebox server on a Qnap NAS.
I chose AAC over mp3 because it's supposed to sound better and I only wanted to play on Apple devices.