Set-Up for Ripping

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Don,

Downloading foobar2000, is great advice. Apart from being a superb player, it is also a fantastic diagnostic tool. Even from your Rigoletto, Disc 1 and Disc 2, you will learn a lot, and see how your ripped discs work in the real world. With the foobar2000 app, on my Android tablet, I can see what's happening on the Linux based Synology NAS, from CDs ripped from a Windows laptop, using dBpoweramp.

To keep this thread, with its excellent information clean, I'll try and clarify your point 8), on your Strange Result, thread.

It is well worth re-reading these threads and rip some CDs. It only takes a few minutes, or less, if you rip 1 track per CD, and a second to delete, if you don't like the result! Most people will have deleted loads of files and folders, perfecting their personal music library - you really do learn a lot in 30 minutes, BUT, you will learn far more using your own player / control point, or at least by downloading foobar2000.

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

See my answers embedded below.


Filenames

1) i assume that the filename coding string automatically sets up folders and subfolders, etc. In an indented "tree" format in file explorer, by virtue of the sequence of the elements it contains (reading left to right). I believe one of the participants in this thread indicated that such indentation points are specified by the "/" symbol. Do i understand this correctly?

YES, BUT IN WINDOWS IT IS A BACKSLASH. I THINK IN APPLE IT IS A FRONT SLASH.

Nowhere have i seen an explanation of how to code the naming string; a number of helpful participants have suggested naming strings that may meet my need, however i'm completely at sea if i want to alter it or do something different.

Bottom line, it would be helpful to me to know, definitively, that the naming string sets up and accomplishes only one thing: Automatically establishing the file-folder format that i see in file explorer, and does nothing else. That has been strongly implied by much of what i've read on this forum, but never explicitly and definitively said. It is true? Do i have at least this much right?

yes, THIS IS WHAT THE NAMING STRING DOES.

2) if i have two naming protocols, one for classical and one for non, do i need to select the correct one (as appropriate) for each cd i rip, or is there a way to use one protocol for both types of music? What are the mechanics of this?

SAVE EACH WITH A PROFILE NAME, AND SELECT THE ONE YOU WANT BEFORE RIPPING.


File path

3) regarding file path: I believe path to be the same as ordinarily experienced in windows and that it directs where a music file goes in file explorer. Is that correct?

Yes, correct

tags

4) i'm still a bit unsure about tags as i'll explain:

[first let me confess something, while i do have dbpoweramp, i do not yet have a player or network setup, and therefore am unable to see results on-screen as presented by the player. I expect to be using a bluesound player]

do the players simply display the file information as a "flat" file (table) with a column headings for each tag?

No, i know of no players that work this way

if so, does clicking on the column heading result in ordering the items in either ascending or descending order for that tag?

No, not exactly

or

does the process work by a sequence of filter selections, e.g. Clicking on a primary category would reduce the music list to only those items that pass that criterion/filter, then a click on another tag would reduce the list further to only those that match both that second tag (as well as the first tag), etc. Until i have a final list to choose from for listening?

Yes, this is more or less the way most players work.

Or even better

do i set up all the filter criteria at the outset, with the player then presenting me with the final list that meets all those criteria?

One can do that with some servers/players. For example a 'smart playlist' in itunes does exactly this. I have dynamic playlists in my logitech media server that does this as well. All automatic based on preset criteria.

5) various participants in the forum have indicated that tags need not be used literally but can be used to represent some other dimension of the music, e.g. The album field might be used to hold, say, composers. How is that fact implemented is setting up the ripper?

Don't do that. Put composer in the composer tag, etc. There are plenty of tags to hold the info you want.

6) what is the relationship between default tags that the ripper takes from the cd (and perhaps derives from the internet), and the actual way a user customizes them? I'm pretty confused on this point.

I don't understand this question. You'll probably understand the interaction of tags and players when you actually use a player with files and see for yourself how it works

other

7) what is meant by "profile" in the box at the lower left of the ripper?
That's where you can save different ripping profiles and give them names, so you can easily select.

8) i ran a test today, ripping the two disks of rigoletto with filename set as suggested. In file explorer (in a folder called classical) this put a separate folder for each disk (disc 1 was called "guiseppi verdi" and disc 2 was called "joan sutherland" that's pretty confusing; why would i get different names?

Because the ripper probably gave each disk a different artist name. With classical you have to do lots of manual editing before finalizing the rip. Lots of bad data in the database for classical. Pop music is much cleaner.

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

I'm not yet "home free" but I've come a vast distance in understanding dBpoweramp, as a result of you seven wonderfully helpful people who have responded to my four threads. Specifically: garym, schmidj, mville, oggy, Timothy Wright, Dat Ei, and, of course, Spoon. If I could get you in a room I'd lift a glass to you all and give you my heartfelt thanks.

My music saga continues, and I'm not out of the woods yet, however I must endure a hiatus because I need, now, to focus for a time on planning to have the house tented for termite fumigation and in late August my wife and I are going on a road trip to see the total eclipse of the sun.

Nevertheless, I will continue to push on, implement the advice you have given me, and hope to continue our conversations as I get stuck, but communication may become spotty. My sincerest thanks to each of you.

Don

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

I'm not yet "home free" but I've come a vast distance in understanding dBpoweramp, as a result of you seven wonderfully helpful people who have responded to my four threads. Specifically: garym, schmidj, mville, oggy, Timothy Wright, Dat Ei, and, of course, Spoon. If I could get you in a room I'd lift a glass to you all and give you my heartfelt thanks.

My music saga continues, and I'm not out of the woods yet, however I must endure a hiatus because I need, now, to focus for a time on planning to have the house tented for termite fumigation and in late August my wife and I are going on a road trip to see the total eclipse of the sun.

Nevertheless, I will continue to push on, implement the advice you have given me, and hope to continue our conversations as I get stuck, but communication may become spotty. My sincerest thanks to each of you.

Don

Keep at it. I was where you are on this topic 10 years ago!

ps. Did the termite tenting last year. And also have big travel plans for the eclipse in August.

[schmidj]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Please go back and reread the part of my (very long and probably too detailed) first post about tags. The sources for your tags rarely, almost never come from a CD, as CD audio doesn't contain any tags. There are a number of online databases that read data about the CD that your computer has in the drive, and GUESS what CD it is, based on submissions made previously to the databases. For most CDs the software guess will be correct, but not always. dBpoweramp accesses four or five of those databases and GUESSES which tags are correct, and populates the tags accordingly. You can click on the little symbol at the top of the screen that looks like a mailing label (a tag) and a screen will open showing what metadata dBpoweramp recovered from each online database, and which one it chose. With appropriate clicking you can choose a different result or you can type whatever you want to into the metadata box on the left. It is these choices that the program displays on the ripping page, and which your player uses to display and/or select what you are listening to. For any modern player it never uses the filenames in the directories to chose your music.

I'd strongly suggest installing FUBAR2000, Media Monkey, VLC media player on your PC. Rip a few (preferably pop) CDs to FLAC using the default file structure that came with the program, store them in the windows "music" directory, and try each of those players. Just play through your computer speakers for now. You will spin in infinite circles if you over-engineer this before you understand how to drive it. This is software, not hardware, and the design of the software came from someone's head, for better or worse, not the laws of physics or math. Play with it so you see how the ripper rips software and how the players play it.

BTW, if you want to see what tags are on a music file, after installing dBpoweramp, if you highlight the filename (or album's worth of filenames) and then right click on the selected filename(s) and choose "edit ID Tag" from the dropdown menu you will see all the tags contained in the file (which are what your player is looking at when you are selecting what to play).

Please play with the software, both the players and dBpoweramp, before you spend more time trying to come up with an ideal structure for something you are only beginning to understand. After ripping a few CDs and getting them to play, rip a dozen, or a hundred, and just try the players until you become familiar with how they work. Then you may want to ask some questions about why they behave the way they do, instead of questions about stuff you don't comprehend yet.

And enjoy the eclipse, I envy you, I was in the heart of best viewing area back in early May, but am now up in the northeast where it's only partial and apt to be clouded over.


Good Luck

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

I'm not yet "home free" but I've come a vast distance in understanding dBpoweramp, as a result of you seven wonderfully helpful people who have responded to my four threads. Specifically: garym, schmidj, mville, oggy, Timothy Wright, Dat Ei, and, of course, Spoon. If I could get you in a room I'd lift a glass to you all and give you my heartfelt thanks.

My music saga continues, and I'm not out of the woods yet, however I must endure a hiatus because I need, now, to focus for a time on planning to have the house tented for termite fumigation and in late August my wife and I are going on a road trip to see the total eclipse of the sun.

Nevertheless, I will continue to push on, implement the advice you have given me, and hope to continue our conversations as I get stuck, but communication may become spotty. My sincerest thanks to each of you.

Don

Firstly, good luck with the termites, and hope you both enjoy the road trip.

Without the invaluable help from members of this forum, I would not have a music library, that is to my satisfaction. It is fantastic that these same, friendly, knowledgeable folk, are still helping others - sincerely, thank you to all.

As has been suggested, re-reading all the posts in your threads (at leisure!,) is a great idea. I have added to favourites a couple of posts from your threads, to show to a friend, who has just starting ripping their CD collection - there is so much useful information, in one place.

As at least part of your collection is Classical, a Google search and some more leisurely reading may give you some clearer answers. I edit the Metadata manually of all Classical CDs, whereas a large number of Popular are OK, needing little or no user intervention.

You mention the Bluesound player. An ex-colleague from my Hi-Fi retailing days, rates them very highly, for sound, connectivity, ease of use, compatibility, works with hi-res, and, the app. is good and supported.

When you return from your holiday, why not rip some CDs to an USB stick, using say, the default, and garym's, Genre, naming scheme. Take your tablet and USB stick to your Hi-Fi dealer, have a listen to the Bluesound, and maybe an alternative, using their app and your files, to see how your naming and tags work in the real world. All players and Apps work a little differently.

Following on from the Genre discussion, I went through a friend's files last night, to help reduce the vast number of different Genres.

I found these Genres:-
Alt. Rock
Alt.Rock
Alternative rock
Alternative Rock
Alternative

Pop
POP
pop

Rock
rock

We found these, and other variations, by searching, By Genre, in foobar2000 and within half an hour, reduced the Genre count by 28.

Capitalise all, would standardise some of the above. All these were ripped using the default Metadata, but if a few seconds had been spent using PerfectMeta, the highlighted differences the Metadata providers in CD Ripper offer, before ripping (6 P's!), this wouldn't be necessary.

Hope you enjoy your holiday.

[Spoon]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

PerfectTUNES would rename those miss matched Genres in 1 click for each of the genres.

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

PerfectTUNES would rename those miss matched Genres in 1 click for each of the genres.

And one of the reasons I've been trying to convince him to move away from EAC.

But, thank you, I should have pointed that out!

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thanks, Oggy:

1) I did download Foobar2000, but see only a blank work area with pull-down menu heading along the top.
There is not indication of how to proceed.
Besides that, I don't know what it is recommended I do with Foobar2000, or how to do it.
My ignorance just got worse. Really, I'm not trying to be obtuse, and I am fairly bright and quite well-educated. I guess I do, however, expect software to be somewhat intuitive. If learning Foobar is as difficult as learning dBpoweramp, I think maybe I should stick with just one learning curve. I do welcome you comments.

2) You wrote: "but if a few seconds had been spent using PerfectMeta, the highlighted differences the Metadata providers in CD Ripper offer, before ripping (6 P's!), this wouldn't be necessary." I don't know what PerfectMeta is. What is the action-item you recommend here?

Also, you mention that you've been trying to convince me to move away from EAC, however, I don't know what EAC is.

3) You suggested benefits from using Foobar2000 (and there are other apparently good players like MP3Tag, JRiver, Media Monkey).
What, then is the reason to be using dBpoweramp in the first place given its poor documentation?

4) One of my problems is, I believe, that I don't know the jargon, the acronyms, or even the generic categories of hardware/software/products/concepts which is second-nature to people who are steeped in this business, so it's like working in a foreign language.
I'm willing to soldier on, but I think I am far short of any global understanding of what I'm doing.

Don

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thanks, Oggy:

1) I did download Foobar2000, but see only a blank work area with pull-down menu heading along the top.
There is not indication of how to proceed.
Besides that, I don't know what it is recommended I do with Foobar2000, or how to do it.
My ignorance just got worse. Really, I'm not trying to be obtuse, and I am fairly bright and quite well-educated. I guess I do, however, expect software to be somewhat intuitive. If learning Foobar is as difficult as learning dBpoweramp, I think maybe I should stick with just one learning curve. I do welcome you comments.

2) You wrote: "but if a few seconds had been spent using PerfectMeta, the highlighted differences the Metadata providers in CD Ripper offer, before ripping (6 P's!), this wouldn't be necessary." I don't know what PerfectMeta is. What is the action-item you recommend here?

Also, you mention that you've been trying to convince me to move away from EAC, however, I don't know what EAC is.

3) You suggested benefits from using Foobar2000 (and there are other apparently good players like MP3Tag, JRiver, Media Monkey).
What, then is the reason to be using dBpoweramp in the first place given its poor documentation?

4) One of my problems is, I believe, that I don't know the jargon, the acronyms, or even the generic categories of hardware/software/products/concepts which is second-nature to people who are steeped in this business, so it's like working in a foreign language.
I'm willing to soldier on, but I think I am far short of any global understanding of what I'm doing.

Don

Sorry Don, I think I may have confused matters! I was talking about a colleague who used EAC, and had 150 odd Genre, not yourself. I highly recommend dBpoweramp, and have suggested he gives it a try.

Will try and clear some other issues up tomorrow!

[nicholson2002]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

The structure I have in mind is: For Classical:
Genus/Album name/Work/Composer/Movement or Act

Don, Like yourself, I have only come to dBpa recently and I'm still struggling with how to get the best out of the application but, with the help of several people on this forum and a lot of reading, I am starting to get some ideas that are useful for my purposes.

As others have said, you will benefit greatly from trying out several different options with several different CDs and see what does and what doesn't work for you. Your approach to structuring classical music would not work for me. For what it's worth, here is how I handle my classical music.

Media/Music/Composer(last name first)/Work - Artist (e.g.. the conductor and the orchestra for an orchestral piece or simply the artist for a concerto without an orchestra)/Track. So, for example, my structure would look something like this:

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
...Serenade No. 36 in C major
......Karl Bohm - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
.........Track 1
.........Track 2, etc
......Leonard Bernstein - New York Philharmonic Orchestra
.........Track 1
.........Track 2, etc

This works for me because this is how I think about my classical music and it is relatively KISS. First and foremost, I decide which composer most suits my mood, then which particular work I want and finally which conductor and orchestra I want to hear play the piece.

That may not work for you and that is why it is vital that you play around with different options to see what will actually work for you. To be honest though, if you do this I doubt that you will decide on your current structure which, using my example above, will give you:

Orchestral/Album Name (which could be anything but might be a simple re-iteration of the work)/Serenade No. 36 in C major/Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/Track 1, etc

Of course, that might be exactly what you want - only you know. Remember though, KISS.

Good luck.

[schmidj]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Don, I think we need to take a step back and ask what you are trying to accomplish. You may have stated it near the beginning, but let's make sure we are still on track. I'm now making some assumptions.

You have a pile of CDs that you listen to, or used to listen to. You've been playing them in a stereo with a CD player, in a DVD player connected to a TV, a CD player in your car, your computer using the built in DVD drive or something similar.

Now you want to stop using the physical media. You want to copy the contents of the CDs to your computer or some kind of server such as a NAS box which is connected to your computer.

But you want to be able to listen to what you just copied to your computer. Not much point in putting the content on the computer unless you are going to listen to it. The question is on what and how?

You could purchase a package player, amplifier and speakers such as Sonos (or a number of others).

You may have a "smart" TV or TV audio home theater receiver or even a "smart" DVD or Blue Ray player which can listen to stored music using a protocol called DLNA or some other protocol.

You may want to put your music on your "smart phone", to listen to with headphones, or through a set of bluetooth speakers or on your car radio via bluetooth.

You may want to make a "thumb drive" to plug into your car radio.

You may want to listen to your music on your computer, either using built in speakers or the headphone jack on a laptop, via "computer speakers" connected to a desktop or laptop, or via the "aux" input of a stereo or home theater receiver connected to your computer.

You may want to purchase one of a number of playback interfaces that will take the audio stream either from WIFI or from an Ethernet connection and make audio that you can plug into a legacy stereo or not-so-smart home theater system or other playback device.

Or some combination of some of the above or something I haven't even thought of.

Perhaps you want to refresh us on what your goals are with this.

Now dBpoweramp only rips CDs, i.e. it makes a digital copy of the CD on some form of storage connected to or in the computer doing the ripping. It is not a player of the ripped files. So you need something else.

Historically, you listened using your computer, often using Windows Media Player or Itunes, or some similar familiar software. These still work, but with a couple of cautions. Both only play a limited number of types of files, at least without addons. Both can, unless you change the setup from the downloaded default, change the metadata in the music files to what that software thinks is correct, which is often not correct, or at least what you want to see, and without telling you that it changed it. Itunes will even move and rearrange your music files to how Apple feels it thinks is best (but most of us don't think is) without asking you if you use the default version. I don't like either Itunes or WMP for these and other reasons, and made sure to change the setup options on both from the default to options that play files without changing metadata or moving the files, so if I do inadvertently use one of them I have done my files no damage.

So how to play music on my computer and why to start with that? Use one of the many more flexible players available. That's what Fubar2000, Media Monkey, VLC Media Player and many others do. Why on the computer? To start, even though your eventual goal is to play on a different device, if you can play it back on the same computer you ripped it on, you know that you ripped it OK, that the metadata is reasonably intact, and that you can find it. If you have problems playing it on a different device, you pretty much are assured that the problem is with that device's setup, or with other software you are using to feed the music to that device, not with the files you have ripped. You want to walk before you run. Once you can play it on the computer, then you can start to figure out how to play it on a different device, and how to select what you want to play on that device.

So it takes at least two to tango, at the minimum. A ripper, like dBpoweramp, and a player, like one of those listed above. Different software for different purposes.

You apparently downloaded Fubar2000. A very "plain Jane" player as downloaded, but very capable and excellent to look at what you have ripped for QC purposes.

You saw the tabs at the top. Did you try clicking on any of them? This software, like much software, doesn't configure itself, and you should try setting it up. Did you click on the "Help" tab and read through the Frequently Asked Questions? A good thing to review. If you go to the Library tab, one choice is "configure" That's an important place to start. On the right hand top of the box that opens up, there is a area that says Music Folders. It probably doesn't list the directory where you told dBpoweramp to store the CDs you ripped. So click on "add" and then select the top level directory that has all your music. Click on "apply" at the bottom, the status should say "initializing". If you have a large collection ripped, it may stay there for quite a while, it's building a database. When it says monitoring, you can move on.

Select the "view" tab, select "layout" and then "quick setup" and then play with the different choices for the layout. You can change it later, but you need to start somewhere.

Click OK and you should see at the top Playlist: Click on it, select Library Viewer Playlist to start with.

So now you have something to use for a player to play the CDs you ripped, don't be afraid to experiment.

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thanks, Oggy:

1) I did download Foobar2000, but see only a blank work area with pull-down menu heading along the top.
There is not indication of how to proceed.
Besides that, I don't know what it is recommended I do with Foobar2000, or how to do it.
My ignorance just got worse. Really, I'm not trying to be obtuse, and I am fairly bright and quite well-educated. I guess I do, however, expect software to be somewhat intuitive. If learning Foobar is as difficult as learning dBpoweramp, I think maybe I should stick with just one learning curve. I do welcome you comments.

2) You wrote: "but if a few seconds had been spent using PerfectMeta, the highlighted differences the Metadata providers in CD Ripper offer, before ripping (6 P's!), this wouldn't be necessary." I don't know what PerfectMeta is. What is the action-item you recommend here?

Also, you mention that you've been trying to convince me to move away from EAC, however, I don't know what EAC is.

3) You suggested benefits from using Foobar2000 (and there are other apparently good players like MP3Tag, JRiver, Media Monkey).
What, then is the reason to be using dBpoweramp in the first place given its poor documentation?

4) One of my problems is, I believe, that I don't know the jargon, the acronyms, or even the generic categories of hardware/software/products/concepts which is second-nature to people who are steeped in this business, so it's like working in a foreign language.
I'm willing to soldier on, but I think I am far short of any global understanding of what I'm doing.

Don

Don, please don't give up, I was in your position 2 years ago, probably less computer savvy (garym and mville know this!), but the end results are well worth the time.

The best piece of advice given to me in the computer age is, "Google is your friend!" It most certainly is, as I had to learn from scratch how to set up a NAS on my network.

1) I've just downloaded foobar2000, on an Android tablet. I was presented with a page that said Browse. In the left hand column, it reads Album Artist / Album, Album, Title, ... Music On Internal Storage, Internal Storage, down to Media Servers. I clicked on Media Servers, as my music is stored on a NAS, and the name I gave the NAS showed. Clicking on this offered several browsing options:- By folder, All music, Playlist, Smart Playlist, By Album, By Artist, By Genre, Artist/Album, By Album Artist.

I haven't tried the iOS version, but certainly the Android version, seems to be very intuitive.

I didn't scan the files, but even from the above, you can see the choice and flexibility of a good player, all from one naming scheme in dBpoweramp.

You obviously need some music for it to find!!

2) When you put a CD into dBpoweramp CD Ripper, it initially comes up with track number, length and estimated size, before obtaining the names from the internet. This is default Metadata, and probably what you used to rip your Verdi CD. If you hover on the icon that looks like a tag, up pops a box with, Review Metadata from Individual Providers (ALT +M), double clicking on this, brings up the default Metadata and entries from Discogs, GD3, Music Brainz and freedb. These may, or may not be populated. In dBpoweramp speak, this is the PerfectMeta, which makes it as easy as possible, to give you the tags you want. You can of course delete these, and use a name that you prefer - it is your personal library.

Anything in red, differs from the default, which is the left hand column. Under this, you have the option to Smart Capitalize Tags or Capitalize Tags. So you standardise your tags from disc to disc, I recommend using one or the other, consistently, before ripping. As I mentioned previously, I always use Capitalize Tags, which whilst not being "correct" English, does give consistent results.

Clicking on any of the PerfectMeta, from one of the Metadata Providers, ie Discogs, moves this to the left hand column, and once you've either selected Smart Capitalize Tags, Capitalize Tags or accepted them as is, you can press OK, these become the tags that will be written.

You can also click on any individual name, if the one in red, is more for your needs. Genre, Year and Disc are ones that I also check, and change as required.

Together with a good naming scheme, the default works fine, the one garym gave you, personalises more for your needs, this Metadata, the "tags", is key to achieving a consistent and well organised library.

There is no wrong or right, this is a personal choice, and dBpoweramp, makes it as easy of possible, for individuals to achieve this. Personally, I spend a little time getting these tags correct for my requirements, and choosing, or scanning, if necessary, cover art that I like. For me, this is usually as I remember my LP covers. This soon becomes second nature.

When you are happy, go ahead and rip.

If you follow a routine, the "6P's", you shouldn't end up with your, "Strange Results"

EAC stands for Exact Audio Copy, a good program, but not as powerful as, and generally accepted to be not as user friendly as dBpoweramp.

3) Hopefully I covered foobar2000, a free and very flexible player in answering, 1). JRiver is a powerful paid, Media Centre app. Media Monkey is another free, or, in the Pro version, paid for, music manager.

foobar2000, is a fantastic free, player.

Mp3tag, is an excellent, and very powerful, tag editor.

I personally find the documentation of the dBpoweramp suite, to be very good, if you look for it. As was pointed out to me, click on the ? symbols and Help boxes.

dBpoweramp also has an incredibly useful, knowledgeable, friendly forum, where Spoon himself answers thousands of questions, with amazing patience, incredibly promptly. Especially as the answers can normally found by searching on this forum, or, as I said earlier, Google is your friend!

The reason to use dBpoweramp, is I believe it to be the best ripping software, with an easy to use Tag editor, an incredibly powerful converter, and if you add PerfectTUNES, an amazing helping hand to optimise your library. It is as multiple users have found, The Best.

4) Jargon. Google is your friend! Also re-reading some of the amazing posts in your own threads, where schimdj (I've just noticed another great post!!), Spoon, garym, mville and others I may have failed to mention, have given much useful and detailed information.

Relax, read, rip and enjoy the fabulous results!

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thank you Oggy and schmidj. Oggy, I think you said it all when you said that one of the advangages of dBpoweramp is: "dBpoweramp also has an incredibly useful, knowledgeable, friendly forum,"

I've printed out these form responses for my archive and will dig deeper into them as I am able to proceed with more intense focus. Let me, just now, ask a few central questions that will, I think, lead to a plan of action for me to follow:

1) What are the "6P's"?.

2) I think there may be (in my mind at least) some interchange of thinking between the organization of filenames, and organization of tags. At this point I think I have concluded (with your help) that organizing names has virtually nothing to do with selecting and listening to music, and that their organization, while established by the naming string, matters little; while tags, on the other hand, are not something that are organized in any sequence at all, but only something that is SELECTED (either as default or edited) for use by a Player. (I'm not sure I fully understand what constraints may exists on such tag selection -- constraints by dbpa or by the player I use).

3) So now, I see my next steps as moving to the tag/player stage. Since I don't yet have my desired player (Bluesound) I'm wondering if this is what you have suggested Foobar for; or does Foobar serve some other purpose for me as well? (I have downloaded it). Would another approach be to simply use Windows Media Player?

Regarding filename, I think the only question I have remaining is the one I asked in my thread "Strange Results." As yet, I haven't had time to dig to deeply into your answers yet on that, but perhaps that will come clear as I move ahead. Since naming is not on the critical path to tagging and listening, I'm inclined to set that question on the back burner for now.

Regarding Tags and the next stage of this process I hope my question will be able to relate simply to implementing Foobar (or whatever you recommend for now). I'm hoping that I see light emerging at the end of the tunnel.

BTW, the reason I'm holding off on getting a Bluesound player (and a NASO is because when I do that I have some question to answer as it's hookup and more particularly performance and power (as relates to my environment and current stereo equipment) that I will need to decide upon within the time allowed for a "free" return in the event it doesn't meet my needs. Given that 30 day time window I don't want to be learning the music file database system at the same time I'm doing the hardware, because I'm probably too busy to get both done within that time window. So, first things first.

My best regards,
Don

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

foobar2000 is simply a windows music combination server/player. just like windows media player or itunes (but more flexible). You haven't mentioned what codec you plan to rip your files to. FLAC, Apple Lossless, mp3, m4a, etc. We of course recommend lossless (FLAC or Apple Lossless) and for a windows envioronment, FLAC is the codec of choice. I don't think WMP works with FLAC (maybe it does now).

But I would never let WMP touch/play my files. It does a lot of behind the scenes changes to your tags and artwork, without your permission.

not to confuse you, but keep in mind that there is more to all this than having a "player". You have really 3 or 4 major pieces.

1. digital music files
2. organized and maintained in some sort of server that will feed these files to your player (could be your Windows computer or even built in to the player).
3. networked music player (this is the actual player, connected to your stereo)
4. Controller (this could be combined with the server in *2, or something separate like a tablet, a smart phone, etc.).

Think of this like a showing a movie in the old days.

you need
1. the film (equivalent to the digital files)
2. the projector (think about this as the server)
3. the screen (think about this as the player)
4. controller....like having a remote control you can point at the player or server to fast forward or stop,start.

In my own case I use this.

1. files are FLAC files
2. Server is a headless small "computer" connected to my network via ethernet, stuck in a back cabinet of my home, running Logitech Media Server (LMS) containing all my digital files.
3. My players are Squeezebox network music players. I have several of these around the house (some wifi and some ethernet connected), including one connected to my main stereo (think of this "box" like a CD player. It's something connected to my preamp that will provide audio to the system).
4. I control all this (see my library, album art, choose artist, albums, songs, stop, start, change volume, etc.) from different possible control points. I can use my iphone, my ipad, or my windows laptop.