Ripping & Streaming – if you had to do it all again ?
Posted by: Lost-in-fog on 16 January 2013
What would you not do again or wish you had done to get where you are now.
Perhaps a list of hardware, software & file format that you have found works well together as a package.
As someone who is going to find it hard enough to get started what lessons did you learn so foggy heads like me can get it more right than wrong first time?
Cheeky ask I know but starting off with stuff that works would be a big help.
Thanks Foggy.
I use NDS, QNAP NAS plus Twonky uPnP server. My workflow:
1. Rip CDs to WAV files (jazz, classical, acoustic) and FLAC (rock, pop) with dBpoweramp. I will not bother with album artwork at this stage because those found automatically are not always the best ones, but it is essential at this stage to get your filing / naming structures right, or else you will have to spend a lot of time correcting the errors.
2. While the disc is being ripped I google for the best artwork I can find, then save it.
3. Edit metadata with MediaMonkey. I tried not to have too many genre categories because it will make searching difficult, but it is not always easy to decide which genre to assign because music styles are never so clear cut. Album artwork is added. Because Twonky's music tree does not have "Composer", for classical music I have to overcome this by entering composer's name in the artist field.
4. Sit in my lounge chair, turn on the iPad, relax and enjoy freshly ripped music!
If I were to choose NAS again I might try Synology because of better music tree. But I must say QNAP / Twonky has been working faultlessly despite of the inability to search by composer. But if you do not have a large classical music library this should not be a problem at all.
I use NDS, QNAP NAS plus Twonky uPnP server. My workflow:
1. Rip CDs to WAV files (jazz, classical, acoustic) and FLAC (rock, pop) with dBpoweramp. I will not bother with album artwork at this stage because those found automatically are not always the best ones, but it is essential at this stage to get your filing / naming structures right, or else you will have to spend a lot of time correcting the errors.
2. While the disc is being ripped I google for the best artwork I can find, then save it.
3. Edit metadata with MediaMonkey. I tried not to have too many genre categories because it will make searching difficult, but it is not always easy to decide which genre to assign because music styles are never so clear cut. Album artwork is added. Because Twonky's music tree does not have "Composer", for classical music I have to overcome this by entering composer's name in the artist field.
4. Sit in my lounge chair, turn on the iPad, relax and enjoy freshly ripped music!
If I were to choose NAS again I might try Synology because of better music tree. But I must say QNAP / Twonky has been working faultlessly despite of the inability to search by composer. But if you do not have a large classical music library this should not be a problem at all.
"Rip CDs to WAV files (jazz, classical, acoustic) and FLAC (rock, pop)" - what are the benefits for you to choose to use two different lossless formats?
To my ears WAV files sound better (for whatever technical reasons that I don't care at all) so I use this format for "more demanding" or "more serious" music (to me = jazz, classical and acoustic). For "entertainment" music I chose FLAC to save HDD space.
P.S.
Guys, don't start the boring WAV vs FLAC debate, please!! If you can hear the difference, fine! If you can't, that's also fine! Just choose what suits you.
To my ears WAV files sound better (for whatever technical reasons that I don't care at all) so I use this format for "more demanding" or "more serious" music (to me = jazz, classical and acoustic). For "entertainment" music I chose FLAC to save HDD space.
P.S.
Guys, don't start the boring WAV vs FLAC debate, please!! If you can hear the difference, fine! If you can't, that's also fine! Just choose what suits you.
Seems reasonable if you can hear something different. Can you tag/attach artwork the same way to WAVs as you do for FLAC/MP3?
MediaMonkey allows you to tag artwork and a limited amount of metadata to wav files (album name, artist, track number, track title).
Naim have their own way of doing it too, via HDX or UnitiServe + Naim Desktop Client, and there is give-and-take in both systems. For example, MediaMonkey allows ? in the title but Naim DTC does not; Naim DTC allows (most) accented letters in the title but I don't think Media Monkey does (or perhaps it does but then Sonos makes a mash of them when it reads a file name formatted in MediaMonkey.
Either way, you certainly can't tag wav to nearly the same extent as flac and other formats. It's not a problem for me - I don't need all the metadata at my fingertips all the time and am content to google if occasionally I have a desperate need to know who played tuba on track three of a particular album.
I saved money by using EAC and MP3Tag for ripping and tagging, but I spent a lot of time to find, learn, validate these tools. I also spent time choosing a specific NAS to make sure it would be compatible with the Uniti.
If I had to do it again, I would use some packaged solution, like UnitiServe, Vortexbox or Ripnas instead of using computer and freeware.
The packaged solutions also include servers and storage, so it saves a lot of research, learning curve, experimentation. Probably they are making the whole process simpler.
Yes point taken but personally I think the time and effort put in up front to effectively "Roll your own" gives you the freedom to do as you want. What you learn stands you in good stead if/when any problems crop up. If you go for the turnkey/packaged solution you have to do everything their way and sometimes that could be a right load of...
To my ears WAV files sound better (for whatever technical reasons that I don't care at all) so I use this format for "more demanding" or "more serious" music (to me = jazz, classical and acoustic). For "entertainment" music I chose FLAC to save HDD space.
P.S.
Guys, don't start the boring WAV vs FLAC debate, please!! If you can hear the difference, fine! If you can't, that's also fine! Just choose what suits you.
Little bit of controversy creeping in there
Hello Peter
I always regard jazz (Barbara Thompson excepted of course) as background music and keep it in AAC 256 bit format. AAC, which is lossless, sounds fine on jazz and saves space. Serious music (to me folk and prog/psych) is 24 bit (when I can get it) or 16 bit ALAC. As I convert to PCM before sending it to my Naim DAC there is no difference on my system between lossless formats. I have some classical music, but just don't seem to listen to much of it these days (I guess that happens as we get older) - I do listen to and enjoy Leoš Janáček in the car though (I dread to think what my in-car play has ripped it in to ... but it sounds OK).
I agree Peter - just use what format you prefer for whatever music you like. I think the perceived differences between FLAC and WAV are idiosyncratic to the way Naim builds its current streamers ... as Naim says WAV is better on its streamers, it makes sense to send WAVs to Naim streamers (one of the reasons I'm not sold on the Naim streamers - all the rest of my kit is Naim though).
All the best, Guy
MediaMonkey allows you to tag artwork and a limited amount of metadata to wav files (album name, artist, track number, track title).
Naim have their own way of doing it too, via HDX or UnitiServe + Naim Desktop Client, and there is give-and-take in both systems. For example, MediaMonkey allows ? in the title but Naim DTC does not; Naim DTC allows (most) accented letters in the title but I don't think Media Monkey does (or perhaps it does but then Sonos makes a mash of them when it reads a file name formatted in MediaMonkey.
Either way, you certainly can't tag wav to nearly the same extent as flac and other formats. It's not a problem for me - I don't need all the metadata at my fingertips all the time and am content to google if occasionally I have a desperate need to know who played tuba on track three of a particular album.
> I don't need all the metadata at my fingertips
How do you do Karaoke if you don't have the lyrics handy?
One of the weakness of Apple Remote is it doesn't show the lyrics, but I'm told it will do in a future release and I always believe what I'm told.
I am a little confused by the statement that Mediamonkey allows only limited tags in WAV files. I am compelled to ask then, why use it?
DbPoweramp has a perfectly good tag editor with which you can add/edit as many tags as you feel compelled to. It makes no distinction between flac and WAV that I have ever encountered, and of course if you want a non-standard tag you can create it very easily.
Whether or not all programs can read all of your tags may be another matter, personally I have not found a tag that J R River MC can’t use.
I am also one of those who prefer WAV files to flac, it is suggested that in fact I only imagine the difference, well I suppose that might be true. Certainly I can imagine that if I listened to a 500 series amp against my rather more modest offering I would hear an improvement. Likewise the Ovators we have just replaced our 38year old speakers with sound so much better; or at least we thought they did.
Oh well, its still snowing and I need to select some more music. 
Peter
How do you do Karaoke if you don't have the lyrics handy?
One of the weakness of Apple Remote is it doesn't show the lyrics, but I'm told it will do in a future release and I always believe what I'm told.
Alcohol allows me to remember lyrics or invent better ones. Either way it's more fun than metadata.
After a few false starts I went with DB Poweramp. With all the discussions on wav v flac v orignal cd I ripped 10 or so of my favourite cds under lossless flac and wav then sat down with a borrowed NDX (helpfully supplied by James at Tom Tom) and had a few afternoons comparing all three. Concluded that the streamed music sounded great if not better v my CDX2 and I could really tell no difference between the lossless flac and wav.
Given the ease of tagging with flac decided to go with that format and also got myself a Synology NAS to feed the NDX.
When ripping I generally took a stack of 30-50 cds and just set myself the task of ripping those. Not sat with hundreds in front of me somehow made it seem more manageable.
If I had to do it again I would pay more attention to some of the meta results and getting rid of "various" in the composer section so as not to end up with odd individual songs spread round my library.
Peripherally related question since I am in the process of ripping at this time: I am using mp3tag for metadata, but I am having trouble with some things that are apparently marked as compilations - and I am unable to figure out how to modify this tag as it is not offered to me in the mp3tab application, and the extended tags drop down is grayed out (and I don't know if that would be the answer anyway).
Logitech media server seems to key off the compilation tag (which I can't see) and also album artist also seems to be a part of the logic. Thus far classical guitar CDs (which I reference by the guitarist) but there are others...my Janis Joplin Greatest Hits remains in "Various Artists" despite having changed the Artist tag to her name from her various bands.
Any suggestions?
Also willing to hear more about classical tagging schemes that you guys are using for orchestral music.
For my copy of this CD I have Janis Joplin as Album Artist - this seems to work.
Mark,
in the Advanced Settings of LMS on the tab My Music you can choose how to treat compilation albums. Personnally I do not use the compilation tag. I go the route via the Albumartist. So typically the Albumartis will be 'Various'. But it may also be 'London Symphony Orchestra' if they play the works of more than one composer within one album. This is because I have the last name of the composer in the Artist tag for classical music. LMS also requires all tracks of this one compilation to reside in one common folder. So it works with a combination of tags and physical presence.
I have also just checked the Compilation tag in MP3. It works flawlessly for me. Maybe try updating to the latest version.
But where does the compilation tag come from in the first place? I thought the source of your music were your own CD rips. If they come from suggested metadata from the internet, just change it before saving the metadata.
But where does the compilation tag come from in the first place? I thought the source of your music were your own CD rips. If they come from suggested metadata from the internet, just change it before saving the metadata.
dBpoweramp will set it for you when you rip. You can override it before ripping if you want, and/or use dBpoweramp to edit it afterwards.
Hi everyone
I am overwhelmed by the response thank you all very much.
There are many good points to digest here especially the every day practical ones that sometimes get overlooked by all the technical stuff.
It seems that other forum users have got something out of it too which is good as well.
One question I have is if I rip to Lossless Flac stored and backed up on a Nas drive can it be used as the main library for my iTunes on my win 7 laptop. Having lost all my iTunes before due to hdd laptop failure this for me would make the decision about using Wav or Flac.
Many thanks
Foggy (with4”in Southampton.UK)
iTunes does not play FLAC and WAV is best avoided .. use ALAC and AIFF and both iTunes and Naim will work without problems. You can keep the iTunes music library on a NAS ... iTunes is not fussy where its library is as long as it knows where it is. You create the library on your NAS and drop all of your ripped/TAG'd music into the Automatically Add To iTunes Folder ... I not familiar with PC software, but dBPA does a good job and should be be able to put your files correctly in an iTunes library.
For my copy of this CD I have Janis Joplin as Album Artist - this seems to work.
I have her name in both the artist and album artist field, but the disc still shows up under Various Artists. What's weird is other CDs where this was the case (e.g., the Duane Allman Anthologies) were corrected by simply putting the performing artist' name in the song title, and replacing the artist with Duane Allman. For some reason, this album (among a few others) does not respond the same way.
Mark,
in the Advanced Settings of LMS on the tab My Music you can choose how to treat compilation albums. Personnally I do not use the compilation tag. I go the route via the Albumartist. So typically the Albumartis will be 'Various'. But it may also be 'London Symphony Orchestra' if they play the works of more than one composer within one album. This is because I have the last name of the composer in the Artist tag for classical music. LMS also requires all tracks of this one compilation to reside in one common folder. So it works with a combination of tags and physical presence.
I have also just checked the Compilation tag in MP3. It works flawlessly for me. Maybe try updating to the latest version.
But where does the compilation tag come from in the first place? I thought the source of your music were your own CD rips. If they come from suggested metadata from the internet, just change it before saving the metadata.
Hi PH - thanks for your detailed answer.
You are correct, the source of the music is my own CDs (with a handful of iTunes store downloads and even some stray Amazon mp3s thrown in.) I am making an assumption that there is a compilation flag situation - I am not sure as I cannot see it anywhere in mp3tag, and I don't know how to go about making it visible to me, as well as able to be modified.
I looked at the area of LMS you mentioned; not sure how to set that up, keeping in mind that I have compilations that I prefer to leave alone under Various Artists (e.g., "Hits of 1975" where every tune is my a different artist - don't want those scattered all about.) But in these cases like Janis Joplin or the Classical Guitarists, the various bands or composers are not how I would categorize the CD on my shelf, & I want to replicate that in my LMS filing system.
Thanks for everyone's help in getting my dense brain to figure this out.
iTunes is not fussy where its library is as long as it knows where it is. You create the library on your NAS and drop all of your ripped/TAG'd music into the Automatically Add To iTunes Folder ... .
Guy,
IME, the only rub is if your remote library is not available, iTunes "helpfully" resets the library preference to the local drive, forgetting your true preference, requiring you to reset it. Does anybody know a way to prevent this? If I were run over by a bus my family could not deal with this behavior. (Nice to be needed . . .)
I would prefer that iTunes complain, in this case, rather than "just work". What do US and HDX do in similar situation, I wonder?
ATB,
Nick
I looked at the area of LMS you mentioned; not sure how to set that up, keeping in mind that I have compilations that I prefer to leave alone under Various Artists (e.g., "Hits of 1975" where every tune is my a different artist - don't want those scattered all about.) But in these cases like Janis Joplin or the Classical Guitarists, the various bands or composers are not how I would categorize the CD on my shelf, & I want to replicate that in my LMS filing system.
Thanks for everyone's help in getting my dense brain to figure this out.
Hi Mark,
on the My Music page make the following choices:
Group compilation albums together
List albums by band
Treat TPE2 MP3tag as album artist
Do not tick the first three boxes for composers, conductors and band/orchestra to appear under artists.
Back to you Janis Joplin album. Is it a Flac rip from CD or an iTunes file? If the latter is the case you could remove the compilation tag in iTunes. Or download Foobar2000. It is a player/ripper/tagger tool which is very good at detecting and mending broken tags.
But if the album consists of flac files, MP3Tag must show an eventual compilation tag, Are you using the "Extended tag" function from the dropdown menu?
Here is the wiki for how LMS determines whether an album is a compilation album or not. It's not just a matter of the compilation tag:
http://wiki.slimdevices.com/in...arious_Artists_logic
So, if there are different Artists for some tracks and there is no Album Artist and there is no Compilation tag, then LMS will classify an album as a compilation. Fix is either to set the Compilation tag to 0, or set the Album Artist tag.
Thanks again guys - the Janis Joplin is from a CD. Ditto for my Zappa & the Mothers at the Fillmore. I had found the link LM posted already.
I cannot see the compilation tag, but it must be checked, because when I view the album in LMS is specifically states in the statistics:
DrM - maybe mp3tag doesn't give you any visibility of the Compilation tag. Suggest you download dBpoweramp, not necessarily to do any ripping with, but just as a tag editor to cross-check mp3tag. Once it is installed, all you need to do is right click the file in question and select the "Edit ID tag" option. Would take you about 5 minutes max.