CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

**Spoon** · August 10, 2023, 08:21 AM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

That ID tag must have come from online? for the disc number, see which provider is supplying it

**d2b** · August 10, 2023, 03:34 PM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

Originally posted by Spoon

That ID tag must have come from online? for the disc number, see which provider is supplying it

I just ran a test using 7 different CDs. With one exception, the Disc entry displays 1_1. For each of these, at least one, several or all of the following metadata sources "agreed" that the Disc entry in CD Ripper should be 1_1. Only one CD (a new one hot off the press) came up with the Disc window displaying 1/1, the desired format. For this CD, none of the on-line sources displayed any results.

I found it interesting when I noted that within the Meta Manual Review window, there is a button to "force" the Disc number to "1/1" Why not make that the default entry in CD Ripper regardless of what the online sources claim.

The tag "Disc=1_1" makes no sense to me. Where does that originate and who can make use of it?

D2B ...

**Spoon** · August 10, 2023, 09:19 PM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

We have never seen this before, perhaps a setting, perhaps character or word replacement set in options >> metadata and id tags

**d2b** · August 11, 2023, 09:50 PM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

I believe you are correct. Please review the following carefully and see if you or anyone else can recommend a better way to identify the names of the components (the individual tunes or songs) in a music track's file name, avoiding the use of the illegal character "/". I hope this makes sense to everyone.

Note that DISC entry in the CD-Ripper interface is not intended to be part of a file name. The two tags that we wish to create are DISCNUMBER=Value and DISCTOTAL=Value. Our tags in FLAC files are stored in the VORBIS Comments container inherent in each FLAC file. The concept for tagging metadata and placing it in the Vorbis comments "container" is our way of creating a searchable database for each track and album.

It looks like CD-Ripper, in the process of evaluating metadata from any combination of the four on-line sources (Discogs, GD3, Music Brainz, freedb) is converting the "/" in the Disc window to "_".

This is likely the problem, according to your last post, with a configuration setting in dBpoweramp which I admit to creating. The desired solution to tagging medleys in a manner that makes it possible to identify the names of individual tunes or songs comprising it, we want to retain the track name identified in the liner notes as well as present the individual tune or song names in the medley in the actual FLAC file's name. To this end, we created the following tags:

MEDLEY=1 if the track is a medley, otherwise blank.

MEDLEYTITLE=The name of the track as identified in the liner notes. This is often a condensed version of the actual tune or song names in the track.

TITLE=name of first tune or song » name of second tune or song » and so on, until all individual entities in the medley are individually identified. This value is presented as the name of the track in the FLAC file and must be operating system compatible. Note that we have substituted the "/" character with "space»space" to accomplish this.

Keep in mind that we cannot use the "/" symbol in the track's file name as it is an unsupported character. That's the motivation for finding a better way to name the actual FLAC file when it comprises a series of individual tune and/or songs.

To accomplish this, dBpoweramp's CD-Ripper has been pre-configured to convert a "/" character in a file name to "space » space". This is likely the source of our problem with the interpretation of the DISC entry found in online metadata retrieval.

Note that we use Mp3tag to finalize the metadata (Vorbis comments) in the files we rip to FLAC using dBpoweramp.

I welcome suggestions for tagging medleys in FLAC files in a way that accomplishes our goals: 1) to identify a track as a medley, 2) to identify the track "name" as noted in the liner and/or liner notes, and 3) to identify the individual tunes or songs in the medley's file name by their actual names.

D2B

**d2b** · August 11, 2023, 09:55 PM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

Sorry for the rather lengthy post about a relatively simple problem with a not-so-obvious solution.

D2B ...

**d2b** · August 12, 2023, 09:24 PM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

The only configuration setting I am using is with Restricted Filename Characters. The "/" character is set to [space]»[space]

Well, I also configure a setting so that "Artist /" is removed from GD3 query titles

Nothing is configured in the Character / Word Replacement settings.

Those settings should have nothing to do with creating disc numbers as metadata.

As for file naming in the lower left pane:

Dynamic Naming: [IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[IFCOMP]Various Artists[][IF!COMP][artist][][]\[album]\[track]-[artist] - [title]

Example: Album Artist\Album Title\05-Artist - Title

When ANY combination of the four on-line metadata sources recognizes whatever CD I insert, they return 1_1 in the fifth (Disc) row, sometimes in black font and sometimes in red. This then appears in the Disc entry field in the basic CD ripping display as 1_1. If none of them recognize the CD, the Disc field is filled with 1/1, presumably the default value. If in fact the disc is part of a multi-disc set, I can simply replace that entry with the appropriate value, e.g. 1/3. 2/3 or whatever is required. Then DISCNUMBER and DISCTOTAL are correct.

Keep in mind that we are ONLY ripping and tagging CDs to the FLAC file format and hopefully generating only Vorbis comments for metadata.

D2B ...

**d2b** · August 12, 2023, 09:47 PM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

Sorry...I forgot to mention that all of this discussion is related to using CD-Ripper to generate accurate FLAC files from commercial CDs with whatever accurate metadata CD-Ripper can find. Mp3tag tag is then used in a second step to inspect incoming FLAC files for accurate tags generated when ripped and most importantly, to manually add additional metadata from liner notes, one-sheets and other original sources such as ISRC and Google searches when needed. Our goal is to create CD-quality (or better) albums with sufficient supporting embedded metadata to replace bulky and clumsy CDs with a nearly-perfect replacement for (but easily searched for content) digital archive. Sorry for the overly complex sentences.

Music should be distributed in this format in the first place!

**d2b** · August 13, 2023, 06:41 PM

Re: CD Ripper Disc Numbering (FLAC files)

No, I am not on a Mac. I'm running Windows 10/64-bit, with the latest version of dBpoweramp Reference.

I am 99% certain that I have resolved this issue. It appears to be a configuration problem that I overlooked when investigating this unexpected behavior.

In addition to configuring dBpoweramp to replace illegal characters in the file names ("/" to "[space]»[space] which does what I wanted, dBpoweramp was also configured to do a character replacement in the settings found here:

dBpoweramp CD Ripper Options / Tags & Filenames / Meta Data & ID Tag / PerfectMeta Options / Character & Word Replacement. For whatever reason that I cannot explain or justify, this character replacement setting was configured there: Replace "/" with "_".

I swear that I didn't do this intentionally, but there is no other explanation for it!. When I removed that configuration setting, the issue appears to be completely resolved.

Thanks for everyone's patience while trying to help me resolve a very frustrating problem.

D2B ...