Greetings all;
I've spent alot of time on hydrogenaudio learning about ripping my cd collection starting from knowing absolutely nothing about this process. So . . I've got EAC/Flac installed and EAC (at least) configured per the guides on these pages. Haven't tried to rip anything yet. Still feeling wayyyy behind the 8-ball here. Jump in here if I have anything wrong . . .
OK - so EAC/Flac will rip/compress my cds to lossless format. One (both?) of these will retrieve the appropriate tags for each album/track and build a 'database' of sorts? No . . . ? This is one area where I'm confused . . . Once I've ripped everything how do I listen to my music? OK - I'm not really that dumb (or maybe in this case I am) but, is there a program that will allow me to select certain artists/genres/cds for playback? maybe a few selections in random order?
And so, I really don't want to listen to my music on my computer - the whole point of this was to be able to listen to my collection on my stereo. For this I need a something to connect to my stereo . . is this where a 'squeezebox' comes in? Oh - and where does Replay Gain come in? Does Flac handle that?
OK - stop laughing!!
I'm about as truly interested in all of this as I am in researching companies to buy stock in! But I still want to retire some day - and in this case, I just want to know how to do this - correctly - so I can enjoy the outcome - in this case music. I don't need fancy album art! All I want to do is listen to my music on my stereo without having to swap 1-5 cd's in my changer every hour, few hours, day!. I want good quality sound, scratch-free music that I can sort/playback as I choose.
I just feel like I'm missing a big huge piece of the puzzle! PLEASE - make my life easy!! What Am I Doing???!!!
Thanks Soooo much for all your help - in advance.
Kelly
Welcome to HA!
At a high level, you'll need software to play back the music and then a hardware connection to your stereo. Lots of ways that you could do that.
Software to play back music using your PC:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...y:Media_Players (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Category:Media_Players)
There are a number of ways to achieve the hardware connection, including but not limited to:
1) Analog output from PC to the stereo
2) Digital output from PC to input of stereo (SPDIF, etc., if you have one)
3) Use a hardware mulitmedia device (Squeezebox, Apple TV, Tivo, etc.)
ReplayGain can store data in your FLACs that allow playback devices / software to adjust the gain during playback to compensate for variations in recording levels on the original CD. Several ways to accomplish the ReplayGain scanning/tagging.
EAC by itself will only get tags from freedb by default. With some tweaks you can use musicbrainz. You will not get album art with EAC alone. You can do this with REACT or you can try dbpoweramp as an alternative secure ripper with a better meta-data retrieval system.
One (both?) of these will retrieve the appropriate tags for each album/track and build a 'database' of sorts? No . . . ?
EAC retrieves the tag information (artist, album, track titles, etc.) from an online database (freedb and MusicBrainz, to name a couple) during the ripping and encoding process and hands that information to the FLAC encoder, which writes it to a tag in each FLAC file.
This information is then read from that tag by the playback software, so there's no database involved after the initial rip and encode.
As far as playback, note that many of the players on the page linked by DigitalMan are Linux-only. For Windows playback, foobar2000 is the usual recommendation around here, but it can be a bit "spartan" for the "casual" user, so MediaMonkey or Winamp would be my recommendations if you're looking for something a little more "iTunes-like."
This information is then read from that tag by the playback software, so there's no database involved after the initial rip and encode.
Actually, the player software will read the tags and build its own internal database. So, you can sort by artist, title, album, genre, year, etc.
is this where a 'squeezebox' comes in?
I don't have a Squeezebox, but I don't think it normally
stores music. It can stream music (and control music) from your computer over your home network, or you can plug-in a USB drive or SD card.
Another option is an iPod (but, iPods don't play FLAC). Or, I have a cheap laptop in my living room connected to my stereo system via the analog line-out. (And, I use Winamp to play MP3s.)
Oh - and where does Replay Gain come in? Does Flac handle that?
The specific ReplayGain solution depends on your playback hardware/software. If your setup doesn't directly support ReplayGain, you can use something like WAVgain or MP3gain to "permanantly" adjust the volume of the file. Apple/iPod uses something different (Sound Check?).
I don't need fancy album art!
You don't need "fancy" album art, but some image is sort-of "expected", and it's nice to have the
correct art. (When you download a song from Amazon or iTunes it comes with art.) I use a scanner to scan the cover when I rip a CD. I suppose my way is harder for popular albums, but scanning is easier with hard-to-find artwork.
Then, the art can either be embedded in the audio file as a "tag", or it can be saved separately in the album folder. (Some player software/hardware might require embedded artwork.)
P.S.
Don't worry! You almost can't go wrong ripping to FLAC!
If you are ripping to a lossless format and the files are automatically getting tagged, you've got the hard part done, and you'll never have to do it again (as long as you have a backup. ). If you do "something wrong" or change your mind about the format, or add ReplayGain, or anything... you've got a tagged lossless file to start with and that makes everything easy (or at least easier ).
Oh, I sometimes end-up editing or "cleaning-up" some tags, and if the album isn't in the database, you'll have to manually enter the tags. And, for "greatest hits" & compliation CDs I like to change the year tag to the oriiginal release date for each song, rather than the CD release date from thats tagged automatically. That can take some time to research if it's not printed in the liner notes.
You will not get album art with EAC alone.
Ignoring that the poster explicitly stated that album art was not needed, this is completely wrong.
You may want to double-check your "facts" before posting to make sure your knowledge isn't stale.
WOW! Thanks to all . . . where to start?
BTW: I'm kinda old school (could you tell?!) - I don't do 'itunes', don't have an mp3, or ipod etc I have a bunch of cds, and a decent stereo system. Don't really anticipate going mobile (e.g. mp3), but maybe if I get a better stereo system in my car (or a newer car) might want to transport music there - but I digress . . .
I'm a Win 7 user - for whatever that's worth . . .
OK - I need separate software to playback the music which will also be my 'database' and uses the info from EAC/Flac - kinda figured that, but wasn't entirely clear . . . will check out HA . . mediaplayers link -
And I get that I might need to/want to edit some of the tags - think I'm ok there.
to Mixminus1: Thanks for clarifying what I thought I understood! And since I don't know what "itunes" is 'like' - I have no preference for software except for the recommendations received here. I've certainly heard of foobar2000 and MediaMonkey - don't know much about Winamp - any additional comments are appreciated.
Now - this whole ReplayGain thing - seems to be more complicated than I realized:
So - replaygain is part of the playback software (?) - but it also relates to the hardware to my stereo? All I really know is that someone advised some time ago, that since my cd's playback at various levels and I'm tired of playing with the volume after every song/cd that I needed to use replaygain to even things out - which is also a big part of the reason I'm digitizing my music collection.
So more help here please - I gotta have ReplayGain: what are the various ways to accomplish ReplayGain - and if it depends on whether it's supported by my hardware/software setup - and since I'm going to need it - what's the best setup to achieve this?? What considerations are there between hardware/software?? Oh Heck - just Tell me what to do!
As for getting the music from the PC to my stereo:
It's my understanding that analog from pc to stereo has serious limitations; like having to maintain a permanent connection btwn my pc and stereo which could make it difficult when/if I move my pc to another room that does not also house my stereo - kinda already ruled that out . . or should I re-think that? and why? . . .
Digital output to stereo input - ?? that's apparently different than a 'squeezebox'? What is SPDIF?? Need more info here - links for more reading are fine - just point me in a direction . . almost sounds like I need to be sure my stereo is compatible with this whole idea - yes? What am I looking for?
So - not understanding that there is a third option (? - see previous) I figured I should go 'wireless' to the stereo via a 'squeezebox' (isn't that how that works?) - with a squeezebox being hardwired to my stereo, but receiving music wirelessly?? or am I totally lost?? I got that the squeezebox doesn't store the music - it's a connection for playback via my stereo - thanks! but that's all I got . .
Basically: How Do I Get the Music from my PC to my Stereo w/o a physical connection, that will support ReplayGain?
Oh, and for the record: Not only do I not need "fancy" album art - I really don't care about "any" art! so if some software 'requires' it - whatever - it'll get it from freedb or wherever - ok - moving on . . .
Thanks again for all your help! Anyone live near Palmdale, CA - it's very tempting to just HIRE YOU to set this up!!
Kelly
We'll need a little more info to get to some firm recommendations...
1) What preamp / receiver does your audio system have that we want to play the music back on? This will help figure out what type of inputs it has.
2) I understand that the Squeezebox can play back FLAC files and will read the Replaygain data stored in the FLAC files to adjust the volume level accordingly, so an easy recommendation would be to get a Squeezebox and plug it in to your stereo (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Slim_Devices_Squeezebox)
One way you could do this:
1) Use EAC and FLAC to rip your CDs securely to FLAC files (dbPoweramp also can do this and is recommended as well; there are others too but I know both of these reasonably well) and be sure to ReplayGain scan them during ripping/conversion (one guide here: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/EACBeginners) (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/EACBeginners))
2) Buy a Squeezebox and connect it to your stereo via a digital connection (SPDIF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF)) if your stereo has it or standard analog left/right jacks if not
3) Enjoy
YESSSSS! OK - I'm not so lost after all!!
digitalman: Thanks for keeping it simple! and I've already bookmarked the slim devices link on HA - which is apparently where I learned about squeezeboxes . . . I've got ALOT of bookmarks on this whole topic - just confusing me . .
And that's where I got confused about secondary software (e.g. mediamonkey) needed to sort/playback music - as I thought that the squeezebox - or whatever would read the Flac files directly - and I thought that the ReplayGain would be incorporated when I ripped the cds the first time. Sounds like I got that right too. Maybe - kinda . .
Maybe I just couldn't put the picture together . . .
I started with EAC as that seemed to be the software to use when I started my education on this little project - everything was pointing to EAC for accurate, secure rips - started picking up info on dbpoweramp later - not really tied to either one.
Thank you - Thank you - Thank you!!!
OK
I have a Denon DRA-395 receiver - about 10+ years old now (time does fly).
and so - do I still need the secondary software as a database/playback - like foobar2000 or media monkey?
Kelly
You will not get album art with EAC alone.
Ignoring that the poster explicitly stated that album art was not needed, this is completely wrong.
You may want to double-check your "facts" before posting to make sure your knowledge isn't stale.
I was just looking around on the EAC site and didn't see anything. Where is EAC (not REACT) pulling album art from? I will have to download the latest version. It would be great to see EAC or CueRipper introduce a meta-data system similiar to dBpoweramp's PerfectMeta. They could pull from freedb (multiple entries), MusicBrainz, and discogs, to name a few, without the premium services.
Let me reverse the entire process, and start with playback.
You can use a device like Squeezebox. It sits in your shelf like a CD player, but it retrieves music from your computer.
Or, you can use a computer with a software player.
If you have many files, you might want a keyboard to search with, rather than a scroll wheel. You don't need much computing power (that said, if you are up to a tens of thousands of tracks, search might be slow on low RAM). If you have an old XP-equipped laptop around, then start with that -- you can always replace it (e.g., with something more silent). Also, you can have a desktop computer in an office room or a closet, and use a laptop -- or even certain smartphones -- to remote control it.
I'd say not buy a Squeezebox. Yet.
ReplayGain.
There are two different solutions: tag and apply. Applying means you change the data, and should IMHO be avoided unless you really have to. ReplayGain tags is just an instruction saying "turn volume up/down this much when you play". As long as you choose a playback solution which reads ReplayGain tags, that's what you need.
You can set up your ripping software to do ReplayGain scanning as you rip, but if you have CDs which are worn and need re-ripping, chances are that the odd track will get RG tags wrong. My suggestion would be to do it afterwards.
Ripping.
You want ripping software with AccurateRip support. Myself I use dBpoweramp (I pay for it -- a small cost considering I had some thousand discs), which can identify different pressings of the same CD. EAC has a larger userbase and you might get better support by other users. CUERipper has a database of correction data, which means that you might even be lucky and have a bad rip corrected (provided you have a largely mainstream collection, I'd say).
There are a few issues you should know about:
- HDCD. Nothing to worry about, because it can be automatically detected from the audio itself. That is, you need not know upon ripping whether a disc is HDCD encoded.
- Pre-emphasis. Pretty rare, fortunately, but you have releases like Roger Waters or Black Sabbath (and quite a lot of classical music) using that. Needs to be flagged, because it cannot be detected from the audio stream alone. Think EAC flags in its cue sheets and dBpoweramp in the log files (I could be wrong.)
- Do you care about data tracks («bonus material», typically -- although I've had malware ...)?
By the way, how many CDs?
Dear all,
Is it ok if I add to this thread having a similar starting position? If not, mod, please let me know and I would open a separate thread.
I am a newbie, too, who wants to simply build his digital music collection, mainly by converting his existing CDs.
I was going through the FAQ and several posts and...omg...do I need to have a PhD in physics to get along? :-) Gain, presets, cuesheets, offsets...I am confused like the thread starter.
As a mac user I am used to Steve deciding for me instead, so hence my confusion :-)
May I thus take the liberty to wrap up what I have learned so far from browsing the forum and ask some geeks to tick it off before I realize 200 CDs later, that I should actually have it done in a different way? I am not aiming at super-geeky stuff, but simple mac-compatible dummy conversion without technology lock-in.
1. ripping: using itunes into ALAC (for archiving) and at the same time into AAC with itunes Plus settings (at 128 kbit/s for mono, 256 for stereo , 44100 kHz with VBR).
Q: how can I do the second compression automated? batch script for the ALAC files?
2. tagging: not too sure on this. guess, iTunes will pull everything needed off the internet from CDDB or so incl. album art; in case I need to change things there seems to be plenty discussion on how to (forum topic (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=67563) , forum topic (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=77980))
Q: has itunes a good tagging function, I mean is the order of info good or should I change it (if I can), e.g. artist, album or album, artist for any reason?
3. Playing: I´ll use itunes, many in the forum recommended this if I decided to live in the Apple ecosystem, makes life just easier before I have to compile things myself or syncing makes problems.
For some old scratched CDs I would also use EAC on a VM with Windows, like the original thread starter and follow the hints in the forum.
Anyone confirming that this might be a successful strategy?
Thanks!
Peter
Greetings Peter!
Nice to see I'm not the only lost soul out here! I laughed at: "and...omg...do I need to have a PhD in physics to get along?" It does truly feel that way . . .
And I'm still trying to figure out the replay gain thing . . .
No advice for you here - except to suggest you start your own post - with maybe a link to mine - you might get better results, as this post is a bit 'old' now . . .
Good Luck
Kelly
@peter223: For #1 and #2, XLD (http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html) (scroll down a bit for the download link) will do exactly what you need, and in particular will do #1 quite a bit better than iTunes as XLD can confirm that your rips were error-free - iTunes cannot. XLD pretty much *is* EAC for OS X, and its new secure ripping engine is proving to be quite good at reading scratched/difficult discs.
Regarding tagging, XLD usually does a pretty good job, but I have the "edit tags before convert" option checked so I can take a glance at the tag info before XLD rips the CD (which will happen anyway if there are multiple matches in the freedb and MusicBrainz databases).
For #3, iTunes works very well, especially under OS X. With the volume at maximum and the EQ turned off, it outputs bit-perfect audio, i.e. no other playback software is going to be "better." It also handles large libraries with aplomb. My library currently has 8861 tracks - just under 70 GB of MP3s and AACs - and on my good ol' Mac mini 1.66 GHz C2D w/2GB RAM, searching or scrolling through the library is instant.
And I'm still trying to figure out the replay gain thing . . .
The first thing to know unless you really want it while playing CD's, you don't need it for computer based play either. It's just a convenience.
Greetings DonP
my problem is that many of my older cd's were purchased via a music club (i.e. BMG) and when I play them on my stereo with a 'standard' cd (don't know the proper term here - label released cd) they are a bit quieter and so i get this quiet/loud change if I'm changing tracks/cds - it's annoying - I'm either playing w/ the volume on my stereo or listening to some extra loud music! so someone suggested that I should use ReplayGain to level things out. But from what I've read so far RG can either 'change' the data when the cd is ripped or it can simply embed a code (somewhere) so that the player knows what to do with the track. this is where I'm confused - not sure how to implement it yet.
thanks for chiming in!
Kelly
This is an interesting topic.
I have a very large CD collection, probably at least 800 CDs. A few years ago, I decided to do exactly what Kelly and others are doing which is to digitize my music collection to be able to play on an analog stereo. I have a Scott 350R receiver and a couple of Wharfedale speakers. It's not high end, but it does the job very nicely. Connected to that receiver is a Squeezebox 3 device that connects to my computer via the WiFi network in my house. I could theoretically connect it via ethernet since my computer is right next to it, but for some reason I have always had difficulties setting it up this way.
My computer is a MacMini which I bought customized with a 200 GB internal hard drive to hold all my music files. It is essentially a music server, but I use the computer for many other things too. There are no problems using the computer while playing music. The music is served in the background and you don't get any hit in performance. The MacMini is actually perfect for this.
I've imported all of my CDs into iTunes (Mac) using Apple Lossless format. Some people are nervous about using a proprietary format, but I don't see it as a big deal. I can always convert to FLAC if for some reason Apple Lossless becomes untenable down the line. I didn't even know what FLAC was when I first started digitizing my collection and I see no reason to make the switch now.
It turns out that using iTunes to organize your music is a good idea. It organizes your music files in folders on the hard drive in a way that makes it easy to find them. If I want to burn a CD, for example, I can go right to the folder and drag-and-drop the files to my Toast software. Easy. I actually have two separate music libraries, one in Apple Lossless and the other in 192 Mbps AAC format which is for my various iPods. I use a little application called iTunes Library Manager that allows me to easily switch between the two libraries in Itunes. Obviously the Squeezebox is linked just to the Apple Lossless library.
I typically use a browser window on the Mac to select what music to play (and I have an app on my iphone that works very well too). In the browser window, you can search by artist or album and make playlists. You can find and select music using the Squeezebox remote as well, but it's rather more cumbersome in my opinion. I typically use the Squeezebox remote only to pause and play or otherwise adjust the volume.
I don't know anything about Replay Gain. It's true that older CDs are recorded at a lower volume than the newer ones, but this just isn't a problem for me. I just adjust the volume.
Hope that helps.
I actually have two separate music libraries, one in Apple Lossless and the other in 192 Mbps AAC format which is for my various iPods. I use a little application called iTunes Library Manager that allows me to easily switch between the two libraries in Itunes. Obviously the Squeezebox is linked just to the Apple Lossless library.
Wow, 192
Mbps AAC?! Now *that's* "HD" audio!
Sorry, I love typos like that...
Sounds like that iTunes Library Manager is a much more elegant version of (re)starting iTunes with shift (or option? Can never remember...) to select different libraries.
Just out of curiosity, and hopefully as a help to others, as well, how/where does iTunes store the files for the different libraries? Are they all consolidated in the same artist/album folders, i.e. "01 Come Together.m4a" ALAC and "01 Come Together(1).m4a" AAC, or do they get their own independent folders?
Wow, 192 Mbps AAC?! Now *that's* "HD" audio!
Sorry, I love typos like that...
Sounds like that iTunes Library Manager is a much more elegant version of (re)starting iTunes with shift (or option? Can never remember...) to select different libraries.
Just out of curiosity, and hopefully as a help to others, as well, how/where does iTunes store the files for the different libraries? Are they all consolidated in the same artist/album folders, i.e. "01 Come Together.m4a" ALAC and "01 Come Together(1).m4a" AAC, or do they get their own independent folders?
Right, I meant 192
kbps. I also made a mistake with the size of my internal drive which is actually 650 GB.
The music files for the two different libraries are stored in separate folders. I created two separate folders on the root level of the hard drive: "Music" for Apple Lossless and "iTunes Music" for the AACs. Each iTunes library is linked to the appropriate folder.
It can be a pain to use an external hard drive to store your music libraries. Say you load iTunes, but for some reason your external hard drive is turned off or not otherwise connected, iTunes will
change the directory to your internal drive (Home--> Music --> iTunes). That's why I eventually upgraded my MacMini and had it customized with the extra large (650 GB) internal hard drive which (so far) provides plenty of space.
Hi
I've just gone through this process so I will summarise here:
a) Buy the squeezebox receiver! (£89.00 on amazon) - (I didn't bother buying the remote control for the extra £125)
b) Whilst waiting for delivery, install the "Squeezebox server" on your PC (this is what will stream the audio around your house)
c) Install Squeezeplayer on the PC and other PCs and laptops around the house. This emulates the squeezebox so you can listen to your streamed music on other devices. You can access your music library using this software, and it will play music as well.
d) Get everything working with the above two and sign up for mysqueezebox.com.
e) Learn how to remote control the squeezebox by logging onto the "Squeezebox Server" machine from a laptop through an internet browser using port 9000. E.g. my Squeezebox Server is on 192.168.2.8 so using Internet explorer go to http://192.168.2.8:9000 (http://192.168.2.8:9000). This lets you send music to any of you Squeezebox players in the house (including your soon to arrive squeezebox)
e) Install the remote control apps on your Iphone or Android phone and get them working as well.
f) When your squeezebox arrives you need to assign an IP address and set it up to connect to your wireless network. If you've paid £125.00 for the remote control device then you can use that.. Otherwise you can follow the instructions here:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43722 (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43722)
This was the hardest part and took me several hours to figure everything out.. But it WILL work in the end once you get the setting correct (there are about 8 or 10 things to set, 3 or 4 of which are important (like the Wireless Mode/Cipher mode etc). You will also need to download ActivePerl and then run the UPAP_SHELL.PL script
Get it working with a LAN cable first (set: lan_interface=1) then you only need to worry about getting the wireless setting correct after that.. Obviously if you've bought the remote it is alot simpler..
g) Frighten your wife by randomly sending music to the hi fi and computers remotely when she's in the room..
hope this helps
Sean
p.s. f) above would require a whole post in itself..
Thanks Sean!! Really appreciate this post.
and yes, I guess you do need a PhD to set this all up.
But thanks for making it a little (a lot! i hope) easier
kelly
I actually have two separate music libraries, one in Apple Lossless and the other in 192 Mbps AAC format which is for my various iPods.
Hi ghulse, excellent, that´s exactly the situation I am in. How did you convert the CDs into two formats? Any chance to do this in one step or did you code them with itunes first and had the ALAC folders run in batch mode through a different tool?
On that note: minimax recommend me the tool XLD for ripping - any comment on that? I have also seen a comparison between Max and XLD here (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/audio-converters-for-mac-max-vs-xld/) and Max seems cool since I can edit the tags, but I guess itunes will just give me correct titles of the album (do they use CDDB? coz there are errors in the data sometimes).
I typically use a browser window on the Mac to select what music to play (and I have an app on my iphone that works very well too). In the browser window, you can search by artist or album and make playlists.
What sort of browser window? Normal FX or Safari? Is that only a way to control squeezebox or do you replace itunes with that..?
Best
Peter
and yes, I guess you do need a PhD to set this all up.
I wonder what university would grant one based on learning how to hook up a squeezebox.
and yes, I guess you do need a PhD to set this all up.
I wonder what university would grant one based on learning how to hook up a squeezebox.
You will know by the end of the month, if you simply turn off your spamfilter
I actually have two separate music libraries, one in Apple Lossless and the other in 192 Mbps AAC format which is for my various iPods.
Hi ghulse, excellent, that´s exactly the situation I am in. How did you convert the CDs into two formats? Any chance to do this in one step or did you code them with itunes first and had the ALAC folders run in batch mode through a different tool?
Hi Pete. Here's the way I do it, probably not the simplest way, but it works.
First, I launch iTunes and make sure that my Apple Lossless library is selected. (I start with Apple Lossless for reasons that I will explain). Again, iTunes Library Manager is a great tool for selecting between iTunes libraries.
I then import each CD into iTunes and they end up as Lossless files on my hard drive.
At this time, I switch iTunes over to the 192 kbps AAC library (again using iTunes Library Manager). Instead of importing from the same CD (which is certainly an option), I simply drag-and-drop the Apple Lossless files into iTunes. It's a good idea to first go into the preferences for iTunes and uncheck the option to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" (under the Advanced tab). You don't want to have multiple copies of the Lossless files on your hard drive.
At this point in iTunes I find those tracks I just added, select them, then use the "Convert to AAC" option under the Advanced menu. When it's done converting, the original Apple Lossless files are still selected and I just hit delete key and they go away. If you have unchecked the option to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" you will not get a dialogue box asking if you want these tracks to be discarded in the trash.
On that note: minimax recommend me the tool XLD for ripping - any comment on that? I have also seen a comparison between Max and XLD here (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/audio-converters-for-mac-max-vs-xld/) and Max seems cool since I can edit the tags, but I guess itunes will just give me correct titles of the album (do they use CDDB? coz there are errors in the data sometimes).
I haven't tried these tools. iTunes seems to do a great job. Actually I do change the tags for some of my classical music and this is easy to do in iTunes. In fact, if you do change the tags, this is another advantage to using the Lossless files to convert to your second AAC library. You would change those tags in your Lossless library
before converting them into the AAC library and it saves you from having to do it twice.
I typically use a browser window on the Mac to select what music to play (and I have an app on my iphone that works very well too). In the browser window, you can search by artist or album and make playlists.
What sort of browser window? Normal FX or Safari? Is that only a way to control squeezebox or do you replace itunes with that..?
Best
Peter
You can use the Squeezebox itself to find and select music, but that's pretty cumbersome. By typing http://localhost:9000/ (http://localhost:9000/) into your browser window (be it Safari, or Firefox or whatever), it will give you access to all of Squeezebox functions. Select by artist, album, genre or use the search term to find what you want to listen to. Here's a couple of screenshots:
(http://www.wordcentric.net/squeeze1.jpg)
(http://www.wordcentric.net/squeeze2.jpg)
Great man, thanks a lot! I now know my way to go, it´ll be a loooong way to import all my CDs but worth it I guess. Next project will then be some streaming solution. I will have a look at your squeezebox thing, actually I like to set something up that can be controlled by an ipad, so my guests can choose the music on my couch like in a karaoke bar. Not sure at the moment, how or what will then send the music from a harddrive to the amp, maybe I need my macbook to be switched on or so. As I said, new project, new thread :-)
Have a good start into the week
peter
quick one for you: what iTunes Library Manager are you using?
I had a look at the web and there seems to be a couple of programms that are called that way or describe their intention as iTunes Library Manager and are then totally different.
Thanks for a hint!
peter
quick one for you: what iTunes Library Manager are you using?
I had a look at the web and there seems to be a couple of programms that are called that way or describe their intention as iTunes Library Manager and are then totally different.
Thanks for a hint!
peter
ok, here is the missing information:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7689/itunes-library-manager (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7689/itunes-library-manager)
I think this is essentially a script. iTunes already has the function to switch between libraries (by holding down Option key while launching the app, I think). iTunes Library Manager saves us the steps of quitting the app and holding down whatever key that is. It works very well.
So I guess I am ready, set, go for digitizing my CD collection. Thanks to all folks in the forum for their ideas and hints.
peter
HI ghulse,
I have set up everything now, but keep having trouble with itunes and the multiple libraries. When I click on itunes holding the option key itunes ask which library and offers me to install a new one. I did that and changed the import preferences. However, when starting this way again and selecting the other library, itunes doesn´t associate any preferences to that library and just keeps the last used ones. That means that in my AAC-library I have the lossles settings, when I used the lossless-library before.
The library-manager app seems cool from what you describe, but I might be too stupid to get it working. It doesn´t remember any libraries, always ask me to save the current library which it doesn´t recognize and there is only a blank selection window. (am I supposed to set up the libraries via the manager or via app+holding option?). Is it possible that the app doesn´t work without paid registration?
Thanks for your help, much needed. :-)
peter
Peter, I recall the first time I set up my libraries with iTunes Library Manager it was a bit messy. The reason for this is that iTunes Library Manager uses a different backup routine than the iTunes application itself. So you have to create your libraries in the first place using iTunes Library Manager.
I see a relevant note on the developer's web site:
iTunes Library Manager cannot manage multiple libraries created with iTunes' multiple library feature (initiated by holding the Option key when activating iTunes). Each uses a different back up routine.
It also appears that you do need to register the program and pay the $10 shareware fee to be able to manage more than one library.
Again, I heartily recommend using iTunes Library Manager, but the choice is yours. Apparently you do need to use one method or the other to manage multiple libraries because they use different backup routines. Sorry I didn't realize this before. I've been using iTunes Library Manager for a couple of years now and I haven't looked back.
I see another note on the developer's web site: that iTunes Library Manager is not yet compatible with OS X Lion that has just come out, but the guy is working on an update.
I'm not at home right now, so I'm going mostly off of memory. But once you register iTunes Library Manager, you should be able to create a new library and then it will launch iTunes and then you can set up your preferences for that library. When you create a second new library, it will save your first one and retain all of those preferences.
If you've already imported your music, you can just drag-and-drop those music files to iTunes after loading the appropriate library using iTunes Library Manager.
Hope that helps. Here's the developer's web site for iTunes Library Manager:
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/itune...rarymanager.php (http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/ituneslibrarymanager.php)
Ghulse, thanks so much for your quick reply. Shame on me that I didn´t check the dev´s release notes. Since you convinced me to use the Manager and itunes obviously doesn´t keep the preferences apart from different libraries I will definitely pay my 10 bucks and get the Manager. Good that you mention the Lion compatibilty since I will upgrade at some point (but first let them sort out the problems I read in forums). Hope the dev is quick with his new version.
I´ll give it a go and post my experiences here.
Have a good one,
peter
Ghulse, thanks so much for your quick reply. Shame on me that I didn´t check the dev´s release notes. Since you convinced me to use the Manager and itunes obviously doesn´t keep the preferences apart from different libraries I will definitely pay my 10 bucks and get the Manager. Good that you mention the Lion compatibilty since I will upgrade at some point (but first let them sort out the problems I read in forums). Hope the dev is quick with his new version.
I´ll give it a go and post my experiences here.
Have a good one,
peter
Peter, I'm curious how this all worked out for you. Tell me about your experience.
I'm listening now to Paul O'dette's fabulous lute playing through my Squeezebox server. I decided to add artwork (via iTunes) to this 5-CD collection to see how it looks in the web browser where I control my music playing. Since I imported all of my music from CDs, I've never bothered with adding artwork. I guess it looks pretty good. Not sure I want to do this for all my music though.
Peter, I'm curious how this all worked out for you. Tell me about your experience.
I'm listening now to Paul O'dette's fabulous lute playing through my Squeezebox server. I decided to add artwork (via iTunes) to this 5-CD collection to see how it looks in the web browser where I control my music playing. Since I imported all of my music from CDs, I've never bothered with adding artwork. I guess it looks pretty good. Not sure I want to do this for all my music though.
Good morning ghulse,
you bet that I will definitely send you my success story once it is one After all the help you provided!
At the moment I am waiting to be registered with the Lib Man developer, paypal payments take days to clear, after that I am ready to digitize. I might be able to use the time in between to find out how to reset my itunes since I have the bad feeling that apple has kept some information of my formerly in itunes set up libarries in some hidden ".plis-files".
Art work sounds cool, especially if you have your large screen interface; I thought itunes could do that in a single run for all your library...
Have a good one, talk to you soon
peter
If you've already imported your music and you have it in a suitable place on your hard drive, you can just start a new library using iTunes Library Manager. Once iTunes is launched, be sure to uncheck the "Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder" (Prefs-->Advanced) and then just drag-and-drop your music folder into iTunes.
I like to check the "Keep the iTunes Media Folder Organized" myself.
Hi ghulse,
SUCCESS - and 50 thank-you on this Sunday morning to you. I finally did it and it worked so flawlessly!!
I kept shoving my CDs into my laptop and didn´t have to look at it for days since it was smoothly importing the CDs in the background.
Before I will convert all of them to lossy I will go through them and add missing artwork, I found some useful scripts (e.g. at dougscripts) to add missing gracenote-artwork on Amazon and co.
A few things that still bug me, but are true itunes shortcomings, are that compilations are not kept together, even if they are tagged as "part of a compilation". There are hints on the web to rename them as Various Artists, but that´s not what I want, to have dozens VA in my lib.
I also made a test conversion to lossy which worked well, but the artwork was missing. Is this supposed to be like that, is artwork linked to the library rather than embedded to the files? *WTF*, how stupid is that? Only one album, where I added artwork manually in the metadata window was appearantly embedded, I wonder what gracenote does...just put it in some xml-file?
Sadly, my iTLM, which else works fine, also bugs me, it has somehow lost the connectionn to my lib and now thinks that my AAC-lib is the lossless one. I believe that happened when I powered off my connected external HDD with force. I have contacted Doug in regard to that and hope there is some way to alter one or two entries in some xml-file or referrer file.
But...as you can see, happy as a pie I am and yesterday at a barbecue I had already given away 40 CDs I don´t need any longer to friends.
Have a good one
peter