Set-Up for Ripping

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thanks Garym

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thank you GaryG45, I appreciate that.

Does Foobar forum alert thread participants when there is a new post like dbps does? I haven't seen any notice of postings.

Don

yes, if you turn on notifications in your settings at that forum.

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thank you GaryG45, I appreciate that.

Does Foobar forum alert thread participants when there is a new post like dbps does? I haven't seen any notice of postings.

Don

[GaryG45]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Don,
I updated your post in the Foobar forum with a link to a YouTube video that provides information about using Foobar and Facets.

Gary

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Hi garym,

You're right, you did give me the thumbs-up on my understanding; I appreciate your hanging in there with me.
Thanks, too, for the facets info.; it will be helpful. My immediate need is to get it installed.

dbarnby

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

reread my message. I already said that you were correct on a and b.

Follow instructions here for installing and using facets.

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Components/Facets_(foo_facets)

[mville]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

My purpose is paragraphs a) and b) is to understand (and state succinctly) the overall/underlying gestalt/architecture of the dbpa/player software and how they work. To me, this is foundational stuff from which all else emerges, and it needs to be understood correctly. As you read a) and b) can you affirm that I've got it right? If not, that's OK but please tell me where it's wrong (either in terminology or concept).

You seem to want to over complicate this.

CD Ripper simply reads the CD, gathers data about the CD and CD tracks from online data providers. The information is called metadata and is stored in metadata tags. You can edit the metadata.

Finally, CD Ripper reads the digital audio on the CD and saves the CD tracks (along with the metadata) as files, in your preferred file format to a storage location, just as if you used a word processor, you would save the data to a file, on a storage device. That's it, basic IT concepts.

Audio players play audio files from a storage location e.g. HDD, optical disc, cloud based location etc. Many players will also read the metadata, to help the software present the files to the end user, to help in the selection of the audio files for playback.

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

First, let my answer garym's question: By Values at the Top I man the nine "main" text boxes (and compilation check box) across the top of the screen. By "body" I mean the listing of track immediately below that.

My purpose is paragraphs a) and b) is to understand (and state succinctly) the overall/underlying gestalt/architecture of the dbpa/player software and how they work. To me, this is foundational stuff from which all else emerges, and it needs to be understood correctly. As you read a) and b) can you affirm that I've got it right? If not, that's OK but please tell me where it's wrong (either in terminology or concept).

Regarding the Gustav Mahler issue, I think I understand that now, thanks to you all.

Oggy, thanks for the Synology DS audio info; I wasn't aware of that. I'll dig into it and probably have more question later.

garym, thanks for the heads-up regarding foobar facets. I YouTube'd it and like the way it works. I've sought to install it from internet instructions and have gotten as far at having a zip file, but don't see what to do next.

dbarnby

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

...simply with track names, and no tags: the music will play the same."

Don,

As garym mentioned, unfortunately the metadata supplied by the providers for Classical music is largely terrible, and I believe it was Discogs that had Various, as the Artist for the metadata that came up for British Music on Lyrita by Quad, CD.

This works very well for anyone not interested by, who composed and / or performed the music. The CD rip plays exactly the same, and if you used their metadata, the CD would end up in Artist - Various under V. This is neither right or wrong, but simply shows how others see the same CD.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I simply took this CD, which I had delayed ripping, as a learning exercise. For my own needs, I would probably have been perfectly happy with the basic naming of Artist, where I used the Composer and Title, which was my preferred edited name of the piece, and I removed the Opus number, Orchestra and Conductor.

To see how long it would take to add Orchestra, Conductor and Soloists to each of the 15 tracks, I simply did it. This additional tagging, may, or may not, be of benefit to the individual, and whilst I like to know who the Composer is for unfamiliar music, unless over time I develop a far stronger appreciation of particular Pianists, Soloists, Orchestras and Conductors, I will probably never pull those tags again. BUT, for 20 minutes extra time, they are available!!

To paraphrase Jailhouse, your library, your choice.....

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

"&*8230;simply with track names, and no tags: the music will play the same." Aren't Track Names tags? The sentence implies not. Is there something I'm missing here?

by track name in this context Oggy was simply referring to the "file name" of the audio tracks.

a) The fundamental, underlying structure of the music library is that it is a listing of TRACKS (not CD's). And, a set of tag values is associated with each track. In effect, it is a relational data base of tracks, and the player then slices and dices this data base according to the values of the various different tag "dimensions" (fields) as requested by the user. In other words, a track is the basic irreducible unit around which everything centers. (On the other hand, the structure of the File Explorer is an organization of CD's, which is established by the naming string.)

yes, this is correct. everything is track based. Then the player/music library combines things based on tag fields (album name, etc.).

b) It is the dimension values associated with the individual track listings (and showing in the body of the screen) that are used by the Player to select music, not the values at the top of the screen -- although in some cases these are the same and even linked together. (Furthermore, it is the dimensions themselves &*8211; identifying the text boxes at the top of the screen -- that are employed by the Naming string to format the File Explorer.)

If this is true, then since I want to select classical music by composer, it would seem that I must review the composer listed on each and every track in the body of the track listings, and change it manually if needed. Similarly, perhaps, I will need to do the same for the other tag dimensions if I want the player selection to function the way I want.

Is there a simpler way to handle this?

Not sure what you mean by values at top of screen vs body, but the second part of your statement is true. You must review the composer list for each and every track and change it manually if needed. As others have noted, tagging classical music turns into a very manual task as the databases that automatically fill the tags do a terrible job on classical.

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Don,

A few months back, I suggested you rip a few CDs to an USB stick, and try these on the player you were interested in buying. If you have not yet purchased the Bluesound, now that you have ripped some CDs, I still highly recommend you do this. This is in no way meant to talk you out of the Bluesound, who make many excellent products, but to ensure your files (and particularly, tags) work how you want them to on the player and app. If not, you can make small changes before you have ripped your whole collection, and if things work as you expect, you can proceed with confidence.

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thank you, Oggy; it always a pleasure (and instructive) to hear from you. I'll need to study what you sent and learn from it; probably more questions later. One thing that jumped out at me in your last sentence is that your say:

"&*8230;simply with track names, and no tags: the music will play the same."

Aren't Track Names tags? The sentence implies not. Is there something I'm missing here?

1) I have a further "philosophical" question. Slowly I've come to understand (I think) that the structure and operation of network players generally is as follows (a & b below). Perhaps this issue has been specified before -- certainly I think it has been strongly implied &*8211; but I don't recall ever seeing it stated cleanly and directly with clear contrast between what the player is all about vs. what the File Explorer is all about. I hope I understand now and that a) and b) below have it right.

a) The fundamental, underlying structure of the music library is that it is a listing of TRACKS (not CD's). And, a set of tag values is associated with each track. In effect, it is a relational data base of tracks, and the player then slices and dices this data base according to the values of the various different tag "dimensions" (fields) as requested by the user. In other words, a track is the basic irreducible unit around which everything centers. (On the other hand, the structure of the File Explorer is an organization of CD's, which is established by the naming string.)

b) It is the dimension values associated with the individual track listings (and showing in the body of the screen) that are used by the Player to select music, not the values at the top of the screen -- although in some cases these are the same and even linked together. (Furthermore, it is the dimensions themselves &*8211; identifying the text boxes at the top of the screen -- that are employed by the Naming string to format the File Explorer.)

Do I understand this correctly?

If this is true, then since I want to select classical music by composer, it would seem that I must review the composer listed on each and every track in the body of the track listings, and change it manually if needed. Similarly, perhaps, I will need to do the same for the other tag dimensions if I want the player selection to function the way I want.

Is there a simpler way to handle this?

Hi Don,

As you rightly say, the naming string creates a series of folders, the so called folder tree. In its simplest form, you have Artist/ Album. In the Artist folder you have all the Albums from that Artist, and in the Album folder, all the tracks from the album. If you sensibly use track numbers, the tracks will show and play in the correct order, without track numbers, this would be alphabetically.

For both the computer and us to organise, we have to give the Artist, Album and tracks names.Whilst we could use whatever names we want, it makes sense to use names we recognise, so, Artist - Gustav Mahler, Album - Symphony no.2, Tracks - 1st, 2nd movement etc. Whatever we name these, will be what is displayed in Windows Explorer, and on a NAS, if being used.

NAS is literally an external storage, with it's own computer. Network Attached Storage.

The Synology NAS, has an app. called DS file, and here are a couple of screenshots from mine, again the app. is on my Android tablet:-





As you can see, very similar to Windows Explorer, and in alphabetical order, Classical, Gustav Mahler under G, next to Guns N' Roses(!!) and Hector Berlioz under H, alongside several different artists / genres.

Because I've added the Tags for Artist, Composer and Genre, I can search for whatever Artist, Composer, Genre I want. It is that simple.

If you have a large Classical collection, you could use further Genres, such as Baroque, Chamber, and be able to find all your Chamber music at the touch of a couple of buttons.

How you name and tag your music is entirely up to you, as Jailhouse put it in Paul's Genre / Style thread, "Were discussing your library after all, and you're the official librarian".

Yes, you could look at a ripped collection as simply tracks, but these tracks are from CDs which are stored in the Album folders. On a player we can search for and play individual tracks, or play the whole Ring Cycle, in one sitting. We are all the Librarians and DJs of our own collections!

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Don,

Most, if not all players and software, handle searching by Composer in a very straightforward manner, this screenshot shows the Synology app, which is on the same tablet that I am typing this:-



You can see Composers, and by typing Mahler, you would get all the albums by Gustav Mahler, and by typing Gustav, list all the albums by Gustav Holst and Gustav Mahler that have been ripped.

I don't have a Genre (e.g. Classical) in my naming string, but again you can see that you can search by Genre. Typing in Classical, will display all the Classical albums.

Without "search", you would have a list of literally 10,000s to look through, as each track may have a different Composer. By adding the tags of Composer and Genre, you can find your music almost instantaneously.

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thank you, Oggy; it always a pleasure (and instructive) to hear from you. I'll need to study what you sent and learn from it; probably more questions later. One thing that jumped out at me in your last sentence is that your say:

"&*8230;simply with track names, and no tags: the music will play the same."

Aren't Track Names tags? The sentence implies not. Is there something I'm missing here?

1) I have a further "philosophical" question. Slowly I've come to understand (I think) that the structure and operation of network players generally is as follows (a & b below). Perhaps this issue has been specified before -- certainly I think it has been strongly implied &*8211; but I don't recall ever seeing it stated cleanly and directly with clear contrast between what the player is all about vs. what the File Explorer is all about. I hope I understand now and that a) and b) below have it right.

a) The fundamental, underlying structure of the music library is that it is a listing of TRACKS (not CD's). And, a set of tag values is associated with each track. In effect, it is a relational data base of tracks, and the player then slices and dices this data base according to the values of the various different tag "dimensions" (fields) as requested by the user. In other words, a track is the basic irreducible unit around which everything centers. (On the other hand, the structure of the File Explorer is an organization of CD's, which is established by the naming string.)

b) It is the dimension values associated with the individual track listings (and showing in the body of the screen) that are used by the Player to select music, not the values at the top of the screen -- although in some cases these are the same and even linked together. (Furthermore, it is the dimensions themselves &*8211; identifying the text boxes at the top of the screen -- that are employed by the Naming string to format the File Explorer.)

Do I understand this correctly?

If this is true, then since I want to select classical music by composer, it would seem that I must review the composer listed on each and every track in the body of the track listings, and change it manually if needed. Similarly, perhaps, I will need to do the same for the other tag dimensions if I want the player selection to function the way I want.

Is there a simpler way to handle this?

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Don,

This is the British Music on Lyrita by Quad, compilation CD I mentioned, and this is a way to tag it. As I mentioned previously, none of the metadata providers had the Composer name, so this had to be entered manually. My preference is to display the Composer as the Artist, so using View Track-Artist, the 15 different composers, were entered into both Artist and Composer. I also edited Title (track names), using provided metadata, to my preferences, where I also remove the Orchestra and Conductor from the Title.

As I see this as a compilation album, I set Compilation to Yes.

This took around 10 minutes, and if the Orchestra, Conductor and Soloists are not important, the CD could be ripped at this stage. You mentioned that you have bought a Synology NAS, which I also use. The Synology has a basic player, DS audio, and this is how the British Music on Lyrita by Quad, displays on it:-



Once I had this workable, but basic naming, I returned to the front page of CD Ripper, and highlighting one track at a time, hit Tags, and with Add New Tag, added, Orchestra, Conductor, Soloists for the tracks that had a singer, and a custom tag, Pianist for the Piano Concertos.

With my limited typing skills, this took around 20 minutes, and meant that each track had tags for Orchestra, Conductor and Soloists / Pianist.

This is how those tags show on one track, on the app I use:-



You can see the Orchestra, custom Pianist and Replay Gain [I]Tags[/] - I use ReplayGain. The Conductor tag, is on another page.

Hopefully this helps with the understanding of adding Tags.

There are many ways to skin a cat, and naming and tagging involves many personal choices, particularly with Classical.

Players and apps vary massively, so it makes a lot of sense to try things out on your player, before proceeding too far.

The great thing with Tags, is you can edit, add or delete them very easily at any time in the future, as your requirements, or indeed player changes.

In the above example, you could of course use Various, as the Artist, and have it as a non-compilation, simply with track names, and no tags: the music will play the same.

Oggy