Seeking the impossible?

[ukwoody]

Good afternoon all. I have been using the free versio of Dbpoweramp for a liitle while now - many thanks to Spoon for all his work.

Now, I want to copy all my CDs to a network hardisc - probably in some sort of lossless format.
I then want to be able to search thru the various tracks, click on the tracks I want, have them loaded into a playlist type thing, change the order about if I need too, then burn in CDA format onto CD.
I would also like if possible to be able to access/do this this via my laptop linked to the network so I can actually see my wife sometimes rather then be in my study! LOL

Is all this possible? Oh,Yes I do realise I would need to upgrade.

I guess to put it simply I want to be a DJ, but instead of playing them, burn them.

many thanks

woody

[xoas]

Re: Seeking the impossible?

Complicated question in terms of whether you ccan do all this through the dBpoweramp famly of products although if all of Spoon's development plans come to fruition it should be easier to give an unqualified "Yes".

Let me outline the limits of what I know is possible. First, if you are using Vista you will need to stick with Music Converter (dMC) r12.4 and CD Writer (dCW) r3 (from the beta section of the forum). If you are running Windows XP or earlier, you should be able to also use dMC r11.5, dB Audio Player (dAP) and CD Writer r2 (the version from the products page). Please note that dMC r11.5, dAP (you will want to use the r3 beta version from the beta forum), and dCW r2 all need to be installed in a separate folder and the HAVE to use the Legacy Codecs from Legacy Codec Central. (dCW r3 is installed to the same folder as dMC r12.4 and uses the same codecs as dMC r12.4). In addition, you may want to use an application called QueueMaster developed by Danny, one of our members and one of the very good skin designers who have contributed to skins for dAP.

Now let's look at which programs can do what:
Rip CDs to a network drive - I am confident that dMC r12.4 can do this, I am not sure about dMC r11.5;
Store and sort through tracks-dAP can do this using its My Music Collection feature;
Create and change the order of playlists - dAP has a routine called the Playlist Editor to create m3u playlists (in whatever formats) and the order of tracks within a playlist can be changed); in terms of a temporary playlist, dAP uses what is called the Queue. The Queue is a list of tracks waiting to be played and after a track has been played it disappears from the Queue. You can add tracks to the Queue at any time. You can randomly sort the items in a Queue at any time. You can clear all the items in the queue at the same time. But to make smaller changes to the queue (such as removing one or more items but not all, or changing the order of tracks within the queue) you would need QueueMaster. I belive you can edit Playlists within QueueMaster also;
Burn tracks from playlist to CD - dCW can do this however there are certain limitations -
dCW r2 can work directly from a playlist file, dCW cannot work from playlists; dCW r2 allows you to easily edit track order of a CD prior to burning, dCW r3 (at least last I knew) makes you have to load tracks for burning in the order you want and allows you to edit only by removing tracks and re-adding them; dCW forces a 2 second gap between tracks, dCW r3 allows you to burn gapless CDs. dAP and dCW r2 allow you to select tracks directly from your music collection for burning without having to create a playlist. I do not think that dAP can coordinate with dCW r3 but I may be mistaken about this.

As noted before, I am not entirely sure whether/how well the older programs (dMC r11., dAP, dCW r2, QueueMaster) will work with network drives and how well they will work with Vista. These also coordinate using tag information so your tags for your audio files should be in order. There may be issues regarding use of 64 bit processing with the older programs as well.

Each of these programs is in a state of development, so over time the compatibility issues should get resolved.

I hope this is helpful. If anyone notes any inaccuracies or can help clarify those issues I am fuzzy on, I hope they will feel free to post.

Best wishes,
Bill

[ukwoody]

Re: Seeking the impossible?

Hi Bill, many thanks for your reply. I Think I followed all that
I'm running XP on the machines and have no desire to downgrade to vista.
I'm just thinking, it would probably be much easier to just bung the tracks on a removable USB HD, and cart that about with me, it would save all the mucking about with networks etc.
Does that make it easier?
One other minor question (and I accept this may well not be possible) is it possible to "level" the music prior to burning, so that each track is basically the same volume on playback?

woody

[xoas]

Re: Seeking the impossible?

One other minor question (and I accept this may well not be possible) is it possible to "level" the music prior to burning, so that each track is basically the same volume on playback?

Yes. Either version of dCW can add DSPs to your CD tracks prior to burning, including volume normalization. dCW r3's volume normalization is, in my opinion, better (using the ReplayGain default setting for the Volume Normalization DSP) but the Volume Normalization feature for dCW r2 works almost as well. With dCW r2, you need to have a version of the PowerPack installed for dMC r11.5. If you don't have this already, it may require posting to Spoon.

I would try the network drive first. It might work for you. I would think the removable hard drive should work but again I am not entirely positive.

Best wishes,
Bill

[Falcon4]

Re: Seeking the impossible?

I'm running XP on the machines and have no desire to downgrade to vista.

Oh, god! I just had to chime in here and say how much I LOVED that reply. My "faith in humanity" boost of the night. :D

[ukwoody]

Re: Seeking the impossible?

Oh, god! I just had to chime in here and say how much I LOVED that reply. My "faith in humanity" boost of the night. :D

:komisch12 LOL

woody