Good morning gents. I've posted about this before but mainly in regards to id3 tagging which I still haven't figured out. First let me say that I am not a musically driven person. I mean I just don't obsess about it like some of my friends. I have managed to accumulate about 75 cds over the years. I am interested in digitising them. Purchasing downloadable music or P2P sharing is NOT on the menu. Just my own music stored digitally.
What really piqued my interest in this whole digital archiving/mp3/FLAC or whatever is the recent purchase of a Kenwood head unit for my truck. This little jewel has the NEATEST feature you could ever add to a car stereo. A USB port. This allowed me to purchase one of those $15 usb card readers and with the addition of a 1Gb SD card, voila, instant digital music on the car stereo. I've managed some rudimentary music files and enjoy them but do have a few issues.
Here is the skinny on the current setup. I have EAC(Exact Audio Copy) for ripping the cds. From all account this is the one to have for its accuracy. I also installed LAME mp3 encoder. As anyone who has messed with this program will tell you it is not intuitive. At least to this noob. I have it set to rip a cd to .wav and then encode with LAME to mp3 after that(rather than rip/encode at the same time after each track). It is set to delete the large .wav file after encoding to mp3. I also have it check the Cd Database for album and track info. This works but some issues need to be resolved there as well. I also downloaded Monkey's Audio for a "lossless" compression format for archiving. I have not used it yet. I also downloaded a couple of tagging programs. The Godfather and Mp3tag. This is where the real head scratching comes in. While the Monkey's Audio has a pretty intuitive interface(GUI?), the Godfather and Mp3tag confuse me completely. Especially Godfather.
Okay, down to needs. I would like to archive most of my cds. I am under the impression that storing the raw .wav files just eats up too much hard drive space. Okay fine. This is where the Monkey's Audio comes in I suppose. Allegedly it compresses the .wav files to about half their size whilst maintaining a "perfect" audio copy of your music. There is also FLAC which does the same thing but does not seem to have an easy to use front end like the Monkey's Audio. I can configure EAC to compress to M's Audio .ape files(or FLAC I believe) instead of the lossier mp3 of LAME. I don't mind mp3 for playback but it is not a great storage format. Okay, give me pros/cons of MA vs FLAC. Especially how to use the danged programs. This stuff is INTIMIDATING for new user. I would also like to know how to go about actually making a playable copy of the resultant compressed files in a format playable on my car deck. It supports mp3, WMA, and AAC. I know MA has a "convert" button to do this change but will you then lose the original archived .ape file?
Tagging. Boy here is a real nightmare. I used the Cd database function while ripping with EAC and it worked pretty well for album/track info. However, it is not quite doing some things to my liking. While I finally found out how to display this info on my car deck, when I look at the files in My Music folder, some of the tracks on one album are all listed as "track 02". Even though they don't appear that way on the player's display. They are usually in the proper order. Also, when dragging them to the SD card, the folders seem to take on any number they want. Even though I dropped five cds of mp3s on the card, they are listed as folder 03, 04, 05, 06, 08,09. See what I mean? They just seemed to assign whatever order and folder number they wanted on the card.
Alright, here is more. I am totally bamboozled by Godfather and Mp3tag. I have looked for tutorials on the web and they are woefully lacking. The one I did find for Godfather was very confusing and most of the suggestions didn't materialise in my attempts. So, do you want to use CDDB and FreeDb(free online databases for album info) as you rip or after you've ripped and compressed or encoded? How the bloody hell do you do it? I am tearing my hair out trying to make heads or tails of these tagging programs. Should you let the databases check the cd as it is in your tray or let it read .wav files after you've ripped them?
Okay final questions. FLAC or Monkey's Audio? A decent Godfather or Mp3 tagging tutorial? How to keep your compressed "lossless" music files while being able to make mp3 copies for the mobile player. I realise all this belongs on an audio forum but I don't frequent them, they are BRUTAL to newbs like me, and the post come so fast that little attention is payed to posts like this. BTW, I found out about EAC/LAME from Hydrogen Audio. The most informative site I've visited so far. Sorry for this huge post but I need help badly.
Regards, Todd
What really piqued my interest in this whole digital archiving/mp3/FLAC or whatever is the recent purchase of a Kenwood head unit for my truck. This little jewel has the NEATEST feature you could ever add to a car stereo. A USB port. This allowed me to purchase one of those $15 usb card readers and with the addition of a 1Gb SD card, voila, instant digital music on the car stereo. I've managed some rudimentary music files and enjoy them but do have a few issues.
Here is the skinny on the current setup. I have EAC(Exact Audio Copy) for ripping the cds. From all account this is the one to have for its accuracy. I also installed LAME mp3 encoder. As anyone who has messed with this program will tell you it is not intuitive. At least to this noob. I have it set to rip a cd to .wav and then encode with LAME to mp3 after that(rather than rip/encode at the same time after each track). It is set to delete the large .wav file after encoding to mp3. I also have it check the Cd Database for album and track info. This works but some issues need to be resolved there as well. I also downloaded Monkey's Audio for a "lossless" compression format for archiving. I have not used it yet. I also downloaded a couple of tagging programs. The Godfather and Mp3tag. This is where the real head scratching comes in. While the Monkey's Audio has a pretty intuitive interface(GUI?), the Godfather and Mp3tag confuse me completely. Especially Godfather.
Okay, down to needs. I would like to archive most of my cds. I am under the impression that storing the raw .wav files just eats up too much hard drive space. Okay fine. This is where the Monkey's Audio comes in I suppose. Allegedly it compresses the .wav files to about half their size whilst maintaining a "perfect" audio copy of your music. There is also FLAC which does the same thing but does not seem to have an easy to use front end like the Monkey's Audio. I can configure EAC to compress to M's Audio .ape files(or FLAC I believe) instead of the lossier mp3 of LAME. I don't mind mp3 for playback but it is not a great storage format. Okay, give me pros/cons of MA vs FLAC. Especially how to use the danged programs. This stuff is INTIMIDATING for new user. I would also like to know how to go about actually making a playable copy of the resultant compressed files in a format playable on my car deck. It supports mp3, WMA, and AAC. I know MA has a "convert" button to do this change but will you then lose the original archived .ape file?
Tagging. Boy here is a real nightmare. I used the Cd database function while ripping with EAC and it worked pretty well for album/track info. However, it is not quite doing some things to my liking. While I finally found out how to display this info on my car deck, when I look at the files in My Music folder, some of the tracks on one album are all listed as "track 02". Even though they don't appear that way on the player's display. They are usually in the proper order. Also, when dragging them to the SD card, the folders seem to take on any number they want. Even though I dropped five cds of mp3s on the card, they are listed as folder 03, 04, 05, 06, 08,09. See what I mean? They just seemed to assign whatever order and folder number they wanted on the card.
Alright, here is more. I am totally bamboozled by Godfather and Mp3tag. I have looked for tutorials on the web and they are woefully lacking. The one I did find for Godfather was very confusing and most of the suggestions didn't materialise in my attempts. So, do you want to use CDDB and FreeDb(free online databases for album info) as you rip or after you've ripped and compressed or encoded? How the bloody hell do you do it? I am tearing my hair out trying to make heads or tails of these tagging programs. Should you let the databases check the cd as it is in your tray or let it read .wav files after you've ripped them?
Okay final questions. FLAC or Monkey's Audio? A decent Godfather or Mp3 tagging tutorial? How to keep your compressed "lossless" music files while being able to make mp3 copies for the mobile player. I realise all this belongs on an audio forum but I don't frequent them, they are BRUTAL to newbs like me, and the post come so fast that little attention is payed to posts like this. BTW, I found out about EAC/LAME from Hydrogen Audio. The most informative site I've visited so far. Sorry for this huge post but I need help badly.
Regards, Todd