Batch Conversion from WAV format

[dageorge]

I have my entire library in WAV format that was ripped using Windows Media Player. All Album art can be viewed through media player but I wanted to convert everything to Apple Lossless. The directory tree for all albums is [artist][album][track,name]. When I attempted the conversion the metadata seems to be lost and everything is filed under (unknown). Will this type of conversion ever work or should I just rip anew?

[garym]

Re: Batch Conversion from WAV format

I have my entire library in WAV format that was ripped using Windows Media Player. All Album art can be viewed through media player but I wanted to convert everything to Apple Lossless. The directory tree for all albums is [artist][album][track,name]. When I attempted the conversion the metadata seems to be lost and everything is filed under (unknown). Will this type of conversion ever work or should I just rip anew?

one of the reasons WAV is a bad choice for lossless music archive is that there is no standard tagging approach. Some programs can tag, but then other programs can't read the tags. Some times the "tag" info is really just in a database in the original program that did the "tagging". If your WAV file names are complete enough you can use dbpa or mp3tag to guess the tag field values from the file name (file name: "08 - track title - album name - artist" can be read and tags created for track no, title, album, artist.). edit: actually, with your directory format, you can do the same thing.....that is create metadata from the file names and directory organization.

On the other hand, if you ripped with WMP, you were not likely doing secure rips, etc. So unless it is too overwhelming, you should think about reripping with a secure ripper like dbpa (including its use of accuraterip). I'd also really think hard about the ALAC choice. Look at FLAC. It is the more standard lossless format.

[biggles]

Re: Batch Conversion from WAV format

I agree that you should strongly consider re-ripping with dBpoweramp and I have experienced the issues with wav tags. If you want a lossless version of your songs, then you seem to care about the quality of your music, and I think that the best use of your time to maximize your enjoyment later is to use a ripper that will detect and prevent errors, like dBpoweramp.

I see no hope for re-using your wav tags - having tried that, it's just too difficult. You can use a tag editing application like Mp3tag to recreate tags after you convert wav files into something else, but that is a very time-consuming process.

I think re-ripping or not is your biggest decision. Whether you go with Apple Lossless or FLAC when you rip seems secondary, since you can easily convert between lossless codecs later without any loss of quality. I agree that FLAC is more standard than Apple Lossless, but that means nothing if you own an iPod, which can't use FLACs without a huge hack effort repeated every time iTunes comes out with a new version (tried this, too).

I think you may spend less time re-ripping and benefitting from the impressive tagging abilities of PerfectMeta than trying to find a way to preserve your wav tags.

Said another way, I think you will spend just as much time using a tool like Mp3tag to recreate tags after converting wav files as you would re-ripping and using Perfectmeta to create new tags. And the second method will result in much better rips and better tags. Good luck!