Management of media libraries; what are the logistical advantages of the various formats.

Rip once, do it right and you will never have to do it again.  Some steps to follow

1. Choose a lossless format that is widely supported and has flexible support for tags => Flac if you are going to use a player like J. River Media Center or Foobar.  Alac (or the uncompressed AIFF format) if you are going to use iTunes.  If you want to convert to a different format later, you can do so with a simple batch conversion process.

2. Choose a ripping program that does secure ripping and lets you know when it can't produce accurate results=> EAC, dBpoweramp or J. River Media Center all work and produce equivalent results.  (I've done byte comparisons of the ripped music files form those rippers.  The ripping software will retrieve tag information from an online database before it starts ripping a CD.  You should inspect the values to see that they match the contents of the CD.  Oneline tag databases are useful for popular music but not very good for classical music or anything else where both the composer and the performer matter. You'll have to do more editing and hand entry of tag information for such CDs.  The edited tag values will be used to build folder and file names for the ripped files as well as being stored inside the files as tag values. (You can edit the tag values in music files after they have been ripped.)

3. Decide where you want to store ripped files, what the folder and file names should look like and how you want the tag information formatted and how you want the tag values

4. Before you start ripping your entire CD collection, experiment on a subset of 30-100 CDs to develop your own understanding of the process and your skills.  During this process, you should try using one or more music player programs to see what functionality you want and what kind of user interface suits you..

Once you have a good understanding and a set of skills an dknow what you want, you are ready to plunge in ripping your entire CD collection.

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You seem to be a computer software guy.  Browsing for music files using folder and file names is like using a hierarchical database - the structure supports one way of browsing well and other ways poorly.  Browsing using tags is like using a relational database - with the right player software, you can browse in various ways equally well. the J. River Media Center player (JRMC) lets you define views for different purposes and can use whatever tags you want.

Learning to use a new piece of software is a key skill and one you probably have as a computer guy. Programs like JRMC have lots of configuration options.  Expect to spend some time exploring the (top line) menus, the right-click menus and even right click options on controls looking for ways to adapt the program to what you want.  Computer audio isn't a good fit for AHDD types or for people who hatre everything about computers.

Bill

I can only second what Bill has said about the subject.

Both FLAC and WAV can be tagged.
FLAC uses a standard (Ogg/Vorbis comments).
WAV doesn’t have a standard. Some media players don’t tag it all, others do it in their  own way.
The consequence is poor portability.

You need to store files on a HD. You will have one and only one tree structure.
This is pretty much like having your CDs in a rack.
Tags allow you to use multiple views.
You can define a tree by Album, Composer, Year, Genre, etc (if the media player supports this)
So you have multiple trees.

However I use tags most of all for searching my collection.
If I type “Trio” I get all the trio’s I have regardless of the composer.
It I type “Trio beet” I get all the trio’s composed by Beethoven, etc.
Tags are simply a very flexible way to browse and search your collection.

> Expecially helpful was your thinking on error correction.

>  Currently I'm using dBPoweramp, and have configured error correction settings according to their best practice recommendations.

My CDs were in good shape.  95% required no additional reads to get accurate rips.  another 4% could be read accurately with extra reads and about 1% had one or more tracks that could not be read accurately.  Fixing the 4% is very useful and identifying the 1% problem  CDs is very useful.

CD/DVD drives vary widely in speed.  The Samsung SH-223L I use now usually rips a CD with 2 passes in 5 minutes.  (It would be faster with dBpoweramp for CDs in the AccurateRip database.)  A well spent $ 25.

> And, that there are a number of media managers that will filter and sort on tag values if they are there. 

Here are some screenshots of JRMC set up to use tag values to browse and select music.  You click on a value in a pane in the upper area and only those files with that tag value are show in the file list at the bottom.  The values in other panes are also reduced so that only thos value spresent in the files listed are in the panes. Click on a tag value in another pane and the list of selected file is further reduced.  It is analogous to a Select statement you build on the fly.  (or Query by example if you go back that far.)

http://naturelover.smugmug.com/Other/JRiverscreenshots/9497548_8tZYK#1059218527_PvfDe

and

http://naturelover.smugmug.com/Other/misc/8915115_aSrUm#1182763323_zdcLi

Some people list to browse by looking at album covers. it isn't useful to be for classical music but the capability is available in JRMC and in other players.  One difference is that my way of using tags in panes shows me several lists of tag values at once.  I can see what I have in my collection as I select each tag value. I can specify bi-directional use of the panes so I can go back and forth between using Composer first and using Artist (Performer) very easily.  

When you use album covers, the entire upper part of the JRMC window is devoted to displaying a album covers.  For example, when you start browsing with an Genre/Artist/Album view, you first get a display of genres with the genre name under a representative album cover.  When you select one genre, you get a display of artists with a representative album cover for each artist.  Select one artist and you get a display of the album covers for that artist's albums.  Compared to the way browsing with panes work, this is a step-at-a-time modal interface.

Customizing the JRMC interface is rather like using an IDE to make a GUI database.  (except that you don't have to write any code.) If you learn the underlying concepts, you can really make JRMC work the way you want it to.

> It is my understanding that WAV does not tag, is that correct?

Roseval was correct.  No standard, no portability. Ever worse, some applications may appear to be saving tags in WAV files but they are just keeping the values in an internal database.  Move the files or import them into a different program and you have no tag values.  I think iTunes does this.

> When creating tags, are there user definable tags you have found useful? 

Composer - for classical music, broadway musicals and albums of broadway standards

Sub_genre - some composers wote many, many works.  Being able to narrow things down into Orchestral, Chamber, "Concerto, Piano",Sonata, Piano etc. cuts the list of tag values down and makes browsing in panes much nicer.

Work name - in practice, for classical music I put the name of the work in both the album tag and the Work name tag.  (That relates to arranging tags to fit my iPod.)

Singer - a multiple value tag with all the singer on a track.  For big band jazz,  I put the band leader and may the band name in the Artist tag.  I put the singers names in the Singer tag.

Version - lets me identify mono vs stereo performances of the same work by the same performers.  I also use this tag to distinguish various reissues of favorite performances.

small works in groups - has a value if this is one of a set of small works (like Chopin mazurkas).  For such works I put the group name in the Album and work name tags. In a view for small classical works, the track name is in one of the panes.

ion_iPod - has a value for tracks I transferred to an iPod.

Composer is a standard tag in JRMC now but it isn't in most players.

This part is like systems analysis.  You interview the user (yourself) and identify requirements.  Then you craft a solution as a combination by defining tags and what they will contain and by defining views to display those tag values.  JRMC has lots of clever UI features plus sorting, searching and browsing so ingenuity and discipline can make a huge difference in the amount of work required to populate tags.  Creating views is easy in JRMC - 1 or 2 minutes in a dialog window.

I rarely talk about PC audio with another computer guy so this is a chance for me to talk about something I enjoy. Thanks.

Bill

i see no reason to ever rip to oruse wav files unless the player you are using cant use another lossless format.

wav files take up way too much space and offer no advantage over lossless. 

Everything else has pretty much been covered already, and again, if you burn to a lossless format it keeps you free to change to any other format, including .wav at any time in the future.  Definitely burn to either flac or alac initially.. even if that means you keep those as your "masters" and eventually rip to some other format.  Always best to have your entire collection backed up in a lossless format. 

make sure you set your program to organize a good folder structure as it rips... for example when i use dbpoweramp, i set it to sort each artist and album into its own folder/subfolder.   This not only keeps everything neat and clean, and easily accesible, but it allows you to utilize various media player's ability to sort your library by folder structure which can sometime be a huge help, especially if your files are not tagged properly, or if you want to be able to sort beyond your tagging structure.   I have all my music tagged perfectly, but still find sorting by folder structure in foobar to be the easiest... that way if i want my music seperated into special categories for easy browsing, its as easy as grouping it into folders.  and if i want to remove that structure, its as easy as taking it out of those folders.

good luck.  Take your time and do it right.

Bill answered it already.
But the test is simple.
Rip a CD to WAV using dbPoweramp
Load it in WMP/JRMC/Foobar, any media player of your choice.
Do you see all the information or is a lot missing?

Tagging is writing some info into the header.
A standard is a convention allowing each application to read this info.
WAV lacks this standard

> So both WAV and FLAC can be tagged?  I'm still a little unclear on the concept.

Most ripping programs (except iTunes and WMP) can  write Flac  file and store tags in those files.  Any program that can read  Flac files will be able to read those tags.  That program might not do anything with some of the tags but the format for storing tags in Flac files is an effective standard.

Some ripping programs and tag editors may write tags in WAV files.  Most other programs that can read WAV files will be unaware of the presence of those tags.  In a few cases, programs may mis-interpret those stored tags as audio data with audible glitches.

> Do you have an example of what tags can go on FLAC but not on WAV?  I'm using dBpoweramp to rip my library.

It is not a question of a list of tags that are standardized for WAV files. No tags are stored in WAC files in a standard way that will be recognized by most other PC audio programs such as music players.

Mike, you seemed to be getting what Roseval and I were saying.  However, now you seem to be looking for a reason to rip to WAV files.

Bill

> I'm using Bryston's new BDP-1

 My understanding is that it has the Music Player Daemon inside and a small display.  MPD does use the Composer tag but does not support custom tags.

You can use an MPD client to provide remote control and possibily a bigger diaply.  There are a variety of MPD clients including small device apps and web brpowser based clients.  Most of those clients don't support anything beyond the basic genre/artist/album/track name(song) tags in a simple interface.

I listed 4 steps with 4. being experimentation to learn and decide what you wanted.  the Bryston player might fit your needs or it might not.  Yoiu be wise to find out ASAP.

> if I move to something different, it could be advantagous to be using a format with broader tagging acceptence.

The Bryston BDP-1 probably plays Flac files.

Bill