Newbie needs help with ripping considerations

Newbie Forum
#1

I am looking to turn my computer into a music center. I would like to do this as simply and as quickly as possible. I am willing to invest in the time of setting this up to make thing go smoothly on the back end.

I have around 1000 retail CDs and around 300 CD-Rs. I’m also looking to make my music as portable and easy to access as possible.

I am looking for the following recommendations:

A. Methodologies
B. Software Tools
C. Hardware
D. What Pitfalls to look out for
E. Any suggestions relative to stuff that I hadn’t thought of

What I would like to do is to the following:

  1. Rip my CDs to a hard drive. I know that I would like store them in an .mp3 format. Should I also store them in .wma & then take them to .mp3?

  2. Automatically inventory the CDs (Artist, Title, Tracks, etc.)

  3. Store music on an iPod or other such device

  4. Arrange my music such that I can easily find it.

  5. Automate the renaming of folders and files, if necessary.

  6. Create various playlists.

  7. Rate each song from say 1 to 5 and then create playlists based upon several variables. For example:

    Genre
    Artist(s)
    Song Rating

  8. Have a database of all of my music that I can export to an Access 2000 database. Also, to a CSV.

  9. Map one song to various destinations, if necessary. For instance, I may have the same song on a retail CD a homemade compilation CD, and several .mp3 playlists. I would like to be able to tell where any song is at any given time.

  10. Anything else that you may recommend.

  11. I generally only like a few songs per CD. Would it be a lot of overhead to merely rip the songs that I like?

I know that this is a lot to swallow at one time, but there seems to be a bit to this endevour.

Best regards,

Gigi

#2

Originally posted by gym
[B]What I would like to do is to the following:

  1. Rip my CDs to a hard drive. I know that I would like store them in an .mp3 format. Should I also store them in .wma & then take them to .mp3?

  2. Automatically inventory the CDs (Artist, Title, Tracks, etc.)

  3. Store music on an iPod or other such device

  4. Arrange my music such that I can easily find it.

  5. Automate the renaming of folders and files, if necessary.

  6. Create various playlists.

  7. Rate each song from say 1 to 5 and then create playlists based upon several variables. For example: Genre, Artist(s), Song Rating.

  8. Have a database of all of my music that I can export to an Access 2000 database. Also, to a CSV.

  9. Map one song to various destinations, if necessary. For instance, I may have the same song on a retail CD a homemade compilation CD, and several .mp3 playlists. I would like to be able to tell where any song is at any given time.

  10. Anything else that you may recommend.

  11. I generally only like a few songs per CD. Would it be a lot of overhead to merely rip the songs that I like?

Gigi [/B]

Wow thats quite alot. I don’t know all of the answers but I can give you what I have.

  1. Ripping to your HD is easy there are hundreds if not more of programs that will do this. Personnely I like Exact Audio Copy. Others like Fuerio. DON’T go from CD -> WMA -> MP3. Instead go CD -> (WAV) -> MP3. The wav is just used to encode with. It get deleted afterwards. Normally automatically.

  2. Automatically inventory the CDs. Not quite sure what you want here. I can give you a three line batch file to inventory the CD to notepad. From here you can then import it into Access I suppose. There is probably a program that will do it. I just don’t nkow about it yet.

  3. Storing on an iPod/ Other Device is fine. The only thing you will have to check is if it can only handle variable bitrate or not if you decide to use it. I am pretty sure most can.

  4. Arrange my music so that I can easily find it. The ripping program will rip to what ever directory you want it to go to. So you can make up individual diectories for them all if you like.

  5. Automate the renaming of folders and files, if necessary. Just do it correctly the first time.:stuck_out_tongue:

  6. Create various playlists. I don’t really use them sorry. I just pick a song and play it.

  7. Rate each song from say 1 to 5. Nope sorry don’t know how or if you can. Is this in Access the ID3 tag, somewhere else?

  8. Access 2000 database. Thats easy enough to do.

  9. Map one song to various destinations, if necessary. Not sure again. Sorry.

  10. Anything else that you may recommend. Use LAME MP3 encoder. It’s the best. Pick a bitrate of 160 or 192. VBR will give better results but somethings don’t like it. Do all the ground work first and try everything out once as a test to make sure you know what you are doing and can fix any mistakes before ripping everything.

  11. Would it be a lot of overhead to merely rip the songs that I like? Nope. Will take a lot less time to do.

As I said I don’t have all the answers but hopefully somethig there will be helpfull.

W

Edt.
Fixed spelling mistakes. Sorry to anyone who read it before this.
/Edit

#3

Womble, thanks for your response! Your suggestions were helpful. I have a few more questions/elaborations.

Originally posted by Womble
[B]

  1. The wav is just used to encode with.
    [/B]

I read somewhere a while back that someone recommended keeping the wav files around. Have you heard this and if so, is there any particular reason for it?

Originally posted by Womble

2. Automatically inventory the CDs. Not quite sure what you want here. I can give you a three line batch file to inventory the CD to notepad. From here you can then import it into Access I suppose. There is probably a program that will do it. I just don’t nkow about it yet.

I’ll gladly take whatever you have to offer in the way of code. What I was looking for is a program that once I put the CD in the player, will retrieve CDDB or such information and store it in a file that I can eventually put into an Access Database, even if it is initially a comma seperated file.

Originally posted by Womble

4. Arrange my music so that I can easily find it. The ripping program will rip to what ever directory you want it to go to. So you can make up individual diectories for them all if you like.

What I was looking for here are the recommened file structures one would use, based upon experience. Some people dump all songs in one folder. Others have folders set up by artist. Some have them set up by Genre. Some combine the above. I’m just looking for how people do it and why.

Best Regards,

Gigi:bigsmile: :bigsmile:

#4

Originally posted by gym
Womble, thanks for your response! Your suggestions were helpful. I have a few more questions/elaborations.

Sure, shoot.

I read somewhere a while back that someone recommended keeping the wav files around. Have you heard this and if so, is there any particular reason for it?

Wav files are LARGE. If you have the orginal CD then there really is no need. If something go’s wrong then you can just re-rip the CD.

I’ll gladly take whatever you have to offer in the way of code. What I was looking for is a program that once I put the CD in the player, will retrieve CDDB or such information and store it in a file that I can eventually put into an Access Database, even if it is initially a comma seperated file.

Most ripping program these days will contact CDDB or something similair to name there rips for you. In EAC you have the option of saving the info and exporting it to a DB Text File.

What I was looking for here are the recommened file structures one would use, based upon experience. Some people dump all songs in one folder. Others have folders set up by artist. Some have them set up by Genre. Some combine the above. I’m just looking for how people do it and why.

Personnely I prefer Artist Name then Album Title inside that. Since most artist recorde more than one album I find this works the best for me.

Hope that clears up those questions.

#5

Thank you so much for your response!

gym

#6

Both Xing Audio Catalyst and EAC will grab the CDDB info for you on the fly if your connected to the internet during rip and rename your tracks from track1 to whatever on the fly for you. EAC is better at ripping “protected” audio cd’s. Both creat a dump directory for you mp3’s named appropriately that you can manipulate…:slight_smile:

Savin the .wav files is a huge waste storage capicity on the hdd. If you have the room to do it…cool, but if you have the cd’s…Womble is right…not much point here…:slight_smile: