Set-Up for Ripping

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

1. Is the folder structure set up in File Explorer under the control of the CD's (by way of their chosen tags), or is it set up manually? If it is automatic, does that folder structure change continually as new CD's (perhaps with different tags) are ripped? i.e. does the tag selection of ripped CD's automatically impress upon the File Explorer a particular folder structure?

Automatic, in the sense that if I rip a CD of an artist I don't already have, dbpa ripper will automatically create the new directory name for that artist (and subdirectory name for the album). Let's say I rip a cd from an artist already represented in my collection. Dbpa is smart enough to use the artist directory I already have and only add the new album subdirectory.

2. If name is developed from tags, why is there a separate set-up for name as well as tags? Wouldn't name be set automatically -- wouldn't there be a likelihood of a mismatch if both are set up separately (particularly since naming is editable)? Put differently, what is the function of manually setting the name structure?

Because people choose to use many different file naming schemes. Thus, dbpa has the ability of the user to use dynamic naming with almost unlimited options. Other software may not allow for all these options. For example I recall that itunes uses a single file naming scheme when ripping. The user has no real choices.

3. Also: the example file name: Artist\Album\Track No.\Artist &*8211; Title, does not include Genre. Is that on oversight or is that not appropriate?

I don't need genre in my filenames. It is in my tags and I can select things by genre in my player using tag info. But there are people that do use genre in their file organization. For example, they might have

c:/music/jazz/miles Davis/Kind of Blue/01 - name of track.flac

c:/music/country/Willie Nelson/phases and stages/01 - Bloody Mary Morning.flac

etc. some people even organize files using year subdirectories. There is no one answer, every user has different preferences.

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thanks, shmidj and garyrm for the extensive rundown.

First let me apologize for the typo in my last post; I said "It looks like that through your collective help I'm begging to get it." That should have been "beginning to get it" (however, the typo works, too).

Your long description is most interesting and informative. It is, though, a bit more granular that I need. What I'm currently faced with is the practical operational understanding I need to "rip right and rip once."

My area of not understanding is in the character of names vs. tags. What I've come to think I understand from your previous responses is that:

1) File names live in File Explorer, and, in fact, CREATE the File Explorer folder structure automatically.

2) File names are created by the Tags.

3) Tags come from the CD (and are of course recorded on the PC along with the essence), and they are used by the player to find the music desired.

If this is correct (please tell me if not) then what I'm stuck on is:

a) What is the practical (operational) benefit of having the music broken down into a name-directed folder structure in Windows Explorer?

b) If filenames are created by the Tags, then why do I need to set-up a naming structure? Don't the tags do it?

However, since dbpa asks ME to do it then I must be missing something. What am I missing here?

c) Then the final issue is that if, indeed, I must set up the naming structure, how to do it (I don't understand the logic of that from the examples (too many [, /, etc.). I' not sure I even know where to look to see the effect of any file naming pattern I might establish.

Thank you for all your kind care and hand-holding.

Don

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Your long description is most interesting and informative. It is, though, a bit more granular that I need. What I'm currently faced with is the practical operational understanding I need to "rip right and rip once."

You should reread and study carefully. His points in fact are explaining the difference between file names and tagging. A concept which you are very much struggling with.

My area of not understanding is in the character of names vs. tags. What I've come to think I understand from your previous responses is that:

1) File names live in File Explorer, and, in fact, CREATE the File Explorer folder structure automatically.

YES. (not to confuse you but file explorer is just a tool to look at and find file names. There are other tools too. )

2) File names are created by the Tags.

not exactly. Dbpa creates the file names using information contained in the tags.

3) Tags come from the CD (and are of course recorded on the PC along with the essence), and they are used by the player to find the music desired.

no. Tags mostly come from online databases. Dbpa uses these databases automatically fill in the tag info when ripping cd. Schmidj explained all this in detail. Please read again.

If this is correct (please tell me if not) then what I'm stuck on is:

a) What is the practical (operational) benefit of having the music broken down into a name-directed folder structure in Windows Explorer?

simply being able to find something you are looking for. What if I want to delete an album i recently ripped. I don't want to scroll through 100,000 files looking for one album. Here's a non music example. You have a house and you own lots of stuff. Do you want to just randomly put all your stuff anywhere in the house with no organization? So if you want a cooking pot you might find it in bathroom, living room, under bed etc. no, that would be weird. It would be much better to have an organization scheme that keeps your cookware in the kitchen, your toothbrush in bathroom, your clothing in bedroom closet, etc.

For the same reason I prefer my music organized by artist then album.

b) If filenames are created by the Tags, then why do I need to set-up a naming structure? Don't the tags do it?

NO. DBPA DOES IT BUT YOU HAVE TO TELL it what YOU WANT. That's the dynamic naming. I've given you an example of what to use. Or default works for most. And tap on help ? Icons on that page for more help.

However, since dbpa asks ME to do it then I must be missing something. What am I missing here? See above.

c) Then the final issue is that if, indeed, I must set up the naming structure, how to do it (I don't understand the logic of that from the examples (too many [, /, etc.). I' not sure I even know where to look to see the effect of any file naming pattern I might establish.

thats the dynamic naming already discussed. Once set how you want it is then automatic.

I get the idea that you're not trying things with the software. You must do some experimenting. Rip a few different type CDs and see what the output looks like. You learn mostly by trial and error to get things the way you want it. There is no way too learn just from reading in advance.

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thanks Garym,

You're right, I haven't been actually trying things very much. I did try once in the beginning and got strange results which I detailed in a post on 7/8/17 entitled "Strange result." I've gotten no reply to that; perhaps you might take a look and give me some feedback.

2) Is it that the CONTENT of the filenames is determined by the tags, but the FOLDER STRUCTURE of the file name is determined by the name setup?

b) Is the naming set-up simply the process of identifying the folder, and sub-folder, and sub-sub-folder tree structure that I desire (which by the way shows up in the File Explorer tool? If I'm right about that, then I guess the thing I need is how to set such up properly. You've indicated that it's somewhat complicated, and I expect that such complication is in understanding how to apply all the words and ]'s appropriately. For that I will need a better tutorial on it, or I will need the help you offered to do it for me. I do like to understand what I'm doing and have documentation on it, but so far I don't understand what I've read.

FYI, I'd like to see files in my File Explorer as follows: Genera\ Album name\ Artist\ Composer\ Track

Please take a look at my earlier post "Strange Result" and help me understand what is going on.

I think I'm getting there.
Don

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

I'm traveling and answering will take more than I can type on my iPhone. I'll respond in a day or two.

[Oggy]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Great explanation Schmidt.

I couldn't agree more, so much great information in one post.
Spoon, could schmidj's post be made a sticky, please?

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Hi Schmidj,

I want to thank you for your long and detailed description of the issues.
It's most informative and helpful.

Don

[schmidj]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Don, thank you.

A few other thoughts. First, the actual file structure isn't nearly as important as good tagging. The major reason for a file structure choice is to be able to find the file again, if you need to delete it or update the tag metadata after ripping. I'd strongly recommend the KISS principle, keep it simple stupid. I'd play a little with ripping a few CDs using the default dynamic file structure, and possibly some of the others people have provided in quite a few different threads here before trying to cook your own. The programming language used to build the ripping structure is obtuse at best, I fought it quite a while when I found it necessary to deal with some issues. The small question mark help links are useful. But' I'd just try the default, at least at first.

Don't forget the file structure has no effect when playing music on almost all players. They scan your files and make a database indexed on most of the items you would use to select tracks to play, and you search that database, not the files themselves. The software looks up the filename for you and then plays the track. So correct tags are far more important than any reasonable file structure.

Given that, a couple of caveats: The most important thing is to avoid or reduce the likelihood of "fully qualified" filename duplications in your naming scheme. For that reason, your actual filename should probably include the CD track number. Otherwise you are likely to have issues with two tracks on a CD having the same title, or possibly the same song on more than one CD.

The other issue is not exceeding the number of characters in a "fully qualified" filename, with all the directories and slashes. Particularly with classical music with long titles it is easy for this to happen. The title in the tag can be, for all practical purposes, as long as you'd like, but not in the filename. This is one that bit me early on and forced me to edit the dynamic naming rule to limit the length. And quite a number of times, there have been threads here where others have had the same issue.

Your initial goal should be to rip CDs into a lossless format, like FLAC with good tags. You hopefully will have to do this only once, if your collection is at all large. Rip securely, not in Burst, that is one of the big pluses of dBpoweramp, over most rippers. I initially ripped using Itunes and then later Winamp to a compressed format for an Ipod. I'd guess something like 5 % of the rips were bad, they skipped, they cut off short and went to the next track, etc. Also about that time I got a new receiver that would play music from my NAS server and I found that some of the m4a tracks lacked quality over the room system, although they sounded fine in the headphones on the Ipod. So that's when I found dBpoweramp and started ripping again. to FLAC using secure ripping. Nonetheless, I still made some mistakes in my early dBpoweramp rips which have and will force me to rerip a few CDs a third time!

If you need smaller files for your car or phone, then use the batch converter in dBpoweramp to make copies in some compressed format that works with your car radio or phone, keep the FLAC copies as masters and probably for listening at home.

Also, back up your rips on removable media like one or more "brick" drives. They aren't very expensive, and you really don't want to start ripping all over again when your hard drive crashes...

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Hi Schmidj,

Thank you for your post. Again, it is helpful. Little by little I'm "getting" it.

Three questions:

1) What is "fully qualified file name."

2) What is "dynamic file structure?" What other kinds of file structure are there?

3) Nowhere is the filename example that I've seen is the genera. To me this seems to be an important characteristic of my music, perhaps the most important. I'm inclined to think in terms of genera; that is, I first know that I want to listen to opera, or 60's Rock & Roll, country and western; then I go from there. Wouldn't genera be an important part of filename?

[mville]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

3) Nowhere is the filename example that I've seen is the genera. To me this seems to be an important characteristic of my music, perhaps the most important. I'm inclined to think in terms of genera; that is, I first know that I want to listen to opera, or 60's Rock & Roll, country and western; then I go from there. Wouldn't genera be an important part of filename?

Just to clarify:

The file/folder structure is just a way for the end user to organise files in a simple/logical way (on storage media) for ease of access. A simple Artist/Album structure is usually sufficient for most end users. It is your choice however, how you define this structure, so you can if you wish include Genre.

Modern music servers/players DO NOT use the file/folder structure, rather, they organise an audio library based on the metadata tags contained within the files to create their own (usually more powerful) internal structure.

So, although you are right that Genre is important, your music sever/player will use the metadata tags, including the Genre tag and not the file/folder names to build it's internal structure. Then, you can use the music sever/player interface to view, sort, search and play your music based on Genre (e.g. opera or 60's Rock & Roll or country and western etc.) OR Artist OR Date OR Composer etc.

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Hi Schmidj,


1) What is "fully qualified file name."

does not contain forbidden characters (dbpa will automatically not use these) and is not too long. Google "windows file name" for detail on this.

[schmidj]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Fully Qualified is the entire name including the directories. So if your file name for the actual file with the music is "03 - Beatles, The - Help" and it's in a directory "The Beatles" which is in a directory "Rock" which is in a top level directory "Music" on the C: drive, the fully qualified file name is C:\Music\Rock\The Beatles\03 - Beatles, The - Help Your file system might use / instead of \. The issue is that some operating system routines won't work if the length of that whole name is longer than some surprisingly short number of characters. If you use a NAS (network attached storage) external file storage box with your computer to hold your music, and if it runs Linux or Unix, as many do, it uses software called Samba to pass the files to and from your Windows computer. Samba in that mode won't work if that name exceeds something like 250 characters. Surprisingly easy to inadvertently exceed if you use the whole names for the artists and titles of music in your file naming routine. Particularly for classical music, where the "whole" title of the piece can be very long, as supplied by the metadata service.

Dynamic naming is a term used by dBpoweramp as one of the choices (and almost always the best choice) for how the program names the files that it rips on your storage media. The rules for dynamic naming are that string with (possibly) the [] and other things that at this point puzzle you in the box on the lower left of the dBpoweramp screen that says "naming". It's "dynamic" because it can read the source (tag) contents and generate the file and directory names "dynamically" from the contents it reads. It is very powerful, but like anything so powerful it can get you into serious trouble if you don't fully understand what the changes you make accomplish.

While genre is important for listening, my feeling is you don't need it for file naming, just make sure that it is what you want in the tag. As several of us have said, most all players don't use file names to select your music, they use the tags, so if today you want to listen to blues, you select blues as the genre in the player. It doesn't need for the word blues to be in the filename, only in the genre tag.

A couple more reasons not to sort files by genre, it's very arbitrary. What you call soul, someone else, or a different metadata source, might call R&B. Same thing for rock versus pop. And you can actually have more than one genre for a song or album, so I might have a song tagged "rock; Christmas" and that doesn't fit well in a filenaming routine.

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

"FYI, I'd like to see files in my File Explorer as follows: Genera\ Album name\ Artist\ Composer\ Track"

I very much doubt this is what you actually want to see as file organization. Again, keep in mind that in your music library and player, you'll be using all your metadata tags. And this will contain GENRE, etc. and you can sort on this, search on this, etc. We're only talking about FILE NAMING at this point (not the tags). The example you give above, would produce this in file explorer for a willie nelson album with different composers.

c:\music\Country\Shotgun Willie\Willie Nelson\Willie Nelson\01.flac
.................................................. ...........\Johnny Bush\02.flac

etc. You'd end up with many different subdirectories under the album subdirectory. If it was me, I'd want:

c:\music\Willie Nelson\Shotgun Willie\01 - Shotgun Willie.flac
.................................................\ 02 - Whiskey River.flac
etc.

That is, I'd rather have a parent directory with the ARTIST, then all the ARTIST's albums underneath that single artist directory. I don't care about GENRE in my file names (but note I use it a lot in my PLAYING and sorting on the GENRE tag, etc.). But if you want GENRE in naming, I'd want

c:\music\Country\Willie Nelson\Shotgun Willie\01 - Shotgun Willie.flac

Additional important point

You mention a lot about classical and your "strange result" posting was classical CD. For classical CDs it is often important to make sure that composer, work, etc. is included in your metadata tags. And you may want the files named based on something like composer. So you'll likely want a different naming scheme for classical (you can have multiple naming strings, and save them under PROFILES in the naming string section in lower left of ripping screen).

You might want:

c:\music\classical\mozart\.....

The bad news is that the online databases that supply the automatic tag data are reasonably good for pop music, but for classical they are a mess! This means that at ripping time, you really need to do a lot of manual editing of the track titles, composer names, etc. to make sure they are right and what you want. Best to do this work up front and have good tags. When you put the CD in to rip, click on the little "tag" icon at top of page (3 over from the rip icon at upper left). This will open up the tag data page. You'll see all the options provided by the vendors. You can pick the one that is closet, and then manually edit each of the boxes to contain what you want.

Google a bit on info on tagging classical music. See:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tagging+classical+music

Otherwise, for non classical, paste the following in your naming options.

[IFCOMP]Compilations\[album] [IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title] - [artist][][IF!COMP][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title][]

On bottom left of ripper screen, on Path box, click on SET then make it: C:\music
On naming box, click on SET, then delete the default string in the "Base location" and paste the string I provided above in its place.

then rip a few CDs (single, mulitdisk, and a compilation/various artists) and see what it does and what the file names/directories look like. Then report back on what you'd like to be different and what you'd like instead. Use a specific example to allow us to help the most.

[garym]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

And if you want to use GENRE in file names, just past this naming string in instead (it puts everything under genre folders first)

[IFCOMP]Compilations\[genre]\[album] [IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title] - [artist][][IF!COMP][genre]\[IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title][]

[dbarnby]

Re: Set-Up for Ripping

Thanks garym,

I'll keep reading and noodling this around a bit until I decide what to do. When I do I'll surely take you up on your offer to construct the proper string.

Is there a guide that outlines the rules for how to construct a file name string oneself? The string seems to be "codec" in a format and symbols that look pretty daunting ([]\ and all).