RE: Ripping Level Question (help?)

[monsterjazzlick]

Thanks very much indeed Oggy,

This is a really great forum btw; one of the best for sure!

But what about the word: 'THE', please? Do you retain this in the name of the ALBUM (eg. 'The Beatles Greatest Hits', 'The Rolling Stones Collection', 'The Ultimate ABBA Compilation')? I suppose you do, because you seem to favour maintaining consistency right across the board.

Cheers.

[monsterjazzlick]

If you haven't already, I recommend setting a limited on your Album Art.

I use:

Maximum Pixel Size 1000 X 1000

Maximum File Size 300KB

Hi Oggy,

I just changed the above mention 'Album Art' settings within the: 'Meta Data & ID Tag' options' within 'dBpa'.

I am still unable to locate both: 'Release Year' and 'Capitalize All' check-boxes I am afraid. I have searched high and low!

Many thanks,

Paul

[Oggy]

Thanks very much indeed Oggy,

This is a really great forum btw; one of the best for sure!

But what about the word: 'THE', please? Do you retain this in the name of the ALBUM (eg. 'The Beatles Greatest Hits', 'The Rolling Stones Collection', 'The Ultimate ABBA Compilation')? I suppose you do, because you seem to favour maintaining consistency right across the board.

Cheers.

For Album title, yes to all of the above; that is the album name.

Using The, in the Artist / Album Artist name, is a bit harder decision, depending on how the individual's player handles it.

I use The Beatles, because my player and app, copes with "The", in the way I want, which is to ignore it. The Beatles, is displayed as The Beatles, alphabetically, under B. For me, this is perfect, as that is how I would display my LPs.

I have two variations, Smashing Pumpkins and The Smashing Pumpkins. Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream, is displayed next to The Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. Even the record company got fed up correcting the name, and added The! I can't recall if the default Metadata, reflects this.

The Rolling Stones / Rolling Stones. Well, the early albums they were The Rolling Stones, and later they were, Rolling Stones.......

Not all players cope with "The", so I've seen a friend use, Who, The and another simply, Who. You'll have to see how your player works. Whereas I could live with Who, The, but prefer not to, Danny & Juniors, The, really does look naff.

Stylised names like ABBA, blink-182, I do use the stylised version!

Simples!

[Oggy]

Hi Oggy,

Judging by how excellent 'dBpa' is, I think I will purchase 'Perfect Tunes' also.

UPDATE: just made purchase!

Good decision, in that case, just accept any old tags, and correct them later!!



More seriously, you are asking questions, that hopefully will allow you to get things to your requirements, from the off. You do need to find out how your player handles certain tags.

[Oggy]

Hi Oggy,

I just changed the above mention 'Album Art' settings within the: 'Meta Data & ID Tag' options' within 'dBpa'.

I am still unable to locate both: 'Release Year' and 'Capitalize All' check-boxes I am afraid. I have searched high and low!

Many thanks,

Paul

Good choice, I've seen some "fanart" that is very good, but with massive file size.

Check with mville about Release Year, but I would guess once you have loaded a CD, click on Tags, scroll to the bottom, on to Add Tag. Click, and name Release Year, and add the date.

Apart from Capitalize All, in CD Ripper, the only place I can think of, is in the ID Tag Processing DSP, under Manipulation. I haven't tried this.

Hopefully someone will answer this, as I may well have missed a setting. It isn't difficult to press, Capitalize All, but if this was automated, it would give another time saving, and help prevent a potential error.

[monsterjazzlick]

Not all players cope with "The", so I've seen a friend use, Who, The and another simply, Who. You'll have to see how your player works.

Thanks Oggy,

Well, my 'Sony NW-A35' Walkman is a real sore point and can of worms at the moment. Here is a copy of a recent email I sent to Sony after purchasing my new Walkman last month:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I purchased a NW-A35 Walkman from Amazon recently. I made very thorough investigations regarding the functionality of the device (before purchasing) because it is obviously very expensive, and I was upgrading from my NWZ-S545 Walkman - which I had owned for 10 years. Basically, I was very happy with my old model as I only need/use very basic features (I mostly used it for running outdoors and at the gym). But my original model has become old and worn now.

However, when my new NW-A35 arrived and after transferring some audio files across, I discovered that I simply can not hear the music! Even with the volume set at a level of '100'! Yet my previous model could easily output music loudly with the volume set at only '50'! I thoroughly tested many different albums in different formats (FLAC, MP3, WMA) and the results were exactly the same. This took some considerable time as you can appreciate - because I had to be certain that my reasoning was indeed accurate; and it was. So, now I have a very expensive Walkman of which I can't use because it's nowhere near loud enough!

Do you have a replacement NW-A35 model, please, which outputs at a listenable volume? I am assuming mine has some kind of manufactures fault, or similar?

Thank you very much indeed,

Paul David Seaman

Now, you may or may not know, but there is a ridiculous 'EU' law in place of which stipulates that a music listening device (inc. mobile phones) must not exceed a certain 'dB' level. It may be '80dB'? - I can't remember. Hence all such devices are now capped!

BUT, apparently, if you purchase the same Walkman from either the U.S. or Asia, then such models do not have this (volume) restriction onboard. Sony are currently looking to see if it is possible for them to wangle me an overseas model. According to the representative I spoke to, Sony have been plagued by similar complaints from recent owners!

Chaars.

[monsterjazzlick]

Check with mville about Release Year, but I would guess once you have loaded a CD, click on Tags, scroll to the bottom, on to Add Tag. Click, and name Release Year, and add the date.

Oggy,

Sorted!, man.

(Please see screenshot.)

btw - I deleted the 'Style' category. It contained random info such as: 'Trumpet Jazz', 'Dinner Music', etc. wtf! It's just bloat info to me, and totally inaccurate at that.

Paul

Tag.jpg

[monsterjazzlick]

Apart from Capitalize All, in CD Ripper, the only place I can think of, is in the ID Tag Processing DSP, under Manipulation. I haven't tried this.

Hopefully someone will answer this, as I may well have missed a setting. It isn't difficult to press, Capitalize All, but if this was automated, it would give another time saving, and help prevent a potential error.

Oggy,

Thanks a lot.

After digging deep, I stumbled over this (please see screenshot):

Caps.png

Not sure which choice would be most fitting for my needs? Probably 'Capitalize First'.

Cheers,

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

You do need to find out how your player handles certain tags.

Hi Oggy,

Well my Sony 'NW-A35' does not display the 'Comments' verbatim. And it will only display one 'Year' (ie. 'Release Year'); therefore configuring a 'Remastered Year' is a wasted effort. In any event, I would much rather know the ORIGINAL recording date.

Paul

[mville]

(Please see screenshot.)

btw - I deleted the 'Style' category. It contained random info such as: 'Trumpet Jazz', 'Dinner Music', etc. wtf! It's just bloat info to me, and totally inaccurate at that.

Paul

Tag.jpg

I use Release Date and not Release Year. There is no standard as yet and many players will not currently support this tag, but I chose Release Date because iTunes uses it, and this was as close to a standard as I could find.

[Oggy]

I use Release Date and not Release Year. There is no standard as yet and many players will not currently support this tag, but I chose Release Date because iTunes uses it, and this was as close to a standard as I could find.

Mia culpa, I meant to type Release Date. I'm not sure if that would show on Paul's Sony?

The lack of standardisation is somewhat surprising, as ripping and tagging isn't exactly new technology.

[Oggy]

Oggy,

Thanks a lot.

After digging deep, I stumbled over this (please see screenshot):

Caps.png

Not sure which choice would be most fitting for my needs? Probably 'Capitalize First'.

Cheers,

Paul

Yes, Capitalize First, seems to be the same as Capitalize All, in CD Ripper. If you don't want anything in lower case, it works perfectly.

[Oggy]

Hi Oggy,

Well my Sony 'NW-A35' does not display the 'Comments' verbatim. And it will only display one 'Year' (ie. 'Release Year'); therefore configuring a 'Remastered Year' is a wasted effort. In any event, I would much rather know the ORIGINAL recording date.

Paul

The Sony looks a nice piece of kit, hopefully they resolve your volume issue, so you can turn to 11.

I've seen a photo of your model, and noticed the Release Year alongside Artist, Album, Genre and Composer.

I'm a little surprised that there isn't a second display whilst playing a file, which shows Comments, but as mville mentioned, there are no standards for tagging, and different players and apps prioritise different tags.

If we get the standard ones correct now, we should hopefully have comparability with all, or at the least requiring minimal changes to achieve this. This is why it is essential to try our files, on our players, at the earliest opportunity, and not after ripping 2,000 CDs!

It's not often that I put something in the Comments box, and very rarely, later check them out.

Tags that I either can't or choose not display now, may become important in the future, or on another player, and aren't doing any harm.

[garym]

Tags that I either can't or choose not display now, may become important in the future, or on another player, and aren't doing any harm.

That is the key point I think!

[monsterjazzlick]

The Sony looks a nice piece of kit, hopefully they resolve your volume issue, so you can turn to 11.

I've seen a photo of your model, and noticed the Release Year alongside Artist, Album, Genre and Composer.

I'm a little surprised that there isn't a second display whilst playing a file, which shows Comments, but as mville mentioned, there are no standards for tagging, and different players and apps prioritise different tags.

If we get the standard ones correct now, we should hopefully have comparability with all, or at the least requiring minimal changes to achieve this. This is why it is essential to try our files, on our players, at the earliest opportunity, and not after ripping 2,000 CDs!

It's not often that I put something in the Comments box, and very rarely, later check them out.

Tags that I either can't or choose not display now, may become important in the future, or on another player, and aren't doing any harm.

Hi Oggy,

Sony are calling me back on Tuesday. They sent me a LINK to update the device to the latest firmware - convinced it would solve the issue - but to no avail. I already knew this from reading angry discussions on the Sony Forum (which I really did not want to have to join).

On my previous Sony mp3 Walkman, the device did offer more information whilst the track was playing (and in the same window); this info would slowly scroll it's way across. But Sony have now chosen to dedicate such real-estate to a graphic-equalizer (I always leave mine 'flat' and so it's of no benefit to me!). But there IS a second screen you can navigate to (it is a bit fiddly but you can get to it), and this does provide some extra info like: duration, genre, and album artist, etc - but nothing for 'comments'.

As you point out, it is worthwhile checking to see how your playback device responds to the meta-data you have tagged. But then this raises the question of: what if you use several playback devices? - should you have that luxury. I mean, they might all respond differently. In which case do you go with the device which you use most often, and just grin and bare any inconsistent tagging results on the others? I think it would be bordering on silliness to have (say) 3 different tagging systems for all 3 of your different devices?

Thanks,

Paul