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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection
- 1/18/08 4:08 PM
Why VBR is better than CBR
by chess_challenger - 1/19/08 8:08 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Selecting Encoding Mode
There are two encoding modes you can use: Variable Bitrate (VBR) encoding and Constant Bitrate (CBR) encoding. Since the VBR approach is more flexible and yields better results than the CBR approach at similar bitrates, we recommend you use VBR. Be warned, however, that some of the existing MPEG decoders do not read the VBR-encoded audio files.
Why VBR is better than CBR
Some audio passages are more difficult to encode than others. In order to maintain Constant Bitrate during CBR encoding, difficult passages may be encoded with less than the desired number of bits with a consequent decrease in quality level relative to the average bitrate. During easy passages, the encoder uses more than the necessary number of bits in order to maintain constant bitrate. In essence, fixed bitrate operation varies the quality level in order to maintain constant bitrate.
Conversely, Variable Bitrate operation fixes the quality level and allows bitrate to vary. During difficult passages, VBR uses a higher than average bitrate. During easy passages, VBR uses a lower than average bitrate. The net result is that VBR produces an overall higher, more consistent quality level, compared to CBR at similar bitrates.
From the help file of PlayWrite MP3 Pro.
Nero and MP3 Collectorz
by chess_challenger - 1/19/08 8:17 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've been happy with Nero to rip to mp3, and then MP3 Collectorz to organize them. MP3 Collectorz is all you need to batch-edit tags, batch-rename files, etc. You can get it here: http://www.collectorz.com/mp3/
Naming .wav files and then reconverting to .mp3 files
by mfiedl - 1/19/08 8:19 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Question:
I rip all of my cd's to .wav files on my computer and name the files in Windows. When I try to export some of the files and convert them to .mp3 for my wife they 50% of the time revert back to the name "track 1" or whatever track # it was on the cd originally. I am using Roxio to do the conversions. Why don't the windows named files keep their titles all the time as I had written them when I convert them to .mp3 files?
Don't trust Windows Explorer
by chess_challenger - 1/19/08 8:29 AM In reply to: Naming .wav files and then reconverting to .mp3 files by mfiedlSometimes, for whatever reasons, Windows Explorer doesn't always report back the actual MP3 tags. Sometimes it truncates certain tags. It may be due to your hard drive not reporting back all the MP3's information to Windows Explorer. What you need is MP3 Collectorz. This will ensure that the MP3 names/tags are exactly what you want. You can get it here: http://www.collectorz.com/mp3/
WAV Files Cannot Store Tags
by jgrass316 - 1/19/08 1:10 PM In reply to: Don't trust Windows Explorer by chess_challengerDo not blame Windows or Windows Explorer. All you are doing is naming a WAV file on your computer. WAV files do not store ID2 or ID3 tags. So when you convert from WAV to MP3 there are NO tags that are applied during the conversion. Likewise when you go from a tagged MP3 file to a WAV file, the tag information will be lost.
Exact audio copy and lame encoder library
by ahiguero - 1/19/08 8:23 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I ripped my entire cd collection the exact audio copy program together with the lame encoder library (the one approved in the hydrogenaudio forums).
I used the extreme preset and they sound amazing. for adjusting the audio volume after the rip I use mp3gain.
Another excelent program to use is the cd ripper from dbpoweramp.
Riptopia
by itsfatboy - 1/19/08 8:34 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you don't mind paying for the service, try Riptopia
http://www.riptopia.com/
Mail 100 Music CD's to Riptopia, and they will convert them to DVD's of MP3's and mail them, and your CD's back to you.
The service costs 99¢ per CD, plus $20 for shipping both ways, fully insured (CD's are insured at $10 each).
This service is not aimed at most cheapskates, its for those who have no time to rip their CD's or can't be bothered learning how to learn CD Ripping software and Itunes.
They have other services, which include loading the music onto an external hard drive, or, for the truly techologically challenged,
they will pre-load them on to the Ipod of your choice and you pay nothing for loading it, just pay for ripping and purchasing the Ipod.
The external drives and Ipods are sold at a premium, but like I said, its not the majority of peoples.
Yahoo Music JukeBox (Formerly Musicmatch Jukebox)
by nearone - 1/19/08 8:35 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have been ripping and recording for years and after trying many different programs, (Went to CNet's Download.Com and tried many programs) I found the following:
I find Yahoo Music JukeBox, formerly Musicmatch Jukebox for years, to be extremely efficient and fast for ripping and you can manipulate the settings to your liking. Also has freedb to name the songs and albums. You need that setting no matter what program you choose. Renaming ripped CD's is a hassle and for your collection unbearable. Basic is Free.
http://music.yahoo.com/jukebox/
If I need to re-record the songs, or to record Vinyl, my choice is Total Recorder from High Criteria. It separates songs automatically and allows flexibility when recording or re-recording music. Just play the song on your computer and record it. Then, cut, paste, mix, adjust and fix it. Don't like the fidelity, fix it. I have been using this program to record Vinyl to CD for years.
http://www.highcriteria.com/
I always re-record to the .wav format. So, I have 1 terabyte external firewire for my music collection. I like the fidelity better in .wav format on the computer. I want to be able to pound the base or tweet the treble. Mp3's lose something in the translation.
Exact Audio Copy allows the manipulation of any .wav file. You can clean up any flaws easily with this program. Also been around for years. Cleaned up many Vinyl records with this Free program.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/
I also recommend an External Hard Drive for the Collection. They are very inexpensive now and you will be happy you spent the money. I can replace my computer, but, there are many years in the music. In an emergency, I only need to grab the external drive.
I bought a Robo Ripper From Music Giants.
by thehifidoc - 1/19/08 8:39 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use the Robo Ripper which I bought from music giants. because it is totally automated, and does 100 CDS per load in about 6 hours. so you could rip your whole connection in about 5 days. You jsut set it and forget it. However the system is about 3000.00 and the cost per look up is about .15 cents. I also offer the service to my customers at $3.00 per CD. YOu might want to do something similar.
CD Ripper
by tkotz - 1/19/08 8:54 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use Audiograbber to rip the CDs. It's free and flexible enough to set up the directory structure and filenaming structure just the way you want. I then load the files into Media Jukebox for managing the music collection. It's a great piece of software... lot's of flexibility and features. In addition, I have a short distance FM transmitter that's connected to my audio out of the sound card. This way, I just set all my radios to a frequency not used in my area, and I can listen to my music collection anywhere in the house.
It's An iPod World
by RBADigital - 1/19/08 9:02 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
We were faced with similar problems, with about 14,000 CD's to rip. However, as recording engineers, MP3 in all flavors really was quite substandard, and so we chose and industry standard codec, AAC lossless, and used iTunes, which automatically, about 99% of the time, provided the album artwork with, as I recall, a single "get album artwork" approval click. Adding iPods, AirTunes, and such to the mix, and we now have two years, 24-7, of non-repeating playlists everywhere in our facility, which can easily be repurposed in the future, should artist rights be granted or purchased for other projects.
The problem with AAC lossless is that the files are not MP3 tiny, only about 25-40% savings over the original AIF files. But large hard drives are CHEAP, and so having no loss in sound quality is not only doable, but BACKING UP all that LABOR is also cheap. You NEVER want to have to feed all those disks again, and for all the waiting, patience, and work involved, why use lossy compression?! I can always REPURPOSE the lossless files to tiny, lossy files any time I want, in any codec I want.
When faced with a monumental task of CD digitizing prior to storing them forever, especially in the current state of technology, with hard drives dirt cheap, it makes no sense not to retain the quality of the original music as well as software will allow.
In terms of safeguarding your monumental digitizing efforts, Blu-Ray has tested more archival than ANYTHING CD-R or DVD-R just due to the chemistry differential. You can burn about 48-49 GB on a dual layer Blu-Ray (converting 1000 byte kilobytes to the machine's 1024 byte kilobyte) so you won't need a wall full of less archival DVD's to maintain a further backup.
If you intend on burning DVDs or CDs, find software allowing for the SLOWEST burn possible. Just because the CD is 52X, you don't have to burn it that way. I have 1x burned CD's which have no data loss after 22 years stored in the biggest of the Case Logic cases, which seem to keep things fine. I used to have a wall dedicated to Slimline CD case storage, and Case Logic turns a wall into a few shelves.
Blu-Ray, on the other hand, appears to be archival at its fastest current speed. Can't wait for the holographic or carbon (talk about archival petabytes!!!) storage systems get out of the lab and come to the fore.
Have fun digitizing,
Richard Brown
Time is Money
by G2001 - 1/19/08 9:12 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
A free application seems to be the route to go when converting your files, but honestly, do you have the time to spend ripping 1000+ CDs? At a low bit rate, it will take approximately 30 seconds per song on a computer with a lot of RAM. So 1000 CDs x 10 tracks = 10,000 tracks. Now take this and divide it by 2 to get the number of minutes of actual burn time (5,000, or 84 hours-2 40 hr work weeks). Add in the amount of time it would take to load the CD's and verify information, get track information when it cannot be found automatically and you are talking well over 100 hours.
That being said, you would be better off buying a large CD changer or two or three. At $280 a pop for 300 CDs, you could get three and just drop in your CD's. With a little set up time of 4 or 5 hours you should be able to sync them together and have your "server" and spend all the wasted time listening to the CDs instead of burning them.
Yes, you will still need to rip songs for your mp3 player but at least you do not have a lot of wasted memory on tracks that you will never listen to.
Cheers, Rob
For quality, EAC+Lame cannot be beaten
by ayjayar - 1/19/08 9:14 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The best primer on Audio Ripping is at Radified. For obtaining the highest quality rips, I would use a a combination of EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and Lame. The instruction on Rad's site are easy to follow and once you are set up everything goes seamlessly. You simply cannot do better, if you are looking for quality. http://mp3.radified.com/
Note: Some RIAA members, in the US and abroad, will frown on making personal copies of their products. I don't know how nasty they are liable to get, but there are some major legal issues afoot. The safest thing to do is not advertise. I guess, if your original CD gets chewed up by your dog or it gets scratched by your 3-year-old who thinks CDs make a nifty frisbee, you just need to buy another. Uhuh. Ja. That's it.
Ripping Music Response
by larry Rodriguez - 1/19/08 9:17 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 and there is Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 out now. It's a commercial product, that costs around $50, but worth the price.
Saving a song for prosperity in a compressed format, like MP3, is ok but it will never sound like the original cd it was ripped from. Ripping into MP3 saves space but does degrade the sound. If you want to be able to reproduce the cd in the future, with all the sound and art work, then you need to make an image of the cd and keep it either in a hard drive or on tape. Roxio does this by saving and burning complete cd images. Now the files are large, typically 700 mb, but what you get is a complete image of the cd that can be burned back into it's original cd format some point in the future that includes the art work, title, artist, etc. I store the images by artist/compilation/album name directories on a usb hard drive. If I remember, I also make a quick notepad file of the songs on the image. 500 gig usb hard drives are now about $250. Your music is worth that much.
Now tracking these images, for later retrieval, can be cumbersome if you have multiple cds from one artist and/or want to retrieve a song from a compilation. To resolve this, I created an Access Database of album names and their associated songs. The music database layout is available within the Access sample files. In it I store the image file information as well as the song titles by track. Building the database was not so easy and required cut and pasting to/from excel to put all the songs out there, but I found it worthwhile in the end as I have multiple MP3 players I maintain (for wife, kids, myself, etc). I also use this database to inventory my cd and dvd carousels.
As to burning into MP3 format, I format to either 192kb or 330kb, depending on the song, also using either Roxio or Windows Media Player. Anything less than 192kb, to me, is horrible. Anything greater than 330 kb should be in cd format as the sizes are the same.
As a final note, I don't like to keep the album picture, nor album name nor album track number nor the genre on my rock mp3 songs as I modify these attributes when I burn. As such, I do NOT prefer systems that auto check and auto load information on my MP3 files. Most times, the information provided was found incorrect, mis-typed, inconsistent or incomplete anyway. As an example, "The Doobie Brothers" are also listed as the "Doobie Bros" depending on the service the data is retrieved from or burned into the tag. Kind of defeat's the purpose when searching on your ipod or mp3 player for that group if the name is spelled three or four different ways (or incorrectly as the "Dobie Bros").
For a rock song, I correct name and title for consistency and corrections, I change the album name to the year the song was charted by Billboard, and the track number becomes the spot where the song charted on the Billboard list. The genre is modified to limit the number of types of genre. I now have is a complete top 40 of songs for a given year on an mp3.
How to digitize music
by bblackmoor - 1/19/08 9:56 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I wrote complete step-by-step instructions on how to digitize one's music collection.
http://www.blackgate.net/blog/index.php/qa-how-to-digitize-music/
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