[Fred]

OK two part question here, please help me with either one:

I use I-pods library to catagorize the songs on my PC even though I don't own an I-pod. Is there a better program to do this with?

Also, if I'm just importing songs with the pop-up prompt when I put a new CD into my PC, is it saving the CD in a high quality format automatically or is there a way I should be doing it to get a higher bps during playback from the hard drive? -Thanks

 

[fr4c]

use EAC and rip your CDs to wav files if hard drive space is not an issue with you.

 

[gordolindsay]

I assume you mean you use iTunes to organize your files? If so, it is probably the most user friendly option as far as music players go. If you are looking for more options as far as shaping your music and playback abilities, foobar2000 is the choice for many of us, although it is not the prettiest player.

As far as importing your music using iTunes, go to "Edit....Preferences...Importing, then in the first drop down box you pick what encoder you want to use. Apple Lossless would be your best option as far as getting the same quality as whats on the cd without losing any information. (Yes there is the wav setting but there is no point in using that since it is not taggable and the files are huge) If you don't want the larger file sizes ALAC produces you could use the aac encoder at 192K or 224k and should sound pretty darn good. (To alot of people, they can't tell the difference between 224k and the real cd.) Or you could use the mp3 encoder but you'd have to use atleast 224 to get as good a sounding file as 192k aac. Although mp3 is alot more universal and not tied to just apple.

So there are alot of choices, even more if you choose to use a different player. Look into foobar, alot of people are turned off by its plain interface (be sure to use Columns UI) but it is very versitile and has a small resource footprint on your system unlike the other program your using.

 

[Fred]

I do have foobar already loaded to get the most out of my chaintech card so I'll give it a try.

Apple Lossless is a preloaded choice right in iTunes? (my work pc is the one w/ iTunes and Foobar loaded on it so i'll have to wait til tomorrow to try it)

ALAC = Apple Lossless? Also, the process of downloading from a CD to a hard drive is called ripping? Sorry about the dumb questions.

and thanks for the great info

 

[DukeTogo]

RE: Apple Lossless is a preloaded choice right in iTunes?

- not sure if it is the *default* when you install iTunes fresh, but it certainly is available as an option. Just make sure you have selected it, if you want to use it. And yes ALAC = Apple Lossless (Audio Codec)


RE: the process of downloading from a CD to a hard drive is called ripping?

Yes.


Finally, note that you can use one program for ripping and another for playback. That's personally what I do, ... EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip, and iTunes for playback. Lots of other people here do EAC/foobar2000.

 

[Fred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DukeTogo Finally, note that you can use one program for ripping and another for playback. That's personally what I do, ... EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip, and iTunes for playback. Lots of other people here do EAC/foobar2000.

OK. sorry about the this nOOb question in advance: If I rip w/ say EAC, is it easy to import it to foobar or iTunes from there? (I'm not yet in front of the PC I want to do this on, so I can't try it.) -Thanks

 

[jpr703]

Be careful about the format you rip into. I ripped to .WAV using EAC and lost all my tagging info. iTunes couldn't organize the songs by album and I nearly had a fit. If you're going to be using iTunes to organize your music, I'd highly recommend doing your ripping with iTunes as well.

 

[gordolindsay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred OK. sorry about the this nOOb question in advance: If I rip w/ say EAC, is it easy to import it to foobar or iTunes from there? (I'm not yet in front of the PC I want to do this on, so I can't try it.) -Thanks

Importing music to either of those programs is really easy. If you ripped all of your music to the same folder (of course different folders inside that one by artists or whatever) you can just drag that folder into the main window of either of those players and walla.

If you're going to rip with EAC you'll have to set it up properly with the right codec you want your music in. (Such as mp3, Apple Lossless, etc...) There are several guides here or over at www.hydrogenaudio.org. <---Very helpful site as far as all this stuff is concerned. They also host the foobar forum as well. You should be able to do a search here and find several threads about setting up EAC.