Creating and keeping an mp3 library with my FLAC library?

[David511]

About 5 years ago I re-ripped my CD collection with dBpoweramp and continued to add to it, all in FLAC. I've had bad luck with usb drives in the car failing, and think that instead of encoding my library in mp3 for the car more than once (annually?), I would like to automatically keep two 'master' copies of everything with all of the same metadata in a library or libraries on my home server, with copies of either FLAC or mp3 (or perhaps even additional filetypes) on devices as I think appropriate, without having to encode the same file more than once the way on-the-fly media servers might...

I realize in a world of streaming services and unlimited data plans, that may seem old-school, but I'm surely not the only one.

Can PerfectTunes (or something else), do the work to have the mp3 files in a duplicate library file structure on the same server, or do the mp3 files go in the same folders along with the original FLAC versions? Can PerfectTunes keep them in sync, so as I occasionally rip to FLAC for my main music archive on the home NAS, PerfectTunes could automatically create an mp3 copy for me?

And if it does create and maintain desired duplicates for me, would this make the deDup feature less useful? Is there a bulk duplicates hide option.

Any experience with this kind of setup, or with maybe home media servers, when there are multiple copies of the same audio file in different formats available in an accessible folder either with or separate from the main music folder?

For my home media server I use a copy of my FLAC files and a usb drive, which has worked okay for a few years. But I'm having to manually copy folders onto it occasionally, and reducing that manual process seems to be the normal use case for PerfectTunes...

Appreciate any suggestions and thanks!
David

[Dat Ei]

Hey David,

IMHO PerfectTUNES is the wrong tool for your needs. PerfectTUNES is a tool to manage your tags, your album arts and delete duplicates in masses, but not to synchronize fals libraries with mp3 libraries.

I have the need for two libraries, one with flac files (master) and one with mp3 files (for SONOS, FiiO and car hifi system). When I rip my CDs, I generate flac and mp3 files in separated main directories (like D:\Music\flac and D:\Music\mp3). The structure beyond those main directories is the same for flac and mp3 (like D:\flac\AlbumArtist\Album and D:\mp3\AlbumArtist\Album).

If I have to edit tags or change album arts, I edit the flac files only and then convert the flac files into mp3 files and overwrite the old mp3 files.

To distribute my flac and mp3 files to my NAS's, to my FiiO or my USB drive I use a windows standard tool called robocopy, which is a very powerful and often underestimated tool. With the right parameters it will add new files to your destination folders, updates existing files with newer, edited files or delete files if they have been deleted in the source directory.


Dat Ei

[garym]

You might also look at another dbpa product, TuneFusion. This is what I use to create mp3 versions of files for my phone, etc. I used to create an mp3 version of my entire library. Once I got TuneFusion I quit doing that, as it was so easy to create lossy versions on the fly, automatically updating, keeping metadata, etc.

[Dat Ei]

Hey Gary,

TuneFusion is a valid option, if you temporarely need a small subset of your entire library in a different audio format. If you need all your music consistently in a different, lossy audio format, I would build up a second library derived from the lossless main library by using batch converter for new and edited files and then synchronize those against the lossy library.


Dat Ei

[garym]

Hey Gary,

TuneFusion is a valid option, if you temporarely need a small subset of your entire library in a different audio format. If you need all your music consistently in a different, lossy audio format, I would build up a second library derived from the lossless main library by using batch converter for new and edited files and then synchronize those against the lossy library.


Dat Ei

Dat Ei I completely agree. My only point is that I too used to *think* I needed a complete lossy copy of my library for use on portable devices. TuneFusion changed my thinking because it is so efficient in creating lossy copies on the fly.

[David511]

Thanks for your suggestions! I used to use robocopy and your 100% right that it's a great tool. I think now I might approach that a bit differently, maybe using tools that can run on my home NAS. I have now saved a duplicate file structure with just the MP3's in a separate folder on the same NAS, from my dBPoweramp bulk conversion of the FLAC files (from my CD collection using dBPowerAmp a few years ago). Deciding on the file structure (separate folders, same structure) was my original question and seems likely to be manageable....

The part I haven't worked out is that if I add music to the FLAC, how to automate the mp3 copy with all the metadata from the new FLAC folder into a new mp3 folder in the parallel folder structure on the same server... I'll try Tunefusion and see how it works for my use case. I think I only need the conversion when I add music to my FLAC collection on my home server, which is not all that often...

[garym]

TuneFusion (and other approaches I'm sure) can automatically only create new mp3 versions where they don't exist. That is, you can point it at your entire FLAC library, tell it to convert to mp3 in another location, and it is smart enough to only create the new mp3 files rather than reconvert your entire FLAC library.

[Dat Ei]

Hey David,

it depends on how you add flac files to your library. If you add files by ripping CDs, you can use Multi Encoder and configure it in such a way, that you create flac and mp3 files in parallel in different directories. If you add flac files to your library by copying those i.e. from a USB stick or USB drive, you could use batch converter and define a profile, which uses the mp3 encoder or the Multi Encoder to convert the flac files in the same way, with the same naming string and to the same destinations like in the ripping porcess.

That is the way I do it having two households. I just transport the new ripped flac files from one home to the other, copy those to my second archive and convert the new files into mp3 files for my Sonos system.


Dat Ei

[TennantUK]

I used to have dbPoweramp to rip CDs in three different formats (FLAC, AAC and mp3) and store the different filetypes on drifferent drives/folders. I'm just setting up a new Windows 11 PC and transferred my dbPoweramp license to it, but can't seem to configure it like that again.

I'm using the Multi Encoder option; but it doesn't seem to let me choose a different destination (ie dynamic naming/base location) for each file type. If I change it in the FLAC encoder setting it also changes in the AAC and MP3 encoders. What have I forgotten how to configure!?

[Spoon]

Which version of dBpoweramp do you have? The output location is set on the FLAC encoder page, and a different one on AAC encoder page.