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Help with downloading music please

cubdog

cubdog

banging through drywall
I'm going to be buying a Squeezebox soon so it's time I start to learn how do do some things. First of all if I download music from the internet are their different methods to store these? I imagine music takes up quite a bit of space, on a computor, so what's the simplest and most economical way to store and then to transfer music to the Squeezebox?

cubdog
 
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Hello cubdog,

I would recommend buying an external hard drive that you can attach to your computer with a USB cable, and designate this hard drive for your audio files only. This will keep you from needing to hunt for it on your computer, which is probably cluttered with all of the different file types (word documents, spreadsheets, adobe acrobat, photos etc...).

I would also keep a couple thumb drives, 8 GB or so, in case you want to move an album from one place to another.
 
I agree with rulerboyz regarding the external audio only hard drive. I store my files in folders in this format artist/album/song.

I also only use .flac to store my files which is a lossless fromat. No .mp3 for me. If you are going to rip the CDs you already own I would suggest using exact audio copy (EAC). You can also experiment by feeding the squeezebox in to your Bel Canto Dac.
 
I was hoping somebody more knowledgeable than I would chime in, as I'm looking for this same thing. What was recommended to me was a Network Attached Storage Device. Basically a hard drive that will connect wirelessly to your network so that you don't have to always be right next to it, and the Squeezebox should be able to access it without going through a computer, or so I was told.
 
JohnVF said:
I was hoping somebody more knowledgeable than I would chime in, as I'm looking for this same thing. What was recommended to me was a Network Attached Storage Device. Basically a hard drive that will connect wirelessly to your network so that you don't have to always be right next to it, and the Squeezebox should be able to access it without going through a computer, or so I was told.
Click to expand...

Without the NAS, what would you have to be right next to?
 
JohnVF said:
I was hoping somebody more knowledgeable than I would chime in, as I'm looking for this same thing. What was recommended to me was a Network Attached Storage Device. Basically a hard drive that will connect wirelessly to your network so that you don't have to always be right next to it, and the Squeezebox should be able to access it without going through a computer, or so I was told.
Click to expand...

By going with the NAS approach you may not need to go through your computer and have it on all the time. However, I just added an external HD (two actually, the other backs everything up and is a key item one should not forget about) and I can access my SB from anywhere without being near the computer.

Lots of good advice in the other posts:

Get an external HD. A 1TB drive is cheap and can store over 1000 CDs in lossless formats. 3TB drives are not that much more on sale.

Store files as FLACs

For CD transfer use a good ripping software like EAC or BD Poweramp.


At some point I would like to try downloading FALCs for CDs I cannot find otherwise. I am not sure how one gets them stored and tagged so SB can play them. I would also appreciate advice from anyone who has done so.
 
If you have a NAS, with your music files on it, attached to your wireless network and run Squeezebox Server as a module on the NAS drive, then you don't need a computer at all.
 
Agree with FLAC, and EAC. (MP3TAG is indispensable as well.)
Raid is a fine idea, but it's no replacement for a backup copy.
When you (or a virus or misbehaving application) delete, overwrite or corrupt a file on a raid array, it's history.
Spend the time to file, name and tag your files uniformly, you'll thank me later.
 
cubdog said:
I'm going to be buying a Squeezebox soon so it's time I start to learn how do do some things. First of all if I download music from the internet are their different methods to store these? I imagine music takes up quite a bit of space, on a computor, so what's the simplest and most economical way to store and then to transfer music to the Squeezebox?

cubdog
Click to expand...

Just in case a clarification helps...one doesn't actually transfer music to the Squeezebox, like a hard-drive player. The Squeezebox plays what you have on the storage drive. It sits at the audio system and reads music on the local network. It can do this via wireless or ethernet.
 
drknstrmyknight said:
Agree with FLAC, and EAC. (MP3TAG is indispensable as well.).
Click to expand...

+1 on all those.

In mp3tag, in the options, on the tools screen, set the special action on double-click to nothing - otherwise it plays tracks if you miss and double-click in the middle of editing something. Which is infuriating. Worth reading the help too - there's lots of stuff you can do tagging multiple files at once with searches that aren't immediately obvious, but can save a lot of time.

Also, lots of backups. Have more than one backup drive. Say, three 1TB Hard drives in total. One you actually use, either connected to the computer or a NAS. One a "daily" backup, one a "monthly" backup. Daily meaning after you make changes to the music files (so tagging or adding new ones, not just playing) and monthly after substantial changes, like a big shopping spree and tagging session. If its possible, keeping the monthly away from the house is a good idea. Seems excessive, but after hundreds of hours of tagging, finding album art, organising, you don't want the virus/burst pipe/user error taking out both the music files and the backup. I have four copies, one off-site, plus a fifth from a year ago.
 
I keep 4 copies of my music, one thats used, 2 that are local backups, and one off-site backup. Since Im a Linux user, everything is automated on my end. I just run rsync as a cron job to handle my backups. My off-site is backed up to a server at my friends house, then I keep multiple copies here at the house. Rsync is nice, set it up once and dont worry about it again.
 
while i cannot in good conscience recommend actually downloading anything from the site, it's at least worth checking out www dot avaxhome dot ws to gawk at the "audiophile" .flac rips available. much of what i have seen seems to be ripped as one big .flac or .ape file with the cue included, so all the tagging is automatically done when you have a program like Foobar2000 insert the cue breaks to create individual track files. at least, that's the way it would appear to work in practice ;) there are many native HD files as well as many HD vinyl rips. one would assume that some files have a less stellar heritage than claimed (i.e. just regular release instead of an XRCD), but i have noticed that many uploaders go through the trouble of posting .log and other interesting files that try to show provenance.
 
Thought of this a couple of days later :)

EAC is assuming you use a PC - if you happen to use a Mac, the equivalent is Rip by sbooth, also Max (for conversion) is useful, and SuperDuper is a good backup app that lets you schedule different runs and sets kind of like BadassBob said. HDTracks is a good place for buying high-res downloads.
 
cdfac said:
while i cannot in good conscience recommend actually downloading anything from the site, it's at least worth checking out www dot avaxhome dot ws to gawk at the "audiophile" .flac rips available. much of what i have seen seems to be ripped as one big .flac or .ape file with the cue included, so all the tagging is automatically done when you have a program like Foobar2000 insert the cue breaks to create individual track files. at least, that's the way it would appear to work in practice ;) there are many native HD files as well as many HD vinyl rips. one would assume that some files have a less stellar heritage than claimed (i.e. just regular release instead of an XRCD), but i have noticed that many uploaders go through the trouble of posting .log and other interesting files that try to show provenance.
Click to expand...

LOL!

For those who would like to download HD music with a clear conscience, there are several places on the internet that sell HD downloads without DRM garbage.

I just found Donald Fagan's Kamakariad on this commercial site

https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php

Cost is about what you would pay for a HQ disk at $18.

It was started by Chesky of Chesky Records fame and here is their mission statement. I assume they are 100% legit.
Founded by David and Norman Chesky of the audiophile-record label Chesky Records, HDtracks is a high-quality music download service offering a diverse catalog of independent music from around the world. HDtracks does not believe in DRM, and as a result, we offer a selection of unencrypted files that play on any computer or portable device.

In an age when there is a computer in every home, we have grown accustomed to accessing music at the touch of a button. But, what about the quality of that music? Why should the sound suffer because of convenience? With HDtracks, we have discovered the way to have it all: world-class music, unrivaled sound, and files that play in any environment.

We have several formats available for fans of all types of music. If you would like genuine CD-quality sound, HDtracks offers both AIFF and FLAC lossless files. For those who wish to carry their music in a portable player, we have 320kbps files that far exceed the quality of standard MP3 files.

Finally, audiophiles take note. HDtracks offers select titles in ultra-high resolution 96khz/24bit files. This is true DVD-audio sound quality for music lovers that demand the very best!
Click to expand...



:music:Will
 
+1 on the nas. Also some new routers have USB so all you'll need is an external drive. If you have a large library like some I know 40,000+ songs), configure drives for redundancy in case of failure. Most don't realize that it doesn't take long for the data to be worth more than the drive.
 
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