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Transferring Music from CD's to a Music Server
Extracting music from your CD's and transferring the files to your
computer or music server can be very time consuming,
assuming of course that you care about sound quality and you wish to do a
good job—and if you listen to classical music it can be especially
time consuming. So if you would like to set up a music server but don't want
to spend the time necessary to get your CD library transferred you can
simply call us and we will take care of getting it done for you.
However if you wish to devote untold hours to doing so yourself here are
some suggestions:
Cleaning your CD's
If your CD's are new then you can simply blow any residual dust off with a
photographer's bulb-type air blower. But if you CD's have some
fingerprints on them you can run them under water and use your fingers
to sweep them radially. Then use a smooth, clean cloth to dry them by
sweeping radially from the center to the edge. If you can't get them
clean that way then there are commercially available CD cleaning kits
that you can obtain.
CD/DVD Computer Drives for Ripping
Unfortunately there are no high end CD drives for computers. And
obviously some drives are better than others. We have had pretty good luck with
a Plextor PX-880SA drive—although
there certainly could be some unit-to-unit variability so YMMV (your
mileage may vary). Once in while you may find a CD that won't work in
the Plextor PX-880SA, or whatever drive you are utilizing, so if you
have an older CD-ROM (not DVD/CD combo drive) you might find that though
it is slower it might work on those problem CD's. If you have more than one computer of course you can try
ripping on each of them and see which one has the drive that does the
best job reading the CD's. You will also find that some drives rip more quickly than
others.
Computer Hard Drives and SSD's for Music Storage
For SSD's (Solid State Drive) we are
currently using the Intel MLC versions with good results. The Intel SSD
SLC versions, while longer lasting, are quite a bit more expensive so
for most people they aren't cost effective for storing music files at this time.
With every passing year hard drives are continually getting larger. Currently
we are using either the Western Digital 1TB RE3 WD1002FBYS hard disks
or the Western Digital 2TB RE4-GP WD2002FYPS hard disks for storing music
files with good results. [Note: RE stands for RAID edition and that is
one of the reasons why we are utilizing these two particular models.]
RAID
RAID is an acronym for "redundant array of
inexpensive disks". We recommend using either RAID 1, 5 or 6 for
redundancy on your music server. Alternatively if you are using a
Netgear NAS (network attached storage) unit then we recommend using
either RAID 1 or xRAID.
File Naming
If you are using Exact Audio Copy here are
some tip: Before ripping any music, make sure that you set up
Exact Audio Copy the way that you wish your name your files. One
order that is possible is:
"%A" - %C - %N - %T
"%A" = CD or track artist
"%C" = CD title
"%N" = Track #
"%T" = Track title
"-" = a dash
However the method above can sometimes
result in file names that are too long. So if you don't want to do as
much text editing, this is the order that we recommend:
%N - %T
"%N" = Track #
"%T" = Track title
If you use this latter approach then you
need to first create a folder for Artist. Then inside the Artist folder
you need to create a folder for Album. Inside the Album folder you then
would have your files which would be named with Track # and Track Title.
So it would look like this:
(Artist folder) / (Album folder) /
(Track #) - (Track Title)
Which in Media Monkey would be this:a\<Artist>\<Album>\<Track#> - <Title>
The advantage to this second approach is that you won't have as much of
a problem with long file names, especially with classical music. If you
start working ripping files and then look at them in Media Monkey you
will discover all of this for yourself.
But whatever file naming method and folder
hierarchy you use, once you select it you should
stay with it and not change it or you will create extra complications
that you then will have to sort out.
Compilation CDs of Various Artists
If you have a compilation CD with a number of different artists on it then
you may wish to activate the option in Exact Audio Copy for that precise
purpose which is under EAC Options>Filename>"use various artists naming
scheme".
File Name Length
With classical music especially you should
be careful to not make the file names too long. If you do you may not be
able to rename the file to a shorter file name. Plus you may even have
trouble deleting it. If you do have trouble deleting it, you can move
the file folder to the trash, recopy the good files back to a
clone of the original file folder, and then re-rip the files that had
names which were too long.
Also if the file name is too long when you
copy it to another hard drive you will not be able to do so without a
tilde (~) shortening of the name which can mean that your music server
software will not give you any metadata. Then you will have to redo the
original file transfer or go through a process of renaming copies of the
files.
File Folder Organization
Before you start transferring your music it
is important to think about how you will organize your recordings on your
music server/computer. Of course you could put everything into one
folder entitled "Music". Alternatively you could have a "Music" folder
and inside that you could have folders
named:
Your collection might have many more categories than just those four
of course!
For instance you might wish to break
Jazz into two categories:
Or you might wish to further
subcategorize Jazz into something like this:
- Dixieland
- Swing
- Bop
- Modal
- Cool
- Free
- Smooth
- Fusion
- Latin
Obviously your music collection—how
large it is and what it is comprised of—and how you like to organize
your music will determine how far you may wish to go in terms of
categorization. If you are unsure of how to categorize a recording you
could always use The All Music
Guide which is an extensive database of just about every musician,
recording, and song ever made.
However you arrange your categories, in each of those main folders
should be "Artist" folders for
each artist in that category.
So for a Rock collection you might have
various groups such as:
- The Beatles
- Jimi Hendrix
- Led Zeppelin
- U2
Note that in the above example the
listing is alphabetized such that the "The" is ignored for The Beatles.
For a "Classical" music folder there could
also be folders for composers such as "Bach", "Mozart", "Beethoven", etc.
In those composer folders could be folders for soloist (for example "Pollini"
or "Horowitz" or "Stern") or conductor ("Karajan" or "Abbado" or
"Bernstein") or soloist/conductor ("Pollini; Abbado" or "Stern;
Bernstein").
Here are some specific suggestions and examples to get you thinking about how to
organize your files:
The Naming of an Artist or Group
Think about how to name artists or groups. For instance "The Beatles"
could be under "T" or you may wish to have them under "B" for "Beatles".
Note that in some music server software (MediaMonkey music server software
is one example) there may be the option
to ignore the word "The" in the name of a band so that The Beatles would
be listed alphabetically under "B" rather than "T".
Or for instance there are many different possible ways to spell Tchaikovsky,
(Tchaikowsky, Tschaikowsky, Tsjaikovski, Tchaikowski, etc.).
The ideal is to make sure that each
musician, group, or composer
is always spelled the same way—which may mean that you have to retype
some of the metadata in order to make your collection properly
searchable.
Folder Hierarchy
Below the "Artist" folder level in the hierarchical tree structure there
would then be an individual folder for each "Album"—the
name of which would be the name, abbreviated or not, of the album. In
each album folder would be the files of the actual tracks or movements
as well as the track numbers. Most people prefer to have the track
numbers before the track name rather than after—but ultimately that is a
personal preference.
So then a hierarchical folder tree could look like this:
Music>Genre>Artist>Album
Below are some real world examples which
will illustrate various aspects of categorization for you to consider:
The Beatles: Abbey Road (2009 remastered CD)
For example:
Music>Rock>Beatles>Abbey_Road>songs
For Abbey Road there are 17 songs so there would be 17 files in the "Abbey_Road"
folder.
Since the Beatles albums were remastered in 2009, if you have
that new better sounding remastered version then you could include that
information too. So then the folder tree would look like this:
Music>Rock>Beatles>Abbey_Road_2009>songs
(Note
that the track
numbers can be either before or after the name of the song in the file name for
each track. The method we have normally use is track # before track name
but as long as you always do it the same way you can do it either way.)
Note that in this example the remastering year and the rerelease year
are the same, although there are cases when it can be different.
Bach: The Art of the Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge) - played by pianist Tatiana
Nikolayeva
Alternatively a hierarchical folder tree could look like this:
Music>Genre>Composer>Work>Artist>movements
For example:
Music>Classical>Bach>Art_of_Fugue>Nikolayeva>movements
[Note: There are 20 movements
in The Art of the Fugue so there would be 20 files in the last
folder entitled "Nikolayeva".]
There is another aspect to consider too. Let's say that you have The Art
of Fugue that spans two
CD's as in the case of this release—as
The Art of Fugue
actually starts in the middle of the first CD at Track #7 and runs through to the end
of the 2nd CD. Then you may wish to put all of the tracks of that piece
into one folder. If you do this then you would need to redo the track
#'s for the 2nd CD so that they are arranged in the proper playing
order. In addition you might wish to create one more folder
for the first 6 tracks of the CD in this particular example.
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony -
conducted by Herbert von Karajan
Sometimes a conductor does the same piece more than once. For
instance von Karajan recorded at least 7 different
performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He recorded 4 performances
in mono (1947
Vienna Philharmonic &
1955 Vienna Symphony &
1955 London Philharmonia &
1957 Berlin Philharmonic) and 3 in stereo (1963,
1977,
1984 with the Berlin Philharmonic).
So then the
hierarchical folder tree could look like this:
Music>Genre>Composer>Work>Artist_date>Movements
For example:
Music>Classical>Beethoven>Symphony_No9>Karajan_1963>tracks
[Note: Here there are 4 movements so there would be 4 files or tracks in
the last folder.]
Then to make things even more complicated there are remastered versions
of these performances available. So you could add in the remastering
date of either 1997 or 2003—(which
in the following example is 1997)—in
which case the tree could look like this:
Music>Classical>Beethoven>Symphony_No9>Karajan_1963_2003>tracks
You could also name the artist Karajan_BPO which is the abbreviation for
Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
(Alternatively you could abbreviate it as Karajan; Berlin.)
So then the tree would look like this:
Music>Classical>Beethoven>Symphony_No9>Karajan_BPO_1963_2003>tracks
Optionally, though it isn't necessary, you could also add in the
release date if you wish so that would mean even a 3rd year designation.
The reason for this is that, with at least one particular version
(originally recorded in 1963) of von Karajan's Beethoven Ninth, first
there was the original mastering for CD, then a 1997 remastering, and
then a 2nd remastering done in 2003. However there have been more than 3
release dates as there have been a number of different CD pressings in
different CD packaging.
The remastering date is the important one as that will affect the sound
quality. However it isn't always easy to find out what the remastering
date actually is as opposed to the release date which is easier. It depends upon how much you wish to know which version it is that
you are listening to and how much time you are willing to invest in
doing the requisite research.
In this particular example, at last count there were 21 different CD releases
currently available that contain a von Karajan Beethoven's Ninth. You
can see a listing of them all
here.
Faure's Requiem - conducted by
Philippe Herreweghe
Alternatively a conductor might record 2 different versions of the same piece. For
instance there is an 1893 chamber version of Faure's Requiem and a 1901
concert version. The latter version was rewritten for a larger group and
included more instruments.
So then the hierarchical
folder tree could look like this:
Music>Genre>Composer>Work_date>Conductor>tracks
So for example:
Music>Classical>Faure>Requiem_1893>Herreweghe>movements
And then the listing for the other work would look like
this:
Music>Classical>Faure>Requiem_1901>Herreweghe>movements
[Note there are 7 movements so there would be 7 files or tracks in the
last folder.]
Compilations
If you have a compilation CD with a number of different artists, then
you may wish to put each track into their respective artist's folder.
Alternatively you may wish to include the artist name as a part of each
track name, either at the beginning or end (possibly in parentheses).
Some music server software has an option
which will handle compilations. In MediaMonkey software for example the
"Artist" name can be different for each track—while at the same time the
Album Artist can be listed as the same such as "Various". This means
that all of the tracks will show up in one album but you still will be
able to see the name of each individual artist for each individual
track.
Final Thoughts on File Folder Organization
As you think about your collection, you may do it differently from the
examples given above. For instance you might wish to further divide
"Classical" into the various
eras. And/or you
might wish to divide "Classical" into categories such as:
- Orchestral
- Solo Piano
- String Quartet
- Choral
- Opera
Then under a folder such as Orchestral
you could you have further subdivisions such as:
- Symphony
- Piano Concerto
- String Concerto
Of course you could further divide
String Concerto into:
- Violin Concerto
- Cello Concerto
- Triple Concerto
Or for instance you might wish to rip a particular CD as one file—rather
than the conventional way which is have an individual file for each
individual track which then could be assembled into playlists. But
however you do it, it is important to plan out an appropriate folder
and file organization scheme and then stick to it.
Album Art
A nice touch is to add in the Album Art as
you rip a CD. You can include the album art file in the same folder as
the music files so that it is easily accessible. There are several sites
which you can copy and paste from in order to get album art if you don't
already have it.
http://www.albumartexchange.com/ - excellent quality large images,
mostly for popular music (for search use exact spelling)
http://www.lala.com/ - many large higher quality images - though
occasionally the contrast has been over-boosted
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/index.asp - after drilling down
image quality very good (good advanced search, site is slow)
http://www.emusic.com/ - many large higher quality images (database
large but not complete) (poor search function though)
http://www.cduniverse.com/default.asp - many better quality images
(large database)
http://images.google.com/ image quality varies greatly (average
hit-or-miss search function)
http://allmusic.com/ - quality of images not great (huge database)
http://www.amazon.com/ - an enormous collection of images and
when expanded many are good (excellent search function)
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/main.jsp - quality of images not
great (classical music only) (superb search function)
http://www.hbdirect.com/ quality of images not great - relatively
large database
The first four sometimes have higher
quality album cover images that can be seen if you click on the image to
expand it—although sometimes
if you click on the image in Amazon you can get good quality scans too.
However the expanded Amazon scans are usually surrounded by a very large
white border--which if you wish to perform that extra step can be
cropped out in Picasa or any
other photo editor.
At the same time as you add the album cover
artwork you also have the opportunity to add additional artist and/or
album info in text form which you can write yourself or copy-and-paste.
For instance you might wish to add in the name of the label or a list of
additional albums by a particular artist that you would like to
eventually acquire.
Ripping
We recommend that you use Exact Audio Copy to rip your CD's to WAV files. Obviously with the
large hard disk or SSD drives available today it is both unnecessary and
sonically deleterious to use lossy compression. Alternatively if you
wish to use FLAC (or some other type of lossless compressed files) that
is your choice. One advantage to using FLAC is for embedded metadata.
Specifically in Exact Audio Copy make sure you use:
- Secure mode
- "High" Error Recovery Quality
If you get a track that rips to less than 100% in terms of
quality, you can always highlight that track and try ripping it again.
Although sometimes if CD's have been scratched there is no way to
accurately transfer the affected tracks. And sometimes CD have defective
tracks from a bad pressing or plating right out of the shrinkwrap. We've
even seen brand new CD's that were scratched before they were
shrinkwrapped!
Data Redundancy & Backup
It is important to have a good backup scheme.
The best approach however is to employ redundancy and as well as both
onsite and offsite backup.
We recommend using either
RAID 1, 5 or 6 for redundancy on your music server or NAS (network
attached storage) unit. In addition to the RAID redundancy you should also have
at least
one external backup of your music files. Ideally you would have another
backup or two offsite.
It is a lot of work to transfer a whole library of 100's or 1000's of
CD's; you won't believe how many hours it takes until you try it for
yourself! So make sure that you do it right the first time and back it
all up properly!
How much time does it take to transfer a CD
collection?
If you decide to do it yourself you will
probably spend far, far more time ripping and organizing your CD
collection than you would ever imagine—especially if you wish to do a
high quality job! If you are retired and wish to make this a hobby or if
you have plenty of spare time in the evenings and weekends and wish to
use your time to do this then by all means go right ahead. If you are
unsure whether you wish to tackle this yourself then you could try doing
some CD's yourself and see how you feel. Make sure that you test out
your results in Media Monkey (or whatever software you are using) before
you do too many as you don't want to have to redo your entire collection
once you learn how you would rather have done it!
For most people though it is recommended
that you bring in or ship your CD collection to us and have it
professionally transferred with proper searchable metadata and album
art. After all time is a precious commodity!
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