Bought Program - Frustrated w/ Various Artist Issue Problem I Can't Solve *HELP*

[csnow]

I just purchased the program from the rave reviews, but I can't get it to do a simple task. Most of my CDs are Time Life or Rhino compilation sets. I want it to create a folder of the artist from the track information and nothing else. I don't want track number, year, album, various artist, genre, etc. For instance Time Life album "XYZ" track 1 is Doobie Brothers - China Groove. I just want to create a folder named Doobie Brothers with a file named "Doobie Brothers - China Groove" All other discs that have tracks by Doobie Brothers will go into the same folder. Is this possible?

[garym]

Re: Bought Program - Frustrated w/ Various Artist Issue Problem I Can't Solve *HELP*

I just purchased the program from the rave reviews, but I can't get it to do a simple task. Most of my CDs are Time Life or Rhino compilation sets. I want it to create a folder of the artist from the track information and nothing else. I don't want track number, year, album, various artist, genre, etc. For instance Time Life album "XYZ" track 1 is Doobie Brothers - China Groove. I just want to create a folder named Doobie Brothers with a file named "Doobie Brothers - China Groove" All other discs that have tracks by Doobie Brothers will go into the same folder. Is this possible?

Yes, this and almost any file organization is possible. I'm a bit confused as to what you are trying to achieve. If, for example, you want a track ripped from a compilation CD (like time-life) with doobie brothers to go into a Doobie Brothers folder, you would use the following string in your dynamic naming (see the lower left of ripper screen, the "naming" row, and click the "set" button to the right). Use this naming string:

[artist]\[artist] - [title]

That would put any file with Doobie Brothers in a Doobie Brothers folder and name the file as, "Doobie Brothers - China Grove.flac" (or mp3 or whatever).

[csnow]

Re: Bought Program - Frustrated w/ Various Artist Issue Problem I Can't Solve *HELP*

Yes, this and almost any file organization is possible. I'm a bit confused as to what you are trying to achieve. If, for example, you want a track ripped from a compilation CD (like time-life) with doobie brothers to go into a Doobie Brothers folder, you would use the following string in your dynamic naming (see the lower left of ripper screen, the "naming" row, and click the "set" button to the right). Use this naming string:

[artist]\[artist] - [title]

That would put any file with Doobie Brothers in a Doobie Brothers folder and name the file as, "Doobie Brothers - China Grove.flac" (or mp3 or whatever).

So I don't have to check compilation box or any of those other items? The "if" items were confusing me. Thank you by the way for taking the time to answer - much appreciated.

[garym]

Re: Bought Program - Frustrated w/ Various Artist Issue Problem I Can't Solve *HELP*

So I don't have to check compilation box or any of those other items? The "if" items were confusing me. Thank you by the way for taking the time to answer - much appreciated.

Yes, because the albums are compliations (multiple artists) you'd typically want to tick the compilation box. Of course you can arrange things how you wish, but your method seems a bit odd to me. I'd say most people want to organize as Artist/album/tracks, in order to maintain a connection between the album and the digital files. It is the file metadata tags (not file names) that most players use to locate files to play.

For example, if I want to see all Doobie Brothers songs I have, I simply search or browse in my PLAYER for "Doobie Brothers". The player will show me all these (no matter where they are located, on compliations, soundtracks, doobie brother albums, etc., even though the files themselves are spread out among all those locations).

In my own case, I use the following naming string to automatically deal with compilations, multi-disk, etc.

[MAXLENGTH]240,[IFCOMP]Compilations\[album] [IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title] - [artist][][IF!COMP][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title][][]

You should give some thought to this before you rip all your CDs. Organization and tagging are the most important things to consider to make your digital music library useful.

EDIT: Don't get frustrated. dbpa is a very powerful program with lots of options. It can do almost anything the way you want. But there is a learning curve. Play with it a bit, learn about the options, do some test ripping and see what you get. Once you get it setup the way you want, it becomes very simple (once set, I then never change my options...I simply insert CDs and rip!). Have you seen this info:

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide.htm

[csnow]

Re: Bought Program - Frustrated w/ Various Artist Issue Problem I Can't Solve *HELP*

Yes, because the albums are compliations (multiple artists) you'd typically want to tick the compilation box. Of course you can arrange things how you wish, but your method seems a bit odd to me. I'd say most people want to organize as Artist/album/tracks, in order to maintain a connection between the album and the digital files. It is the file metadata tags (not file names) that most players use to locate files to play.

For example, if I want to see all Doobie Brothers songs I have, I simply search or browse in my PLAYER for "Doobie Brothers". The player will show me all these (no matter where they are located, on compliations, soundtracks, doobie brother albums, etc., even though the files themselves are spread out among all those locations).

In my own case, I use the following naming string to automatically deal with compilations, multi-disk, etc.

[MAXLENGTH]240,[IFCOMP]Compilations\[album] [IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title] - [artist][][IF!COMP][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title][][]

You should give some thought to this before you rip all your CDs. Organization and tagging are the most important things to consider to make your digital music library useful.

EDIT: Don't get frustrated. dbpa is a very powerful program with lots of options. It can do almost anything the way you want. But there is a learning curve. Play with it a bit, learn about the options, do some test ripping and see what you get. Once you get it setup the way you want, it becomes very simple (once set, I then never change my options...I simply insert CDs and rip!). Have you seen this info:

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide.htm

Thanks, I will do some reading. How do you delete the strings that you try and don't like so they disappear from the possible selections? I couldn't find their source.

[garym]

Re: Bought Program - Frustrated w/ Various Artist Issue Problem I Can't Solve *HELP*

Thanks, I will do some reading. How do you delete the strings that you try and don't like so they disappear from the possible selections? I couldn't find their source.

Not sure how to delete strings. May be in registry. Spoon or someone might know how.

[Spoon]

Re: Bought Program - Frustrated w/ Various Artist Issue Problem I Can't Solve *HELP*

In the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Illustrate\dBpoweramp

CDRipper_Namings