Advice on re-ripping my music collection

[htbyron]

OK -- I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I am about to get serious & re-rip all my CDs (not that many compared to most folks here: just a few hundred). I think I want to keep a lossless copy -- at least for now -- and also compress into a high-quality VBR MP3 format for ipod use (I just got a 80GB ipod classic). I also want to create a lower quality MP3 file for my wife's 4GB nano (she is less concerned with SQ).

So I need to do some (re-)reading and figure out my options, but this is what I have in mind:

-- Rip to FLAC using EAC and ??.

-- Transcode/compress to VBR using lame or some lame front-end (razorlame is what I came across when I looked into this a couple of years ago -- I need to figure out if it's still the best option).

-- At some point, get album/track info onto the tags, and get album art.

-- Somehow clear the old lossy tracks from my itunes library and get the new VBR files into itunes and sync'd to my ipod.

-- When all is done, create lossier/smaller files for my wife's computer.

So, any suggestions/cautions/DAMHIKs?

Thanks.

 

[bigshot]

I find that 192 VBR AAC is perfect for my uses. 128 AAC would probably be fine for your wife.

See ya
Steve

 

[luidge]

I am really interested in the first part of the equation!
I need to put a lot of CDs into FLAC for my soon to be rockboxed iRiver H140

 

[bonjonno]

I've ripped over 300 CDs to flac files using Foobar2K and love the results. I know the purists are only happy with EAC, but FB2K rips an entire CD in less time than EAC does a song. To my musician's ear the results are great. I also use MediaMonkey to make any flavor of mp3 that you want. It has a converter if you just want to do the flacs as a batch.

 

[Zarathustra19]

Ooookay, surprised that no one has answered this question yet.

First of all, with the vbr and lower bitrate mp3's, you can set iTunes to encode whatever music you bring into it to whatever bitrate you want to encode it to. If you'd rather not use iTunes, I would recommend a program called CDEX. It allows you to rip from cd to mp3 and also to re-encode to lower bitrate if you want to.

To do flac to the max, use EAC. There was a guide posted on here not too long ago about how to get it done the right way with the best results. If you can't find it, pm me and I'll try to explain the exact steps to the best of my knowledge. The main steps are to download FLAC (the actual encoder .exe) and tell EAC to use it in the ripping options. The level of compression doesn't really matter, as it's all lossless anyway. The hard part that the guide explains is the Tagging and file names and such. Other than that, the process is pretty simple. Again, pm me with any specific questions.

 

[TheVinylRipper]

I second using CDex.

I use it a lot to change bitrates/formats, etc.

 

[Denver Max]

For those of you who have a Macintosh, I recommend Max. I ripped about 300 CDs a couple weeks ago with Max and it's a very easy and quick system to get the ID3 Tags the way you want them, and then rip the CD once but encode it to FLAC, Apple Lossless, AAC, MP3, and anything else you want to try out at the same time. After the ripping, I wrote a quick Automator action to move every Apple Lossless file that had been ripped into a single folder and do the same with MP3, but keep the FLAC in it's place in a very nicely organized file system. Then I simply dragged the Apple Lossless folder into my iTunes library for lossless files, and did the same for my MP3 iTunes library, and was all set.

I'm sure there's a way to do something similar on a PC, but I'm just adding this suggestion for people who read this thread who use a Macintosh.

 

[matt8268]

Here's the method I use (cobbled together from a couple of my previous posts):

I use EAC's "Copy image and create Cue sheet", which gives you one .iso file and one .wav file. I then use Virtual Daemon Manager to mount that .iso file as if it's a CD. Then I rip the "CD" in iTunes into Apple Lossless. It auto-tags everything just like it does if you had ripped the physical CD.

Using my method, your resolution is just as good as if you'd gone FLAC. The only advantage one could say you have with FLAC is that it's open source. But since lossless can always be converted (losslessly) to any other lossless format, I don't have to worry even if Apple goes out of business.

Then after you're all ripped and have all your songs named/AlbumArted correctly, change iTunes settings to the VBR of your choice, select your whole library, right click and choose "Convert'. Then you'll have 2 copies of everything, which you can manage with playlists (kind="Apple Lossless" and kind="AAC", "mp3", etc). You can select the lossless files again, and 'Convert' again to a lower bitrate for your wife. Once you have Apple Lossless, it's zero effort (only converting time) to make a compressed copy in any format you want right from iTunes.

 

[threEchelon]

I use EAC to rip to FLAC, and then I use Foobar + Lame to convert the FLAC files to v0 VBR MP3.

 

[htbyron]

Many thanks to those who posted helpful responses, especially zarathustra19 and matt8268!

I think I am going to use EAC to rip and encode to FLAC on the fly, then use foobar or itunes to transcode/convert to MP3 VBR and 128. I realize there are lots of equally (or nearly as) good ways of accomplishing this task, but I think I have settled on what I'm comfortable with (please don't flame me for not doing blind tests to justify every choice along the way).


I am particularly interested in how to setup EAC to generate tags and filenames correctly consistently, so if anyone knows of good guides on these topics (and getting album art), I'd sure appreciate links.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[bigshot]

Thanks for that software tip, Denver Max.

See ya
Steve