Creating your digital media library - audio?

JustAnotherSaver

I'll assume that some of you have created a digital library of all your audio - all the albums you own, singles, so on & so forth.

I started creating my movie library and it's mostly done I guess. I've some more movies that will need ripping but i'm now at a point i'll need to decide to either buy more storage or compress what I currently have in storage and whether I convert some or all and also to what.

And that's just the movie side. I haven't even started on the audio side yet as i have way way more to rip in terms of audio.

Any pointers that I may not think about until i'm about 50 albums in and then think oh damn why didn't i do that earlier, i'll need to start again?

The obvious decision is mp3 / wav / FLAC. I only heard about FLAC at the very beginning of this journey. I hear little to no difference between a ripped mp3 (say 192 bitrate) and the CD itself.

I don't know if there's anything aside from this that would help when building a library. Albums are obvious but i have CDs and CDs and CDs of various tracks that i acquired over the years that aren't part of any albums but are from artists who I have albums of. Unreleased tracks, original tracks that were altered when they made it to album format. Not overly sure how i'll pigeon hole these ones yet.

Or for you once you decided which format you were ripping to was that pretty much your only decision to make?

EssexExile

I just shove it all into "music" on the PC then let the internal wizardry sort it out. If you want to move tracks from compilation albums to the artist you can just drag and drop them.

HereToday

JustAnotherSaver said:

I'll assume that some of you have created a digital library of all your audio - all the albums you own, singles, so on & so forth.

I started creating my movie library and it's mostly done I guess. I've some more movies that will need ripping but i'm now at a point i'll need to decide to either buy more storage or compress what I currently have in storage and whether I convert some or all and also to what.

And that's just the movie side. I haven't even started on the audio side yet as i have way way more to rip in terms of audio.

Any pointers that I may not think about until i'm about 50 albums in and then think oh damn why didn't i do that earlier, i'll need to start again?

The obvious decision is mp3 / wav / FLAC. I only heard about FLAC at the very beginning of this journey. I hear little to no difference between a ripped mp3 (say 192 bitrate) and the CD itself.

I don't know if there's anything aside from this that would help when building a library. Albums are obvious but i have CDs and CDs and CDs of various tracks that i acquired over the years that aren't part of any albums but are from artists who I have albums of. Unreleased tracks, original tracks that were altered when they made it to album format. Not overly sure how i'll pigeon hole these ones yet.

Or for you once you decided which format you were ripping to was that pretty much your only decision to make?

I was so appalled by this statement; that I stopped reading what came after. But then I reminded myself that we are all different....or that you need better headphones/HiFi setup

wongataa

JustAnotherSaver said:

The obvious decision is mp3 / wav / FLAC. I only heard about FLAC at the very beginning of this journey. I hear little to no difference between a ripped mp3 (say 192 bitrate) and the CD itself.

Do not use WAV as it is uncompressed and doesn't contain any metadata.  Metadata is used for all the cataloguing.

I would use FLAC.  It can contain CD quality audio and is a compressed format.  It is best storing the master copies of your data in the highest quality possible - CD quality in your case.  Even though you say you can't hear the difference between 192kpbs MP3 and CD this is still a good idea  because you may get different equipment where you could hear the difference and because why throw data away just in case it could possibly required in the future?  Storage is cheap.

I can't really hear the difference between a decent MP3 and CDs either.  I ripped all my music to FLAC just because you never know if things will change and if you have ripped to MP3 and find in the future you need a CD quality copy you need to rip again.  Ripping to FLAC prevent this from ever occurring for no more effort up front.

If you ever need a smaller copy you can easily transcode to MP3 or similar.

HereToday

wongataa said:

JustAnotherSaver said:

The obvious decision is mp3 / wav / FLAC. I only heard about FLAC at the very beginning of this journey. I hear little to no difference between a ripped mp3 (say 192 bitrate) and the CD itself.

Do not use WAV as it is uncompressed and doesn't contain any metadata.  Metadata is used for all the cataloguing.

I would use FLAC.  It can contain CD quality audio and is a compressed format.  It is best storing the master copies of your data in the highest quality possible - CD quality in your case.  Even though you say you can't hear the difference between 192kpbs MP3 and CD this is still a good idea  because you may get different equipment where you could hear the difference and because why throw data away just in case it could possibly required in the future?  Storage is cheap.

I can't really hear the difference between a decent MP3 and CDs either.  I ripped all my music to FLAC just because you never know if things will change and if you have ripped to MP3 and find in the future you need a CD quality copy you need to rip again.  Ripping to FLAC prevent this from ever occurring for no more effort up front.

If you ever need a smaller copy you can easily transcode to MP3 or similar.

Good advice...but then you said that thing again.

EssexExile

HereToday said:

Good advice...but then you said that thing again.

When I was young and used to play music loud and just sit there and listen to it, quality was important. Now I'm old and usually just have music on in the background, quality isn't that important.

Having said that, most people honestly can't tell the difference. When I bought my Quad system way back last century I wanted a cassette deck. The hi-fi experts scoffed saying the quality would be terrible, but sold me one anyway. After a while the tape deck developed a fault, I called these experts round to listen and they said they couldn't hear anything wrong. I insisted they send it back to the manufacturers and get it fixed, which they did. They still insisted they couldn't hear any difference, and they were the experts. Don't get me started on expensive speaker cable and gold connectors.

HereToday

EssexExile said:

HereToday said:

Good advice...but then you said that thing again.

When I was young and used to play music loud and just sit there and listen to it, quality was important. Now I'm old and usually just have music on in the background, quality isn't that important.

Having said that, most people honestly can't tell the difference. When I bought my Quad system way back last century I wanted a cassette deck. The hi-fi experts scoffed saying the quality would be terrible, but sold me one anyway. After a while the tape deck developed a fault, I called these experts round to listen and they said they couldn't hear anything wrong. I insisted they send it back to the manufacturers and get it fixed, which they did. They still insisted they couldn't hear any difference, and they were the experts. Don't get me started on expensive speaker cable and gold connectors.

Is it just me? It cannot be? I simply cannot listen to MP3; so much is missing that I have to turn it off. That's @320kbps.
Though it could have something to do with playing and listening to musical instruments; so the ears are more finely tuned as to how something should sound. When it doesn't, it irks.

coffeehound

I've never ripped a CD -- how long does it take exactly?  Think I'll just stick with CDs.

On the whole Hifi debate, I must say listening on the laptop with headphonnes through a DAC rather than just plugged into the 3.5mm jack makes a very noticeable improvement

CoastingHatbox

Some of us just don't have hearing that good, even with a set of audiophile quality headphones.
I can hear the difference in the quality headphones, but I can't hear the difference between low and high bit rate MP3s, unless the bit rate is very very low. MP3s above 160kb/s sound near CD quality to me.

Now pictures on the other hand... I can find compression artifacts with the best of them.

EssexExile

coffeehound said:

I've never ripped a CD -- how long does it take exactly?  Think I'll just stick with CDs.

On the whole Hifi debate, I must say listening on the laptop with headphonnes through a DAC rather than just plugged into the 3.5mm jack makes a very noticeable improvement

A few minutes, once you've worked out how to do it!

HereToday

coffeehound said:

I've never ripped a CD -- how long does it take exactly?  Think I'll just stick with CDs.

On the whole Hifi debate, I must say listening on the laptop with headphonnes through a DAC rather than just plugged into the 3.5mm jack makes a very noticeable improvement

CD discs can deteriorate or get damaged. So it's also a way of archiving your collection, in addition to making it available everywhere you go.