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Thread: Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

  1. #1
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    Lightbulb Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

    A few items: The first, I won't call a bug, but an annoyance in the ripper. If you have a CD with multiple genres on the CD and set them the way you want in the main ripping page at the top of the page, and then you open the "review metadata" window, and then close it by clicking on OK, it changes the genres all to one genre, even if there was no metadata recovered from one of the services. Trying to input let us say composers on the review metadata page shouldn't change the genres you have entered. Perhaps having a per track genre on the review page, as you do with artists and composers, would be worthwhile. I have a lot of albums with more than one genre, like mixed reggae and R&B or soca.

    The second item is a wishlist for improved handling of metadata, possibly through DSP plug-ins. The ability to write the metadata to a file or spreadsheet for external use ( I have a Access database of my record library, and that would be an ideal way to update it as I make new purchases), and then to be able to use that data to repopulate the metadata entries if you have to rip the CD again, similar to getting the data from CD Text or from a permanent version of the cache.

    The next is also metadata related and similar: To be able to recover (other than by cutting and pasting) the tags on files previously ripped, to reuse them when re-ripping. I have about 2000 CD's ripped using Winamp to M4A's. I am reripping them with DBPA to FLAC and then replacement M4A's They are mostly from the Caribbean and not in any of the databases supported by DBPA. I entered metadata in when I ripped them before, which was submitted to Gracenotes but is now inaccessible to me now except in Windows Explorer. I loathe having to manually reenter all that data.

    Finally, the cache or DBPA should remember metadata you have entered if you remove the CD and re-insert it while entering metadata before ripping. Often I am entering data and go to insert the year, and realize the only copyright notice with the year is on the CD itself, inside the drive. If I take it out to get the date, I have to start over again with the metadata. Possibly a "save metadata for later use" checkbox if you remove a CD before ripping it?

    BTW, You have by far the best product out there, and one of the few that has any real free support on line or in any form. I really appreciate your efforts.

  2. #2

    Re: Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

    YES!
    Please add the option to reuse some tags from the previous cd rip (gained from the internet or typed in manually). E.g. click which tags should be frozen for the next cd and optional save them, to select them later again or even create a "tag profile" with "constant tags", and the non-constant tagfields will be still retrieved from the internet.

    Because everytime I insert a new cd, it will retrieve them from those inet services but these are not often correct! CD for CD I have to put the right tags in by hand.

    This would be a killer feature! :p

  3. #3
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    Re: Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

    doesn't solve the current issue in dbpa. But FYI, you could rip the new CD ignoring metadata except track order. Open old rip (that has good metadata) and new rip (with bad/no metadata) both in mp3tag. As long as both rips are in same track order you can use a single command to automatically copy all the metadata from old rip to new rip files. Beats copying and pasting field at a time or manually typing. edit: and mp3tag works with FLAC etc.

  4. #4
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    Re: Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

    Gary, thanks. I have only recently downloaded MP3tag and am still trying to learn how to drive it, not always obvious. One issue is that I am being much more careful now with metadata than I was before (I learned...) so even after I copy it I often need to massage it. I don't see how to see a whole album's metadata on a page in mp3tag like you can in DBPA. Also I am now doing a dual rip, to FLAC and m4a, it looks like I'd have to do the mp3tag fix twice, once for each format?

    One thing you might be able to answer, based on your experience with mp3tag: There seems to be the ability to have your own local Freedb database. Can mp3tag (or some other program) create this from the existing tagged files I have stored? Can DBPA ether be directed to look at this instead of the on-line Freedb, or better still look at it in addition to the on-line one? That would give me direct access to the old tag data when I rerip the CD's to FLAC.

    Thanks

    John

  5. #5
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    Re: Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

    Quote Originally Posted by schmidj View Post
    Gary, thanks. I have only recently downloaded MP3tag and am still trying to learn how to drive it, not always obvious. One issue is that I am being much more careful now with metadata than I was before (I learned...) so even after I copy it I often need to massage it. I don't see how to see a whole album's metadata on a page in mp3tag like you can in DBPA. Also I am now doing a dual rip, to FLAC and m4a, it looks like I'd have to do the mp3tag fix twice, once for each format?

    One thing you might be able to answer, based on your experience with mp3tag: There seems to be the ability to have your own local Freedb database. Can mp3tag (or some other program) create this from the existing tagged files I have stored? Can DBPA ether be directed to look at this instead of the on-line Freedb, or better still look at it in addition to the on-line one? That would give me direct access to the old tag data when I rerip the CD's to FLAC.

    Thanks

    John
    make sure you tick "tag panel" in the VIEW menu item at top of page. Then you see several fields displayed. Select all the items in an album, and you'll see the album metadata or "keep" for fields that vary by track. You can also add items to this tag panel based on what you want to see there. Not sure about the personal freedb database. haven't used that....

    lots of people like the dual rip approach. But I never use it. too much tinkering needed with my tags to get them to suit me. I much prefer, rip to FLAC, tinker with tags while other things ripping. Then when happy with all my FLAC rips, I simply do a batch FLAC > mp3 conversion with dbpa batch converter. a couple of mouse clicks and let it run overnight and I have my lossy mirror library. And dbpa knows which FLAC files already have mp3 versions so I don't even have to keep track of that when I do the batch conversion. I can point to my entire FLAC library and say convert and it will only convert the "new" flac files.

  6. #6

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    Re: Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

    Thanks for some very useful inputs in this thread, I'd still like to ping this again regarding the question about ripping based on previously tagged albums. Has anyone found a way to use a local library of previously ripped cds (mp3 for ex.) to to a complete batch rerip (to flac) of the same cds, keeping all my old tags and album art?

    I've spend years tuning the tags of my music library but would like (have to) rerip everything to a lossles format before my cds die of old age.



    Currently I use dbpa, perfect tunes and mp3tag for so a solution using these tools would be great...

  7. #7
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    Re: Afew Items, CD Ripper suggestions

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAntz View Post
    Thanks for some very useful inputs in this thread, I'd still like to ping this again regarding the question about ripping based on previously tagged albums. Has anyone found a way to use a local library of previously ripped cds (mp3 for ex.) to to a complete batch rerip (to flac) of the same cds, keeping all my old tags and album art?

    I've spend years tuning the tags of my music library but would like (have to) rerip everything to a lossles format before my cds die of old age.



    Currently I use dbpa, perfect tunes and mp3tag for so a solution using these tools would be great...
    one very simple approach I've used:

    1. rip the CD to flac with dbpa (don't worry about tags, etc. as long as track numbers are correct and files are named with track number at beginning of file
    2. Open newly ripped flac files in mp3tag (in track order)
    3. Add to same active window, the same album files from the mp3 files (listed in track order)
    4. Select the mp3 files, then right click, choose TAG COPY
    5. Select the new FLAC files, right click, choose TAG PASTE

    The tags from the mp3 files will now be in the FLAC files. You can do this step while you are waiting for a different CD to be ripped in dbpa, so it doesn't really slow one down on the new flac ripping task.

    album art depends. If the album art is embedded in mp3, it will show up in the tags of the fLAC files as embedded. If the art is simply a file in the directory (folder.jpg or cover.jpg) I'd simply copy that file from the old mp3 album directory to the new flac album directory.

    edit: or one can simply open mp3 files in track order in mp3tag, select all, then TAG COPY, then open only FLAC files in mp3tag, select all then TAG PASTE. I don't think you need to have both the mp3 and Flac files open in the SAME mp3tag window.

    edit2: and if you're worried about stray flac tags (added by dbpa) stying in the new flac files after the tag copy, you can use mp3tag to delete all the existing tags within the flac files just before you paste in the tags copied from the mp3 files. Easy enough--just select the flac files, right click and select REMOVE TAG.
    Last edited by garym; 01-15-2016 at 11:03 AM.

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