Move CD collection to digiital and catalogue

[SticknStones]

Hi Friends,

I looked through music, google, and now this thread trying to find a complete solution;

1. Copy CD to some cloud or local storage in lossless
2. Catalog it with the album art and such
3. Search titles
4. Play through the XMC processor

We have downsized and I see different software to catalog, burn cd's with windows 10 but I have not seen a fully documented "How to" repurpose your music collection into a digital Tidal like solution.

If there is a thread on this somewhere else I am happy to delete this and go there but I gave up on it and could not find what I was looking for on Google or YouTube.

I have CDs stuffed in every cabinet in the living room stacked so deep I cannot even get to it without making a mess so I am ready to be educated on a better way of storing this. I have as most of you do too many obscure recordings that will not be on a Tidal/Spotify/ amazon service.

thanks as always.

Reg

[Soup]

some people recommend dbPoweramp software for making digital copies of the CDs you own. You can start there.

[Priapulus]

After using dbPoweramp software to rip the music and it's tags, I use Tag&Rename (https://www.softpointer.com/) to correct the tags of information imbedded in the individual music files.

All Cataloguing software use the Tags to sort and organize your music. I've found the original tags to be poorly done, missing or wrong. Choose an consistent style for Album names and Artists so it can easily be searched. Correct Tags is the single most important thing, for having a good catalogue. The best place to find missing Folder jpgs is Google images.

Sincerely,
/b

p.s. Don't be fooled like I was. Some cataloguing software seems to allow you to fix the tags. But it usually does it by keeping the revised tag info in a separate proprietary database. It doesn't correct the original tags. So any error, crash or mixup and the separate proprietary database corrupts, and all your work is lost. Use software to edit the original music tags, and if your catalogue get corrupted, it is easy to delete and rebuild an new catalogue or switch to a different cataloguing software.

p.p.s. I ripped to Apple Lossless because I have several Apple devices, and Apple doesn't play nice with FLAC (probably for anti-filesharing reasons).

p.p.s.s. The cataloguing player I use is JRiver Media Player (https://jriver.com/). 

[gsand]

Bluesound Vault

[DYohn]

The easiest solution is to purchase a music server that will also rip your CDs. The most elegant solutions require you to do nothing except insert the CD - although since there is no perfect CD database you will likely have to correct some of the metadata aftger the fact. There are several good off-the-shelf solutions, and several DIY solutions.

Which way do you want to go?

[audiobill]

Are many of your albums not available on streaming services?

Maybe ripping, cataloging etc not worth the trouble.....

[Zombie]

I use a Sony HAP-Z1ES for my pretty extensive CD collection. I’ve got lots of Mobile Fidelity gold cd’s, SACD’s and standard cd’s and box sets. I really like the Sony a lot. Works perfectly for my needs and sound quality is excellent. My only real complaint is it’s limited as far as streaming. Does Spotify Connect and Tune-In. For most of my streaming I use HEOS or Bluesound Node 2i, Spotify or Tidal. With HEOS I can connect to the Sony and play anything from my cd collection. The set-up really does everything I need. I can play music throughout the house, garage and/or rear yard/patio easily using just my IPhone or IPAD from the Sony, Spotify or Tidal. I’ve got playlists saved on all three so I can always play my favorites. My .02.

[Jean Genie]

JRiver works . . . mostly

[markc]

Like Priapulus, I also own dBpoweramp and Tag&Rename and use both routinely.

However, JRiver Media Center is a good all in one that will do it all (mostly) automatically when you insert a CD.
There is a one month free trial that is fully functioning.

My only caveat is that it is a very sophisticated software suite that needs a bit of know how to optimally configure it for anything more than the basics and (without being to personal) the question you opened up with makes me think you may need to aquire some know-how to get the most out of it.

EVERY way you do it requires a little input to get the tags and album artwork perfectly the way you want them to be and is best done as you rip

[Gary Cook]

Apple Music, lossless rips, includes album artwork, plays on any iDevice, Car Play, automatically synced, back up automatically by Time Machine, Apple TV 4K connected to XMC-1 via HDMI, software updated for free regularly.

Cheers
Gary

[markc]

Feb 7, 2021 6:53:09 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

Apple Music, lossless rips, includes album artwork, plays on any iDevice, Car Play, automatically synced, back up automatically by Time Machine, Apple TV 4K connected to XMC-1 via HDMI, software updated for free regularly.

Cheers
Gary

However... if you have a PC then iTunes that is required is a very pervasive piece of software that I find hard to recommend if you like to keep your PC "clean"

[stiehl11]

So, here's what I did. I bought a Raspberry Pi and installed Plex on it. The cost for the Pi with everything needed to run it was $60 to my door. Plex is free. You will need to add a SSD or HDD. I already had a number of my CDs ripped, so I had a good start. But, I've added a few hundred more. I've been using EAC to rip my CDs to FLAC files. Plex will read the metadata with each disc ripped and give you album art, track titles/order, as well as information on the artist(s). Plex will allow you multiple different views such as by artist, album, year, etc. and allow you to build play lists as you like. I can access my Plex through any computer, phone, or streaming service that I have. So, when I'm 300 miles away, I can access any of my discs through my phone or computer and listen/port/cast to whatever listening device I want. I've added Plex client (totally free) to my TVs/streamers/blu-ray players so I can access it through there as well. I'm never away from my CDs (or movies for that matter).

Did I mention Plex was free? Seriously, I'm all in at just over $150 and have access to (eventually) everything in my collection. Everything is lossless (it can read Mp3 if that's what you want).

[SticknStones]

Feb 7, 2021 12:33:25 GMT -5 stiehl11 said:

So, here's what I did. I bought a Raspberry Pi and installed Plex on it. The cost for the Pi with everything needed to run it was $60 to my door. Plex is free. You will need to add a SSD or HDD. I already had a number of my CDs ripped, so I had a good start. But, I've added a few hundred more. I've been using EAC to rip my CDs to FLAC files. Plex will read the metadata with each disc ripped and give you album art, track titles/order, as well as information on the artist(s). Plex will allow you multiple different views such as by artist, album, year, etc. and allow you to build play lists as you like. I can access my Plex through any computer, phone, or streaming service that I have. So, when I'm 300 miles away, I can access any of my discs through my phone or computer and listen/port/cast to whatever listening device I want. I've added Plex client (totally free) to my TVs/streamers/blu-ray players so I can access it through there as well. I'm never away from my CDs (or movies for that matter).

Did I mention Plex was free? Seriously, I'm all in at just over $150 and have access to (eventually) everything in my collection. Everything is lossless (it can read Mp3 if that's what you want).

Wow, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to share their experiences. I look forward to checking this all out. I knew I came to the right forum to ask this question.

[klinemj]

I ripped mine to a hard drive years ago, and my #1 piece of advice is to rip to FLAC. DO NOT rip to WAV...you lose certain metadata, like track #...so an album plays in track title's alphabetical order. Not good, IMHO. FLAC preserves track #.

For playback, there are so many options. For critical listening, I prefer Roon to my UltraRendu to my DAC. I like Roon because it allows me to bring in things on my HD, things for Tidal or Qobuz, and has Roon radio...and the metadata is awesome.

For non-critical listening, my Pi options are great, but I still control them with Roon. If you do need access remotely - what Dave (stiehl11) is doing could be the trick. I've never done much w/Plex...started to for movies, but had other issues and dropped that plan.

Mark