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Topic: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why? (Read 11057 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Hi,

I ripped all my CD's to FLAC some years ago (using dBpoweramp) and I probably didn't do a great job of it. This is partly because I really didn't understand what all the settings mean and also because I had a couple of major PC failures over the time I was ripping. Therefore, I'm not even sure if I used the same settings after each failure. I've also spent quite some time with MP3Tag trying to get the tags correct, but this seems to be a loosing battle.  I never even seem to have used the same genres consistently.

When I started I also didn't even understand the significance of Album Artist vs Artist and that meant I did a lot wrong.

Now I'm planning on ripping them all again and I'm wondering which dBpoweramp settings other people use and why? Even though I've read what most of the settings do, I'm still not sure I really understand them.  For example, should I volume normalize, and if so, which option should I choose? Peak to Peak, ReplayGain (track gain) etc. I have to also confess that no matter how many times I've read about album and track ReplayGain I've never understood which I should use.

I'd love to know which genres people use and why. When I first started ripping I assumed that genres were a well defined/fixed set. But looking at metadata dBpoweramp accesses it seems to vary widely. Take for example, Frank Sinatra, is he a Jazz singer, easy listening or simply a male vocalist.? When is a group considered to be Oldies and when is it just Rock? This time I plan to determine which genres I will use before I start ripping, so I'd love to know what other people use?

Also, I use MP3 320k and MP3 192k on my portable players. Should I rip to FLAC and then convert to the MP3 formats or should I rip to these formats at the smae time as ripping to FLAC?

For naming conventions I use

[album artist]\[album]\[track] - [title][IFVALUE]composer, ([composer]),[]

What do other people use and why?

When my music is stored in FLAC I've never really seen the point of storing the CD disk number it was on, so I've tended to convert a double CD with 20 tracks each into one FLAC album of 40 tracks. Is there any reason not to do this?

I assume there are no real right answers so I'm looking for as many responses as possible to get a feel for what other people do. I've searched the forums and found many answers to specific questions, but I've not found a general set of recommendations. If one does exist then please excuse my posting this and feel free to direct me there.

Many thanks,

DLD

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #1 –
As far as I could judge, re-ripping won’t help you.
Your problem looks like to be a tagging issue.
If you re-rip you (better the ripping program) is probably using the same internet databases for the tags yielding the same inconsistent results.

I never uses Replaygain (yep, I’m into classical)
Most media players do have an option to analyze the audio and apply some kind of volume leveling.
You don’t need to re-rip

Portables: rip to lossless e.g. FLAC
Nothing as inconvenient as to maintain 2 libraries
Most media players support transcoding, converting on the fly while syncing to a portable.

Naming convention
[album artist]\[album]\[track] - [title][IFVALUE]composer, ([composer]),[

I do:
Pop\[album]\[track] - [title]
Classical\[album]\[track] - [title]
Jazz\[album]\[track] - [title]
Bues\[album]\[track] - [title]

I prefer to keep all tracks of an album in a single folder, convenient if one day a track is missing.
If the album artist varies the tracks will be scattered.
Pop/Classical I do manual, this allows me to filter on Pop, classical etc. as I don’t like multiple libraries.

CD disk number
As long as the album titles are different you won’t have a problem.
The moment they are the same most media players offer you
Track 1
Track 1
Track 2
Track 2
Etc.

Maybe this link to my website is of use: http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/Ripping.htm

TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #2 –
If you ripped to FLAC originally, your files are probably fine. Like Roseval wrote, you just need to fix the tags. Musicbrainz Picard is a good place to start, but you'll definitely still have to tweak everything a bit. It's going to take you a lot of time to fix, unfortunately there's no real way around it.

I don't have much classical in my collection, mostly rock and metal, so I generally don't use the Composer tag, and my organization scheme looks like this:

[album artist]/[year] - [album]/[track] - [artist] - [title]

I tag my files according to a personal set of rules:

  • Title is obviously the official song title
  • Featured artists, remix information, version and so on are appended to the Title tag, in parentheses
  • Live or bonus track information is also appended to the Title tag, in separate sets of square brackets (to make searches easier)
  • Artist is obviously the performing artist or artists, in cases such as duets (ie. more involvement than a featured artist)
  • Album is the official album title
  • Album Artist is either the primary artist on the album or "various artists" for compilations
  • Date is the original release year, I don't care about the year for re-releases, they also get tagged with the original year. I generally don't collect multiple versions of the same album
  • If the album has multiple discs, I merge them into one large album. If each disc has a title, that goes into the Disc Subtitle tag
  • Genre tagging is done based on rough groupings according to similar "feel" of the music, subjectively based on my own opinion. For instance "Alternative Metal / Alternative Rock" is one genre, "Jazz / Swing / Traditional" is another. If a genre has more than ~1000 tracks in it, I generally start splitting it out into more specific genres

But unfortunately, like I wrote above, proper tagging takes time. A lot of time.

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #3 –
I'd give TagScanner a shot if I were you, best tagging software IMO: http://www.xdlab.ru/en/

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #4 –
The most important thing with metadata is consistency - as long as you stick to the same way of doing things, your searches will turn up better results.

Using online metadata libraries usually finds you ending up with several different genres, even for the same artist. That's something worth keeping en eye on and manually editing. They multiply like rabbits if you don't keep a lid on it!

You can give an album more than one genre too, separated by a semi-colon. For instance, I have tagged John Chibadura with 'African' (as a broad genre) and also 'Zimbabwe' (if I want music from just that one country). You could also add a themed secondary genre, like 'Christmas' for a festive playlist.

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: JabbaThePrawn on
You can give an album more than one genre too, separated by a semi-colon. For instance, I have tagged John Chibadura with 'African' (as a broad genre) and also 'Zimbabwe' (if I want music from just that one country). You could also add a themed secondary genre, like 'Christmas' for a festive playlist.

Only in some players, such as Foobar or Quodlibet. Other will either only read the first genre, or read the whole string as one genre. Google Play Music suffers from the latter problem, if you decide to upload your music to that service.
 

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #6 –
As the others said, your questions are mostly about tagging. You probably don't need to rerip anything. But if you do, you might consider verifying rips using CueTools if you didn't before - this can provide another layer of verification and will also tag tracks with their AR checksums. I like the idea of having all verification information included inside the file itself.

The rest is up to your preferences and the quirks of your various players. I rip to a main of library of FLAC files which I play (primarily) on my PC with Media Monkey and (occasionally) on a Sonos system in my living room. I use MM's conversion tool to make those FLAC's into a separate library of MP3's to sync to two iPods (for our cars). I don't convert on the fly because I sometimes want the iPods to use a different set of files or tags. For example, I listen to a lot of jazz where CD's contain bonus tracks of alt takes. In the car I just want the original album, so I leave those tracks out of the sync library.

Genres are arbitrary. If you really love a particular "large" genre (rock, rap, classical, etc.), then maybe it makes sense to use smaller subgenres to keep things organized. Personally, I stick with a small number of big genres and throw everything in there - I use Jazz, Classical, World, Country, Blues, Opera, Folk, and Pop. "Pop" is broad and catches everything from Elvis to gangster rap, but jazz and classical are my main focuses. I don't use multiple genres often because the Sonos and the iPods only recognize a single genre per track. I put Sinatra under Jazz somewhat uncomfortably. If I had a lot of that type of music I might make a "Vocal" genre instead.

I merge double CD's and box sets into a single album as you do. However, EAC lets you tag tracks with the disc number, so I use that to retain the original layout info. For large box sets, I often split them up into albums or make a best of album for the sync library - selecting from 100 tracks is easy at the PC in MM, but a PITA in the car.

Classical is a huge pain no matter how you cut it. In MM, I set up a separate virtual collection that picks up the Classical tag and uses a tree view that sorts first by composer (instead of Album Artist like everything else). But then I prefer to have everything under Album Artist for easy access in the car, so I convert Composer to Album Artist for the sync library. So my classical files on the iPod look like Beethoven, Ludwig van (Album Artist) - Symphony No.9 (Gardiner) (Album) - Sym No 9 - I. Allegro blahblahblah (Track Title).

One more tag I find useful is "Label Number" - an extended tag accessible via MP3Tag. I enter something like "Columbia CK 35318" there so that I can easily find out exactly what version of Darkness at the Edge of Town is in my collection without having to dig through my CD storage. This is helpful when there are lots of remasters floating around and you want to figure out what you've got.

Hopefully that gives you some ideas.

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #7 –
Thanks for the replies.

I think I may have confused the issue by mentioning so many tagging type issues, or maybe I just don't understand what tagging can do to repair my current situation!

I have a couple of reasons for wanting to re-rip. Firstly I have suffered some hard drive issues with bad blocks and that has meant I have lost quite a lot of tracks in my library. I'm not exactly sure where they all are but I keep coming across them when I play music. My music exists on a number of computers and when I try to sync the file systems it comes up with way more inconsistencies than I expect. I mean thousands!

The other reason is that I am sure I did not use the correct dBpoweramp settings when I initially ripped the files and I used different settings on different occasions. So, when I play tracks from different albums the volume jumps all over the place. Although I have read what the settings mean I still don't really get it and that's why I'd really like to know what other people use.

Re-ripping is not a major issue for me since I work at my computer all day. I think it would be less work than trying to sort out the current situation any other way. To put my situation into perspective, I will be re-building my computer network, re-installing my PC's, changing server hardware/software and installing better backup procedures. So, re-ripping my CD's is not a major issue to me. I just want to get it right this time!!

The bigger issue for me is knowing which dBpoweramp settings to use and why. So, that is what I'm really looking for. I need advice and guidance on which dBpoweramp settings other people use and why they use them.

With regard to tagging (given that I will re-rip) I was hoping to gain some understanding of what other tags people use. I did not know, for example, that a track could have multiple genres or that some players will ignore more than one. That sort of information is invaluable. There is such a wealth of knowledge on this forum but I have never found a comprehensive guide to ripping. In fact, I still see many people looking for that sort of guide.

A couple of replies mentioned classical music and I was only vaguely aware of issues ripping classical. In fact I have not yet attempted to rip any of my classical CD's.

Someone also mentioned cuetools. I have seen posts of cuetools but have no idea what they are or how to use them?

In fact, I think tagging is probably the bit I got least bad previously!!!!

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #8 –
[Artist]/[Year] - [Album]{/[CD]}/[Track] - [Artist] - [Title].ext

Iron Maiden/2014 - The Final Frontier/01 - Iron Maiden - Satellite 15... The Final Frontier.m4a
Iron Maiden/2015 - The Book of Souls/CD2/01 - Iron Maiden - If Eternity Should Fail.m4a

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #9 –
Just to be able to check for changes I always create a simple text file with the CRC's of the FLAC & WAV files.
(Not the EAC-log checksums, but the real CRC's of the files)
It takes a little bit of extra time, but (having the CRC's of the original WAV's) I can be fairly sure that I never have to re-rip my collection. (just a little suggestion since you're probably going to re-rip)

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #10 –
[album artist] - [album] ([year])\[track]. [title]

I rip to lossy like MP3 or OPUS. Those lossy formats sound just fine on my phone.

When it comes to lossless. CD rips I'll rarely do because I can play the CD.
EZ CD Audio Converter / FLAC or WavPack

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #11 –
I rip everything to Apple AAC 256 kbps. Why wasting space if you can't hear the difference?

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Leo 69 on
I rip everything to Apple AAC 256 kbps. Why wasting space if you can't hear the difference?

Because space is cheap, and AAC is not everywhere supported, and AAC has no error correction, and lossless rips can be retro-verified against AccurateRip. 

Besides, if I need to spend years listening to every track before I can discard the lossless version, I might as well "discard" the lossy version from day one. Although space is still cheap.

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: nastea on
Just to be able to check for changes I always create a simple text file with the CRC's of the FLAC & WAV files.
(Not the EAC-log checksums, but the real CRC's of the files)
It takes a little bit of extra time, but (having the CRC's of the original WAV's) I can be fairly sure that I never have to re-rip my collection. (just a little suggestion since you're probably going to re-rip)


Do you do that manually or is there a way to get dBpoweramp do that automatically?

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Schokn-Itrch on
[Artist]/[Year] - [Album]{/[CD]}/[Track] - [Artist] - [Title].ext

Iron Maiden/2014 - The Final Frontier/01 - Iron Maiden - Satellite 15... The Final Frontier.m4a
Iron Maiden/2015 - The Book of Souls/CD2/01 - Iron Maiden - If Eternity Should Fail.m4a

That is interesting. I've never thought of putting the year in the directory name. Have you ever found any downsides of doing that in practise?

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #15 –
What I am most interested in are the DSP effects that people use when ripping with dBpoweramp. That is really what I meant by settings. What do people use?

Are there any that people would say "definitely use" and any that people would say "don't do that"?

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #16 –
Quote from: DLD on
What I am most interested in are the DSP effects that people use when ripping with dBpoweramp. That is really what I meant by settings. What do people use?

Are there any that people would say "definitely use" and any that people would say "don't do that"?

The only DSP effects I use when ripping to flac with dbpa is replaygain. I add album and track RG tags, EBU128, -18.
  Be careful in using the HDCD DSP when ripping. The resulting rips are no longer bit perfect. There's a long thread on dbpoweramp forum related to this. Search for HDCD and best practices at the forum.

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #17 –
Thank you. I hadn't even realised there was a dBpoweramp forum.

I've never really understood how to use Replaygain. I have read about it multiple times but I still don't understand it. For example, I don't understand the difference between track and album replaygain. I also don't understand the difference between the dsp effects Replaygain and Replaygain (Apply).

Does it matter if the rip is not bit perfect? What I mean by that question, is - is it okay to trim silence for example? I've always hated the long pause before a "hidden" track. I know that is what the artist intended but I don't really care what they intended!!

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #18 –
https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/

I'd say things like trip silence before a hidden track are good uses of not being bit perfect back to a CD. But otherwise, I want to rip once, and rip right. My initial lossless (FLAC) rips should be bit perfect USUALLY (hidden track is a good example of where they won't be).

Regarding replaygain. I do NOT use replaygain(apply) as this actually changes the audio of your tracks permanently.  That might be good for creating some lossy copies for some limited purpose (e.g., mp3 files for use in your car when your car player or portable player doesn't handle replaygain tags).

But otherwise, I use replaygain (which just creates tags and does NOT modify the volume in the file permanently.  I add both ALBUM and TRACK gain so I can use either. Many players are smart enough to use ALBUM tag when playing an entire album but TRACK gain when playing a mixture of tracks from different albums. Foobar2000 has a setting for this. My Squeezeboxes have this setting too (SmartGain).

Track gain tries to make every song you play have approximately the same volume (so you don't have to continuously adjust the volume between different songs).  Album gain makes each ALBUM you play (if you have multiple albums in your playlist) sound about the same volume.   But *within* an ALBUM, relative audio volume is maintained. That is, if a song on an album is supposed to be really quiet compared to some other song on the same album, that song will stay relatively quiet with ALBUM RG gain tag, but will be boosted in volume with TRACK RG tag.

I'm giving you a nontechnical definition of RG tags and how they work, etc.  See here for more detailed info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain
http://www.r128audio.com/

dbpoweramp can use EBU 128 when determining the ReplayGain tags (or not...its a setting). I use EBU128. Foobar2000 RG scanner also uses EBU128 with -18 setting (the default in dbpoweramp).

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: DLD on
Quote from: nastea on
Just to be able to check for changes I always create a simple text file with the CRC's of the FLAC & WAV files.
(Not the EAC-log checksums, but the real CRC's of the files)
It takes a little bit of extra time, but (having the CRC's of the original WAV's) I can be fairly sure that I never have to re-rip my collection. (just a little suggestion since you're probably going to re-rip)


Do you do that manually or is there a way to get dBpoweramp do that automatically?

Manually, using EAC for ripping, and ExactFile to calculate the hashes.
Basic output (with a little cleanup) looks like this:

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #21 –
Quote from: Apesbrain on
^ Pretty sure FLAC automatically tests this upon playback:
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,49487.0.html

I had the same thought.  Not sure why creating a manual list is needed for a FLAC file. A FLAC file (but notably not a WAV or Apple lossless) automatically includes a CRC embedded in each FLAC file by default.  This is one of the benefits of FLAC.  One can easily test automatically (in a batch manner) thousands of FLAC files to make sure the decoded FLAC file CRC matches the embedded CRC.  In dbpoweramp one uses [TEST CONVERSION]. 

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #22 –
I'm not saying it's really needed but I just like to have the CRC's of the wav files BEFORE the flac files are created, so I don't have to rely on internal checksums. Yes, flac stores a checksum of the audio ( MD5 right?) and some other lossless formats don't use a checksum at all... Doesn't matter to me because I have the checksum of the original wav file.
To me it looks like the highest level of certainty for all compressed lossless files. Decode to wav, then check.
And how are you going to check if you haven't stored the original wav crc's? You can't.

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #23 –
Quote from: nastea on
And how are you going to check if you haven't stored the original wav crc's? You can't.
Just use the Verify function from CueTools - it will recheck all the files against AR and CTDB records.

Re: Re-ripping my CD collection. What do other people do and why?

Reply #24 –
Quote from: nastea on
Not the EAC-log checksums, but the real CRC's of the files
If EAC is configured to include null samples in CRC calculations then the only difference between its CRC and that of the entire file is that the EAC's CRC does not include the header of the wave file. The raw PCM data is fully covered.

A program like CUETools, which can verify the PCM data from the files on your drive against that shown in the log file (w/ or wo/null samples) *and* against one or more online databases (up to three unique hashing algorithms) is a far superior method.

Furthermore, one is free to alter tags without having to worry about updating a file-based checksum, or consequently, not having to fret over a checksum that doesn't match up only because there was a trivial tag change (e.g.: "The" was changed to "the", or RG data was updated).