Storing Music

emerald21

Hi, im looking for some kind of storage for all my music cd s. Can anyone suggest something simple to use please ? I ve heard of ipod touches but is there anything else ? Thanks

MoneySavingUser

Storage of physical cd's or the music on them?

Ipod touch is an mp3 player - lots of different brands are available - There is an offer on here today for a 4GB player: http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/sandisk-sansa-clip-4gb-mp3-player-various-colours-19-99-cheapest-electrical-ebay-1171490

You can't fit that many songs on 4GB but you could store them on your pc and just transfer the ones you want to listen to at the moment onto it

Ipod touch etc. will have more storage space but will also cost a lot more

You will also need to convert your cd's to mp3 http://www.askdavetaylor.com/produce_mp3_files_from_a_cd_with_windows_media_player.html

jayme1

what are you hoping to achieve?
do you want all the CDs on one player so you can listen to them all?

first of all you will want the music from the CDs on your computer, I use and prefer iTunes over anything else (unless you want FLAC then EAC is best)

using itunes you just put the CD in the computer, open iTunes, select what quality you want the file and it will import it to your computer (it will even name the music for you)

from there you can use an mp3 player to listen to your music, apple iPods are one solution and if you want web browsing, email and games then the iPod touch is the best, but if you just want pure music then something like the Sanza Clip+ with an added memory card is a really good alternative.

depending how much music and what quality you rip it in will depend how much storage you need, the best quality is lossless either FLAC or ALAC from these rips the sound is exactly how it was on the CD, next is AAC and MP3 these sound almost identical and you will need very good headphones to tell the difference but they are lossy so if you rip to MP3 but then want AAC in the future you would have to re-rip the CDs again, I personally just rip to lossless so I never have to rip again.

if you tell us how many CDs you are looking to rip and what mp3 player you want then we can help you more.

emerald21

MoneySavingUser wrote: »

Storage of physical cd's or the music on them?

Ipod touch is an mp3 player - lots of different brands are available - There is an offer on here today for a 4GB player: http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/sandisk-sansa-clip-4gb-mp3-player-various-colours-19-99-cheapest-electrical-ebay-1171490

You can't fit that many songs on 4GB but you could store them on your pc and just transfer the ones you want to listen to at the moment onto it

Ipod touch etc. will have more storage space but will also cost a lot more

You will also need to convert your cd's to mp3 http://www.askdavetaylor.com/produce_mp3_files_from_a_cd_with_windows_media_player.html

Hi thanks for replying, i ll have a look. I mean something to store the music on and then get rid of the cd s as they take up a lot of room.:)

jayme1

emerald21 wrote: »

Hi thanks for replying, i ll have a look. I mean something to store the music on and then get rid of the cd s as they take up a lot of room.:)

just to note that is technically illegal as you should destroy the CD rips if you get rid of the CDs.

instead of doing that just pick up a CD case and recycle the jewel cases that the CDs are in now, it will save tons of space.

downhillfast

You need to transfer them to a computer and then store them on the computer itself and keep another copy of a separate drive of some description as a backup. Depending on how much stuff you have kind of dictates what you backup device might be. First job is definitely to start ripping them to the computer.

Georgia_Pa

downhillfast wrote: »

You need to transfer them to a computer and then store them on the computer itself and keep another copy of a separate drive of some description as a backup. Depending on how much stuff you have kind of dictates what you backup device might be. First job is definitely to start ripping them to the computer.

Exactly! And depending on how much you have, just as a back-up I myself also have a USB (large GB space) in case I haven't got my own laptop in hand, I can just pop it in any other pc.:D

emerald21

jayme1 wrote: »

just to note that is technically illegal as you should destroy the CD rips if you get rid of the CDs.

instead of doing that just pick up a CD case and recycle the jewel cases that the CDs are in now, it will save tons of space.

I dont understand, why is it illegal to rip them to the pc when ive bought them in the first place ?

jayme1

emerald21 wrote: »

I dont understand, why is it illegal to rip them to the pc when ive bought them in the first place ?

no I mean you are not allowed to rip the CDs to the computer then get rid of (either by throwing away or selling) the CDs.

ie if you have ripped the CD you need to then archive it and if you then decide to sell the CD you are supposed to delete the ripped copy as you no longer own the CD.

callistris

jayme1 wrote: »

first of all you will want the music from the CDs on your computer, I use and prefer iTunes over anything else

Totally agree, iTunes for me has been the best software to use for ripping music as AAC or MP3, basically as its recognizes every single cd I chuck at it:)

Even free ones that I got from magazines years ago:)

Not so good on the album artwork though, but plenty of good sites have the artwork you can save a copy from to paste into the album on iTunes.

Dave_C_2

A few points:

• Strictly speaking it is a civil offence (not illegal) to rip a CD then sell on the CD. I think It's OK to rip onto a player as long as you have the original
• To store CDs on a PC you need to convert to MP3 files. If you want quality or FLAC or OGG files if you want lossless conversion.
• However you do it I highly recommend storing the files under a folder structure of Music/Artist/Album/songs This makes the music files so much easier to find and manage.
• PCs and disks fail, what better means of backup than the original CD? If you are concerned about space plastic wallets are cheap.
• Unless you have an iPod/iPhone, iTunes is a waste of disk space. WMP goes just as good a job and is already installed. Media Monkey comes highly recommended.
• Don't forget that this is a two or three stage process.
  1) First Rip the CDs on to the PC into the proper file structure as above.
  2) Play them back.
  3) Load the songs onto a player.
  You don't have to use the same software for all three. In fact you can chop and change as you like.
  On my PC I use WMP for 1 and 2 and drag and drop the files to my players using Windows Explorer.

Dave