dbpoweramp and perfect tunes OR?

CT Jim

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Has anyone used dbpoweramp instead of EAC? I believe they do the same thing, and I want to make sure I can do vinyl as well?
Also, they have a matching tagger and organizer called Perfect Tunes, which may be an addon worth looking into.
Where does Audacity fit into this scheme, or would it be redundant?

I am aware that EAC and Audacity is free, whereas the db combo would be around $55, or dbpoweramp cd ripper is $39 alone
 
I can't speak to dbpoweramp for ripping or capturing vinyl but Audacity would be for recording, editing and exporting your vinyl to FLAC (or whatever). EAC is for ripping your CDs to FLAC (or whatever). I'm not sure why you'd want to pay (a lot is seems) for something that doesn't do anything better than the free ones though. I like dbpoweramp for various audio conversions though. That's where it really shines. If for example you are wanting to convert your FLAC to something iPhone friendly then you might need a converter like dbpoweramp. I use a free program for that also though. It's all lossless so its not like your going to improve on the sound of the final result.

btw, in case you didn't realize, EAC handles all of your tagging and even does album art, creates your playlist and organizes (sort of) if you do it right.
 
Are you looking to rip digital media (CD) to files or are you looking to digitize analog?

I use dbpoweramp cd ripper for CD ripping to a FLAC format file. It is easy to use, the meta data tagging & file association process is flawless, finding album art is super easy and the "Accurate Rip" feature lets you know when you've got the best file rip possible.

I also use dbpoweramp "Music Converter" to convert mp3 and other file formats to FLAC. It's as easy to use, and as accurate, as their cd ripper product.
 
I use dbpoweramp for ripping, tagging and converting. Glad I spent he money years ago, collection is up 1600 CDs and used everywhere from FLAC at home and my phone to MP3 in my wife's car. Did not need anything beyond the basic version for that. Never tried vinyl
 
Seems like db is a good program, I'll try to contact them about vinyl ripping, no reason to buy something that only does one thing, albeit even if it does that one thing very well
 
While waiting for a response it looks like

Audacity for vinyl and? Adding tags for vinyl
EAC for CD ripping and tagging with in most cases is the info on my the CD. Do I use Audacity to tag CDS that do not have any tagging info, say older ones from years back?
 
While waiting for a response it looks like

Audacity for vinyl and? Adding tags for vinyl
EAC for CD ripping and tagging with in most cases is the info on my the CD. Do I use Audacity to tag CDS that do not have any tagging info, say older ones from years back?

I don't think dbpoweramp is suitable for capturing vinyl. You need a sound recorder that will also allow you to edit the file. Audacity is easily the best free program for this. You can also tag the files using Audacity with cover art being the only thing it doesn't do. Here is my vinyl capture process:

1. Record the entire album using audacity
2. use audacity's "create silence" feature to silence the spots between tracks (I sometimes use fade in/out also) this keeps your FLAC files from having hiss at the beginning/end.
3. Export the file to a 32bit wave and run through "Clickrepair" to remove noise (this program is phenomenal for this without destroying any music. It isn't free though).
4. Open the resulting wave file back into audacity
5. Add labels in audacity to label and name the start of each track. I also cut off the end of the recording where I want the final track to end. (this facilitates the export later)
6. Normalize the audio using that function in audacity
7. Edit the metadata in audacity with the album info (this will get added to the tags of all the songs)
8. Use the "export multiple" function with the "split track at label" in audacity to export all the files to FLAC. If done right, this will name and tag each song properly.
9 Use MP3tag (free) to add the album art and create a playlist.

In response to your second question, EAC polls one of several online databases for the info on your CD. You'd be surprised at how many you think are rare are included. The exception to this I've found is classical. If it isn't in the database though, you can add all the info right there in EAC before you rip. Just put in the album info and name each of the tracks (you can do album art also) before you rip and it will all get included.

If you find that you do need to edit tag info directly on the files at some point I highly recommend MP3tag. It makes editing file tags super easy because you can do entire directories at a time and tag multiple files with the same info. For example, if you select all the files of a given album then you only have to enter the album info once and save it to all of the files. Then you only have to edit the track name/number for each one individually.
 
Another hint for using EAC (which can sometimes be used with other programs):

When you set up your naming scheme you can include directories. This can help your ripping program automatically organize your music. My filename "Naming Scheme" setting in EAC looks like this:

%albumartist%\%albumtitle%\%artist% - %title%

This will create a folder for the artist (if not there), a folder for the album title inside that where it will rip the songs in the format "artist - title". You can customize that with almost any tag type.
 
All right, this is starting to make sense. dbpoweramp did promptly get back to me re PerfectTunes will not auto tag, no answere re vinyl ripping, but I think I got that....Audacity for vinyl.

I see that in the Naming Scheme above, after artist there is a dash instead of a backslash? Is that correct?
Many instances of EAC recommendation here on AK, and it appears why bother with a paid program when a freebie does the job, although i don't mind paying people for their efforts developing something.

So, EAC will create a CD with tags which can be placed on a drive(say G:) and then in a folder say "artist". Let's say G: is Rock. Would it make sense to create more drive letters, such as H: Easy Listening and I: Classical? When making a playlist if you do a auto mix all it would create a clusterf....

Following the above, when ripping vinyl I would place the final flac of the songs in G: for Rock in a folder named "artist" or H or I depending on the genre of the music.
Is this complicating things? Considering the inexpensive cost of drives would it be simpler to just use 3 individual drives for Rock, Easy Listening, Classical, and so on?

It appears that ripping the CDs is the easy part of our libraries going digital.
Thanks for the help, I'm sure more than I are learning how to make this work!
 
Here's another enthusiastic dbPoweramp user who once used EAC. It is faster, tagging is more automated and offers an easy way to mass transcode files as well. I use that last feature for making Apple friendly copies of my FLAC library. Similarly, I use Audacity for capturing vinyl output.

Regarding storage convention, I maintain all my music on a single drive with folders named by artist, then album. No need to further break down by genre since the tagging contains that information and most digital players can filter on the metadata.
 
This will create a folder for the artist (if not there), a folder for the album title inside that where it will rip the songs in the format "artist - title"

You can also tell EAC to use a different naming convention for 'various artist' albums; I only use 'artist - title' for various artist album track names. (I know it's in the metadata, but I started ripping before I had access to an online metadata database, so I typed in track names by hand, and used that format, and got MediaMonkey to parse the filenames into metadata. I developed a process, with a lot of unix scripts to post-process a ripping session to add track names to the raw '01 Track' ripped files...)

To get metadata from freedb, just hit 'alt-g'; pretty simple now.

I'd also recommend using a leading-zero track number prefix for tracks, for players that only allow alphanumeric title sort ordering.

I have used MediaMonkey as a library manager and player for many years; it's good for manipulating metadata, and can rename/reorganise files from the metadata.

MM can transcode your entire library automatically, too, once you get past the questionable 30-day LAME 'licence' trick they use to encourage you to buy the 'Gold' version.

I've recently started using MusicBee, as it has a smaller memory footprint than MM, so it will run better on a 1GB tablet, used as a 'portable DMC' around the house, controlling audio streaming to various DMRs. Its metadata and artwork lookup are better than MM, too. MB is probably as competent as MM for manipulating metadata, but i'm used to MM...

EAC, MM & MB are free.
 
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Another free tool to consider puttin in your toolbox is MP3Tag. Great for fixing up messed up tags.

I agree and mentioned it on one of my posts also.

To the OP, don't go crazy creating seperate drives. If you do you are asking for a world of hassle. Just put your stuff in one drive and subdirectory as needed. I only have a handful of category folders and are based on how I listen to music. I wouldn't try to over categorize or you will run into the "which category does this go in?" Problem. My categories are comedy, classical, jazz, country, folk/world, and general which encompasses pretty much everything else.
 
I wouldn't try to over categorize or you will run into the "which category does this go in?"

I would suggest not even using genre for the physical storage; make the physical file store echo the physical CDs:

Source/AlbumArtist/Album/Track

'Source' can distinguish whether it's a ripped CD, or a download.

This allows you to easily re-rip, or download, if necessary.

Leave the genre tagging to the metadata, and let your media manager/player show you the logical sort by metadata.

Genre is a nightmare anyway; no-one seems to be able to agree on what genre a band's music might be. Not even the band. And you end up with genre names like 'nightcore' and 'shoegaze'...
 
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I agree and mentioned it on one of my posts also.

To the OP, don't go crazy creating seperate drives. If you do you are asking for a world of hassle. Just put your stuff in one drive and subdirectory as needed. I only have a handful of category folders and are based on how I listen to music. I wouldn't try to over categorize or you will run into the "which category does this go in?" Problem. My categories are comedy, classical, jazz, country, folk/world, and general which encompasses pretty much everything else.
I think I missed that.
It's a great program. Especially when you use a program that "tags everything automatically", but not to your liking, and you hit the ripping go button before you notice.
Or if there's no genre specified with an EAC blues rip, and you accidentally click on 'Booty Bass' as the genre. It's happened, lol.

And yeah, l'm in the less genre tags is better camp. I can see how others might want to have ten different jazz genre tags, or five different blues tags, but I don't.
What genre is Robert Johnson? Blues, country blues, delta blues, pre-war blues, acoustic blues....? Bleh, it's just blues on my hard drives, same as all the Piedmont blues, West Coast blues, Chicago blues and all the way to the modern stuff.
 
I would suggest not even using genre for the physical storage; make the physical file store echo the physical CDs:

Source/AlbumArtist/Album/Track

'Source' can distinguish whether it's a ripped CD, or a download.

This allows you to easily re-rip, or download, if necessary.

Leave the genre tagging to the metadata, and let your media manager/player show you the logical sort by metadata.
I think it depends on how one listens to music.
I do a lot of listening via a file browsing app. I really appreciate having a file structure with genres.
As an example, if I want to listen to The Modern Jazz Quartet, I go to my jazz master file, then the T folder, and then scroll down. If it was all in one folder I'd be scrolling through all kinds of The...... type groups across every genre.

When it comes to distinguishing where a rip came from, I assume it's a FLAC rip from a CD, unless it's not. Hi-rez, needle drops, MP3, oddball codecs(like SHN), etc get labelled as such.

One tagging tip that I think many people neglect is the comment tag. I've gotten into the habit of using it for the record label. Especially for jazz stuff.
 
It appears that ripping the CDs is the easy part of our libraries going digital.

It's the first painful, time-consuming part.

The next time-consuming part is sorting out the metadata and artwork, depending how OCD you are... Admittedly, that's getting easier with better online metadata and high-res artwork sources. These days, I rarely have to do more than tidy the odd track name, and select artwork. When I ripped the bulk of my collection 7 years ago, I entered album details by hand, and scanned, cleaned, cropped, balanced and resized the artwork...
 
I do a lot of listening via a file browsing app

I'd recommend a library manager/player, then. So much more versatile in browsing, and selecting what to play. Your example would be dealt with by using the 'genre' metadata view, rather than the physical view, or the 'album artist' metadata view. You can sort by any metadata field.

Do have a look at MM or MB; they both have an 'auto-DJ' function that I find essential; indecisive and 65k+ tracks isn't a good combination...

But, yes; pick whatever structure best suits you. I'm just trying to give suggestions for someone embarking down the ripping process. As I said earlier, a good library manager will allow you to automatically reorganize your file structure, should you wish. MM is good for pulling music back off an iThing, since it will undo the file obfuscation into properly-named files, based on the metadata.
 
I'd recommend a library manager/player, then. So much more versatile in browsing, and selecting what to play. Your example would be dealt with by using the 'genre' metadata view, rather than the physical view, or the 'album artist' metadata view. You can sort by any metadata field.

Do have a look at MM or MB; they both have an 'auto-DJ' function that I find essential; indecisive and 65k+ tracks isn't a good combination...

But, yes; pick whatever structure best suits you. I'm just trying to give suggestions for someone embarking down the ripping process. As I said earlier, a good library manager will allow you to automatically reorganize your file structure, should you wish. MM is good for pulling music back off an iThing, since it will undo the file obfuscation into properly-named files, based on the metadata.
Oh, I've got a great player, made by the same company as my file browser. I just find myself reaching for the file browser app more often. I (usually) know what I want to listen to, know where it is, and play it. Easy peasy.
It's also great for reaching for stuff that is new to my harddrive. I keep all new arrivals in monthly folders, and then add them to the master genre folders every month. I also do my backing up at this point. If I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for, I'll often just go to those folders and browse around.

I think the proper tagging thing can't be stressed enough to those new to this. Get it right at the start. Figure out what your style is right at the start.
I use EAC, and I think it's fantastic, but I usually find myself tweaking at least one thing with the tagging that pops up; either the genre is wrong(for me) or missing, the art is crap or missing, or the year is missing or wrong, etc. I appreciate that the copy of Coltrane's Blue Train might be a 1995 reissue, but in no way is that proper in a metadata way. Put the 1995 reissue thing in the comments, sure, but it's a 50s album.

I'll fess up on the tagging thing.
I'm 100% with it when it comes to tags now, but I have plenty of albums that aren't tagged properly to my liking. Which brings me back to the file browser. All of my files are filed properly. The Coltrane example above would be a folder labelled John Coltrane - Blue Train. The metadata? If it's something I put on the hard drive within the last few years, the tagging would be sorted out. Before that? Lets just say that me and MP3Tag have a lot of cleaning up to do.:rflmao:
How that music would show up in a proper music player can be a crap shoot.

This thread is actually kinda timely for me.
I get my internet, TV, and phone through the same company. To get 4K they had to upgrade all of the gear in my house this past weekend.
I used to just plug a hard drive into the router and use the file browser app to access tunes on all of the Apple gear in the house and garage. A 'poor mans NAS' that worked just swell for my needs.
I haven't had much time to look into it yet, but I can't get the same thing going with the new router. That combined with this thread has me re-thinking about how I'm going about all of this.
 
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