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'True' Archival Project - Input Request from You Geniuses
[Hope I dropped this into the correct forum. ]
Hey all,
This is my first post, so hopefully I don't get flamed too badly for asking for opinions as I am.
I used dBpoweramp several years ago, along with PerfectTUNES, to do some mild work on my personal music library.
Now, and without boring anyone with details, I/we now have a serious start-up dedicated to arts education, and I'm juggling a tremendous amount of materials, tech development, and a million and one business matters. In short, I'm knowledgeable about a lot of things, but I don't always have the time I'd like to spend to thoroughly read-up on current best practices or newer developments than what I used to know. I'm hoping you good folks can let me know what you believe would be the BEST way to accomplish a few necessary tasks.
In this case, I'm looking at the ripping of thousands of CDs, ensuring the highest quality captures of the optical media, while also presumably/preferably keeping exact copies of the discs "in the archive" for any future needs.
Basically, think of this situation as an institution trying to establish best practices and guidelines before jumping into proper archival of assets - in this case CDs.
This is not my area of expertise, but I learn quickly and most importantly want to do the material justice. Without elaborating, much of the content is niche. Ideally we have 2 copies of every disc: 1 used for ripping (ideally once) and one wrapped as redundant back-up. Overkill? Probably. But this is a longterm venture taking something close to academic institution policies.
Key Considerations:
- We are almost entirely Mac-based.
- As if this exact moment, actual usage of the files is still in limbo (who among our research team creating content and answering questions will have access, delivery mechanism(s), etc.) The more options, the better. Future-proof is always a goal.
- In the past, I've opted to use ALAC, simply due to being a hardcore Mac user. Since it would be nice to be able to play the resulting files on as many types of devices as possible, now and in the future, it may be more appropriate to use FLAC.
- Regardless, lossless is naturally imperative.
- A disc image backup of some type seems like best practice to me. That said, if we are speaking about a single-track solution and CUE sheets, I have very little knowledge of the pros/cons or the specifics. Woefully behind in that regard.
- Because of the Arts nature of this project, metadata is a HUGE aspect and consideration. In the past I spent a tremendous amount of time in this area, because I'm quite OCD about the accuracy and depth of the data, and most sources with information *for this area of music* have a fair amount of info that has to be corrected anyway. The problem is that accepted metadata practices pretty much go against common sense for much of THIS type of music. For instance, if we talk about the original broadway cast recording of Hamilton, the common sense method of identification (be it metadata or filenames) would oftentimes make something like the following the most sense:
Artist: Hamilton
Album: 2015 Original Broadway Cast
Tracks labeled with their full titles, and each person identified in liner notes (or the score) listed as track artists for that track. Tracks comprised of multiple songs would try to find a way to designate, in a short way, which track artists are associated with which "song". Ideally that might be a slash or hyphen, but that's more specific to supporting files and not metadata, I suppose.
And without even continuing with that formatting example, you will know that it makes it a real pain because you are battling what the playback software of choice wants to do with metadata. Particularly if using something like Roon (not my favorite solution, and I don't think it would be the best for this situation, anyway, but it's an example.)
So, friends, kindly share how you would handle something with the scope and specifics as described above. Space is not really an issue (primary local copies of files being stored to SSD. Any reason to even discuss whether Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, or others, is preferable? WIth these file sizes I'm assuming not, but do let me know if I'm not taking something into consideration.) Highest quality and preservation are the most important concerns.
And if anyone cares, or I need to know it is a BAD drive, I have a new ASUS BW-16D1X-U set aside as the primary drive to use. I've got a few other brands/models if needed, but MOST discs SHOULD be free of any surface errors.
Using PerfectTUNES 3.1, dBpoweramp R17.7
Questions, corrections, workflow suggestions... anything anyone can offer would be much appreciated. This is a long and ongoing project, so it is important to me/us to get it right from the start.
Looking forward to reading posts or private messages. Thanks for taking this request seriously, and hopefully not thinking I'm too much of an ID10T problem to be worth sharing your insights.
You guys seriously rock.
Hey all,
This is my first post, so hopefully I don't get flamed too badly for asking for opinions as I am.
I used dBpoweramp several years ago, along with PerfectTUNES, to do some mild work on my personal music library.
Now, and without boring anyone with details, I/we now have a serious start-up dedicated to arts education, and I'm juggling a tremendous amount of materials, tech development, and a million and one business matters. In short, I'm knowledgeable about a lot of things, but I don't always have the time I'd like to spend to thoroughly read-up on current best practices or newer developments than what I used to know. I'm hoping you good folks can let me know what you believe would be the BEST way to accomplish a few necessary tasks.
In this case, I'm looking at the ripping of thousands of CDs, ensuring the highest quality captures of the optical media, while also presumably/preferably keeping exact copies of the discs "in the archive" for any future needs.
Basically, think of this situation as an institution trying to establish best practices and guidelines before jumping into proper archival of assets - in this case CDs.
This is not my area of expertise, but I learn quickly and most importantly want to do the material justice. Without elaborating, much of the content is niche. Ideally we have 2 copies of every disc: 1 used for ripping (ideally once) and one wrapped as redundant back-up. Overkill? Probably. But this is a longterm venture taking something close to academic institution policies.
Key Considerations:
- We are almost entirely Mac-based.
- As if this exact moment, actual usage of the files is still in limbo (who among our research team creating content and answering questions will have access, delivery mechanism(s), etc.) The more options, the better. Future-proof is always a goal.
- In the past, I've opted to use ALAC, simply due to being a hardcore Mac user. Since it would be nice to be able to play the resulting files on as many types of devices as possible, now and in the future, it may be more appropriate to use FLAC.
- Regardless, lossless is naturally imperative.
- A disc image backup of some type seems like best practice to me. That said, if we are speaking about a single-track solution and CUE sheets, I have very little knowledge of the pros/cons or the specifics. Woefully behind in that regard.
- Because of the Arts nature of this project, metadata is a HUGE aspect and consideration. In the past I spent a tremendous amount of time in this area, because I'm quite OCD about the accuracy and depth of the data, and most sources with information *for this area of music* have a fair amount of info that has to be corrected anyway. The problem is that accepted metadata practices pretty much go against common sense for much of THIS type of music. For instance, if we talk about the original broadway cast recording of Hamilton, the common sense method of identification (be it metadata or filenames) would oftentimes make something like the following the most sense:
Artist: Hamilton
Album: 2015 Original Broadway Cast
Tracks labeled with their full titles, and each person identified in liner notes (or the score) listed as track artists for that track. Tracks comprised of multiple songs would try to find a way to designate, in a short way, which track artists are associated with which "song". Ideally that might be a slash or hyphen, but that's more specific to supporting files and not metadata, I suppose.
And without even continuing with that formatting example, you will know that it makes it a real pain because you are battling what the playback software of choice wants to do with metadata. Particularly if using something like Roon (not my favorite solution, and I don't think it would be the best for this situation, anyway, but it's an example.)
So, friends, kindly share how you would handle something with the scope and specifics as described above. Space is not really an issue (primary local copies of files being stored to SSD. Any reason to even discuss whether Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, or others, is preferable? WIth these file sizes I'm assuming not, but do let me know if I'm not taking something into consideration.) Highest quality and preservation are the most important concerns.
And if anyone cares, or I need to know it is a BAD drive, I have a new ASUS BW-16D1X-U set aside as the primary drive to use. I've got a few other brands/models if needed, but MOST discs SHOULD be free of any surface errors.
Using PerfectTUNES 3.1, dBpoweramp R17.7
Questions, corrections, workflow suggestions... anything anyone can offer would be much appreciated. This is a long and ongoing project, so it is important to me/us to get it right from the start.
Looking forward to reading posts or private messages. Thanks for taking this request seriously, and hopefully not thinking I'm too much of an ID10T problem to be worth sharing your insights.
You guys seriously rock.
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