Getting Album Artwork Displayed

Posted by: Steve O on 03 July 2017

Hi everyone,

I've recently bought a Marantz PDM661 MkII so that I can record some of my vinyl and put it on my Sony personal player. My computer skills are limited, my capabilities are ripping a CD in MediaGo and watching everything appear magically; album titles, song titles, artist and artwork. Occasionally I have had to look up an album cover and insert it via the "properties" box but that's about it.

With the vinyl recordings this obviously doesn't happen. I record the vinyl in 24/96 format, split the file with the supplied "DMP Mark Editor" Software then open MediaGo and the album appears as unknown. I can manually add all the required information, album title, song title and artist but whatever I try I can't get any artwork I add to show on the player, though it does show in the MediaGo library on the laptop.

I have tried doing the editing in Audacity but this then saves the file in 16/44 format. i suppose I can change this but as the artwork still doesn't show I haven't bothered trying. I also downloaded a "trial" version of dBpoweramp. On the download page it showed that you could access a database to fill in all the details (metadata?). However once downloaded this feature appears to be missing and I just have the ripper and batch converting softwares in the free version.

Can anyone offer a simple way of getting my album artwork to stick. I'd be much obliged.

Regards,

Steve O.

Posted on: 03 July 2017 by Richard Dane

Steve, first thing is that it sounds like you need to change your settings in Audacity so it operates, edits and saves at 24bit 96kHz. You need to set this. It's worth spending a little time getting to know the program - try learning through the wikihow.

As for album artwork, I assume you are using a folder structure - i.e. Artist folder - Album folder - track files, album art (recommend 500x500 labelled as folder.jpg). Now if you want to add metadata and to have it "stick" then, if you wish to remain with WAV files then dBpoweramp is probably your only choice, otherwise you might prefer to use the convertor to change the files to FLACs. dBpoweramp allows you to add/edit metadata and also album artwork - lots of different fields including comments and notes. You probably just need to take a bit of time for feel your way around the program.

Posted on: 03 July 2017 by sjbabbey

Steve,

When using audacity check the Project Rate (Hz) setting in the very bottom left corner of the screen and, as Richard suggests you can set this to 96,000Hz. Also after editing be sure to use the "Export Audio" command (Ctrl + Shift + E) which will allow you to select the file type and the bit depth (via the options button).

Also, you can use mp3tag (which is freeware) which can tag wav files now and also has a tag sources feature which links to freedb and discogs for metadata which it will suggest from the filenames.