Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

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Kupuna
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Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Kupuna »

Nothing earthshaking. I have over a hundred cd's that I want to move into Media Monkey. If anyone has tips,tricks (or horror stories) about how to "gracefully" move such a large volume of material, I would be delighted to hear. Thank you very much.
Peke
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Peke »

Hi,
Add all of them to MMW library, correct/find Tags and afte rthat it is only simple insert -> RIP -> Insert -> RIP -> ....

If you need more details Let us know.

Fyi I've done that way whole collection about 600CDs and almost 2k singles.
Best regards,
Peke
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Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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Kupuna
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Kupuna »

Peke,
You are obviously way ahead of me, and I would call myself a beginning user. One thing I don't understand in your reply is "add all of them to MM library ...then rip.
I thought I would have to rip them all to some destination (external drive in my case) and then have MM scan the rips and add them. What am I not understanding about the sequence?
Thanks for the help.
Greg
pushpull
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by pushpull »

I believe Peke may be referring to adding a "virtual cd" to MM. This just creates a record of the cd in the database and does not include the rip. I have never used it myself. I guess the one advantage to doing this is that once you get the correct tagging and add them to the virtual cd, you will then have a correct permanent record of cd that you can refer to if you want to re-rip it for whatever reason.

I ripped over 800 cds around this time last year when I set up my NAS. It took me a few weeks to do it. I do have multiple computers with optical drives so that helped. The number of cds you mention shouldn't take that long. Just keep plugging away. The other thing that you need to consider is what audio format you want to rip these in. I ripped all mine to flac. If you want use these on a portable device you may want them in a format that isn't so demanding on storage space. Also, I used EAC to rip all my cds and not MM.

Another consideration is the way you want the organization of your music regarding the artists names. Usually when you tag these, the artists name tends to be populated as such - "Robert Cray" . I prefer a true alphabetical structure and will change the artists name to reflect that, i.e. - "Cray, Robert".

Don't forget to analyze the volume of your rips in MM.
MMFrLife
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by MMFrLife »

I think Peke means "RIP to library temp/staging area (to later make sure tags are proper/final) > Insert next disc into optical drive[/i] >
start the process over (like an "...and so on"). Later, insert fully edited tracks to final destination dir.

"RIP (to temp) > Insert (to disc drive) > RIP (to temp) > Insert (to disc drive) > RIP....and so on"
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rivorson
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by rivorson »

To add a third opinion, I think Peke means inserting each CD and adding all the tracks on all CDs to MM's library before ripping. That way you do all your tagging in bulk without waiting for the rip, then do all the time consuming ripping in bulk without having to interrupt whatever else you're doing to tag between discs.

Once tagged it's
insert -> RIP -> Insert -> RIP ->
as opposed to
insert -> tag -> RIP -> Insert -> tag -> RIP ->

pushpull wrote:I believe Peke may be referring to adding a "virtual cd" to MM. This just creates a record of the cd in the database and does not include the rip.
Not so. The Virtual CD feature creates a local copy of the content which means actually ripping the CD so that in future you use the virtual CD instead of the physical CD. It isn't limited to CDs either. I use it on my laptop to keep a local copy of content from my NAS. The master copy stays on the NAS and is updated when I edit metadata and the local copy can be played when I'm out but the two appear as a single track in MM.
dypsis
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Re: No Easy Way

Post by dypsis »

There is no easy way, in my opinion. Especially if you are fussy about good, accurate tagging (including lyrics) and quality artwork (front, back, media label etc.), which I am.

The ripper I use is dBpoweramp CD Ripper. And yes, lossless is the only way to go.
Don't waste all that time with a lossy format. FLAC is my choice.

For artwork, you have 2 choices. Scan and edit your own.
Choice 1: That's right. Scanning without touching it up with a graphics application is not good enough. I use Corel PaintShop Pro for its simplicity and great results.
Choice 2: Find a good album art website that has quality album art. Your choice is limited here. The only good quality album art websites that I know of are Album Art Exchange and FANART.TV. Maybe other forum members can provide you with other quality album art websites. There are a lot of crappy ones around.

It's a lot of work. All the best. :wink:
Peke
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Peke »

Just to clear things I meant third option by rivorson http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 58#p432458 So final procedure would be and fastest in the end:
1. Insert CD in Drive
2. File -> Add/rescan Files to Library (INS Shortkut Key)
3. Select inserted CD
4. OK
-----
If CD Metadata was not recognized/scanned on insert then, otherwise skip to 6:
-----
5. Edit/Rename Media Label under Music -> Location -> [Inserted CD] and add unique name (I used "<MyCollectionCD#>. Album Artist - Album Name")
-----
6. Repeat Steps 1-5 for about 50-100 CDs.
7. Correct Metadata for 10-15 CDs (No need for Album art at this step)
8. Insert First non Ripped CD with Correct metadata
9. Click RIP and set Destination (DO NOT USE LEVEL VOLUME) and liek pointed Use FLAC as Lossless.
10. While CD is Ripping you can Edit correct Metadata for other CDs
11. Repeat Steps 8-10 till you finish with that bunch of 100 CDs

Then Go again from Start.

Trust me you save at least 2-3 minutes per disk and when you have 2K of CDs end saving is more than full 4 days.
Best regards,
Peke
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MMFrLife
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by MMFrLife »

That sounds interesting (seems like a lot to have to think about though), doing all the work at the beginning makes
the ripping easier later. But, all the work you do at the beginning still combines with the time it takes to do all the ripping later.

I mean, is it "really" faster than just ripping to a staging area that's monitored?
After about 2 or 3 rips you can start working on metadata/tags and not have to worry about inserting again later.

I'll have to do a little mini empirical test of the different ways some time, not anytime soon though (don't hold your breath).
The majority of the time I use dbpoweramp anyway, ripped to a monitored folder and where I can usually get beautiful large sized artwork in as I go.
MM user since 2003 (lifetime lic. 2012) "Trying to imagine life without music gives me a headache"
Top 2 scripts: RegExp Find & Replace (e.v.) and Magic Nodes (e.v.) ZvezdanD's scripts site
Please take a moment to read the bottom of the linked page to support the one and only - ZvezdanD! (the "originator" since 2006).
MMW 4.1.31.1919; 5.0.4.2690 || back it up...frequently!
|| software for power users: "Q-Dir" (free alt. to explorer) and file/folder renamer: "ReNamer" (den4b)
"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth"
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Peke
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Peke »

It really depends on preference. I wanted to make Catalog of all of my CDs anyway So basically when I inserted all CDs in MMW library I just back it up on old RIG running MMW that near my shelf with CDs (it is not even connected to internet) when If needed I can Type any track and it will prompt me to insert Right CD (I even created Previews of Each track to be able to pre-listen tracks). Also if all CDs are in Library then I can remove duplicates (I really do not like duplicates) to even more shorten Ripping Time. I've done that on all of my 600+ CDs and 2k of EP/LP sample CDs. Just like big jukebox (without arm to pick right one and play it).

Also at the time I had three CD-Roms in Ripping PC so I was adding/Ripping three CDs at same time into MP3s (it was 11 years ago), Now for me it is easy to rerip that into FLAC (done around 200 already) using same approach like yours by ripping using new PC directly Ripping to NAS and Monitored folder that my main MMW pick it up.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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Kupuna
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Kupuna »

Deep thanks to all who posted on this topic. I learned a great deal. If anyone out there wants to add more wisdom, please do.
Bob_m_54
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Bob_m_54 »

I recently finished re-ripping my CDs (over 1500 in all) as I had originally ripped them to MP3, a few years back. I ripped them to FLAC, using Exact Audio Copy (EAC), which I set up to rip to the file structure "Desktop/New Music/Artist/date - Album/01 - title". My reason for this is that I like to rip discs in batches of 20 to 30 at a time, and it helps keep me organised.

I also use EAC to populate the tags automatically when ripping, but you have to be aware that there may be different releases of the album, with different track listings, or just plain errors in the online databases, as the listings are submitted by ordinary users. I don't use audio leveling when ripping, preferring to apply any analyzing or leveling to synced media as required, depending on the application. I also don't use the add cover image directly when ripping, due to the very wide range in quality and resolution of artwork that may be found. I do however apply level 3 compression to the FLAC files, which doesn't alter the quality of the FLAC (it's still lossless), but gives the best bang for buck, for filesize V Processing Time/load.

So my regime goes something like this:
Insert CD and allow EAC to populate tags, checking them for accuracy before ripping.
CD draw opens on completion, insert next CD, and repeat the above till you get bored with it.

After I get sick of doing that at around 20 or 30 CDs, I open my "New Music" folder and use the two aforementioned websites to find my Artwork.
I simply search the album on the websites, and save the most suitable cover image to the album folder on my computer. I then use Irfanview to batch resize my covers to the same size (I use 500X500 pixels)

Next, I use MM with the Album Art Tagger plugin to "batch embed" cover art - "02. Embed Artwork(copy from mask to tag)". I then do a final check of each album in MM to make sure I haven't missed any tagging errors and to check artwork. Then simply drag and drop the new albums to my main Library storage, which is an external HDD.

When you type it out like that, it seems a bit laborious, but it's pretty simple really.

Rip a batch of CDs, find artwork and drop in the folder, batch convert artwork, batch embed artwork, add to library.

The only downside is that I stuffed my optical drive in the lappy, being the second time I've ripped mine, plus others, that's in excess of 4,000 discs. And with some being a bit on the dodgy side as well, the ripping can sometimes involve re-reading sections for error correction.
MMFrLife
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by MMFrLife »

Kupuna, my pleasure.

Peke, thanks for expounding.
That's definitely a huge plus for cataloging purposes and the duplicates trick you mentioned!
And thanks for reminding me of my first attempted digital conversion 13+? years ago.
I also had 3, or 4, opticals (2 on current sys) set up and ready to go thinking along with much of the rest of the
world(?) (US, at least) that programs like Adaptec's Easy CD creator (became Roxio...) and 128 kbps mp3s were all the rage! :lol:
MM user since 2003 (lifetime lic. 2012) "Trying to imagine life without music gives me a headache"
Top 2 scripts: RegExp Find & Replace (e.v.) and Magic Nodes (e.v.) ZvezdanD's scripts site
Please take a moment to read the bottom of the linked page to support the one and only - ZvezdanD! (the "originator" since 2006).
MMW 4.1.31.1919; 5.0.4.2690 || back it up...frequently!
|| software for power users: "Q-Dir" (free alt. to explorer) and file/folder renamer: "ReNamer" (den4b)
"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth"
😜
dypsis
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by dypsis »

Bob_m_54 wrote:I do however apply level 3 compression to the FLAC files, which doesn't alter the quality of the FLAC (it's still lossless), but gives the best bang for buck, for filesize V Processing Time/load.
The compression level doesn't alter the quality of the FLAC files.
It just compresses the file more the higher you go. It's still lossless whether you choose FLAC 0 or 8. I always use 8.
Bob_m_54
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Re: Experience ripping a large number of CD's for MM?

Post by Bob_m_54 »

dypsis wrote:
Bob_m_54 wrote:I do however apply level 3 compression to the FLAC files, which doesn't alter the quality of the FLAC (it's still lossless), but gives the best bang for buck, for filesize V Processing Time/load.
The compression level doesn't alter the quality of the FLAC files.
It just compresses the file more the higher you go. It's still lossless whether you choose FLAC 0 or 8. I always use 8.
LOL that's what I said. :lol:
But once you get higher than lvl 3 compression, you don't really get much gain in file size reduction, so 3 is as much as I would bother going.
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