dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

[mville]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

Itunes won't import .wav files from my NAS that I imported in wav format with dBpoweramp though, so iTunes is not an option.

I am using iTunes for Windows v.12.7.2.58 and I can add .wav files to my library, using iTunes File menu >> Add file to library...

... and a quick search of the internet suggests the .wav format is supported in iTunes for Mac.

[MrWriter]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

Ok, just borrowed a friends old iMac, one with a built in CD drive, and downloaded dBpoweramp and all the 'dodgy' CDs are ripping at break neck speed with no issues. I conclude that my new iMac, that doesn't have built in CD drive, can't handle 'certain' CDs with the Apple external USB CD drive (or any other external USB drive I've tried). Funny how it works with approximately 95% of CDs, but not the other 5%

[MrWriter]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

Final questions. Does it make any difference to the quality of the music/rip if you rip over the wifi to the NAS as apposed to using an Ethernet cable?

[mville]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

Final questions. Does it make any difference to the quality of the music/rip if you rip over the wifi to the NAS as apposed to using an Ethernet cable?

No, audio quality is not affected. The difference between a wired Ethernet connection and a Wi-Fi network connection is that Wi-Fi is less reliable and slower.

[garym]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

No, audio quality is not affected. The difference between a wired Ethernet connection and a Wi-Fi network connection is that Wi-Fi is less reliable and slower.

I am personally not a fan of ripping directly to a NAS. It can and does work but can also sometimes create problems or become very slow. I do a ripping session, ripping to my local C drive and then copy over the completed rips to my NAS.

[mville]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

I am personally not a fan of ripping directly to a NAS. It can and does work but can also sometimes create problems or become very slow. I do a ripping session, ripping to my local C drive and then copy over the completed rips to my NAS.

Yes garym, I agree. An unreliable and/or slow network connection can introduce issues. We are seeing more and more network related issues in these forums, due to the increase in the use of Media Servers and NAS devices.

Like you, I prefer to rip to a local hard drive and allow software to copy/backup my library post rip, so ruling out any potential network issues during the ripping process.

[MrWriter]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

I'm finding it just as fast as ripping CDs via ethernet when using wi-fi. But, when you say 'reliability' issues are we talking about rips that have 'errors' in them?

[mville]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

I'm finding it just as fast as ripping CDs via ethernet when using wi-fi. But, when you say 'reliability' issues are we talking about rips that have 'errors' in them?

No, the network has no impact on the digital audio data extraction from the CD, the audio quality or the ripping errors.

Once extraction is complete, CD Ripper saves the data to your network location and this is where issues can occur.

If your network is working ok, you have sufficient permissions to access your network location and sufficient bandwidth over the network, then you probably won't have any issues.

However, that is theory and in my experience networking can be a bit flaky and unreliable, so I prefer to leave the network out of my ripping process..

[MrWriter]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

Final questions. MY 2 x 1TB drives are now full so I need to buy 2 x 2TB drives to replace them with. If I shift all the files from the 1TB over to a new 2TB drive via drag/drop will any errors occur or will there be any 'generation' loss in quality?

[MrWriter]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

A couple of guys on here said they don't use the 'network' for the ripping process and rip to another drive then transfer to NAS. How do you transfer to NAS, just regular drag/drop method? Still has to go over the network to get to the NAS drive so I can't see the advantage?

[Dat Ei]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

Hey MrWriter,

If I shift all the files from the 1TB over to a new 2TB drive via drag/drop will any errors occur or will there be any 'generation' loss in quality?

there will be no generation losses for sure, but errors could occur. The later is unlikely and should be reported by the programs involved by the copy process.

How do you transfer to NAS, just regular drag/drop method?

No, not really. I use robocopy, a Windows inherent tool, to sync my local storage to my NAS (and other devices like portable HDDs).


Dat Ei

[garym]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

Final questions. MY 2 x 1TB drives are now full so I need to buy 2 x 2TB drives to replace them with. If I shift all the files from the 1TB over to a new 2TB drive via drag/drop will any errors occur or will there be any 'generation' loss in quality?

drag and drop, or "copy then paste" or any other method of copying files.

[garym]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

A couple of guys on here said they don't use the 'network' for the ripping process and rip to another drive then transfer to NAS. How do you transfer to NAS, just regular drag/drop method? Still has to go over the network to get to the NAS drive so I can't see the advantage?

In the copy process (or drag and drop), most file transfer programs will tell the user if an error is encountered. So not typically an issue. But if ripping DIRECTLY to the NAS, you are now engaging the encoding process and the network process at the same time. I'm not an expert on the inner workings of dbpa, but for example when I'm ripping a CD, I also use the ReplayGain DSP to add album and track gain values to the tag. It creates all the individual tracks, but then at the very end it has to analyze all the tracks and then add the ALBUM RG tag value. So things could have encoded properly, but some sort of collision of tasks in that last step might create an issue. So writing a TAG to all the tracks while encoding to the NAS is quite different from simply copying complete files to a NAS.

This is all theoretical of course, and 99.99999% of the time there are likely no issues in encoding directly to the NAS. Another benefit to me in ripping to C drive then copying over is that 20% of the time after I rip I need to do some minor tag editing/tweaking (and I'm even fairly careful about making sure tag values are what I want before ripping). Checking everything out before copying over to NAS adds a bit of value in that regard.

Even though copying files should report any errors using built-in protocols, I still add a step after copying the files to the NAS. On the NAS copy of the files I run a dbpa batch convert to [TEST CONVERSION] or run the files through PerfectTunes (which will do the same thing as test conversion and also check for AccurateRip match). This gives me comfort that the files sitting on the NAS are not corrupt. (and every so often I do this on ALL the files on the NAS or on the 3 or 4 other backups I have of my music collection. I don't want to re-rip 8000+ CDs!)

[mville]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

A couple of guys on here said they don't use the 'network' for the ripping process and rip to another drive then transfer to NAS. How do you transfer to NAS, just regular drag/drop method? Still has to go over the network to get to the NAS drive so I can't see the advantage?

Several ways to copy files. Using the OS e.g. Windows File Explorer (copy & paste, Copy to, drag & drop etc.) or using software e.g. TuneFusion, FreeFileSync or as Dat Ei kindly reminded me recently, robocopy.

For me, there are 4 distinct advantages in ripping to a local hard drive and copying to a network location at a later time:

01. I have a backup of my audio library, on a different device.
02. I often need to edit my audio library, post rip. Editing local files is quicker than editing files over the network.
03. Copying to the network location can be configured to run in the background.
04. When I want to rip a CD, I am not reliant on the network being online.

[Dat Ei]

Re: dBpoweramp - strange goings on with CD ripping - Help!

If you use a Windows System (Windows 7 or newer) you can use the Windows inherent tool "robocopy", which is a very powerful tool. So if you are not familiar with "robocopy", here is a short explanation what to do.

1.) Open a text file editor.

2.) Insert the following lines:

robocopy source-folder destination-folder /MIR /NFL /NDL /NP /R:0 /W:0 /DST
pause

i.e.

robocopy "c:\mp3-files" "n:\mp3-network-backup" /MIR /NFL /NDL /NP /R:0 /W:0 /DST
pause

This syncs the local folder "c:\mp3-files" to the folder "n:\mp3-network-backup", which might be a folder on your NAS.

3.) Save the text to a file with the file Extension ".bat", i.e. "my_sync.bat".

4.) Now, that you want to sync your file, just double click on that file. At the end you'll get a report.

What will happen?

All files in your source-folder, which are not your destination-folder, will be copied to your destination-folder. All files in your source-folder, which are newer than the copy in the destination-folder, will overwrite the copy in the destination-folder. All files in your destination-folder, which are not your source-folder, will be deleted in your destination-folder. Files, which are identical, are kept untouched - no data traffic for those files! This behaviour is controlled by the parameter /MIR (mirror source to destination).

/NFL, /NDL and /NP just suppress the logging for files (/NFL), directories (/NDL) or percent of copied Elements (/NP).

/R:x and /W:x control the repetition and wait time between attempts. No need to change in a locale enviroment.

/DST is quiet useful. It compensates possible time differences between the files caused by summer and winter time.

With this small one liner I distribute and sync my files over my network and several devices.


Dat Ei