New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

[brushyourideas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

You should try another CD drive.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Hi ChisChas ,

You probably know this already, but just in case it has slipped passed you: quite often when you rip a CD the COMPILATION box will be checked by default. Make a quick idiot-check every time you rip that it is UNCHECKED (unless of course the CD is in fact a compilation). I have been caught out a few times!

Cheers,

Paul

[Jailhouse]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

CDs read from the inner edge to the outer edge. Errors in disc manufacture are magnified near the outer edge as that moves beneath the laser pickup more quickly. Error correction can only do so much.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Yes, different drives can work wonders, (ask your work colleagues for them, before they dump their PCs!), but the last track or two are also the more likely to have fingerprints, especially if the disc has ever been used in a slot loader. A gentle clean, can sometimes work wonders.

If I'm paying attention, and the first pass has given multiple errors, I tend to stop the rip and clean the disc. If the result is still the same, I try another drive. If it's an obvious scratch, I have on occasion attempted a more dramatic repair.

Luckily this occurs on only around 3% of my discs.

As you can get an Innacurate rip with only a few frames with errors, often these errors are inaudible.

Thanks again for some more practical advice.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Occasionally happens. sometimes a manufacturing defect. Sometimes something else. Many of my problems also occur with the last one or two tracks on a CD. As mentioned, I can often resolve this by trying to rip with a different drive.

Interesting when you say you also experience problems with last one or two tracks, thank you for sharing this. Ha ha, I'll try this CD with the Samsung drive. See whether the former drive can rip this last track.

[Oggy]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Occasionally happens. sometimes a manufacturing defect. Sometimes something else. Many of my problems also occur with the last one or two tracks on a CD. As mentioned, I can often resolve this by trying to rip with a different drive.

Yes, different drives can work wonders, (ask your work colleagues for them, before they dump their PCs!), but the last track or two are also the more likely to have fingerprints, especially if the disc has ever been used in a slot loader. A gentle clean, can sometimes work wonders.

If I'm paying attention, and the first pass has given multiple errors, I tend to stop the rip and clean the disc. If the result is still the same, I try another drive. If it's an obvious scratch, I have on occasion attempted a more dramatic repair.

Luckily this occurs on only around 3% of my discs.

As you can get an Innacurate rip with only a few frames with errors, often these errors are inaudible.

[garym]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Occasionally happens. sometimes a manufacturing defect. Sometimes something else. Many of my problems also occur with the last one or two tracks on a CD. As mentioned, I can often resolve this by trying to rip with a different drive.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Another problem track on another album/CD. I chose 8 tracks including no 12 (the last one) on an album that dBpa ripped 7 of 8 chosen tracks saying Accurate (200). There I was thinking this CD isn't going to be a problem as 200 other dBpa'ers have successfully ripped this well known CD. But the last track (no 12) is refusing to rip. There is a red cross & Error while the window says track ripped insecurely.
Do others get this, do you forego the problem track, do you set dBpa differently to get round the problem track? dBpa has 3 attempts then stops and I have to then set it going again for another 3 attempts. Can I set dBpa to keep going and keep trying until it finally succeeds? What is the advice? A few minutes to rip 7 tracks successfully and then another 20 minutes and the last track won't rip.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Thank you, Oggy.

[Oggy]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Oh my giddee aunt, thanks for all this, just heading for a dark room so I can have a lie down...........

The new drive is defo configued for AccurateRip, does this action take care of the offset you refer to?

And when I've come out of the dark room, I'll read this very helpful post S L O W L Y............

Yes! That's taken care of. Hopefully, with the screenshots, you can see some of the options very easily. This is the kind of setting, that I simply didn't think about from day one, but are easily set, or you can make an educated decision, not to change. Most of these are set once and forget.

If you get the basics right from the off, it saves a lot of editing later on.

If you choose your player, VLC or Foobar, from day one, you can see how your rips work in the real world. Not all players are equal, I know that VLC has been updated recently, but would be incredibly surprised if it got near the flexibility of Foobar2000. I don't know how good the support of sort tags is, in VLC.

I use sort tags for displaying, for example, David Bowie, as David Bowie, but under Bs, rather than Ds. This is purely a personal preference, but the player must be able to support them.

On my previous post, I've tried to take the key information from a very long thread, and explain why I used the options I did.

Think about how you ideally would like to display your library, and try a few CDs. I think very few get everything spot on first time, but hopefully you can achieve user friendly results first time.

Good luck!

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

ChisChas,

I am using Foobar on my PC to play my FLACs.

On my Amazon Fire tablet I am using VLC (as foobar is not an Amazon compatible app.).

Paul

Life ain't simple, is it? But another vote for Foobar.

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Great news that your new drive has done the job; a reliable drive makes ripping a large collection, immeasurably easier.

I'm sure you've configured the offset, if you are not already, let it rip at maximum speed!

Hopefully you have finished reading, and are now happily ripping your CD collection. Just in case you are not, I've pulled together a few things, that may help you achieve your goal, quicker.

Firstly, a good naming scheme. I tried working out this for myself, but in the end, took the great Tom Lehrer's advice, plagiarise!

So if you haven't settled on a naming scheme, do what I did, and use garym's!

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

This will deal with single, multi disc and Compilations, with very little user intervention. If you have found your own scheme, great!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1758[/ATTACH]

This Album Art screenshot shows the two sizes that I've set in the CD Ripper Options, 1000x1000 and 300x300. I settled on these because some players will not display larger files, and they give a good quality image.

If you do not like the album art offered to you, using a Google search on images, and adding fanart, 1024, or other popular image sizes, often offers, high quality, but sometimes very large images. Your settings will reduce these to a maximum of what you set.

By default, album art is embedded in each track. A popular choice, is to use a Folder.jpg, where you have one image, per disc. This is compatible with most apps, certainly Foobar. You have to set, Write to [output folder]\ AND, unless you want embedded and a Folder.jpg, In Write ID Tags, uncheck Album Art.

I settled on these settings after a month; I wish I had read up about them earlier. They work very well for me, but you are building a personal library, and your choices may be different.

Once set, these settings will apply to each rip. Once you know what you want, set and forget.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1760[/ATTACH]

The CD Ripper Metadata, screenshot, shows a lot of really useful information, and the left hand column, shows the preferences that I chose, before ripping disc 1, of the 1987, The Beatles, White Album.

Firstly, I hit the Captalize Tags - i've only just noticed that it says Captalize and not Capitalize! This capitalises, the first letter of each word and I believe that this is less wrong than using smart capitalisation, and gives a uniformed look. I use this for all naming, excepting stylised names, such as blink-182, and classical, where I prefer, i. Allegro con brio, than if it was all capitalised. These are purely personal preferences: the best advice I can offer, is to be consistent.

As you can see, the 4 providers have a few red highlights, where I have used different options:-

Artist - The Beatles, not Beatles, or even Beatles, The. In Windows, this shows as The Beatles, in Ts, but my player ignores "The", and displays as The Beatles, in Bs, which is my preference.

Album - The Beatles. I look at this as the correct album name, so don't mention "White Album", or Disc 1. I know that it is disc 1, from Disc - 1/2. If you have more than one mastering of an album, such as the 2007 remaster, or mono version, you will need to give them a unique name, such as The Beatles [Mono], to keep them separate.

Genre - Rock. This is my preference, but if you tag Genre, limiting the variations, searching by Genre, instantly becomes a very useful tool.

Year - 1968. My preference is for the albums original release year, which apart from multiple releases in a single year, allows the albums to be displayed chronologically. Adding month and date, appears to throw my player. Again this is purely a personal preference, and how my player works.

Disc - 1/2. This is disc 1 of a double CD set, if you use this convention, and if you tag disc 2, 2/2, with the exact same name for Artist and Album, The Beatles

From garym's naming string, and the above tags, you end up with a folder tree of:-

The Beatles

The Beatles

Disc 1 Disc 2

This also puts a Folder.jpg with album art up 1000x1000, 300x300, in each folder.

This may not be everyone's preference, but hopefully shows that with a good naming string, setting a few options, and with a bit of care and consistency with the metadata, a well organised library, isn't too difficult to achieve.

Even though as folders, you have a folder per disc, on most players, this would play disc 2 after disc 1, automatically.

This method also works exactly the same with sets with more than 2 discs, and Compilations. It is imperative to use exactly the same Album name for both compilations and multis, and exactly the same Artist name for multis, correctly populating the Disc numbers, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, 5/5, for a 5 CD set.

Hope this helps, and that others will add, correct, offer different or more elegant solutions, keeping information in fewer posts.

I haven't mentioned sort tags.....

Oh my giddee aunt, thanks for all this, just heading for a dark room so I can have a lie down...........

The new drive is defo configued for AccurateRip, does this action take care of the offset you refer to?

And when I've come out of the dark room, I'll read this very helpful post S L O W L Y............

[ChisChas]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Hi ChisChas,

I don't know if you are using a Windows device for playing your files, but rather than VLC, I would recommend, Foobar2000. Lots of happy users here!

Thanks, defo not wedded to VLC, just occasionally use it for DVD's. Yes, using W10 when listening with a desktop dac/amp (waiting for my Chord Hugo 2 to arrive), a Linux device (Questyle QP2R) for portable use.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

Hi ChisChas,

I don't know if you are using a Windows device for playing your files, but rather than VLC, I would recommend, Foobar2000. Lots of happy users here!

ChisChas,

I am using Foobar on my PC to play my FLACs.

On my Amazon Fire tablet I am using VLC (as foobar is not an Amazon compatible app.).

Paul

[Oggy]

Re: New User Experiencing Huge Time Differences in Rips

THE NEW ASUS drive (SDRW-08D2S-U Lite) has defeated the two Arena tracks who were unwilling to join the dBpa party, bravo, I'm much happier.

Thanks to everyone who has borne with my frustrations and my dBpa journey can now start. I'm sure there will be other trials & tribulations in the future and I feel confident I will be able to come back for some more help. I will go through Paul's thread and pick out what is helpful to me.

THANK YOU!

Great news that your new drive has done the job; a reliable drive makes ripping a large collection, immeasurably easier.

I'm sure you've configured the offset, if you are not already, let it rip at maximum speed!

Hopefully you have finished reading, and are now happily ripping your CD collection. Just in case you are not, I've pulled together a few things, that may help you achieve your goal, quicker.

Firstly, a good naming scheme. I tried working out this for myself, but in the end, took the great Tom Lehrer's advice, plagiarise!

So if you haven't settled on a naming scheme, do what I did, and use garym's!

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

This will deal with single, multi disc and Compilations, with very little user intervention. If you have found your own scheme, great!



This Album Art screenshot shows the two sizes that I've set in the CD Ripper Options, 1000x1000 and 300x300. I settled on these because some players will not display larger files, and they give a good quality image.

If you do not like the album art offered to you, using a Google search on images, and adding fanart, 1024, or other popular image sizes, often offers, high quality, but sometimes very large images. Your settings will reduce these to a maximum of what you set.

By default, album art is embedded in each track. A popular choice, is to use a Folder.jpg, where you have one image, per disc. This is compatible with most apps, certainly Foobar. You have to set, Write to [output folder]\ AND, unless you want embedded and a Folder.jpg, In Write ID Tags, uncheck Album Art.

I settled on these settings after a month; I wish I had read up about them earlier. They work very well for me, but you are building a personal library, and your choices may be different.

Once set, these settings will apply to each rip. Once you know what you want, set and forget.



The CD Ripper Metadata, screenshot, shows a lot of really useful information, and the left hand column, shows the preferences that I chose, before ripping disc 1, of the 1987, The Beatles, White Album.

Firstly, I hit the Captalize Tags - i've only just noticed that it says Captalize and not Capitalize! This capitalises, the first letter of each word and I believe that this is less wrong than using smart capitalisation, and gives a uniformed look. I use this for all naming, excepting stylised names, such as blink-182, and classical, where I prefer, i. Allegro con brio, than if it was all capitalised. These are purely personal preferences: the best advice I can offer, is to be consistent.

As you can see, the 4 providers have a few red highlights, where I have used different options:-

Artist - The Beatles, not Beatles, or even Beatles, The. In Windows, this shows as The Beatles, in Ts, but my player ignores "The", and displays as The Beatles, in Bs, which is my preference.

Album - The Beatles. I look at this as the correct album name, so don't mention "White Album", or Disc 1. I know that it is disc 1, from Disc - 1/2. If you have more than one mastering of an album, such as the 2007 remaster, or mono version, you will need to give them a unique name, such as The Beatles [Mono], to keep them separate.

Genre - Rock. This is my preference, but if you tag Genre, limiting the variations, searching by Genre, instantly becomes a very useful tool.

Year - 1968. My preference is for the albums original release year, which apart from multiple releases in a single year, allows the albums to be displayed chronologically. Adding month and date, appears to throw my player. Again this is purely a personal preference, and how my player works.

Disc - 1/2. This is disc 1 of a double CD set, if you use this convention, and if you tag disc 2, 2/2, with the exact same name for Artist and Album, The Beatles

From garym's naming string, and the above tags, you end up with a folder tree of:-

The Beatles

The Beatles

Disc 1 Disc 2

This also puts a Folder.jpg with album art up 1000x1000, 300x300, in each folder.

This may not be everyone's preference, but hopefully shows that with a good naming string, setting a few options, and with a bit of care and consistency with the metadata, a well organised library, isn't too difficult to achieve.

Even though as folders, you have a folder per disc, on most players, this would play disc 2 after disc 1, automatically.

This method also works exactly the same with sets with more than 2 discs, and Compilations. It is imperative to use exactly the same Album name for both compilations and multis, and exactly the same Artist name for multis, correctly populating the Disc numbers, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, 5/5, for a 5 CD set.

Hope this helps, and that others will add, correct, offer different or more elegant solutions, keeping information in fewer posts.

I haven't mentioned sort tags.....