Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompressed

[mville]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

I hope not to upset you but I was only working with Mac ... I had dbpoweramp on for Windows

Why would this upset me?

Will dbpoweramp be embedded within iTunes ?

No.

I know you're going to say is convert all the files using dbpower amp and have iTunes
discover them.

Correct, I would advise this, but of course, you do not have to take my advice.

Does Dbpoweramp have different conversion levels for ALAC like it does for FLAC?
Is there an ALAC uncompressed lossless form?

No and it is not dBpoweramp that stipulates this but the codec/file format.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

I hope not to upset you but I was only working with Mac ... I had dbpoweramp on for Windows

I was really hoping to find something that would work within iTunes on the Mac to read, accept
Flac files. I thought that FlacTunes would be embedded in iTunes or something but it costs $4.
I am just finding my way with this with the Mac platform. Dbpoweramp was well established
for use for the majority of the conversions of the CDs back Summer/Fall 2016 and early 2017
when I had to reconvert from level 0 to level 5 & uncompressed lossless ... I even got a new
Windows-based laptop to complete this project as I had problems with Bootcamp/Windows/
Parallels on the Macbook/iMac I had at the time. Using Windows with dbpoweramp was a breeze
and if you recall back then I was asking questions or debating if I should purchase or use your software
for both operating systems and asked about discounts and stuff ...

I do not wish to purchase for more money to use dbpoweramp on Mac at this time and I did
not want to be transferring the files from Windows to Mac. I just wanted to work off the Mac.

Who knows? The real thing is I was trying to find something within iTunes and I guess I
still have not found that. Will dbpoweramp be embedded within iTunes ?

I will write Tim Cook another letter I guess.

I know you're going to say is convert all the files using dbpower amp and have iTunes
discover them.

Does Dbpoweramp have different conversion levels for ALAC like it does for FLAC?
Is there an ALAC uncompressed lossless form?

I have not really touched dbpoweramp in a while since completing the project pretty much last year
this time with an exception of 1 or 2 "corrupted" files correction using a .WAV (but also EAC is there too).
Well enough of this digging myself into a hole...

All the best as this is the end of the road for all these conversions (unless adding new CDs ). ALAC will be the
end.

Thank you. Bye.

[mville]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

I think I found an app for Mac to convert the Flac to ALAC
and preserve the directories the files are under. The program is called Pine Player and it is
free. I do not think I want to pay $4 for FlacTunes just yet ( or at all if Pine continues to be free and not
have an expiration period for its complimentary use) I can see the album art too.
I just deFlacked the Roberta Flack directory of songs converting from FLAC to ALAC or ALE on the MAC to
some m4a files. What is the comparable compression level Apple uses? They seem slightly larger
than FLAC ones that use Flac level compression level of 5.

Why aren't you using dBpoweramp Music Converter to convert your flac files to alac?

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

Just a few with WMP and EAC... For example I recall a CD I bought from Japan
You'll Never Know by pianist Rodney Franklin for a jazzy song called "The Groove"
on Columbia but issued by Sony Japan... I think at the time, there was discrepancy
or the wrong album art appeared or maybe it was another import CD. Those were few
and WMP or EAC got the correct information. Again just a few I encountered where your
tool did not get the right metadata or was not in the database and instead of me getting stuck,
I just kept things moving along by using the other tools.

Thank you.

And again, I think maybe only 2 flac files I used with level compression 0 the source flac files were
corrupt and I just redid those few using a .wav file and inserting the metadata. The others I have
encountered were corrupt by me transferring the flac files from the source and not letting that sequential
copy fully complete (97% done) and I thought it was done and I started copying another set of
flac files onto the same flash drive or card. I think those things you need to copy sequentially and not have
many processes copying onto them. I was listening to a song and after 60% of the song another song
started playing it was like A George Michael or Wham song was playing then an Usher song started
so since Wham was in the W directory and Usher was in the U directory , there was a possibility those
songs got crossed during the file transfer.

Oh that EAC engineer told me that he did not know why compression level 0 is allowed, it made no sense
and if it was up to him , he would not allow it. He just said use compression levels 1 to 8.
From my experience with compression level 0 , I was embarrassed one time when I was trying to
demonstrate or play a song for a friend and the files took too long to load after powering the car off and restarting
when I know they were playing prior. Level 0 caused all kinds of issues that I gave up on it and
went to Level 5 and uncompressed lossless (size of .WAV but with album art associated).
I use uncompressed lossless for the car on 2 portable drives each 512GBs, a tablet with 1TB SSD
and I use level 5 for the Fiio X5 device that uses two 256 GB microsdxc cards.
For the most part things work fine and load promptly in the car stereo unlike compression level 0

Well that should do it for me. I think I found an app for Mac to convert the Flac to ALAC
and preserve the directories the files are under. The program is called Pine Player and it is
free. I do not think I want to pay $4 for FlacTunes just yet ( or at all if Pine continues to be free and not
have an expiration period for its complimentary use) I can see the album art too.
I just deFlacked the Roberta Flack directory of songs converting from FLAC to ALAC or ALE on the MAC to
some m4a files. What is the comparable compression level Apple uses? They seem slightly larger
than FLAC ones that use Flac level compression level of 5.

[mville]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

OK, so you ripped some your CDs using Windows Media Player. You can use Batch Converter >> Test Conversion on your library to determine corrupted flacs.

I would also download and install PerfectTUNES and use the AccurateRip module to check the status of all your rips. Any non-AccurateRips, I would then re-rip in CD Ripper.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

Hi again, you asked why re-rip them again.
Well, when I ripped them the first time using your tool (using level 0)
and in combination*
with Windows Media Player and EAC, I was a novice and I was ripping
CDs in parallel having up to 7 going at a time. I was not sure if that
was causing the cross-corruption in just a few of obscure songs I never
had encountered or listened to in my library. So I guess I wanted to
do them all over again so I won't have any surprises. Also I have
a few extra large capacity hard drives that could be put to some use
as back ups for the flac files. Plenty of storage space for lots of music
even if redundant.

Actually I do think the cross corruption could also be caused by when
I copied the files from the source master Flac drive to either the USB flash
or microSD card ... maybe I accidentally did a parallel copy instead of a
sequential copy meaning I had 2 copies going on at the same time
transferring the data. Or I did not wait until the first transfer of data
was complete and I started another copy onto the same flash storage
media causing some corrupted links in the files.

That is all... I will explore this possibility of iTunes supporting Flac on a
macbook or iMac or MacMini (not an iPhone or iPad as I do not use those).
ALAC is a minor priority as the Pioneer 4200NEX does not support that,
it supports Flac-- I may just want something stored for one of my mac computers
and using iTunes which does not seem to support Flac yet despite my pleas and
emails to Apple's CEO Tim Cook. My requests have fallen upon deaf ears.
I did a test ripping a CD using ALAC (ALE) in iTunes and though I cannot
see the metadata on the Mac (though I used a Mac), I can see the
metadata, album art information when I copied the files to Windows computer.
I am not sure why Mac seems to not show that information doing a Get Info click.

I think the reason why I did not choose level compression 8 was because
I thought the encoding and decoding would both take up too much processing time.
When I converted using compression level 0 originally, I noticed that I was having
problems loading the songs on my Pioneer NEX 4200 car stereo receiver. It was
inconsistent behavior at times so I used your tool again to convert from level 0 to
both uncompressed lossless and level 5. Using both of those, the flac files load
fine in the car stereo thing and I have not had any problems. The EAC person told
me that compression level 0 was not really supported and I should have just used
level 1.
I just wonder if there could be some problems with the original rip (0) and just
want to start fresh. However so far so good ... a majority of the flac files seem fine
and I may not have to do it all over again as you said. I may just want to and at a
slower pace to make sure everything goes right and not have have the few surprises
with the few "corrupt" files and have fun with it again going to level 8 this time.

Thank you for your concerns and suggestions.

* disclaimer: Though I had used dbpoweramp for the majority of the CDs in my
about 1300 CD collection, there were times where the album art information
was not easily accessible for some of those...weird... CDs like imports from Japan,Germany
so I would just use Windows Media Player or EAC to easily get the metadata,
album art information embedded in those flac files and move along. A team
effort.

[mville]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

I know Apple/Mac does not support flac , so is this the reason why flac files on
that platform one cannot see the metadata information such as the album art
and other detailed information about the flac statistics when right clicking the
flac file and selecting Get Info (the equivalent to Windows' Properties option).

Probably, if you are referring to Apple OSX and Finder.

However, in the past 6 months, I have seen reports that Apple is starting to support flac on some of it's platforms.

I guess dbpoweramp would be a good tool to convert all the 20,000
flac files to ALAC as I may have a need to have those type of audio files on a
Mac server. I wonder if ALAC would show or preserve the metadata , album art
information I worked so hard when converting CDs to flac.

You should be able to convert flac to alac, whilst preserving artwork and metadata.

I do not think I want
to redo ripping all those CDs again, though it could be a fun project to
re-rip the entire library to Flac again using all uncompressed lossless as a new
master library and then convert down to Levels 5, 8 and perhaps 1 compression for
storage on various capacities devices and having a choice as to which type of
compression to store on the type of device.

If you have ripped the CDs using CD Ripper, why rip them again?

IMO, it is pointless having several flac libraries, with differing compression levels. Personally, I have a single flac library, compression level 8.

[garym]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

You can easily test all your FLAC files. Just "convert" them to [TEST CONVERSION] as the utility CODEC in the batch converter program. If any of the FLAC files are corrupted, it will be reported to you by the program.

[garym]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

Yes, you can easily use dbpoweramp to batch convert all your FLAC files to ALAC. This will preserve your metadata and artwork as well. Just setup the conversion properly (test on a few albums), and once happy with results you can convert all of them in one batch. Save your old FLAC files too as backup.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

Hello, It has been a while since I have commented here or used dbpoweramp
after ripping the 1300 or so CDs conversion to flac for audio enjoyment for
Pioneer car stereo and now Fiio X5 device and tablet.

I know Apple/Mac does not support flac , so is this the reason why flac files on
that platform one cannot see the metadata information such as the album art
and other detailed information about the flac statistics when right clicking the
flac file and selecting Get Info (the equivalent to Windows' Properties option).

I think I did my best to get an email to Tim Cook and others at Apple to
have iTunes support Flac and I have not seen any movement within iTunes
updates. So I guess dbpoweramp would be a good tool to convert all the 20,000
flac files to ALAC as I may have a need to have those type of audio files on a
Mac server. I wonder if ALAC would show or preserve the metadata , album art
information I worked so hard when converting CDs to flac. I have not really converted
anything to ALAC ever... maybe I will try a test CD to see the results. I do not think I want
to redo ripping all those CDs again, though it could be a fun project to
re-rip the entire library to Flac again using all uncompressed lossless as a new
master library and then convert down to Levels 5, 8 and perhaps 1 compression for
storage on various capacities devices and having a choice as to which type of
compression to store on the type of device. Example Fiio device has limited
capacity (total 512 + 32 GBs) so I would use level 8 on that (now using level 5),
whereas the Tablet that has a USB port and a 1TB SSD drive attached, I use uncompressed lossless
on that.
It is just that I have noticed a few flac files seem to have some corruption of another song
in them. Typically these are songs I have never listened to in the past, who can listen to every song
of 20,000 songs really. But this is very rare and when I have encountered about 3 or 4 of these,
I just correct the flac file by either re-ripping from the CD if I can find it or just do a quick conversion
from a .wav file from an old master rip when I used iTunes before discovering dbpoweramp or EAC.

well that is all. I am trying to get my cousin's CDs to do again ( I used iTunes to .wav )and I want to
re-rip his library to .flac using dbpoweramp if the cousin will bring CDs out of public storage locker.



Thank you.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

I really do (would) not put .wav files , let alone .flac files, on CD or DVD media unless
I was doing a data back up and in that case it was just a data back and not
intended to play audio or video in a CD or DVD player.
That is almost like putting in a Windows Operating system disk into a CD player, how I view it.
SOmething I would not do , but I do understand what you mean. Some of these CD
players can read data from optical drive and process the audio like an MP3 or viewing the
optical media just like a hard drive (SD or USB drive ).

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

How about 1300?

Anyway, today I realized that I need to use the Mac more so.
The issue with the Pioneer car stereo is that it only reads FAT32 formatted
drives. I had invested time using exFat. The Sony read both formats.

So I could not format using the command line prompt under Windows nor using the
Disk Management tools so I used some third party software to format the USB
drives (2 of them) to FAT32. When I played those drive in the Pioneer, the audio was choppy.
At first I thought it was a grounding problem.
However, the 2 drives I formatted to FAT32 on the Mac, those audio files sounded
fine with no choppiness. I could only conclude that the Windows formatted drives
may have issues. So I will have to reformat those first 2 using Disk Utility on Mac OS.
So far I have to copy the audio files from the exFat formatted drives to a temporary directory
on a SSD drive then format the USB drive to FAT32 on Mac then copy the files back
to reformatted drive... all using USB 3.0 connected devices and hubs (USB 3.0 flash drives)
to be as efficient as possible.
It is just I cannot seem to do everything on Windows without some issues, blue screens, crashes,
not booting properly having to disconnect drives, drive letters for master hard drives, optical drives,
changing when connecting additional flash drives, sd cards, now this with possible problems formatting
to FAT32 (Windows 10 only allows NTFS and exFat).
Windows seems too sensitive to changes in hardware where Mac handles things better
and rare for a crash or hang up on Mac.
Windows break or crack
That is why I like to (feel more comfortable using) (going back to) use Mac.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

1.200 CDs are just a small collection. You may want to ask Gary...


Dat Ei

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

Besides, why would I want to store .flac or .mp3 or .wav files on a CD when the CD is
the .wav file so to speak, and I am trying to get away from CDs as they become slighly
scratched, smudged and may skip. CDs, having 1200 of them, become more inconvenient
to find what I want to listen , having to search volumes of CDs cases potentially damaging them
more in the process and handling them. Sometimes keeping CDs in those booklet cd cases may
cause damage (CD rot ) to them.
I think I have maintained my massive CD collection quite well through the years
(A CD I bought back in 1991 played all the way through just fine today).

Then why would I put audio data files on a CD or CD-R which itself may get
damaged, smudged, or skip? I think this is why I recently finally saw the light
to rip everything to .wav and store on 3TB hard drives and place on various
64GB USB flash drives... Having 16 or so flash drives of an entire CD collection
can fit in a small box .. better than carrying heavy CD cases around.

[currter]

Re: Sorry, 2 Newbie questions: Purchase software for Mac and Windows&ripping uncompre

I think the Windows crashed because I was trying to format a 128 GB microSD card supposedly
a Samsung one I got for $11. I believe it could be a fake ... I have had problems with it for a while
and maybe that crashed the computer.
I think I am trying to do too much...
This is why I want to make sure I get everything and the planning right and in place before I start
this project to re-rip 1200 or so CDs to flac. I want to the optimal or best file with the appropriate
data (metadata) in them so I do not have to do this again on a massive scale.

Things are in place, I think I am ready to start ripping... I did 3 CDs yesterday and tested
the .flac files (lossless, uncompressed ) in the car stereo and was pleased with the results.
Now to duplicate that process 400 times.

Thanks