Ripping Yarns

[Gary 0]

QUOTE (RobbieD @ Apr 27 2006, 10:54 AM)

I'm hoping that at some point in the future I can get a program that will match up the spreadsheet info with the files names (I'm using "Artist - Title.wav"). Does anyone know if this is possible?

I might be able to help there - using a bit of Excel wizardry. Can you let me know a little more about what you want to happen?.

[RobbieD 0]

QUOTE (Gary @ Apr 28 2006, 09:43 AM)

QUOTE (RobbieD @ Apr 27 2006, 10:54 AM) I'm hoping that at some point in the future I can get a program that will match up the spreadsheet info with the files names (I'm using "Artist - Title.wav"). Does anyone know if this is possible? I might be able to help there - using a bit of Excel wizardry. Can you let me know a little more about what you want to happen?. Well I don't really know exactly what I want to happen.   Basically I will have wav files (named "Artist - Title.wav") and an Excel spreadsheet which has Artists and Titles in two columns, and additional info in others.   I want the additional info to be available with the track. So that when I look at the .wav file in some DJ software (to be decided at a much later date) I will also see the year, BPM, notes, and other info (that is currently only in a spreadsheet).   I'm not sure of the best way to do this. Maybe DJ software can store additional info for each track. Maybe Tags can be added to the wav files. Or maybe so other method.

[Gary 0]

QUOTE (RobbieD @ Apr 28 2006, 10:34 AM)

Well I don't really know exactly what I want to happen. Basically I will have wav files (named "Artist - Title.wav") and an Excel spreadsheet which has Artists and Titles in two columns, and additional info in others. I want the additional info to be available with the track. So that when I look at the .wav file in some DJ software (to be decided at a much later date) I will also see the year, BPM, notes, and other info (that is currently only in a spreadsheet).

Hmmm, well, a you can easily make Excel turn your three separate columns of info into a 4th combined column - thereby giving you all the info in just one medium length string of text. Software applications are much more likely to offer a place to show one string of info, rather than 3.

 

So...

 

Say you've got Artist name in column A, Song Title in column B, and other information in column C, you could put the following formula in column D

 

 

=A1&B1&C1

 

This simple formula in Column D, the & signs are used a bit like glue to join the text in the specified columns together and would give you no spaces inbetween the three bits of information, so column D would look like this example:

 

KYLIE MINOGUE CANT GET YOU OUT OF MY HEADPARLOPHONE RECORDS.

 

So, if we modify the formula we can include a - (hyphen) between the Artist name and song title, then a full stop and a space before the extra info, we would use this formula in column D, instead: (I've added some spaces inbetween the various bits of the formula, which Excel will ignore, whether you use them, or not.

 

= A1 & " -" & B1 & ". " & C1

 

The result, in column D will now be:

 

KYLIE MINOGUE -CANT GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD. PARLOPHONE RECORDS.

 

Now, depending on the state of entries on your Excel sheet, you can also change the case (upper case, lower case etc) really easily, using EXCELs "PROPER" function. Lets change column D to this.

 

= Proper(A1) & " -" & Proper(B1) & ". " & Proper(C1)

 

Which will give us upper case letters at the beginning of each word, giving us.

 

Kylie Minogue -Cant Get You Out Of My Head. Parlophone Records

 

 

 

 

 

[BigBen 0]

QUOTE (RichardP @ Apr 28 2006, 09:31 AM)

BigBen/Rich, to try this for yourself, put an audio CD into your intended optical drive, go into the EAC Drive Options (F10) and under the 'Extraction Method' tab, click on 'Detect Read Features...' and let it do its stuff for a short while. When the results appear (hopefully the 'cache' feature will result 'No' - better for DAE, apparently!) click the 'Apply' button. Also set the target directory to an internal drive rather than USB external drive. Would be interesting to see if it makes much difference!

The good news is I've beaten your time...the bad news is only by six seconds! I went through a couple of hours of tests and routines so I will report in detail later. I'm off to see this now so I haven't got much time!

[RichardP 0]

Nice work... that's a decent result for an accurate rip using fairly humble hardware!

 

Good luck with the project ahead! http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/smile.gif

[BigBen 0]

Following your instruction, Rich, I removed the caching option off my disk. Immediately, I was ripping in sub three minutes. I then tinkered with the following settings:

2:54 No caching.

2:54 Extraction prioirty set to high.

2:54 Recovery quality set to high.

2:53 Firmware upgrade.

2:53 Rip to C Drive.

2:53 All services in XP stopped, no network, no a/v, firewall or spyware protection and all peripherals (printers, usb devices, etc.) unplugged.

2:53 Install latest ASAPI software.

 

It's not been mentioned thus far but make sure your drive is using the DMA feature too (Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > IDE channel).

 

The only improvement was one second when I upgraded the drive's firmware! Other than that, nothing else made the slightest difference.

 

For the icing on the cake I have ordered two Plextor drives.

 

Plextor manufacture, according to their advertising, and some geek forums, the best drives for audio enthusiasts. I may see a change in speed, probably for the worse. But, what I will get, as per the Plextor website and the geek forums, is the best audio quality rip possible.

 

Why did I order two? Because this whole process of ripping is NOT processor or memory intensive. Therefore, you can run two drives and two instances of EAC simulataneously, effectively doubling your output or halving the time taken to rip.

 

I will load them up and test them as soon as possible. Then I'll report back. Then I'll start ripping my collection! Having started this project with a time of 10 minutes for one CD, I am now down to approximately three minutes running at top quality settings plus I can run two rips at the same time. In other words - instead of six CD's an hour, I can now look at about 40!

 

That's a saving of 106 hours, or four and a half days! Pretty bloody amazing huh?

Edited May 2, 2006 by BigBen

[RobbieD 0]

Well I've continued ripping loads of CD's (mainly CD singles) to hard disc as wav files, and have now almost filled up my 250GB drive. So I'm thinking of experimenting with FLAC to put off purchasing another drive for now.

 

Richard, Andy or anyone else, where can I download a freeware program that will batch convert wav files to FLAC and can also batch convert FLAC files back to wav (once I get get that bigger drive)?

[RobbieD 0]

Of course I may be expecting too much to find a freeware wav to FLAC batch conversion program (although it is Free Lossless Adio Codac). But I wanted to experiment with converting a few files before spending money on software.

 

So does anyone know of any freeware program that can convert wav to FLAC and FLAC to wav, even if only one file at a time.

 

Or is there some way I can add the FLAC codac to any of my existing conversion/editing programs to let me open/save as FLAC files - Super (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, eRightSoft), Audacity, Nero Wave Editor, Roxio CD Creator (or even Real Player, Windows Media Player)?

[RichardP 0]

Highly recommended: dbPowerAmp Music Converter

[BigBen 0]

Latest update.

 

Using Plextor drives with latest version of Plextools and firmware, I have managed to shave a further 10 seconds off Now 62 disc 1 ripping to WAV using highest quality settings. Two drives ripping in tandem slowed me down considerably - approx ten minutes to complete two CDs. So I'm now using the drives alternately; it keeps them running cooler and also allows me to load up a CD ready for when the other drive has completed its rip.

 

The big news is that I have decided to rip to FLAC using dbPowerAmp in preference to WAV and EAC. As has been mentioned above, it is lossless codec (like WAV), giving a 35% (approx) saving in disk space but, most importantly, it retains the tag info. It may add an extra couple of minutes to the ripping process but overall, from my tests, I think it is worth it.

 

Although I only intend to use FLAC and OTS files, I am running some MP3 tests as well, purely by way of a comparison. However, I am undecided on the best way to convert FLAC files to MP3. My test bed PC is only an AMD Sempron so tests have been depressingly slow thus far...batch processing taking three times longer than simply re-ripping the original CD direct to MP3. I'll try converting on a Pentium PC when I get chance.

 

I plan to have a minimum of two drives (FLAC & OTS), more likely three drives (FLAC plus backup and OTS) or maybe even four drives (primary FLAC, back-up FLAC, OTS and back-up OTS). I think this covers all the bases!

 

Have I missed anything?

[Newcie Jon 0]

I've been using mp3s since 1999 ( with MixVibe !), upgraded to Atomix & now VirtuaDJ. Back then space was expensive (about a £1 per mb!) & I used 128kbs mp3s.

 

These were okay at small gigs but I soon found the sound quality was compromised. I have re-encoded everything to 192kbs which I think is good middle ground between space/quality. With good software, sound card & sound system this sample rate is perfect.

 

I would recommend 192kbs or 256kbs as max - I can't hear the difference, but then I've been DJing since 1974 & probably have fudged hearing! http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/rolleyes.gif (Joke, my hearing is perfect.).

 

Happy ripping whatever way you go http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/wacko.gif

[Dukesy 0]

Hi Newcie Jon, welcome to the forum.

 

How about telling us a little more about yourself, especially with all that experience you must have gained since 1974!

 

Regards

 

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/042.gif

[BigBen 0]

Thought I would resurrect this post. I started it three years ago when I was working on ripping my CD's. Soon after, we decided to move to Bournemouth so, naturally, this project was placed on hold as I had to do every DIY job in the world to get our house on the market.

 

Three years later and I'm starting it again!

 

I'll post a more thorough and comprehensive explanation of what I've done another time but for those who want some guidance let me say that I've tested and tested using different hardware, software, drivers, OS's, settings, etc. I've used many sites as reference including this one, Ots and dozens of ripping experts.

 

The big thing for me is that EAC has been superseded by dbPowerAmp. I never thought I'd be saying that but the lack of development has resulted in EAC losing ground. My biggest problem with it was that after days of testing and tweaking it started to hang requiring a hard boot. So, I swallowed my pride and started the whole process again with dbPowerAmp. No speed improvement to be had but it ripped Securely and well.

 

Three years ago I decided I was going to rip to FLAC. I don't need to now. Depending on what you are going to do with the files will help you determine your approach but I intend to be using my WAV files around the house and every player we own can play WAV's but not FLAC. Simple. It also helps if you have (a) the disk space and (b) the correct naming convention which eradicates the need for tags...in my case.

 

I clean the files using Platinum Notes. I'm not totally sold on this idea but even my distorted ears can notice some sonic improvement and I like the idea every file being scanned and checked before being 'normalised' (no idea if that's the correct term!)

 

So there you go. My new approach to ripping. If anyone is interested then I'll post in more detail.