Not How But What.

[Timothy Wright]

Some where on this web site I read "Rip it one and rip it right the first time." So this is intended as more a strategic thread than how-to thread. I am particularly looking to exploit the wisdom of folks who have done this few times and done everything wrong at least twice.

Disk space is not a concern, I have many TB of unused disk space. I have a bad boy tower with 3 optical drives, a six core CPU. I could remove a card reader and put in a 4th optical drive but honestly I find feeding 3 optical drives is all my ADD mind can stay on top of. I guess I have some 3,000 CDs. I would be re-ripping for the 5th or 6th time. Maybe this time I be smarter? Pay more attention to Genres and dates

Multiple Objectives:

I've already ripped everything once to FLAC at the default settings. My Oppo plays those files just fine so in that way my audiophile need is already taken care of.

One problem is documentation and organization, put 40,000 songs on a NAS and looking for any particular song or several versions of a popular song is much easier from a PC. I group Artists by Genres, each Artist has CDs sorted chronologically. I make the Genres as broad and inclusive as possible to minimize their number. That makes the most sense to me. Does anyone have another system they prefer?

On rare occasion I send an song via Email or need to burn selection of songs to CD. Am I correct MP3 songs will play when burned to CD? If I am going to rip I may as well multi encode and save to as many file formats as I think I may ever reasonably need in the future.

No matter how much compression a CD will only play so many minutes, correct? Too much compression and all I accomplish is poor quality and unused space on a CD?

Tentatively I have 4 file formats in mind, FLAC, MP3, WAVE, and Bwf MP2. I don't do anything in apple formats. I would not need WAVE if I can burn MP3 to disk and my automobile will play the disk. I think I tried that and it did not work.

CDA is supposed to be included with DBpoweramp. I've yet to be able to find it. What am I missing?

This time I think I'll try these DSP options: HD HDCD, Audio CD Hidden Track Silence removal (needed?), Write Meta File.

Thank you in advance.

[linkman]

Re: Not How But What.

I'm only going to touch on the questions I'm qualified to answer.

You have already ripped to a lossless format -- FLAC. There is no need to rerip and handle those 3,000 discs. You can convert to another format now with no sonic penalty. dBpoweramp's music converter program can do this in batch mode.

MP3's can play natively when burned onto a CD, but they will not be a true CD format. Many modern players can handle them in the MP3 format but to ensure compatibility the CD burning program can (in most cases) convert them to the "native" CD format. It is possible that your automobile's player cannot handle the MP3 format.

You can sacrifice quality on an audio file to obtain a smaller file size. Yes, a true CD format has an upper limit of about 70-80 minutes (depends on the optical disc being used). You definitely don't want to go stingy on quality if you keep the CD's AIFF format. If you convert from FLAC to MP3 then to CD's AIFF the end result will not retain the original quality.

But if you are absolutely set on reripping:

Since you have 3,000 discs, you might consider obtaining a robotic ripper for the task. Manually going through that many CDs would drive me nuts. Something like a Nimbie can be purchased for around $570 and if you need to free up that money or don't have a use for it once you finish then you could sell it for about $150 less than you paid for it.

[garym]

Re: Not How But What.

First I wouldn't rerip if I already have FLAC files. If you just want to change your metadata (tagging) you can easily do this with dBpoweramp tools without reripping. If you want to create other versions of these FLAC files (mp3 WAV, etc.) you can do this with dBpoweramp converter in a batch mode, retaining all your tags and artwork. Not sure why you'd want WAV files if you have FLAC files. mp3 files are useful for playing on portables, in cars, etc. But again, use dbpa converter to create these from your FLAC files.

I wouldn't use HD HDCD dsp or remove track sllience dsp if it were me and I was ripping FLAC as my archival lossless copy of the CD. These may do things you don't really want. For my main FLAC rips I use only ReplayGain dsp (which just adds tags).
See this thread for issues you want to consider with HDCD:

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?27540-Ripping-HDCDs-Best-practices&highlight=practices+hdcd

You might want to use things like remove silence or volume normalization for the mp3s used in your car. See for example:

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?37935-Batch-Converting-For-Car

[Timothy Wright]

Re: Not How But What.

I was afraid that I did not know the secret handshake or something. Thank you for your kind assistance.

This will sound off topic but as an example; I am very active in a car club. We publish our own scheduled maintenance recommendations based on known issues unique to our car. In a way I wanted opinion, informed opinion, on why people do what because it has proven prudent, helpful or expedient to them. We should all learn from each other.

Somehow I "lost" most of my MP3 rips. I lost enough that it may be easier to re rip them all than go filling in gaps. I have 4 independent archives of my movies and my music in FLAC format bit I was careless with my MP3 archive.

> drive me nuts

Too late in my case, I've been certifiable my whole life.

> a robotic ripper

I don't know much about those, I built my PC to be a no compromise DVD ripper and encoder. It can munch DVDs 3 at a time and never breath hard. At some point the optical drives will soon turn to mush and need replaced but that for me is just a regular cost of doing business. If the secret to quality rips is taking my time and paying great attention to detail (meta data fields) then three optical drives at a time is my personal limit for multitasking. I don't think a robo ripper can help with that, what ever I do has to have pair of engaged human eyes on top of the process. Now I rip with Allmusic.com open on a second display so I can verify "Release Date" and "Genre" in particular. Last time I did this at 10+ hours a day the collection took 21+ days. Now that I have correct metadata on my local lookup things should go simpler. I suspect that I'll just re-rip to both FLAC and MP3. At this point I don't anticipate a need for any other formats.

Last time I tried a bulk convert I ended up 40,000 songs in one directory? I know I did something wrong. In theory I could simply search for the missing CDs in FLAC format and then do another attempt at bulk conversion? That would be possible in only a day or two of work vs weeks of work.

I have large Excel spreadsheet with tabs for each genre that I have been reconciling with my digital collection. I've been eliminating duplicates and searching for empty directories. That has taken two weeks and I'm half done. I found the option for creating a file entry each time I rip a song as I rip and I'll try that as well. The music DB I have now does not include song titles which could be useful.

[garym]

Re: Not How But What.

Last time I tried a bulk convert I ended up 40,000 songs in one directory? I know I did something wrong. In theory I could simply search for the missing CDs in FLAC format and then do another attempt at bulk conversion? That would be possible in only a day or two of work vs weeks of work.

You didn't have your settings setup correctly. With the naming settings set correctly, you can convert from FLAC to mp3 and maintain EXACTLY the same directory and subdirectory structure. You should end up with, for example:

c:\flac\artists\albums\tracks....

c:\mp3\artists\albums\tracks...

all identical except for parent directory (one is flac and one is mp3). See

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?38046-Maintaining-Directories-After-Conversion&p=165804&viewfull=1*post165804

[garym]

Re: Not How But What.

And keep this in mind:

I have all my FLAC files. I also have a copy in mp3 format for use in portables. I only update the mp3 files once in a while. I don't have to remember what I have converted to mp3 and what I haven't. I can point dbpa converter at my upper FLAC directory, tell it to convert to mp3 (along with assigning the right top directory and dynamic naming as noted above), and click convert. The program is smart enough to ask me if I want to overwrite the mp3 files that already exist. I say no. So the end result is that the program only converts the FLAC files to mp3 files for the mp3 files that don't exist yet.

example. I have 95,000 flac files organized by directory/subdirectory (Artist/Album). I add 2 new albums to my FLAC files. I use dbpa converter, select ALL MY FLAC files (top directory) and tell it to convert them all. But dbpa is smart enough to ask me if it should convert only those two new FLAC albums because all the other FLAC files have mp3 counterparts already. So it only converts the two new albums to mp3. easy!

edit> and there are programs that will create excel spreadsheets and other database files containing all sorts of info from your files using the file metadata. mp3tag has some export functions that can automatically create an excel spreadsheet of all my music files, organized by artist, album, track, with all the data in the tags used in columns, etc. All automatic as long as I have the info in my metadata (artist, title, album, genre, etc.)

[Timothy Wright]

Re: Not How But What.

This is precisely the quality of expert help I was hoping for, thank you:

garym > I wouldn't use HD HDCD

That was very helpful link. I figured using HD HDCD ( that is what it's for?) was a no-brainer decision but thanks to your help I'll opt out. I am still a little confused but that was one of the best expounding technical threads I have ever read on any topic on any forum.

I have a reasonably strong power amp and inefficient speakers, but if HD HDCD creates clipped wave forms where there was none, there is no fixing that. I understand that selecting to use HD HDCD could ruin weeks worth of work. Hell it could trash my speakers!

I do not expect to make any special setting for my car, but thank you. Maybe later I'll take a second look.

[garym]

Re: Not How But What.

This is precisely the quality of expert help I was hoping for, thank you:

garym > I wouldn't use HD HDCD

That was very helpful link. I figured using HD HDCD ( that is what it's for?) was a no-brainer decision but thanks to your help I'll opt out. I am still a little confused but that was one of the best expounding technical threads I have ever read on any topic on any forum.

I have a reasonably strong power amp and inefficient speakers, but if HD HDCD creates clipped wave forms where there was none, there is no fixing that. I understand that selecting to use HD HDCD could ruin weeks worth of work. Hell it could trash my speakers!

I do not expect to make any special setting for my car, but thank you. Maybe later I'll take a second look.

and for me, the fact that I no longer have bit perfect copies of the CDs if I use the HDCD dsp is enough reason not to use it. (if I was going to use the HDCD DSP, I'd use it on COPIES of my original FLAC files). By the way, one can use software players (foobar2000 for example, with certain components, to playback CD FLAC rips that are HDCD and use the extra information contained in the files. And this is done by the player without one first having to use the HDCD dsp, thus the original rips are bit perfect back to the CD.

[Timothy Wright]

Re: Not How But What.

Garym > example. I have 95,000 flac files organized . . .

This has become a very useful thread for me. Thank you.

I have done Gener/Artist/CD Title/Song which has for me grouped by gener which is helpful but creates a whole mess of problems in that many acts are very difficult to categorize or classify. And I can easily end up with duplicates or "lose" a group.

When I do whole lot of ripping I find I still have days or weeks of clean up and organizing to do. There is an endless number of sub-classifications of religious or classical music.

I have two very special gener for lack of a better description. One is "Audiophile" which holds Chesky, Telarc, Sheffield Labs, Angel, AudioQuest and Reference Recordings for example. Also all my HDCDs.

I have a second odd directory named "Demo" which is just favorite songs I use especially for auditioning or demonstrating audio equipment. It saves time and work looking for one song.

As I go through my FLAC directories I'm marking up missing or empty directories in my Excel file. No large data base is ever perfect but assume I'll be very close very soon. The ability to create an identical structure for MP3 files is no small thing.

Garym > mp3tag has some export functions . . .

You have 2-3 times the number of songs that I have, and I've been told I have eclectic taste in music. Having some simple way to search for a song, or in my case look for an artist is helpful. In general I try to spell song titles the same way as the CD/LP does sans European umlauts and what ever garbage. With a computer you can look for a song name and find it spelled or typed 10 different ways. Then one group will have one song with 4 different titles on 4 different CDs.

[garym]

Re: Not How But What.

not sure there were any additional questions there. But yes, tagging and organizing your music is much more time consuming than the ripping. And if you get your tagging right, you can always automatically reorganize your music (rename files, reorganize directories/subdirectories based on artist, album, genre, etc.) in an automatic batch way using either dbpa [ARRANGE AUDIO] DSP or mp3tag "convert tags to file" option. That is, I could completely rearrange my file organization to be based on: genre/artist/album/tracks... with a couple of mouse clicks. Then I could rearrange the entire library back to "artist/album/tracks..." with another couple of mouse clicks (assuming my tags have all this info correctly). Also note that in FLAC one can have multiple value GENRE tags. I have some albums with say, "Country" as a genre but also has "Bluebird" as a genre (because these are acts I saw at the Bluebird in Nashville). Or I might have two genres "Blues" and "Acoustic". Then if I search for Acoustic, I'll get things that may be in Blues and may be in Folk, etc.

[Timothy Wright]

Re: Not How But What.

garym > Also note that in FLAC one can have multiple value GENRE tags.

How is that possible?

[schmidj]

Re: Not How But What.

Be aware that you can type anything (text) in the Genre tag field you like, i.e. make up your own genres, not just the ones in the drop down lists. So if you want to have two genre's lets say "rock" and "'50s", separate them with a semicolon and a space: "rock; '50s" I'm not sure of the field length limitations in the different tags, but if you use Asset as a DLNA server, you can sort any genre entry on a maximum of 4 values separated by semicolons. Now it depends on your player, can it deal with multiple genres when searching?

[Timothy Wright]

Re: Not How But What.

schmidj> Now it depends on your player, can it deal with multiple genres when searching?

I've never done much searching (maybe I should try) with my Oppo 103 & 105D which I use as my DLNA player. If I really need to find something I can use a PC to search the NAS. I find the Oppo interface crude and awkward without a keyboard.

With time I've become somewhat dogmatic and arbitrary - "Because I say so" kind of attitude when it comes to assigning Genre. I prefer the term "Easy Listening" as opposed to "New Age" which to me has heretical connotations. I group both Blues and Jazz into one group "Blues-Jazz" the same way I put all the Rock and Pop into one Genre "Rock-Pop" just as a necessary simplification. Right or wrong I put most 19th, 20th and 21st century composers into Easy Listening as opposed to Classical which to means powered wigs and snuff boxes.

Any music from a Broadway show or a movie goes into a combined "Stage and Screen" genre, I don't try to distinguish between the two.

I collect a very large and broad selection of music that relates to my faith from Contemporary Christian to Gregorian Chants. I have wonderful African versions of European Hymns, American Gospel and Praise and Worship a whole lot of very difficult to categorize stuff. For me it not necessary to categorize to enjoy listening. It all gets dumped into a very broad Genre of "Religious".

I'm sure a musicologist could argue every one of my genre assignments based on some technical criteria; but I don't try to please anyone but myself.

In my perfect world my choices of Genre could be limited to less than ten set selections from a very limited list.

And schmidj, thank you for your help. One can tell I've not advanced too far beyond the basics and help like yours is much appreciated.

[Timothy Wright]

Re: Not How But What.

I wanted to share one other idea. My file name for CD Titles is formatted "yyyy - CD title" in such a way that the original issue year becomes the first part of the CD's name. That is one reason why I am so fussy about getting the proper first release year correct.

For me the main benefit is sorting out duplicates. I have artists who may have 15+ CD/LP releases. If I have the proper initial release year duplicate directories should be beside one another when sorted alphabetically and by verifying directory contents I can quickly weed out duplicates.

And as a secondary benefit. Often an artists or groups work is best understood and appreciated chronologically. In proper sequence one can better grasp the process and progress professionally.

Unless their act peaked early or went to hell?

[garym]

Re: Not How But What.

For FLAC files, multiple fields (artist, genre, etc.) are not actually mulitple items within a single field. Rather, the FLAC standard tags create mulitple tag fields, each containing an item. Note that mp3 is different, and it these ID3vX tags, there are multiple items within one field. When converting from FLAC to mp3, this is handled automatically. And again, as noted it all depends on what your server software and player handles. Some handle multiple values, some don't (and just use the first value). DLNA is very clunky as compared with some other systems (although I'm told the ASSET program makes it as good a possible). I don't use ASSET or DLNA. I use either Logitech Media Server (LMS) with squeezeboxes or foobar2000 with my PCs. They both handle multiple tag values just fine.

for FLAC one would have:

ALBUM: Two Men With the Blues
ARTIST: Willie Nelson
ARTIST: Wynton Marsalis
GENRE: Blues
GENRE: Jazz

In mp3 file it would be

ALBUM: Two Men With the Blues
ARTIST: Willie Nelson, Wynton Marsalis
GENRE: Blues, Jazz

Regarding naming of albums, etc. to include date. I personally don't do that because my system can display and sort by date using the date tag data. But if your system can't it makes sense to put in the title. Tagging is a personal thing....there is no "correct" way. What works for you is best. That said, having very good metadata makes it easy because if you change your mind later, you can always recreate tag info from other tag info in almost any way you want (in a batch manner). So I could change 6000 album titles to include year at the beginning with a single line of code in dbpa or mp3tag and a couple of mouse clicks. Come back in a few hours and I'd have a new ALBUM tag contents with year at beginning.

RE: Genres. I've moved over the years from many detailed genres to less than 10.

EDIT: to create multiple values in a tag: in dbpa use ; (e.g., Willie Nelson; Wynton Marsalis). in mp3tag use \\ (eg, Willie Nelson\\Wynton Marsalis). Both give same results to players that handle multiple tag values.