Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

[Love2fly]

Hello,

I bought dBpoweramp Reference and have been experimenting, so far so good with about 40 CDs.

Before I embark on ripping and archiving my entire 300 to 400 CD collection, I want to insure that I only do this once! :blush:

Currently, I am leaning toward simultaneously ripping to FLAC and to LAME-MP3 (at 192kpbs).

So, my first question is more of a "big picture" question and one of judgment. I'd like to ask for some suggestions before I begin this huge job. Others here have gone down this path already and some have learned hard lessons. Please share some insights and some recommendations.

Basically, CDs don't last forever and they are a bit of a pain to warehouse and keep safe... so, I'd like to rip my entire collection and toss the CDs.

Looking down the road a dozen years or so, will I regret that I ripped to FLAC and LAME? Any suggestions for the "big picture" here?

Thanks!

Love2fly

[bhoar]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

In general, I suggest only ripping to FLAC and then using the dbpoweramp Batch Converter to covert from FLAC to mp3.

Remember, converting to FLAC is lossless, so there's no audio quality loss. And if you don't like the sound of the resulting mp3 files, you can always use the batch converter to re-convert to mp3 at a better setting. Your FLAC files will always sound just like the CD.

-brendan

[Love2fly]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

In general, I suggest only ripping to FLAC <snip>

Thanks. I suspected that I wouldn't regret having my collection all in FLAC files. I may take your suggestion to heart.

On file names, I am leaning toward track number followed by the song name with underscores between the words rather than empty spaces. For example,

11_Georgia_on_My_Mind.flac

And for the Windows (Vista) directory structure (for example):

Music
Dave_Brubeck
Indian_Summer
Brubeck_FLAC
<16 individual flac files>
Brubeck_LAME-MP3
<16 individual mp3 files>


I am not sure how best to sort and store/archive up to 400 CDs, so the above is just my best attempt. (I have posted a separate thread/question relating to "what is the best player"... so, I am concerned that my storage plan might not be very user-friendly with players, portability, and the ease of making play lists.)

Of course, just dumping all files into a single directory/folder doesn't make a lot of sense either for a variety of reasons, including the fact that many of the files/songs will have the same name! :(

Any suggestions on all of the above?

Thank you kindly!

Love2fly

[BugsBunny]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

I tried to make a dir structure that matches most the physical structure I used for my CD collection in the shelf. There I had very broad genres and within these I sorted alphabetically by singer/band.
So on my MediaPortal PC where I store my collection, I use a dir depth of 2: Genres\CDs
Genres I have more or less Rock/Pop, Jazz, World, Classics, Alternative, Hard.
Within these folders I store the CDs this way:
[Artist] - [CD Title]\[track nuber] [Artist] - [Track name]
I personally do not like the underscores and use spaces instead. If a CD has various artists I leave out the [Artist] - and use only [CD Title] as a folder name.
If I browse through the CDs in mediaportal I've a similar experience to browsing manually the physical CDs in the shelf. The directory structure is relatively flat and you can reach every CD very fast. If I copy the ripped CDs to mobile playback devices, I've got all the info I need, simply drag over the CD folder. Single tracks do also contain all the info.
I personally do not like creating separate artist folders and storing their CDs there. If I have only one CD of an artist it's kind of useless.

Another sugestion: After ripping use EAC to create a CUE sheet. EAC can detect gaps, stores this info in the CUE sheet and then later you can create a 1:1 copy of the CD. It's said that dbpoweramp will be able to create cue sheets as well in a later version. Well I've been waiting half a year for that feature to come and got tired of waiting - now I just use eac and it works just fine. (It probably will still take a long time until dbpoweramp does gap detection). If you want to create cue sheets in eac, the right type in this case is "Multiple Files With Gaps (Noncompliant)"

[Love2fly]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

I use a dir depth of 2: Genres\CDs

Genres I have more or less Rock/Pop, Jazz, World, Classics, Alternative, Hard.
Within these folders I store the CDs this way:

[Artist] - [CD Title]\[track nuber] [Artist] - [Track name]

If I browse through the CDs in mediaportal I've a similar experience to browsing manually the physical CDs in the shelf. The directory structure is relatively flat and you can reach every CD very fast.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Along the same lines, I found this site to be interesting:

http://www.getdigitalinc.com/datafix.aspx

And, here is the file system they use:

http://www.getdigitalinc.com/filefoldersystem.html

And you can see how organized, concise, and lovely the final product is here:

http://www.getdigitalinc.com/productdesc.aspx

It looks to me like "DataFix" is their proprietary system. It is pretty slick. I wish that it were available for sale as a software package. The problems that it addresses are exactly the ones that I am dealing with now; they have everything already solved.

I'm just not willing to spend $1.50 per CD for copying (Plus freight both directions) and not have the software and capability of adding more CDs to my collection next week, doing it myself.

Best wishes,

Love2fly

[EliC]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

dBpoweramp has its own "data fix" its PerfectMeta!

[3dHeli]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

Another sugestion: After ripping use EAC to create a CUE sheet. EAC can detect gaps, stores this info in the CUE sheet and then later you can create a 1:1 copy of the CD. It's said that dbpoweramp will be able to create cue sheets as well in a later version. Well I've been waiting half a year for that feature to come and got tired of waiting - now I just use eac and it works just fine. (It probably will still take a long time until dbpoweramp does gap detection). If you want to create cue sheets in eac, the right type in this case is "Multiple Files With Gaps (Noncompliant)"

Do you mean use dbPowerAmp to rip, then EAC to make Cue Sheet - without EAC doing the ripping?

I ask, because I thought Spoon had said (in answering a different post, but similar topic on cue sheets), that when cue sheets is supported on dbPowerAmp the CD's would need to be re-ripped.

Thus I'm cautious if EAC could do with Cue Sheets what I understand dbPowerAmp will not (when it does have Cue Sheets).

[BugsBunny]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

Do you mean use dbPowerAmp to rip, then EAC to make Cue Sheet - without EAC doing the ripping?

I ask, because I thought Spoon had said (in answering a different post, but similar topic on cue sheets), that when cue sheets is supported on dbPowerAmp the CD's would need to be re-ripped.

Thus I'm cautious if EAC could do with Cue Sheets what I understand dbPowerAmp will not (when it does have Cue Sheets).

Yes, I rip in dbpoweramp and then create the cue sheet in EAC. The importance is that you use the "Multiple Files With Gaps (Noncompliant)" type of the four possible cue types. If you click it, eac will first detect the gaps then UPC/ISRC and then write the cue sheet. You can use cuetools later on to convert the audio files (eg flac) + cue sheet into any other type eg. single wav file+cue sheet if you like. If you want to do so - look into the hydrogenaudio wiki for the correct eac configuration.

I would clearly prefer if dbpoweramp could do all at once, but for now this method works well also.

[3dHeli]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

Yes, I rip in dbpoweramp and then create the cue sheet in EAC. The importance is that you use the "Multiple Files With Gaps (Noncompliant)" type of the four possible cue types. If you click it, eac will first detect the gaps then UPC/ISRC and then write the cue sheet. You can use cuetools later on to convert the audio files (eg flac) + cue sheet into any other type eg. single wav file+cue sheet if you like. If you want to do so - look into the hydrogenaudio wiki for the correct eac configuration.

I would clearly prefer if dbpoweramp could do all at once, but for now this method works well also.

Thanks for the info BugsBunny. I look forward to DBpowerAmp CS also!!!

[harry.butts]

Re: Seeking Guidance/suggestions for ripping 300 CDs

Here is my take on the whole thing.
I once did the same thing (converting 300 CDs to FLAC/mp3), and I tossed/gave away the CDs. I regretted it, and it took a LONG time. I wish I still had the CDs. You could just box up the disks and stick em in your attic. I think, eventually, the CD will go the way of "vinyl" and the cassette. You could try selling them to someone or trading them in?

I'm guessing you'll store the FLAC files on your PC? Computer HDDs have a finite life span... How are you going to back that up? If you're going to take the time converting to a lossless format, at least convert your MP3s to 320 kbps. Yes, you will notice a difference. Even my old ears can tell. Or, if you have an iPod, convert to m4a, ALAC or similar. dbPoweramp will convert FLAC to m4a at 400 kbps.

In today's computer world, things change FAST. What about *when* your computer dies (not if: it will die some day)? What if the technology passes you by (so-to-speak), and you can't get your files back? I have my music spread across two TBs in a raid-5, but if one or more disk(s) die(s), I may not be able to recover the files. They're on a G3 HP server, and the disks are super expensive, and kind of hard to find. Yea, there are USB disks and other inexpensive disks, but... Perhaps I'm a bit of a "worry-wart", but I've lost an external HDD (I dropped it).

As for the mp3 portion, I think too many people have mp3 players for that technology to become obsolete too soon (my opinion). I know wma, m4a, ogg, etc exist, but not all mp3 players will play those (which is why the mp3 will be king for a bit longer).

Sorry if this post is all over the place (stupid ADD). I hope you can grasp what I'm saying. If not, let me know. I'll try straightening it out for you.