Audio & video software forum: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection

Sorry, maybe I should have added that this was for MM version 8.0 and 8.1. You are probably correct that the newer versions works well with IE7.

Since I had bought the MM 8.0 and it suddenly (?) stopped working, it was not until a long chase to get technical support from Yahoo, that they told me that it no longer worked with IE7 (and no, they did not offer to send a new version to me either). Ended up using MM on an old laptop in the basement.

I agree, Musicmatch was the best but Windows XP didn't stop it. I was using it with XP but somehow the file got corrupted (someone said IE7 did it and it may have). About the time windows upgraded my machine to IE7 was when it wouldn't work any longer. I don't like it when they upgrade things and you don't know what you're getting or screwing up. When I tried to re-install Musicmatch, the install wizard just STOPS and doesn't finish it. I miss MM terribly. I wish a hacker could come up with a fix for it. I'd even PAY for it! I had Musicmatch Plus and that did super tagging and ripped faster, plus it had "line in" so you could rip from your old tapes and LP's.
Now I now use "Sonic", "Creative MediaSource Player", "Audacity", (hard to use) and tag with "I-tunes", clean my LP's and tapes with "Data Becker". I use "Switch" to change to a wave file for cleaning, then use it again to change back to MP3. This is all a pain in the BUTT when Musicmatch used to do all but the cleaning.

I feel your pain. Loved MM. Trust me it does still work with XP and IE7. Have you tried downloading a fresh copy of MM? Version 10.0.2058 is available from the download section of this website. See if it installs and then just apply your 10.0 key to it. I verifed again that it works for me. Since Yahoo is not supporting it anymore, you may have to just use your own tagging instead of the auto lookup that MM had. I used MP3tag, try it, it works great. Good luck.

Hey, am I ever glad I read your post to me! I re-installed Musicmatch ver. 10 like you suggested and it works!!! Halillulia! Even my key to my old version 8 works. I couldn't find version 10.0 2058 like you suggested, but I got ver.10.0 4015B. It's a bloated file, 25.3MB compared to 10.5MB for ver 8 but it works and I'll keep it. It even supertags and prints jewelbox inserts. Without it I was printing inserts with my word processor. Thank you again Sooooo Much!!

Guys Music Match isn't dead. True you have to use the old version and there are a few naggs, but as a music library it is still tops in my book. Show me another app with as good an auto DJ as Musicmatch and I'll switch. To get your hadns on an old copy(before yahoo ruined it) go here: http://www.oldapps.com/ find music match and use version 9. version 10 is when yahoo took over.

I loved MM when I used my Win 98 desktop, long time ago, it just does great... The supertagging option and possibility of "choosing" which tag to add from the list is just perfect, its even more perfect when you have songs you don't know who they sing them. I tried to use it with XP but it was not good enough, I started ripping with iTunes (which is pretty good, actually) and tagging with MP3Tag Editor, the only thing I miss from MM is the automatically cover search, so I have to do it manually... Now, I own the black MacBook and hope MM were OS compatible because Id like to install it and use it, but I guess theres no compatible version... any advice for Mac users? Otherwise Ill keep on using iTunes.

that idea seems a ridiculously tedious/painful way to access music -- VirtualDrive was really designed for computer software, for which it is a useful tool to archive CD/DVDs in their entirety. it's far from a convenient way to store multimedia however, you'd just as well stick with vinyl.

I use .wav, but only because I want the flexibility. There are other lossless codecs that will maintain the original fidelity. HDs are cheap, now.

'I think that CD can out-preform vinyl'

You have got to be kidding! CD doesn't come within light years of the sound quality of vinyl! Nothing does - except the original stereo master tape. Even DVD Audio doesn't come close. CD is about convenience - not ultimate sound quality. That's why I continued to buy vinyl right up until it became nigh-on impossible to get hold of. I spent many years of my professional life demonstrating high-end audio equipment; the usual comparison most people wanted was to hear how CD compares to vinyl, and the simple answer is - it doesn't. I NEVER had someone buy a CD player - even a really high-end one - after hearing it trounced by almost any half-decent turntable.

However, you are right when you say that mp3 isn't much good, but you don't have to use .wav files to get reasonable audio quality (btw, a .wav file, or other lossless format, will sound EXACTLY the same as the CD (if you have a good DA convertor)). If you use FLAC (which is totally lossless) or .ogg (at a high bitrate and VBR, if you have to have a compressed format), you can get good sound quality without enormous file sizes. And yes; a decent hi-fi will sound better than a portable device, but that's the point; a decent hi-fi isn't portable, and I don't think my bosses would let me have a decent hi-fi on my desk in the office, but they don't mind us listening to our mp3 players with headphones.

I like Winamp. The paid version (not that expensive) gives you all the options you could want for ripping (including custom file naming however you want it) and has a good mp3 encoder. I don't know why you wouldn't just use the mp3s directly in Winamp to burn CDs--it should convert them for you as part of the burning process as long as you do audio CD not mp3 (data) CD. And

Winamp does do album art--

it's not perfect but it works most of the time. I've also found that Windows (XP) sometimes automatically finds album art for folders you have in My Music (including when you don't want it to, like for folders that aren't albums).

I never rip single tracks all ways the entire CD and all I have ever used is Microsoft's Windows Media Player and iTunes.

Ditto. I tried a couple others, but was not satisfied with the "library" they created. WMP11, art, artist, songs, directory... all automatic. I no longer play my original discs -- when I want something, I burn it, even if I already burned one and can't find it. No worry, 10 cents and you never chance degrading your original. If you rip lossless, you maintain fidelity.

I converted/ripped the audiobooks to .mp3 (96K is usually enough for spoken words, but you might also try 128K) and stored them on my large USB disk under audio/literature/author/ with tracks each named like authorlastname, authorfirstinitial - bookname.track#.mp3, then point my music player to the USB:/audio directory. The USB audio directory also has subdirectories for comedy, film&tv, music, oldtimeradio, etc. Still debating on what music manager works best for me, but this isolated the .mp3 files from all the other software - safer, especially with iTunes if you don't set your preferences correctly! Hope this helps.

I'm going through the same process as you. I've decided to use FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) - check out http://flac.sourceforge.net/ for download. I also installed Rockbox on my iPod so that I can easily transfer files back and forth. I basically drag and drop files from my audio server to my iPod. Rockbox is available at: http://www.rockbox.org/

Downside: Disk space. However, you can pick up a 500GB Seagate for under $100 now.

Me too! I've been ripping everything to flac, so that I'll only have to rip once. From the flac files I can then convert to ogg (my preferred lossy format), aac, mp3 - whatever. I also have Rockbox on my ipod, but my car connecter does not work with the Rockbox (at least I cannot change the radio frequency setting while in Rockbox). So I have selected songs in aac (.m4a) format on the original firmware partition of my ipod so I can easily use my ipod in the car. All tagging info also is preserved when converting files from flac.

So, ripping to a lossless format like flac or apple's lossless format will ensure you only have to rip once, regardless of whatever lossy formats you choose (or need) to use in the future. And with HD prices today it will be cheap too. A 350 GB HD should cover a 1000 disc collection in flac, which will give about 3-4 discs per GB. Apple's lossless format would produce similar size, but I can't speak to its quality. I've only used flac which I'm very happy with.

As for programs, Exact Audio Copy is very good for Windows. If using itunes, be sure to select the option to use error correction when ripping your discs. I personally use linux, so I uses abcde (which uses cdparanoia) for ripping CDs.