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Topic: Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain! (Read 3489 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Quite a while back, when hard drive space was limited, I ripped most of my CDs to AAC using Nero AAC at "q -0.5".

I've reached a point now (and have the necessary file streaming HiFi gear) where I'd like to chuck out my CD originals.  However, I'm reluctant to rely on q0.5 AAC files, and am thinking of re-ripping stuff to a higher quality; not necessarily lossless but maybe q1.0.

I have till now been using foobar2000 to rip each CD individually, looking up track names and CD information using freedb, making corrections to what comes back from freedb, and then I've also rated stuff after ripping.  Quite a laborious task I'd prefer not to have to go through again.

So, are there any tools out there to make this simpler?  I'm thinking of something that can just rip stuff quickly without any freedb lookup, and then something which I can use to copy across filenames, tags, metadata etc from my existing collection.

Perhaps I'm being optimistic even thinking there might be a way to do this (relatively) painlessly. 

Thanks,

Mike

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #1 –
You can use MP3Tag to copy tags from your old AAC tracks to your new tracks, an album at a time. You may need to delete some tags from your old tracks before copying - for example, some of my old MP3 rips had length as a tag, something that is meaningless on my reripped FLAC tracks. It's not completely automated, but it's a whole lot quicker than retyping all of the corrections and any supplementary tags you've added (like ratings). You still need to rip (preferably with an AccurateRip enabled ripper), letting your preferred ripper do an initial freedb lookup, and you should correct the album artist and album name returned from freedb so that your folder names are correct, but you no longer have to care about the tags for the individual tracks that freedb gives you.

I'd recommend that you rip to a lossless format, then you'll never need to rip again.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #2 –
Try dbPoweramp
AccurateRip
Fast
Excellent meta data (4 different sources)
Excellent format converter.

A copy from your existing tags to the re-ripped files looks complicated to me.
You might try replacing your existing files with the re-ripped ones (must be an exact match in location and file name) and then force the media player to write from the library to the tags.
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #3 –
You're assuming that the media player library holds copies of all tags, and it doesn't.

Also, I'd observe that none of the on-line meta data sources I've used is accurate enough for everyone's use. That's not a criticism - I'm really grateful that they provide the base 90-95% of tagging data - but they all need some editing, and none of them contains things like catalogue numbers, per track release dates, etc., so re-ripping and relying on on-line meta data is the worst of all worlds - it's just like starting from scratch!

Copying tags from existing files to new ones using MP3Tag is simple - load the original album, press Control-A to select all files, press Control-C to copy the tags. Load the new album, press Control-A to select all files, press Control-V to paste the tags. Simple.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #4 –
Thanks guys.  If I go down the mp3tag route, I guess I still need to rely on freedb to give me sensisble track names, because they determine the file names.  Unless I just go for filenames that have just the track number.  Or is there a feature in mp3tag that allows renaming of files based on metadata (e.g. track name)?

Thanks.

Any recommendation for a lossless format?

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #5 –
For MP3Tag you just need the files in the same order, so as long as the track numbers are the same on your current files and your new ones then you are fine. You just need to sort them by track number before copying and pasting.

Once you have the new files tagged then yes, you can use MP3Tag (or foobar) to rename the files using the tag data.

For lossless codecs, try FLAC, ALAC or TAK. I use FLAC and I'm really happy with it, but lossless is lossless

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #6 –
Thanks.  Yeah lossless is lossless but I'm thinking about out-of-the-box compatibility with as many players (present and future) as possible.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #7 –
Depends on your players. This list is incomplete, I'm sure others will be able to add more detail:

FLAC - many (most?) PC desktop players, but not iTunes. Lots of hardware devices now support it, including any portable devices that support Rockbox firmware. iPods only support FLAC with Rockbox firmware
ALAC - Foobar 2000, iTunes, Winamp, probably others. All Apple devices
TAK - Foobar 2000. Don't know about hardware support.

Short version is that FLAC is probably the simplest and most portable option, unless you definitely want to put the tracks directly on your native iPod - in which case I'd suggest that you use ALAC, or use FLAC but encode a lossy copy to transfer to your iPod. However, it isn't worth worrying about too much - lossless to lossless conversion is something that can be automated, so if you ever decide to change then it will be relatively painless.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #8 –
Thanks, very helpful.  I will also take a look at Nero AAC Q1.00 because I can't believe that I'd be able to tell the difference between that and lossless, particularly as my ears deteriorate with age

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #9 –
The issue is that in 20 years time we might all be using completely different codecs (lossless and lossy), and transcoding from AAC to the new codec could easily result in a noticeable loss of quality, whereas if you go lossless now then any re-encoding won't have that problem.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #10 –
I might not be around in 20 years' time

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #11 –
I originally chose AAC on the basis that with Apple / iTunes behind it, the format would be widespread.  For this reason, for lossless, I am favouring ALAC at the moment unless there is anything which FLAC does better.  Looks like dbpoweramp rips to ALAC with the minimum of fuss.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #12 –
AAC q1 might be twice as large as lossess (~400 kb/s versus ~1000 kb/s) but I would seriously consider going lossless. You'll never have to worry about ripping your CDs again, plus you can transcode to any lossy OR lossless format that comes along in the future.  Hard drive space is cheap these days, and it's only going to get cheaper. You can get a 1.5 TB drive for $140 - That comes out to something like 4 cents an album, at 350 MB an album. And you would only need that big of a drive if you have a very large collection. It takes about 4,400 albums to fill a 1.5 TB hard disk.

As far as codecs, it doesn't matter as much as with lossy because the quality is identical for every lossless codec, and you can switch between lossless codecs without any quality loss. FLAC is the most widely used according to the polls on this site, and I'd say it's also the best supported, unless you're using Apple products.

About 5 years ago, I went lossless, sold all my CDs, and haven't looked back.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #13 –
Another vote for lossless.  I once ripped to a high bitrate lossy and then re-ripped my entire collection to lossless - also never looked back. 

If you rip to lossless and later decide to just go lossy you could transcode to lossy and delete the lossless - but I doubt you'll want to do that.
Was that a 1 or a 0?

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #14 –
Quote from: slks on
AAC q1 might be twice as large as lossess (~400 kb/s versus ~1000 kb/s) but I would seriously consider going lossless. You'll never have to worry about ripping your CDs again, plus you can transcode to any lossy OR lossless format that comes along in the future.  Hard drive space is cheap these days, and it's only going to get cheaper. You can get a 1.5 TB drive for $140 - That comes out to something like 4 cents an album, at 350 MB an album. And you would only need that big of a drive if you have a very large collection. It takes about 4,400 albums to fill a 1.5 TB hard disk.


When doing this kind of storage planning, always include backp space on physically separate devices! So, instead of buying a single huge HD to leave it almost empty, buy two or more smaller ones, duplicate and store away: maybe the cost/space ratio increases a little, but couple it to lossless coding (and AccurateRip if possible) and you'll never really have to worry about ripping your CDs again! 

P. S. And of course, from time to time test the integrity of your backups...
... I live by long distance.

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #15 –
Ripping to ALAC is well underway

Have to say that dBpoweramp makes very light work of it.  Very good at fetching accurate metadata (based on multiple sources), and excellent at fetching decent album art.  I did try iTunes but it fell short on both metadata and album art, IMHO.

Thanks all.
 

Re-ripping: please help to reduce the pain!

Reply #16 –
And iTunes doesn't do accurate ripping..... another good reason to use dBPoweramp or EAC.