Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

[garym]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

I should emphasize, that even after you think you have your naming string, genre/artist/albumartist/sort tag decisions all finalized and working, etc. You still need to rip a handful of CDs (of different types, various artist, multidisk, classical vs pop, etc. and then load these up on your server/player and see how things look and work in actual search/browse/playback mode. Experimentation and testing the results is KEY to creating a good ripping process. If I had a $1 for everyone that ripped thousands of CDs and then said, "I wish I had thought about this in the beginning" I'd be a rich man.

[garym]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

I&*8217;m starting to wonder if I really want to bother with the sort tags for the same reason. I always had my CDs arranged alphabetically, so &*8220;Bob Marley And The Wailers&*8221;, for examlple, would be filed under &*8220;B&*8221;. I would not want the sort tags to organise things differently, e.g. &*8220;Marley, Bob, And The Wailers&*8221; under &*8220;M&*8221;. Will the standard ARTIST and ALBUM ARTIST tags be adequate in this case?

Yes. That's exactly what I do. I don't use SORT tags at all. I use ARTIST and ALBUM ARTIST only.

The only grey area is when an artist name begins with &*8220;The&*8221;. For example, do I want &*8220;The Doors&*8221; or &*8220;Doors, The&*8221;? I imagine that trying to organise ARTIST SORT tags would be even more of a headache than for ALBUM ARTIST SORT.

I don't have to think about "The" in front of artist or album artist names, as all the software I use for playback is smart enough to show "The Doors" in the "D" range when browsing alphabetically, or "The Beatles" in the "B" range. I don't need sort tags for this.

Do you just alter these fields as per your own personal preference, or do you use a database for ideas? The info for the GENRE field provided by online databases often seems to be quite inaccurate.

Yes, I almost always change the GENRE manually on the CD ripper screen before ripping. 15 years ago or so when I started ripping I used maybe 30 or 40 genres (trying to be super specific) For example, I had Rock, Folk Rock, Country Rock, Rock-Live, Progressive Rock, Rockabilly, and I'm sure several more. Then I had various Pop categories. And lots of Jazz categories. And lots of country categories. But I've now simplified greatly and it makes things simpler (for me). For example, all rock and pop, is now a single Genre: Pop/Rock. Then I have Country, Folk, Jazz, Latin, World, Classical, Opera, and Christmas.

On a similar point, does anyone make use of the CAPS or SMART CAPS function (I think that&*8217;s what they&*8217;re called). I&*8217;ve found they can both give mixed results, especially with classical music and titles containing punctuation. All CAPS is probably what I&*8217;ll use, checking each track name for anomalies as I go along.

I rarely use this function. Once in a while after the fact, I'll do some clean up tag editing, when I notice that I have separate artists listed (because of differences in capitalization) and I need to make them the same. For example:
Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen

So I will edit the tags so the artist name is identical. PerfectTunes does a good job of finding all these anomalies by the way.

[Supernaut]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

By the way, if I was just starting my ripping journey, I'd likely use ARTIST SORT and ALBUM ARTIST SORT tags, to properly sort by last name. But given that I'm about 6,000 ripped CDs in, and even my *physical* filing of CDs was converted to FIRST name alphabetically years ago (in order to match my digital alphabetical order), I'm not interested in changing all this now. My brain got used to thinking of Elvis filed under E.

I’m starting to wonder if I really want to bother with the sort tags for the same reason. I always had my CDs arranged alphabetically, so “Bob Marley And The Wailers”, for examlple, would be filed under “B”. I would not want the sort tags to organise things differently, e.g. “Marley, Bob, And The Wailers” under “M”. Will the standard ARTIST and ALBUM ARTIST tags be adequate in this case?

The only grey area is when an artist name begins with “The”. For example, do I want “The Doors” or “Doors, The”? I imagine that trying to organise ARTIST SORT tags would be even more of a headache than for ALBUM ARTIST SORT.

You'll likely want to manually correct the SORT data information at the time of ripping (or afterwards with tag editing), as the info from the online databases may either not suit you or may be missing. (Just like I almost always have to edit the GENRE and sometimes the ALBUM ARTIST information, when I use that tag.

Do you just alter these fields as per your own personal preference, or do you use a database for ideas? The info for the GENRE field provided by online databases often seems to be quite inaccurate.

On a similar point, does anyone make use of the CAPS or SMART CAPS function (I think that’s what they’re called). I’ve found they can both give mixed results, especially with classical music and titles containing punctuation. All CAPS is probably what I’ll use, checking each track name for anomalies as I go along.

[garym]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

You'll likely want to manually correct the SORT data information at the time of ripping (or afterwards with tag editing), as the info from the online databases may either not suit you or may be missing. (Just like I almost always have to edit the GENRE and sometimes the ALBUM ARTIST information, when I use that tag.

[Supernaut]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

In dbpa, Ripper settings, there is a place where you "tick" boxes next to the tag metadata you want included automatically. You should look at that list and make some decisions.

I had a look at the metadata settings and found the checkboxes you mentioned:



I'll try a few rips with Album sort and Album Artist sort checked to see what difference it makes. Thanks again for the advice.

[Supernaut]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

Do NOT just ignore the sort tags. These can wreak havoc on things later on and you'll be very confused.
...
In dbpa, Ripper settings, there is a place where you "tick" boxes next to the tag metadata you want included automatically. You should look at that list and make some decisions.
...
By the way, if I was just starting my ripping journey, I'd likely use ARTIST SORT and ALBUM ARTIST SORT tags, to properly sort by last name.

Thanks as usual for the advice, @garym. Seeing as I haven't started ripping my collection yet, that's what I'll probably do. Even though I'm about ready to get started, it looks like this is going to be a constant learning process.

A note on sort tags.

If you populate Artist/Album Artist as Elvis Presley or Composer as Frédéric Chopin (i.e. firstname lastname) and want the Artist/Album Artist to be sorted under P rather than E, or the Composer to be sorted under C rather than F, then you will need to populate their respective sort tags e.g. with Presley, Elvis or Chopin, Frédéric (i.e. lastname, firtsname).

Illustrate supports respective sort tags for:
Album
Artist
Album Artist
Composer
Conductor
Soloists

Thank you, @mville.

[mville]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

By the way, if I was just starting my ripping journey, I'd likely use ARTIST SORT and ALBUM ARTIST SORT tags, to properly sort by last name. But given that I'm about 6,000 ripped CDs in, and even my *physical* filing of CDs was converted to FIRST name alphabetically years ago (in order to match my digital alphabetical order), I'm not interested in changing all this now. My brain got used to thinking of Elvis filed under E.

Yes, understood. It's just a matter of preference/choice.

[garym]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

A note on sort tags.

If you populate Artist/Album Artist as Elvis Presley or Composer as Frédéric Chopin (i.e. firstname lastname) and want the Artist/Album Artist to be sorted under P rather than E, or the Composer to be sorted under C rather than F, then you will need to populate their respective sort tags e.g. with Presley, Elvis or Chopin, Frédéric (i.e. lastname, firtsname).

By the way, if I was just starting my ripping journey, I'd likely use ARTIST SORT and ALBUM ARTIST SORT tags, to properly sort by last name. But given that I'm about 6,000 ripped CDs in, and even my *physical* filing of CDs was converted to FIRST name alphabetically years ago (in order to match my digital alphabetical order), I'm not interested in changing all this now. My brain got used to thinking of Elvis filed under E.

[mville]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

A note on sort tags.

If you populate Artist/Album Artist as Elvis Presley or Composer as Frédéric Chopin (i.e. firstname lastname) and want the Artist/Album Artist to be sorted under P rather than E, or the Composer to be sorted under C rather than F, then you will need to populate their respective sort tags e.g. with Presley, Elvis or Chopin, Frédéric (i.e. lastname, firtsname).

Illustrate supports respective sort tags for:
Album
Artist
Album Artist
Composer
Conductor
Soloists

[garym]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

OK. The album I ripped with an empty Album Artist field showed up as a bunch of individual tracks on my PC music player (Groove Music). After going into Mp3tag and filling in the missing Album Artist field for all tracks, they then showed up as a complete album. Perhaps this says more about the playback software than the ripped files, as it's behaved similarly with downloaded music in the past and it also often fails to show CD artwork. I think I'll install foobar2000 in the near future.

SORT TAGS:
Does this mean there's a way to turn them off? Otherwise I'll just ignore them.

Yes, this is the player expecting an ALBUM ARTIST. Some do it seems. By the way, some users always fill in the ALBUM ARTIST metadata when ripping (probably to avoid the problem you have). It's not right or wrong, just based on personal preference and playback software.

Reading SORT tags. Do NOT just ignore the sort tags. These can wreak havoc on things later on and you'll be very confused. For example, an artist will show up in alphabetical browsing in odd places. And some software, including that I use, will sort artists using the sort tag even if only a single track has the sort tag for that artist. That is, I could have 75 Doug Sahm CDs, and if a single track on one of those CDs happens to have ARTIST SORT = Sahm, Doug, then all of those 75 albums will be sorted under S rather than D.

In dbpa, Ripper settings, there is a place where you "tick" boxes next to the tag metadata you want included automatically. You should look at that list and make some decisions. For example, I don't like using the tag "STYLE". I typically is completely weird choices from the online databases, so unless I was going change it for every rip, it was worthless. So I unticked it, and STYLE tag is not added. Same with SORT tags. They re all unticked in my use case.

[Supernaut]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

1. COMPILATION tag should be equal to "1" if it is a various artist CD, and shouldn't exist (blank) if NOT a various artist CD
...
yeah, when <various artists> or <various composers> etc. , that means that the artist or composer tags for each song in the album are not identical.

Thank you for clearing that up.

2. I have thousands of CDs ripped with ALBUM ARTIST blank. If artist=album artist, I don't use the ALBUM ARTIST tag.

OK. The album I ripped with an empty Album Artist field showed up as a bunch of individual tracks on my PC music player (Groove Music). After going into Mp3tag and filling in the missing Album Artist field for all tracks, they then showed up as a complete album. Perhaps this says more about the playback software than the ripped files, as it's behaved similarly with downloaded music in the past and it also often fails to show CD artwork. I think I'll install foobar2000 in the near future.

3. If you're seeing SORT tags, you must have the SORT tags turned on. Many people use these. I don't. But they are things like ARTIST SORT, ALBUM ARTIST SORT, etc.

Does this mean there's a way to turn them off? Otherwise I'll just ignore them.

Finally, if no tracks are selected as in your album_artist_input_01.jpg example (see where it says Meta Data for All Tracks), this is the same as selecting ALL tracks.

If multiple/all tracks are selected, tags which have different values are shown as <Various xxx>, where xxx is the tag name. The software does not display the different values but instead displays <Various xxx>. This value can be edited, but the tag for the selected tracks will replaced with the new edited value, so be careful when editing multiple tracks.

I think this must be what happened with a "Various Artists" compilation test rip I did a couple of weeks ago. After ripping, I found that all tracks were showing "Various Artists" as the artist, not only as the album artist. I must have copied and pasted "Various Artists" into the artist naming field over the top of "<Various Artists>" by mistake, so all the individual artist information was replaced. Glad I'm working all this stuff out before the real ripping begins!

[mville]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

When a field shows a value inserted between two < > style brackets (e.g. <Various Artists>), am I right in thinking that these arrows show the field has more than one value, and that those values will be inserted automatically?

To view/edit tags for individual tracks, select (highlight) a single track then, in the Tag tab select a tag and the value can be viewed/edited. Users are able to select multiple tracks and view/edit the tags for those tracks.

Finally, if no tracks are selected as in your album_artist_input_01.jpg example (see where it says Meta Data for All Tracks), this is the same as selecting ALL tracks.

If multiple/all tracks are selected, tags which have different values are shown as <Various xxx>, where xxx is the tag name. The software does not display the different values but instead displays <Various xxx>. This value can be edited, but the tag for the selected tracks will replaced with the new edited value, so be careful when editing multiple tracks.

[garym]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

A few more questions regarding the tags section of the CD ripper. When a field shows a value inserted between two < > style brackets (e.g. <Various Artists>), am I right in thinking that these arrows show the field has more than one value, and that those values will be inserted automatically? For example, a compilation album by various artists or where tracks are composed by different composers.

If the album artist field is left empty, I take it I need to enter the artist name manually to keep the tracks grouped as an album (e.g. "Various Artists" without the aforementioned arrows).

Also, these values are sometimes included in the sorting field followed by the words "sorts". For example, "Various artist sorts" or "Various Composersorts", either with or without a space between the words. Should I just leave this alone?

I've attached some images to show what I mean:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3030[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3031[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3032[/ATTACH]

The other thing is, when the tags section shows a number in the "Compilation" field, what does this value represent? (Again, you can see this in the attached images.)

Thank you.

I don't really pay attention to the things you've mentioned. A couple of things though:

1. COMPILATION tag should be equal to "1" if it is a various artist CD, and shouldn't exist (blank) if NOT a various artist CD
2. I have thousands of CDs ripped with ALBUM ARTIST blank. If artist=album artist, I don't use the ALBUM ARTIST tag.
3. If you're seeing SORT tags, you must have the SORT tags turned on. Many people use these. I don't. But they are things like ARTIST SORT, ALBUM ARTIST SORT, etc.

edit: yeah, when <various artists> or <various composers> etc. , that means that the artist or composer tags for each song in the album are not identical.

[Supernaut]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

A few more questions regarding the tags section of the CD ripper. When a field shows a value inserted between two < > style brackets (e.g. <Various Artists>), am I right in thinking that these arrows show the field has more than one value, and that those values will be inserted automatically? For example, a compilation album by various artists or where tracks are composed by different composers.

If the album artist field is left empty, I take it I need to enter the artist name manually to keep the tracks grouped as an album (e.g. "Various Artists" without the aforementioned arrows).

Also, these values are sometimes included in the sorting field followed by the words "sorts". For example, "Various artist sorts" or "Various Composersorts", either with or without a space between the words. Should I just leave this alone?

I've attached some images to show what I mean:




The other thing is, when the tags section shows a number in the "Compilation" field, what does this value represent? (Again, you can see this in the attached images.)

Thank you.

[Supernaut]

Re: Need advice before ripping collection to FLAC

Yes, you have the gist of this correct. I would quibble with your use of the word "applying". What you really mean is "using", that is "using Track gain". When we talk of "applying ReplayGain" we are typically talking about another DSP -- ReplayGainApply. This is not just a tag, it actually takes the RG value and PERMANENTLY CHANGES the volume of underlying audio.

Brilliant, thank you for clearing all of that up! Looks like “Track & Album Gain” offers greater flexibility, so that’s what I’ll use.