Looking for Advice on Ripping my CD Collection (1 Viewer)

[Bartman]

I stand corrected then... although accuracy of translating/calculating the specific track info Bartman mentioned into such disc ID still could be a tad iffy near as I can tell -- I can easily see the (deduced) starting times checksum and/or aggregate disc length could easily be off by a bit from what's actually used by the DBs in practice. Maybe I should make a personal little project of this since I do have the time (and perhaps, interest and inclination) these days...

Too bad whatever's implemented in the iTunes for Windows software doesn't seem particularly good at retrieving album artwork, especially for classical music CDs, though -- the Groove Music player that comes w/ Windows 8 and higher seems modestly better at that, but still not that good... Yeah, that's specifically not what Bartman asked for...

Anyway, thanks!

_Man_

A re-titling program that's compatible with Win7 or Ubuntu would be great!

 

[BobO'Link]

Just an FYI: Since I have more time on my hands these days, I re-purposed a 10-year old PC still running Win7 as a Plex PC (and JellyFin, because, why not?), and it was fairly painless installing the server software on the old PC, and the only thing I need to upgrade or add is storage space (hard drives), as I decide what I want it to serve for my entertainment purposes. I have some Win10 codes from my IT admin days, so if I need to, I can also upgrade it to Win10 later.

Win7 codes can be used to activate Win10 and you can still upgrade to Win10 over a Win7 install.

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

Does anyone know of an app that can interrogate databases and recreate album and song title data from number of tracks, track order and track duration data? Preferrably an app that can do this en masse rather an album at a time?
I don't need album artwork just titles.

This one: https://www.mp3tag.de/en/
It can get data from a CD in your driver, a title, the tracks, and all sorts of external databases. Very seldom has it failed me.
You just mark all tracks and search using the different alternatives.

 

[jcroy]

I stand corrected then... although accuracy of translating/calculating the specific track info Bartman mentioned into such disc ID still could be a tad iffy near as I can tell -- I can easily see the (deduced) starting times checksum and/or aggregate disc length could easily be off by a bit from what's actually used by the DBs in practice. Maybe I should make a personal little project of this since I do have the time (and perhaps, interest and inclination) these days...

The only way to know how exactly the disc ID string is calculated, is to find less popular cd discs in one's collection and see how the id string calculation matches to that in gnudb. (GNUDB entires accessed via the www web, are cataloged explicitly by the cd id string in the url).

The problem with widely available mass market cd titles, is that there's tons of releases with slightly different cd id strings for a particular cd album. For example, such as Metallica's cd albums.

 

[Bartman]

I contacted Florian at MP3tag and he recommended Picard (that I already have), I'll take another look at it.

 

[Mike Frezon]

So as I reported back in May, I had to put my transfer project on hold as I tended to other things.

Those "other things" mainly centered around moving from our home of 32-years into a new home. For anyone who has never been through a move, I found it to be a rather all-consuming process. I am now starting to pick up some of the pieces which had to get interrupted.

So I hope to get back to off-loading discs onto the Brennan B2 and get that task completed.

But I still have that one big unanswered question hanging over all this. Does anyone know a way to convert FLAC files to mp3? Because as I must have explained early on in this thread, I decided to go with FLAC for home listening but am going to want to bring some of those files into the car which necessitates them being converted to mp3.

 

[jcroy]

But I still have that one big unanswered question hanging over all this. Does anyone know a way to convert FLAC files to mp3? Because as I must have explained early on in this thread, I decided to go with FLAC for home listening but am going to want to bring some of those files into the car which necessitates them being converted to mp3.

Besides the vlc method mentined earlier in this thread, can you be more specific about what you are looking for in a flac->mp3 conversion program ?

 

[Mike Frezon]

Just the ability to do batches and...something easy.

I forgot about VLC. I'm trying to remember if I tried it. It's been several months.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

So as I reported back in May, I had to put my transfer project on hold as I tended to other things.

Those "other things" mainly centered around moving from our home of 32-years into a new home. For anyone who has never been through a move, I found it to be a rather all-consuming process. I am now starting to pick up some of the pieces which had to get interrupted.

So I hope to get back to off-loading discs onto the Brennan B2 and get that task completed.

But I still have that one big unanswered question hanging over all this. Does anyone know a way to convert FLAC files to mp3? Because as I must have explained early on in this thread, I decided to go with FLAC for home listening but am going to want to bring some of those files into the car which necessitates them being converted to mp3.

Exact Audio Copy should be able to handle the FLAC to MP3 conversion. I've used it for years for ripping and encoding CDs.

BTW, congrats on the new home, Mike!

 

[BobO'Link]

From another site (who's really pushing their converter program so don't get a link):

Convert FLAC to MP3 Using VLC

VLC can play audio files, extract, audio or convert any audio/music file into another media format easily. One of its most popular file conversions, is FLAC to MP3 File conversions.

Step 1. Launch VLC Media Player​

Launch VLC Media Player and select "Media" from the Home menu. Under "Media" tab, select "Convert/Save".

Step 2. Add FLAC Files​

Click "Add" to add FLAC Files. You can add more FLAC Files if needed.

Step 3. Select ‘Convert/Save’ button at the bottom of the ‘Open Media’ window.​

Step 4. Choose Audio-MP3 as output format.​

Another dialog box settings will open when you select "Convert/Save" button. Under settings, select "Convert" option. In that, you need to select MP3 as output format from the Media Profile list. After that, choose a destination file by selecting the "Browse" option.

However, most of the time users have faced issues such as ‘unresponsive program’ after the conversion. (and this is where their sales pitch comes in)

Disclaimer: I've not used VLC for this but it's doable.

And I've read good things about this open source project:

fre:ac - free audio converter

Download fre:ac - free audio converter for free. Audio converter and CD ripper for various formats. fre:ac is a free audio converter and CD ripper for various formats and encoders. It features MP3, MP4/M4A, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, and Bonk format support, integrates freedb/CDDB, CDText and...

sourceforge.net

BUT - I've not used it. I *do* like that it's "portable" (i.e. no installer necessary).

 

[jcroy]

However, most of the time users have faced issues such as ‘unresponsive program’ after the conversion. (and this is where their sales pitch comes in)

The easy way to deal with this "hanging" issue, is just killing the vlc process by hand via task manager. This is what I always do every time.

 

[Bob_S.]

So as I reported back in May, I had to put my transfer project on hold as I tended to other things.

Those "other things" mainly centered around moving from our home of 32-years into a new home. For anyone who has never been through a move, I found it to be a rather all-consuming process. I am now starting to pick up some of the pieces which had to get interrupted.

So I hope to get back to off-loading discs onto the Brennan B2 and get that task completed.

But I still have that one big unanswered question hanging over all this. Does anyone know a way to convert FLAC files to mp3? Because as I must have explained early on in this thread, I decided to go with FLAC for home listening but am going to want to bring some of those files into the car which necessitates them being converted to mp3.

Mike, does your car have Bluetooth? I have a 528 gb SD card in my phone with all my cds ripped as flac and just play it through my car's Bluetooth system.

 

[Mike Frezon]

My car DOES have bluetooth, Bob. But I have an iPhone (so no way to use an SD card with that). And I don't want to store music on my phone (I dedicate it towards communications & photos).

I wonder if there's some other device I could use in a similar way?

I might have some old iPhones sitting around gathering dust, but I doubt they've got the necessary storage capacity.

 

[Bob_S.]

My car DOES have bluetooth, Bob. But I have an iPhone (so no way to use an SD card with that). And I don't want to store music on my phone (I dedicate it towards communications & photos).

I wonder if there's some other device I could use in a similar way?

I might have some old iPhones sitting around gathering dust, but I doubt they've got the necessary storage capacity.

You could use a thumb drive if your car has a slot for it. I tried to use a thumb drive in my car but didn't like how it worked.

 

[BobO'Link]

The biggest issue I have with USB drives in the car is the larger the drive the longer it takes for the system to finally start playing music. A 16GB or 32GB isn't too bad with the 16GB starting within seconds, the 32GB is 5-10 seconds but a 64GB drive can take a full minute. In all fairness, that 64GB drive has over 1000 tracks it's trying to index every time. I tried a 128GB drive but it can take 2-3 minutes to get going (my drive to/from work is only 5-8 minutes) so I stopped using that one. A couple of times with that 128GB drive I pulled it to reseat it a few times before I realized I wasn't giving it enough time to load. That pretty much stymied my plan to purchase a 512GB drive to hold anything I might want to hear (that would hold roughly 2/3 of my collection) and just leave the one drive in the car rather than swapping them out periodically. The 64GB one holds enough to last a several months (long enough that I'll forget what's on it) with no repeats so that's good enough.

 

[Chad Erickson]

So as I reported back in May, I had to put my transfer project on hold as I tended to other things.

Those "other things" mainly centered around moving from our home of 32-years into a new home. For anyone who has never been through a move, I found it to be a rather all-consuming process. I am now starting to pick up some of the pieces which had to get interrupted.

So I hope to get back to off-loading discs onto the Brennan B2 and get that task completed.

But I still have that one big unanswered question hanging over all this. Does anyone know a way to convert FLAC files to mp3? Because as I must have explained early on in this thread, I decided to go with FLAC for home listening but am going to want to bring some of those files into the car which necessitates them being converted to mp3.

Hey Mike -

I've been doing this for many years using a program called Trader's Little Helper. It's super user friendly and allows you batch up your conversions. It also gives you several options around what quality you want your converted files in.

Trader's Little Helper

a free Windows frontend for decoding, encoding, creating/verifying checksums, and fixing sector boundary errors of lossless compressed audio files

tlh.easytree.org

Here's what you'll need to do
- open the app (once installed)
- Click Format
- Choose Convert Encoding Format
- Click Add and then select the FLAC files to convert
- Change the Target Format to MP3 and pick your Quality Level
- Pick your output directory (Same as where the files live or a different location)
- Click Convert

If you decide to use it, let me know if you have any questions.

Chad

 

[Mike Frezon]

Chad:

That sounds promising. I will be sure to report back.