Sorting by media type & genre makes sense. A lot of folks have simply transferred music on CD's to a hard drive (w/ a backup) and this makes sense if you have space constraints or simply don't want to mess with a CD transport or player.

HK

I guess I'm pretty lucky. My CD collection is mostly classical, and mostly arranged alphabetically by composer. I have a few shelves dedicated to specialty stuff like historical conductors or collections and a couple shelves that just have big boxed sets. For me jazz is straight forward and (fortunately from an organizational perspective) rock is the smallest. I struggled with it and finally settled arranging it by sub-genre: prog, british invasion, 60's, 70's and "modern" (anything 80's and newer lol). I listen to it the least and it is in the least convenient place to access.  I also have a couple shelves for misc stuff, like bagpipes (seriously).

I probably have 3 to 4 thousandish CDs all together and (almost) all of them are in plain sight so unless something gets filed wrong I can usually find what I want and so far (knock on wood) haven't really had trouble remembering what I have. I started ripping some of them to save shelf space and between that and downloads I've got several hundred CD's worth of stuff on my computer. Organizing that may become an issue at some point.

Donnie wrote on 07/01/22 at 15:58:04:

I won't let you find my feathers, Donnie.

What software?
I use EAC to copy, Often Winamp or just Audacity for playback (old, I want better!).


I have about 75% of my CDs converted to digital, about 10% of my LPs, maybe 50% of my reel to reels from old concerts I was a part of. Most of the pre-recorded, purchased r-r, I don't see the point, yet.
I love the new huge HDDs available.

But, I'm not getting rid of my physical media, '50s mindset or not.

I get this digital thing and I might get near some day, but I am still in a transitional stage and needing to to do a lot of shuffling to finally digitize my collection.

I still like to handle albums, though and I've never looked back.

My problems are not keeping them safe, but finding The One I want right now!


I suppose digital is one solution I am working toward. No where near success, yet.

Same Old DD wrote on 07/01/22 at 19:11:05:


I use JRiver for all of my digital needs. Rip, manage and playback.
It is very versatile and flexible, plus it plays everything that I have ever thrown at it.

Donnie, I'm going to go find JRiver and try that out.

I was not even talking about digital media at first, but let's go!

I will have a tough time letting go of EAC for all my CD ripping needs, though.
I use it for burns, too and never had a fail to load circumstance on any gear from anything other than an occassional "bad disc" that won't play on anything and EAC gives me a warning.

I thank all you guys for your perspectives.


CAJames, shelves worth of bagpipes?
Admittedly, it is in my blood and I am still stirred at times, but I have an armload to deal with, not shelves.
I get it, the miscellaneousness that does not fit in anywhere.

One of the bands I worked with long ago was The Chieftains. I had never met or even heard of them before and they had never been to Texas before.
Paddy caught me having a fit over the caterer icing down a huge tub of Guinness, while I dumped it out onto the grass in the Texas sun, as he walked up. "They don't want it cold!"
I had "some" culture.

He said, "Looks like you caught it in time, Bub" (I was trying to act Irish and he was trying to act Texas) and he wrangled one open for both of us with his belt buckle. It was still fairly early in the morning. Good times!
He gave me one of everything they had for sale that night, including a handful of CDs, which I still treasure.
Probably should have had them signed, but I was never into that.

As an example of discogs genre categorization, The Chieftans are in the "Folk, World, and Country" genre and "Celtic" sub-genre, which discogs calls "style." My Celtic harp album is categorized the same.

Not sure if all bagpipes are categorized the same, but the one I just looked up is in the "Brass and Military" genre, "Pipe and Drum" style.

Most of us don't have enough albums to need that kind of specificity on genres, but I do often find it helpful, and always interesting.

Johnnycopy, it is the bitperfect aspect of EAC that has kept me using it for so many years.
But, it's a ripper/burner and that's it.

I am anxious to acquire some of this newer software you guys mention and work with it.

EAC has been my go to for a long time as well, I esp. like that I can (easily) rip multiple CDs as consecutive tracks of the same album. My only complaint is some CDs take a long time to rip (I always rip to FLAC). So I also use freac which seems to crank through CDs faster.

For playback I use foobar2000 on a dedicated (cheap) Windows laptop via USB. I don't stream and have tweaked the OS to turn off a bunch of services I don't need. I'm no fan of windows but foobar is the best software I've used, and I've tried a bunch of them on Linux and RPi as well as Windows. Full disclosure I'm a "computer professional" and neither foobar nor Windows OS tweaking is esp. user friendly but if you have some computer skills it is a high value route to high quality digital playback IMO.

Thanks, Donnie.

Going that route at first.
Is there a set of "full features" not available with the Trial Version that come to life after paying for the FULL purchased version?

I know some do this and that's fine, just wondering.

I've already DL'd it but have yet to install. Not sure which machine would be best for a trial run, yet.

My latest, strongest or my oldest, weakest? Leaning toward my newest.

Just from reading what they offer, it sounds pretty exciting.

I feel I can understand most of the features, but leave yourself available as a mentor, in cathe questionth arithe.

CAJ, if you are using EAC and ending up with a FLAC file, you are introducing a third party software which could complicate things during your process, possibly.

I use FLAC sometimes, but I do it in two steps. Native WAV output for a "bit perfect" rip from a CD, then I convert WAV to other formats in a second operation if I need to.

I also use LAME, but hey, I have to put three hundred songs on my wife's little ear thingies she takes to work. I like being her hero.


Only times I've ever had trouble with the amount of time EAC takes to rip is if there are errors or built in errors to prevent copying.
CD players skip past these, sampling half a dozen times and just going with it.
EAC, trying to do its best, attempting to "lay it down" bit by bit, EAC sometimes runs into trouble with these errors.

I have had CDs that I could not rip using EAC, but resorting to Audacity or Winamp which ignore some of the imperfections, just like a CD player and just go with it, I have gotten rips that seem fine.
That always leaves me wondering where the imperfections lie that EAC could not find and fix.

I also use an older computer as a music server, with (varies) maybe six or eight hard drives connected to it, running XP with an MAudio card, but everything is turned off I don't need and it has never been connected to the internet to get MS involved again.
It works fine!
No Bluetooth, but I haven't really felt the need to use my system that way.
I can do cables.
If my daughter needs to cast something, we have a Roku connected to a Smart TV in the other room and that works fine for that.

You should talk some about these "Computer Professional" tweaks you have done. Don't know if I could follow, but some will, I'm sure.

Holy cow! 12,000 CDs…I thought I was struggling to organize around 5-600…
You should open a library with that Tower Records sized collection.

I have about 3 times what you do DD. I have about one third in climate controlled storage because I can't house it here. CDs: I put as many as I can into regular size jewel cases that hold two, so for example I will have two Miles Davis cds in one double cd jewel case. And I use bookshelves and have four rows of cd cases on each shelf, and two behind and one in front. I have most of my Miles, Blue Note, Impulse and Bethlehem jazz cds organized by artist or label, and most of my classical on one wall, and the rest is just willy nilly which allows me to go through the shelves and pull things out to listen to and discover things that I didn't think of to listen to. I am not at all OCD and this sort of chaotic arrangement does not bother me. I have been praised for my memory and I pretty much know generally where to find a disc if needed.

After a lot of pruning I only have about 1,000 LPs, all in one room and one wall. I listen to LPs about 5 percent of the time--my digital playback sounds better.

Same Old DD,

Thanks for the supportive feedback. I did a lot of ripping with WinAmp back in the day, after that JRiver. All .wav files. I tended to do large batches and it was a while before I woke up to the importance of configuring the tags the way I wanted them (sometimes the software reverted to a different approach due to being reinstalled, and I'd fail to notice that). By the time I did notice, the CDs were long gone.

So yeah, I'm not sure what I need exists. It would be an automated renaming/retagging utility that could recognize my chaotic collection from the album attributes on the web (forget the name of that database).

I can find what I need in my collection but my "impression" is that the inconsistent tag structure means that any software I use (I tried Album Play, anyone know about that one?) will only load up the library with part of what I have.

CAJ, patience is not my strongest suit either.

I believe you are right in having an all FLAC storage system. I'll get there eventually.

I have done as you mentioned, combining the two steps into one set of clicks and only had trouble a few times. In those (rare) cases, seperating the two processes seem to resolve things. Only reason I brought it up was in case of an annnoying empasse.

I also "unchecked" the box where I have the option to delete the WAV file after conversion.
So in many cases  I am storing both; not sure I ever needed to.
I felt like if there was a problem, I could try it again if I had a good rip to start.

Thanks for all the input folks!

Same Old DD wrote on 07/04/22 at 12:58:02:


I looked at my JRiver and noticed the tag button on the bottom of the "Tree" on the player. When I hit it about 25 options came up, I'm sure there are enough choices there to get you by.

There are so many thing in this software that I haven't even touched, I'm lazy and mostly use it to play my music.

Thanks, Donnie!

I literally just got it going today and I am building my library still.

First impression is that I am going to really enjoy using this software.
Many thanks for the suggestion.


I had no idea that it would record live television! Wow!
Not something I would use often, but I can remember missing a few races recently.
This would have been a handy feature for those times.
My cable system does this, but the files "expire" after a while and they disappear. Unfriendly!

Mine is version 29.
I was reading on their forum about certain versions doing odd stuff and there were very quick updates to adjust.
I guess you've lived through all that. This seems stable and trouble free.


I started learning to buff at age 12 with musical instruments, my father's business.
Looking for more angles, I moved into the hotrod circles. There's a lot involved with shining up a Jag rear end to go under a '40s pick up, especially when the rodder client stops back by with 60 something more bolts, nuts and washers to shine up on the same dime! Piece o' cake at that point.

Then eventually it was all about the hot boat craze in south Texas as the insane boats ramped up. Blown hemis running quad jets.

Boats were tough. The hotrodders brought things to us in crates and little boxes, but the boat guys didn't want anything taken apart and yet it had to be shiny. Then stay that way in the worst possible environment. I learned to shoot epoxy.

Big block valve covers aren't light! Intakes? YIKES! No more of that for me.

It was a hobby business with a partner.
Once my sound reinforcement company took off, all that was over, but I kept the skill set alive. I mainly just do antiques and stuff now.
A guy brought me two solid copper fire extinguishers last year, said if this goes well, he has eight more. It was done and I hit them all with epoxy. They'll stay shiny for ages and they can use Endust on them if they want, just NO polish compound!




So you understand a bit about restoring discs with a buffer?

Quote:


Cool. I use regular white toothpaste to defog my headlights and always wondered how it would work on a CD but was too lazy to actually try it. Good to know.

DD,

How is the JRiver working for you?

Like it? Hate it?

Inquiring minds need to know.

I sent them my numbers, Donnie. I'm legal, now!

Coming from someone like me who was not really in the market for software, that's a strong endorsement.
I have you to thank.

Donnie wrote on 07/09/22 at 13:31:48:


Funny you should ask that, because I don't think I have ever "retired" a hard drive except for some of the smallest ones.

Now, I am back to shuffling the physical HDDs, to and fro, in order to get everything indexed properly, tagged with Volume #s, etc. But now I have a better way to do all this sorting and a better reason.
Part of the fun!