Fast ripping of CDs (and storage)

[WAD62]

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

But not for a mac...

[webby]

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?

Answer:

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.

[dave2010]

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

But not for a mac...

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.

[sburrell]

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

[WAD62]

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.

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...

[dave2010]

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.

[WAD62]

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.

[Tim]

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!

[WAD62]

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!

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

[camtwister]

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.

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!