Fast ripping of CDs (and storage)

Someone in our house (not me) keeps remarking on the piles of CDs, the boxes stored in cupboards, the new boxes which come in from Amazon and elsewhere. :) :) I guess many of us have similar conversations.

Occasionally I get comments such as "why don't we put all the CDs on a device ..." - (such as one of those Brennan thingies ...) and "then store all the CDs in a big box somewhere else" - typically mentions garage, shed, loft etc.

One of the reasons I don't particularly want to go this way is just the sheer time involved. With several thousand CDs, if each took 5 minutes (optimistic) to store, that'd be getting on for 200 hours non-stop. Then Sod's law would probably kick in anyway, and the drive or data storage device would get damaged or nicked, and the whole effort would be wasted.

I'm guessing that perhaps the most sensible approach, if I am to even think of going this way at all, is to select maybe the 200 or so most interesting CDs, and then rip them to a hard drive, and then play them back via my network and Squeezebox. That way my time involvement could perhaps be reduced to a few days, but at the end of it all, it'd only save the equivalent of approximately one IKEA CD rack.

I have looked at the specs of the Brennan JB7 - OK, but not too thrilling. If I remember it can only save to MP3 and WAV. WAV might not be too bad, and I think it can export to a hard drive.

Other devices which might also do similar things are from Olive (e.g 3HD recorder), and the XIVA musicm8. I did hear very good things about older CD recorders - such as a Yamaha model with a disc drive - but unfortunately I never quite got into CD recorders, and some which might have had suitably high audio quality, together with storage for quite a collection of CDs, passed me by.

A DIY solution might also be feasible - for example using a PC as a Linux box, and put in several CD drives for ripping. Anyone tried that?

As far as Brennan goes read this thread if you didn't already:

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...hlight=brennan

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Originally Posted by dave2010

A DIY solution might also be feasible - for example using a PC as a Linux box, and put in several CD drives for ripping. Anyone tried that?

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I haven't tried multiple rips, and I doubt your processor would cope with it, I'm just going to run a test and see what a drain it would be?

I recently ripped around 1,500 CD's and if they are in good condition, you can get them done in around 2 minutes each, if they are marked and you need to use error correction, that can take 5 minutes +, depending on how bad they are. But it's a ONCE only task and believe you me, if you ever do do it, you will be making regular backups for sure - I'm never doing that again :lol:. But for me the pluses are fantastic, I have my entire CD collection on a 2TB drive, I listen to far more music and it only takes a few mouse clicks to find anything.

I would build your own if you can, the sound quality you will achieve from a dedicated music player will outclass the units you have mentioned and cost a darn sight less, but you will need a good DAC. You should also get lot's of help from the file audio boys here, if you get stuck or need advice :)

And if you don't want to build one, get a Squeezebox.

OK, I just did a single rip using EAC for a FLAC file. This is on a fairly well sorted PC running Win7 x64 with nothing else running on it, apart from this web browser. It's using 1.7 GB RAM and the CPU was running at around 10%, but with regular peaks to 50~60% (Dual core 3.16GHz), so you would need a pretty beefy PC to run multiple rips IMO. Additionally, I reckon you would increase the risks of getting errors and may have to start again. Your rips would take considerably longer, so what you gained by doing multiples, would be cancelled out.

My advice would be a single rip at a time, using a good desktop PC with a good quality drive. A laptop is not good for long ripping sessions.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...atgig/test.jpg

Intel E8500
8 GB RAM 1066MHz DDR2
Plextor PX-L890SA drive
Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates
EAC v0.99
FLAC file

EDIT: And +1 for Martins' post, avoid the Brennan.

I went through the same process recently, actually I'm still part way through it. Ok, I don't have thousands of CDs, probably more like 600. I started selectively ripping to alac using xld and I've done around 300 I guess but I've got to the point where I'm now thinking to myself "do I want to rip the rest of these CDs? You've got your absolutely favourites, why not use spotify premium for the rest? It's lossy yes, but I doubt I'll be able to tell the difference".

So that's where I am right now. About 300 CDs stored nicely under the bed and the remainder waiting for me to make my mind up.:scratch:

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Originally Posted by webby

I went through the same process recently, actually I'm still part way through it. Ok, I don't have thousands of CDs, probably more like 600. I started selectively ripping to alac using xld and I've done around 300 I guess but I've got to the point where I'm now thinking to myself "do I want to rip the rest of these CDs? You've got your absolutely favourites, why not use spotify premium for the rest? It's lossy yes, but I doubt I'll be able to tell the difference".

So that's where I am right now. About 300 CDs stored nicely under the bed and the remainder waiting for me to make my mind up.:scratch:

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Have you tested that statement ?
I've compared CDs to Spotify @ 320kbps and the difference is quality is very apparent - the CDs have much more detail and sound better as a result.

No I haven't, but I do know that I don't have golden lugholes. :eyebrows:

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Originally Posted by webby

No I haven't, but I do know that I don't have golden lugholes. :eyebrows:

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Neither have I :)
Golden ears that is.

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Originally Posted by Stratmangler

Have you tested that statement ?
I've compared CDs to Spotify @ 320kbps and the difference is quality is very apparent - the CDs have much more detail and sound better as a result.

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+1, quite a big difference even to my cloth ears - of course you need the right equipment to reveal that difference?

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Originally Posted by dave2010

One of the reasons I don't particularly want to go this way is just the sheer time involved.

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Another alternative is to use a cd ripping service such as RipCaster, i-fi or ExactRip.

Jeez, for that money I'll do it and a lot cheaper too :lol:

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Originally Posted by GreatGig

Jeez, for that money I'll do it and a lot cheaper too :lol:

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I thought about that too, but thought I'd just share the info.

At nearly a pound a pop, I could take a week off work and get paid more than my regular job, for sitting at home and listening to music :)

Vortexbox is designed to do just what you want .... Or dbpoweramp in bulk ripping mode...

I used both when ripping my cd collection

Tim

Does Vortexbox rip multiple CD's at the same time, not heard of that one?

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Originally Posted by GreatGig

I haven't tried multiple rips, and I doubt your processor would cope with it, I'm just going to run a test and see what a drain it would be?

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I was amazed just now. In my tests on my iMac (couple of years old), the CDs took between 8-10 minutes to rip to FLAC using Max. I looked at the CPU usage, and it was between 2%-25%, and disc usage was nowhere near max either. I was also streaming a previously ripped FLAC file to my Squeezebox at the same time. I did think of stressing the machine out more - for example by running VLC or even Quicktime on HD videos, but I know that on this machine that doesn't work too well even without anything else running.

The new iMacs (and indeed even the Macbook Pros) are maybe 3-8 times faster than mine, so probably would have even less load on the CPU.

I have older PCs, and I'm not desperate to buy another one. The number of hours I've spent (wasted!!*?&*?!!! ... aaaggghAAGGGHHH!!!) on PCs (not always my own - indeed often other people's) trying to keep them working or restoring them back to life probably far exceeds the time I would spend on ripping. I guess I could afford a new one though, just for this job, though maybe it would be better to buy another iMac or even a Mac mini. If things are better/faster using Windows (not sure that they would be), then I could run Bootcamp or one of the emulation packages - VMWARE/Parallels/VirtualBox - but right now it is looking as though maybe just one newish iMac will do the job.

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I recently ripped around 1,500 CD's and if they are in good condition, you can get them done in around 2 minutes each ...

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May be possible, but depends on kit, and what else is going on. Not sure if Max is fast - as above - but might test out other ways, maybe even iTunes -> ALAC. What did you use to do the rips, and what PC or PC spec do you have?

What surprised me is that it does seem that I can work on the iMac at the same time, so even if I can only do 6 CDs per hour, then it might only take a modest number of months "working" time to get most done. If I also set up my machine at work to do this, then I could transfer the files back each day or week, and it could well be possible to get through 20 or so a day - with relatively little extra effort. As it happens, the "inquirer" about the possibility of storing CDs this way has also offered to help/do the work, so if everyone in my family is trained up to do this, then maybe it would only take 6 months to get everything onto hard drives.

Probably need several hard drives and an organised plan for action though.

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I would build your own if you can, the sound quality you will achieve from a dedicated music player will outclass the units you have mentioned and cost a darn sight less, but you will need a good DAC. You should also get lot's of help from the file audio boys here, if you get stuck or need advice :)

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Thanks - that might be a project for when I finally give up work - scheduled for a couple of years.

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And if you don't want to build one, get a Squeezebox.

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Got an SB3 and a BoomBox model already. I feed the SB3 into a Caiman.

New mac mini's that have just come out have no optical drive! This could mean you can pick up the previous model and save a few quid. Whatever, the mac mini is a great machine. See here: http://www.solutions-inc.co.uk/index...0gb-was-p64900

Edit: I use XLD for ripping to ALAC on my 2006 imac. Takes about 5 mins per cd, but it depends on the settings I guess. I use XLD's secure ripper and check the AccurateRip database for integrity. I do not verify suspicious sectors or test before copy as this would slow the process by half. I've not had a bad rip yet.

Lots of food for thought there, I have no experience of Mac's, but an 8-10 minute rip time is not very enticing!

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I have older PCs, and I'm not desperate to buy another one. The number of hours I've spent (wasted!!*?&*?!!! ... aaaggghAAGGGHHH!!!) on PCs (not always my own - indeed often other people's) trying to keep them working or restoring them back to life probably far exceeds the time I would spend on ripping.

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Lol, tell me about it - I have stopped repairing other peoples computers now, I used to do it a lot, but got fed up of being taken advantage so I changed tack. I did a few jobs at work for people, but started charging and my prices were 50% of whatever PC World would charge. Strangely the requests have dried up now, which was the intention ;)

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What did you use to do the rips, and what PC or PC spec do you have?

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Specs are after my performance screen capture;
Home built
Win7 Pro x64
Intel E8500 3.16GHz dual core CPU
8GB RAM 1066MHz DDR2
Plextor PX-L890SA optical drive
EAC v0.99

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

http://www.dbpoweramp.com

I have always used Exact Audio Copy to do my rips, mainly for the error correction. It is fiddly to set up the first time, but once you do it, that's it. You can create differing ripping profiles, so I have a profile for speed which on an unmarked prisitine CD (as most of mine are) can do a rip in under 2 mins. Then I have an error correction profile for charity shop and eBay CD's, which takes longer - around 5 mins. dBpoweramp is very popular and a lot easier to use, but I have only played with it, but it certainly has a lot of very useful functionality. EAC is free, dBpoweramp costs around $38.00 with a free trial available. Try them out and choose? I found the drive is very important too, I started with a Pioneer drive that during long sessions used to slow and get problems with error correction failing, probably due to heat. I now have a Plextor, which I love, it's fast and gives accurate rips every time - laptops . . . forget it, unless it's just a single rip every now and then.

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Probably need several hard drives and an organised plan for action though.

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Definatley, this is the most important element, as you won't have the stomach to do it again, so a backup plan is essential. Hard drives are so cheap now though and you should easily get 4,000+ CD's on a 2 TB drive.

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Originally Posted by GreatGig

Lots of food for thought there, I have no experience of Mac's, but an 8-10 minute rip time is not very enticing!

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I'd agree with you if it wasn't possible to do anything else. Actually I'm not sure that it is such a problem if it's possible to get on with other work at the same time. The timings I gave were in the modes with paranoid error detection and verification - both in Max and in iTunes. Actually I've just done another one which took only 5 minutes direct into iTunes - I think the timings depend on the degree of error correction and also on the final destination of the files.

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Lol, tell me about it - I have stopped repairing other peoples computers now, I used to do it a lot, but got fed up of being taken advantage so I changed tack. I did a few jobs at work for people, but started charging and my prices were 50% of whatever PC World would charge. Strangely the requests have dried up now, which was the intention ;)

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Well done. In my case it's harder - because the requests come from a wife and daughter who insist on using these things, but manage to turn their problems in to my problem! It's got to the point where I'd rather buy them new Apple kit than spend any more time on such problems. Could fill a whole thread or forum about this!

I've still got a Vista laptop with either a dead hard drive or a virus waiting to be dealt with. Fixed it once, but ....

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I have always used Exact Audio Copy to do my rips, mainly for the error correction.

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Despite above, I have and do still use PCs for some things, and EAC is one program I do use for ripping if I'm on a PC.

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Definatley, this is the most important element, as you won't have the stomach to do it again, so a backup plan is essential. Hard drives are so cheap now though and you should easily get 4,000+ CD's on a 2 TB drive.

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I am certainly not going to do this without reasonable backups, once we get going.

Good luck with your quest anyway Dave, whichever route you take. It is a lot of effort to start with, but the rewards are worth it IMO :)

TIm

Thanks for encouragement. I posted this - http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12494 - but went ahead and downloaded Squeezepad anyway. According to forums elsewhere I'll end up downloading iPeng as well. Not absolutely perfect, but amazing that it can drive the kit (several players including the iPad itself), and I reckon the sound quality via

iMac -> Wireless LAN -> Squeezebox -> Caiman -> Beyer DTX900 or alternatively
iMac -> Wireless LAN -> Squeezebox -> Caiman -> Bantam Gold -> Sanyo Hi Fi Ones
is pretty good.

I have a feeling that the quality via the Squeezebox beats most other modes, so it's not just the convenience factor. Currently listening to a download from emusic - Miklos Rozsa piano concerto, and this sounds much better than I remember it, which considering the mangled sounds one sometimes gets from compressed audio is an achievement.

The convenience is also good though, just a few seconds tapping, and I can be listening to something completely different.

There are several other points/queries I want to make/ask about ripping, but they can wait for a little while (day or two), now that I'm having some success with this.

I use SqueezeCommander on my Android phone to handle 3 SBs, much better than the Squeezebox controler...

dBpoweramp is the way to go for ripping to FLAC, and get yourself a good CD drive, makes it much quicker and more accurate...;)

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Originally Posted by dave2010

There are several other points/queries I want to make/ask about ripping, but they can wait for a little while (day or two), now that I'm having some success with this.

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No probs and ask away, there are a quite a few members who use file based audio, so a problem shared, should hopefully be a problem solved.

:cool:

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Originally Posted by GreatGig

No probs and ask away, there are a quite a few members who use file based audio, so a problem shared, should hopefully be a problem solved.

:cool:

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OK. I shall ask away with specific topics. First one follows almost immediately, but there may be a few coming shortly.

The first issue I considered is which lossless format to use. AFAIK the most common ones are ALAC and FLAC. Some other formats may have both lossy and lossless variants.

Personally I can convert to either ALAC or FLAC, but since I use an iMac frequently the "obvious" choice is ALAC. This gives immediate iTunes compatibility, and it seems to be compatible with my Squeezebox kit too.

I assume that if necessary I can convert from ALAC back to FLAC, so there is no harm in choosing ALAC at the outset.

On the other hand, some people may recommend FLAC, which for me would give an immediate compatibility issue with iTunes, though there are ways round, for example using Fluke - http://code.google.com/p/flukeformac/

Some people may find FLAC is immediately more convenient for them.

Can I assume that, for me, that ALAC is really the way to go?

Following Issue 1, it seems reasonable for me to stick with iTunes for playing some of the ALAC files, and my Logitech kit works with those.

Some people - particularly those who don't use iPods or iMacs, but who are using PCs may wish to use other players and playback devices. It is quite possible that some players and devices won't play ALAC, in which case that either restricts the players to be used, or step 1 - choice of format - needs to be changed.

I assume that there are good converters which can convert from ALAC to FLAC and/or FLAC to ALAC. While I hope that I don't need these initially, at some later stage it might be necessary. By then I would hope to be able to do batch conversion from files on one drive to another.

Is it easier going one way rather than the other? Are some tools easier to use than others? Recommendations!

I rip everything to alac using XLD. It's pretty easy to use. I only use that over iTunes own converter cos iTunes doesn't produce a log report or reference the accurate rip database.

Tags are handled by freedb or musicbrainz in xld and for my purposes are perfectly adequate. XLD also offers replay gain. I don't use it but some do.
XLD converts to all kinds of formats and I believe can rip to 2 formats at once.
So you could rip to alac for the home and aac for the iPod for instance.

I add artwork manually using album art exchange.

IIRC Squeezebox Server transcodes ALAC to FLAC on the fly.

ALAC is fine - it can be decompressed back to AIFF or WAV if necessary.
I don't use it myself because it's proprietary to Apple, and that usually means that using a licensed Apple product is a must.

Most tools, such as iTunes etc., will try to match CD tracks against a CD database - often the Gracenote one.

This clearly saves a lot of time, and in many cases will also cause the artwork to be located - not sure how - but it does, and can appear in a user interface, such as for SqueezePad.

Some rippers are not so good at this - for example when I ripped a CD using Max for MacOS the other day, it couldn't find the data for one CD, so I had to partially enter it manually, and all the tracks were given numbers - relative to the name I provided.

I don't know how easy it is to modify such metadata afterwards, but in the first instance it helps to get as much accurate data as possible. The time taken to enter/correct such data can easily approach or exceed the ripping time. If only a few CDs aren't recognised this might not be a problem, but it could be if this happens relatively often.

I noticed a few years ago that some tools use different databases, and give different results. Are there any preferred tools/databases?

dBpoweramp to FLAC, with AMG smart metadata & CRC check sum digit verification...;)

But not for a mac...

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Originally Posted by dave2010

Most tools, such as iTunes etc., will try to match CD tracks against a CD database - often the Gracenote one.

This clearly saves a lot of time, and in many cases will also cause the artwork to be located - not sure how - but it does, and can appear in a user interface, such as for SqueezePad.

Some rippers are not so good at this - for example when I ripped a CD using Max for MacOS the other day, it couldn't find the data for one CD, so I had to partially enter it manually, and all the tracks were given numbers - relative to the name I provided.

I don't know how easy it is to modify such metadata afterwards, but in the first instance it helps to get as much accurate data as possible. The time taken to enter/correct such data can easily approach or exceed the ripping time. If only a few CDs aren't recognised this might not be a problem, but it could be if this happens relatively often.

I noticed a few years ago that some tools use different databases, and give different results. Are there any preferred tools/databases?

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Answer:

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Originally Posted by webby

I rip everything to alac using XLD. It's pretty easy to use. I only use that over iTunes own converter cos iTunes doesn't produce a log report or reference the accurate rip database.

Tags are handled by freedb or musicbrainz in xld and for my purposes are perfectly adequate. XLD also offers replay gain. I don't use it but some do.
XLD converts to all kinds of formats and I believe can rip to 2 formats at once.
So you could rip to alac for the home and aac for the iPod for instance.

I add artwork manually using album art exchange.

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Originally Posted by WAD62

dBpoweramp to FLAC, with AMG smart metadata & CRC check sum digit verification...;)

But not for a mac...

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re Macs ...
Can be done with dBpoweramp I think using Bootcamp or one of the VM systems using a Mac. VM options are Parallels, VMWare and VirtualBox. I've not actually done exactly this, but I believe it should work. If there's a trial version of dBpoweramp it should be easy for me to test that on both VMWare and Bootcamp over the next few days.

There are other options, but that'd maybe be good for someone who particularly wanted to use dBpoweramp.

Hi Dave,

I've been through the process of ripping my CDs already, though I've only a few hundred, certainly not as many as you. I found this site very helpful:
http://www.daefeatures.co.uk/
Helps you determine the best drive for ripping purposes. Choosing the right drive can make a big difference to ripping speed, especially if you get one that actually (not ostensibly) supports C2 error correction. You'll notice that there are other things that drives can do that you may not have considered, such as HTOA (Hidden Track One Audio) access. Then there's Accurate Stream and non-caching drives, both of which spead up the process considerably.
After that I recommend XLD on the Mac, as others already have. It seems to have an issue right now tagging using MusicBrainz, but otherwise I find it the best option for direct ripping to my preferred format, ALAC. Using XLD, I achieve excellent results with AccurateRip and certainly only about 10-15 seconds per track - so about 5 minutes for a trouble-free 20-track CD, not 8-10 minutes. I recommend you set it to eject CDs once they're ripped, this saves another step. If you set it up correctly, you can have it so that you simply insert a CD, have it rip, and remove the CD all without user interaction, greatly speeding up the process.
EDIT: I've just found also that, if you have two drives, you can insert a second CD and it will cue it up in the list to be done as soon as the first is finished. At the moment simultaneous ripping doesn't seem to be supported, but this can still shave time off your ripping process - and if you decided to borrow an external drive and make it three or more optical drives, even more so. It cuts out the delay inherent in the change-over between discs.

As for storage, I heartily recommend you use ZFS-based external storage for the data integrity - HFS+ does not support data integrity, which is one of its current flaws. If you choose to back up to removable media (which is not a stupid idea, considering you can probably get 14 ALAC'd CDs on one DVD), make sure you choose DVD+R media, is this has better data integrity features than DVD-R.
Good luck :)

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Originally Posted by dave2010

re Macs ...
Can be done with dBpoweramp I think using Bootcamp or one of the VM systems using a Mac. VM options are Parallels, VMWare and VirtualBox. I've not actually done exactly this, but I believe it should work. If there's a trial version of dBpoweramp it should be easy for me to test that on both VMWare and Bootcamp over the next few days.

There are other options, but that'd maybe be good for someone who particularly wanted to use dBpoweramp.

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If you can get it working I'd thoroughly recommend it, very good meta data, and the CRC check against a DB of CRC's for the same CD is very useful.

I started using EAC, but to do a large volume dBpoweramp would be my recommendation.

It also has very good batch conversion capabilities...:)

As I rip CDs - now mostly to ALAC, I think that there can be more than one library system. I use iTunes at present, and this somehow cooperates with the Squeezebox server. I'm assuming that since the ALAC format is lossless, that iTunes will do better or worse than any other system. This would not necessarily be the case if I used a lossy codec.

So far I've not had a problem, but I'm aware that problems may come later.

Issue 5a: How good are tools such as iTunes with very large collections? Can they go belly up above a certain number of albums/tracks?

Issue 5b: How easy is it to migrate the audio files from one library system to another?

Issue 5c: Are there any preferred library systems?

I'll come back with other iTunes related issues later, but these more general issues re the library systems will do for now.

Most music players/server such as SqueezeServer or winamp only require that you tell them where your library is, then they build a catalogue/index of the data.

I just point both of my players at my FLAC library on my NAS and there's no problem. And perform a reindex whenever I add more data to my library.

However as soon as iTunes gets involved I think everything becomes rather confusing...and I'll dip out for a more knowledgeable Mac person. ;)

I can't really add anything here as I don't have any experience of MAC's and don't use iTunes, in fact I dislike it intensely, but thats just me.

Foobar automatically indexes my library and monitor's it at all times, so as soon as I add another CD it picks it up and adds it to the index.

My master library is FLAC and I use Easy CD-DA Extractor, when I want to convert to another file format. I also have a second library of .mp3 files which mirrors the FLAC library for use on portable players, but mostly it's for USB sticks to plug into the car player. When I converted my master library to .mp3 it took over 5 days to complete!

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Originally Posted by GreatGig

My master library is FLAC and I use Easy CD-DA Extractor, when I want to convert to another file format. I also have a second library of .mp3 files which mirrors the FLAC library for use on portable players, but mostly it's for USB sticks to plug into the car player. When I converted my master library to .mp3 it took over 5 days to complete!

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Similar experience Tim, and for the same reasons...

I used dBpoweramp and did it in alphabetical sections...otherwise my CPU would have melted through the floorboards. ;)

P.S. Seconded R.E. iTunes, it's the bete noir of software :steam:

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Originally Posted by sburrell

If you choose to back up to removable media make sure you choose DVD+R media, is this has better data integrity features than DVD-R.

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Hi Simon,

If you have time, would you mind expanding on this? Thank you.
I use DVD to archive data and audio. I once used DVD-R exclusively, because I was working in a studio and the SuperDrives in Macs could only read that format at the time. Now that current Macs can read both formats, should I consider putting material on DVD+R and why?

Ta!

I ripped my collection of 400CD's last Christmas and it took a couple of months in between having a life. I used DBpoweramp and a laptop which took on average 6-8mins to rip a disc to FLAC. A dedicated drive would have been faster but I was already fiscally challenged from the outlay of the Sonos, NAS combo and subsequent USB harddisk for a further backup.

Start with the most recent and most played stuff so you can start enjoying the benefits right away.

One problem which can happen is that a CD is put in, and ripped, but although the track details are more or less correct, the album details are in Japanese or Chinese. I guess that using the Musicbrainz tool mentioned or other tools, that this kind of problem can be fixed, but right now I don't know how to do it.

It has just happened to me with a Decca CD - disc 1 of a 3 CD set 473 255-2 Mendelssohn String Quartets played by the Ysaye Quartet.

I don't know if I can edit the details in iTunes, or if I need to do something else to get this right.

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Originally Posted by dave2010

One problem which can happen it that a CD is put in, and ripped, but although the track details are more or less correct, the album details are in Japanese or Chinese. I guess that using the Musicbrainz tool mentioned or other tools, that this kind of problem can be fixed, but right now I don't know how to do it.

It has just happened to me with a Decca CD - disc 1 of a 3 CD set 473 255-2 Mendelssohn String Quartets played by the Ysaye Quartet.

I don't know if I can edit the details in iTunes, or if I need to do something else to get this right.

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Recognition of Classical CD's can be a right royal pain in the A - hence why I haven't finished mine. Too often I have to edit the album details myself. Gracenote seems to be one of the best, but still gets it wrong quite often :(

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Originally Posted by dave2010

One problem which can happen it that a CD is put in, and ripped, but although the track details are more or less correct, the album details are in Japanese or Chinese. I guess that using the Musicbrainz tool mentioned or other tools, that this kind of problem can be fixed, but right now I don't know how to do it.

It has just happened to me with a Decca CD - disc 1 of a 3 CD set 473 255-2 Mendelssohn String Quartets played by the Ysaye Quartet.

I don't know if I can edit the details in iTunes, or if I need to do something else to get this right.

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MP3Tag is very good for tag editing, but you'll need to run it on a PC.

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Originally Posted by dave2010

I don't know if I can edit the details in iTunes, or if I need to do something else to get this right.

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:D Yep, buy a PC - iTunes is the devil for serious file audio.

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Originally Posted by Tim

:D Yep, buy a PC - iTunes is the devil for serious file audio.

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No way! I have PCs and I want a life! I agree that there may be some problems with iTunes. If necessary I'll run in emulation mode, but I don't want to have any more Windows machines in the house. I reckon I've saved at least an hour a day, possibly two, by NOT having Windows/PCs to mess with. If you've tried Apple kit and it didn't work for you, then fine, but if you haven't you should believe me when I say that the Apple stuff is much easier to maintain.

I haven't got onto some of the issues with iTunes yet - such as ripping several versions of Beethoven symphonies, then ending up with a complete mess, such as

Movt1A,Movt1B,MovtC,Movt2A,Movt2B,Movt2C,Movt2D,Mo vt3A,Movt3B,Movt3C,Movt3D,Movt4A,Movt4B,Movt4C,Mov t14D etc

where A, B, C, D represent different versions.

Having said that iTunes is poor for some things, is it really the case that other systems do better? I'm not convinced yet. Just because there are known problems with a system (such as iTunes) does not mean that other systems will actually do better.

Dave,

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Originally Posted by dave2010

I don't want to have any more Windows machines in the house

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that’s also my opinion. Don’t understand why Tim bashes Apple that often. If Apple hard- and software really was that bad, I wonder why in nearly all audio recording studios Apple stuff is used.

Werner.

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Originally Posted by Werner Berghofer

Dave,



that’s also my opinion. Don’t understand why Tim bashes Apple that often. If Apple hard- and software really was that bad, I wonder why in nearly all audio recording studios Apple stuff is used.

Werner.

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Probably because the same small group of people keep on doing the rounds, and they demand that they have stuff where they don't have to relearn how the software works.

Chris,

I don’t think so. According to my own experience in the media production business the most important factors for choosing a platform are reliability, performance and durability of hardware, software and peripherals. And it certainly is not a disadvantage if user interfaces and hardware exterior are pleasing to the eye and easy to use.

In my opinion, Windows and the hardware used to run it have nothing to offer here, except maybe a lower purchase price (but better not think about total cost of ownership). It’s a nice system for tweaking and guys in love with their soldering irons, but not for productive work within tight time schedules.

Werner.

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Originally Posted by Werner Berghofer

Dave,

that’s also my opinion. Don’t understand why Tim bashes Apple that often. If Apple hard- and software really was that bad, I wonder why in nearly all audio recording studios Apple stuff is used.

Werner.

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They are just not for me Werner, I'm a little different to the average Windows user as I build, tinker and experiment with computers - goes with my job. But you cannot do that with MAC's. My Apple 'bashing' as you call it, is normally in response to people telling my how wonderful they are and the superior attitude some of their owners and the company has (not necessarily anyone here), it's like a religious cult which I refuse to buy into it. And again, I'm not referring to anyone here, but a lot of Apple owners feel the need to constantly tell you how you must have a MAC or iPhone and sneer 'what's wrong with you' if you don't agree - that behaviour I can never understand :scratch:

I also find the obsessive behaviour of many iPhone users quite disturbing, they just cannot do anything or go anywhere without their iPhone in their hands and can become quite rude, whilst immersed in their prepossessed world. Apple and their 'must have' products IMO have changed human behaviour more than any other modern company and I'm just not comfortable with that. A Windows PC is a functional inanimate object that meets many needs, it's a tool.... Apple make things people covet and they exploit that to the max and that kind of ethos I object to and always will.

I'm a dinosaur I guess, so just ignore me :wheniwasaboy:

Anyway, I'm off to watch the Grand Prix

:cool: