Advice on uploading CD collection to Itunes

June 11, 2009 11:45 AM

I am embarking on uploading all of my CD collection to itunes 3-400 CD's so not a huge job. I want to be done with the clutter, want to have easier access to them, and more portability for an eventual move But I was hoping some of you could enlighten me about what common mistakes to avoid in the process as well as recommended settings etc... thanks!
posted by dougiedd to computers & internet (41 comments total)

all I will say is this (well besides BACK everything UP)...perhaps because I'm in my forties or perhaps just because I'm weird, I so regret doing this very thing. However, this presupposes you will (as I understand it) unload the CD's when you're done.
I had some 7000 CD's which, since I travel and live abroad much of the time, I thought would be better placed on itunes.
I had actually traveled all over Europe with a good third of these.
The main thing I would NEVER do again is get rid of my CD's.
I hate Apple and rarely use my massive Ipod. Or the anal=retentive itunes.
I liked to look thru my CD's and select discs and play them on a stereo. I had control and visual/tactile interaction.
So maybe I'm doing something wrong, but to my mind, this was one of the worst decisions I ever made. Go easy...
posted by dawson at 11:55 AM on June 11

If you don't have an itunes account, get one, so itunes will automatically grab the cover art and other data about each CD.
posted by poppo at 12:07 PM on June 11

If you have the disk space, I recommend importing all your CDs in Apple Lossless format.
posted by Houyhnhnm at 12:12 PM on June 11

Are you looking to rip all your CDs for ease of access and back-up purposes, or as the only source of music once you ditch the CDs?

If the former, go with what sounds good to you on your preferred audio set-up. If the latter, you want to think about longevity of the file format (what can play them), the sheer size of files (in terms of gigabytes), and sound quality (lossy vs lossless). I discussed some of this yesterday, though I didn't get into format longevity. My quick thoughts:

If you foresee yourself using Apple-supported software and hardware forever and are fine with audio compression, the iTunes AAC format would be fine. For longevity and playback options, look to MP3. If you want to increase audio quality, go with Exact Audio Copy with LAME or some other software with audio copying quality control (vs. basic speed from iTunes ripping).

If you have plenty of space, think about lossless formats. The file size will be smaller than a direct clone of the CDs, but the content will be exactly the same, and you can compress these to AAC or MP3 at some later time, depending on what players you have.

Once you pick your format(s), make a backup or two onto DVD and keep them somewhere safe.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:17 PM on June 11

If you're Apple + iPod all the way you can make ACC files, otherwise mp3s are more portable (as not everything will play ACCs) If you're going to rip in iTunes to ACC set it to iTunes Plus (under: Settings > General > Import Settings)

If you're planning to get rid of the CDs you may want to make 2 copies, one lossy (ACC/Mp3) and one lossless, this way you always have an exact copy the CD. The lossless files are large so you might need an external drive to keep the files, you can rip a few then do the math. The lossy files will let you fit more on your portable device. You can have 2 separate libraries in iTunes, one for lossless, one lossy there are tutorials online, but it involves holding down option when starting up iTunes.

It's nice to have the art for each CD. Itunes can get them or http://www.albumartexchange.com/covers.php is another place to find album art.
posted by JulianDay at 12:20 PM on June 11

No Itunes, at least not until you've moved from CD to terabyte drives. Make backups.
Use lossless compression (like flac), and then after that you can do whatever horrible
things you have to do with Itunes, with copies. It was important to me that I control
the primary copies of my CDs.
Expect to spend some time regularizing the names of things that you get from automatic
online databases of CDs. For example, Wendy and Lisa is different from Wendy & Lisa,
even thought the both refer the same artists.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:23 PM on June 11

Lots to ponder...
i wasnt going to throw the CD's a way so the lossless might not be an issue for now...isnt the cache a problem for lossless formats?

i do concur: holding CD's is nice though not nearly as nice as holding LP's was

but my 2 year old thinks so too: arghh
posted by dougiedd at 12:45 PM on June 11

If you're a serious audiophile, the lossless thing is a big deal. I'm not, and when I did this it was in anticipation of putting all our stuff in storage for six-eight months. Two years later the CDs are still in boxes in the garage, and we are grooving on having the *entire* cd collection in the house and the car at the same time, and not having to defend the CD storage from our very inquisitive toddler.

I figure that at some point in the future I may use the iTunes history to help me cull some of the collection- I know there are things I haven't listened to in a long time, and having a listening history will help figure out what stays and what goes.
posted by ambrosia at 1:03 PM on June 11

I ripped a CD collection 5 times yours and regret something: using iTunes to do it.

Even though I had error correction turned on, I'd say a good 5% of my tracks are effed up due to problems reading the discs.

I have recently been turned on to EAC at http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ which gives you a log so you IMMEDIATELY know if any errors were encountered instead of having to wait to hear the problem and then dig out the CD form storage, rereip, repeat.
posted by arniec at 1:09 PM on June 11 [2 favorites has favorites]

If you're going to customize the information that iTunes provides with imports (changing genres, that sort of thing), or add ratings for albums/songs, do it as you go and don't wait until all your CD's are imported.
posted by pdb at 1:10 PM on June 11

I dealt with this question a while back and I also read through way too many forums about people who demanded that I first encode to lossless, think about normalizing my tagging taxonomy, then make copies, etc. Frankly, it's a waste of your time, especially if you're keeping your media, and especially with that 2yo running around. Feel free to read through listening tests online and you'll find that it's really, really hard to tell the difference between 320k and 256k encoding. Add into that the type of equipment you'll be listening to your music on - the music only sounds as good as the speakers/amp/etc you're putting it through. I have a pretty decent setup, but it's still rare that I'm sitting at home and ONLY listening to music. When I do have that kind of time to kill I prefer to listen to the vinyl which hardly gets pulled out much.

For what it's worth, here's what I did for my several hundred cds:
I'd spend time each evening ripping them and making sure that the tags were correct. At the end of the night, before going to sleep, I'd start the process to batch encode everything I ripped to 320k mp3 (which, looking back, was even overkill - if you're mostly listening to music off a portable music player you could even go down to 192k with hardly any loss and a big savings in file size.). What I ended up with was a collection of reasonable size (diskspace-wise) that I actually listened to because it was easy to put files on my portable or ftp them to my work computer or share with friends. You're doing this whole exercise because you want to listen to that music, right? The goal is not to become a digital archivist in your spare time. And you'll always have the master copies in case something breaks (though I do think at a minimum get a spare drive and setup a RAID mirror or any other backup scheme in case your drive takes a flying leap). I put all my media in storage and never had to look back because I spent a little extra time up front in the ripping phase to have the software (EAC) verify the rips and encodes.
posted by sub-culture at 1:40 PM on June 11 [4 favorites has favorites]

I did this a few years ago with a collection about twice the size of yours. I kept a spreadsheet with my CDs as I ripped them. It's uploaded to google documents and also serves as a valuable backup in case my house is burglarized or burned down.

If you have a Windows machine, I strongly suggest regularizing your artists with a Musicbrainz tagger. The one for the Mac sucks or I'd be using it. It helps you get all your tags in order (like Wendy & Lisa vs Wendy and Lisa). I use MPFreaker on the Mac for partially tagged MP3s and I don't like it as well because it doesn't fix tags as nicely.
posted by immlass at 1:45 PM on June 11

I agree with those above saying lossless archiving is the best thing you can do in terms of preserving all possible sound quality for the future. I also think most people are more like ambrosia and myself, not serious audiophiles. I do just fine with mp3 at relatively high bitrate. I do 256. Amazon does a lot at that rate. If I can only get things at 196, I don't worry, but don't really want less than that. I can't really hear an improvement at 320. 128 is noticeably bad by comparison. You could always do a full lossless set and then do a downsampled set in a common format. For me that's more trouble than it's worth.

As for a format, you don't want something boutique, particularly if lossy. MP3 is not the best format but it will endure for a while and is universally compatible. Recognize that you won't recover any quality lose once you go mp3 since it's lossy, but per the above you may not care. Couldn't hurt to preserve full quality, may not be necessary depending on your tastes.

As for file size, I wouldn't worry too much about big files simply since storage gets cheaper and cheaper, higher capacity drives get more and more common, and bandwidth gets broader and broader. A 10mb file used to be really unwieldy and not worth having a full collection of. Not as much anymore, and in the future it'll seem like nothing.

Definitely back up the collection in at least one place and replace drives after a number of years. They'll fail eventually so just be covered.

I would name files in a way that gives you all the info you need in case you use a different folder structure later. For me that's just artist, song, and maybe bitrate. Don't care about albums. You might though. I don't care about cover art. You might. I find loads of subfolders to be an unnecessary pain. Decide what you like.

I've kept my CDs but they've been in boxes for five years now. Guess I should really just sell them.
posted by Askr at 1:53 PM on June 11

I ripped a CD collection 5 times yours and regret something: using iTunes to do it.

Even though I had error correction turned on, I'd say a good 5% of my tracks are effed up due to problems reading the discs.

posted by arniec at 3:09 PM on June 11

Exact same experience with iTunes, very, very annoying, as I used that software thinking it'd be all swell and stuff. Wrong. Maybe grab them with EAC (or whatever else most techie folks here recommend) in lossless form and then you can dump them all into mp3 from that.

And if you go with Apples proprietary format you're sortof married to Apple and your iPod, maybe a good thing today (maybe) but who knows about four years from now. Use some open source lossless format and you'll be in better shape.

I'm going to end up doing the whole job over again, over 700 discs... I've got a few USB cd drives so I can set it and go but it's still a large job.

Get them all ripped, save off a few copies onto DVD, including one mailed to your sister in another city, and then import them into iTunes if you want, so as to get all the cover art and all.

Good luck.

Peace.
posted by dancestoblue at 2:18 PM on June 11

Throw out (or recycle/upcycle) the jewel cases, keep the CDs on a spindle in a closet somewhere. I still have every CD I've ever bought and it takes up maybe a cubic foot, including a stack about 3 inches high of the cover booklets.

Rip them as lossless. Keep those files, back them up.

If you want something smaller for your MP3 player make a lossy copy from your lossless source.

Don't try to do it all at once or you'll get sloppy and end up with badly labeled, mislabeled tracks, missing tracks, etc. Keep a stack next to your computer and just do it whenever the idea strikes you. You'll still probably get through it in a couple weeks and if you back up properly you shouldn't ever have to do it again. (Maybe get an off-site backup solution like Mozy.)
posted by Ookseer at 3:22 PM on June 11

Plenty of good info here, so no need to repeat. I'll just say that I did the same thing, with maybe 100 or so CDs, which I keep. I've only had one track get messed up, so I feel pretty lucky. (I used Macs; not sure if Windows is pickier).

And if you go with Apples proprietary format you're sortof married to Apple and your iPod, maybe a good thing today (maybe) but who knows about four years from now.

This is not really true. At any time, you can convert any of your imported CD tracks to MP3, or burn them as a regular audio CD.
posted by The Deej at 3:44 PM on June 11

FLAC + Exact Audio Copy + normal boring folders. Fuck iTunes and its nonsensical organization.
posted by beerbajay at 5:59 PM on June 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

beerbajay has it exactly, YOU want to be in control of it, not half-wit iTunes.
posted by Cosine at 6:04 PM on June 11

Many are saying the same thing: (1) I would say don't even consider the AAC format. Use MP3 if you don't mind lossy. (2) Don't rip at 128. Even a non-audiophile can hear the difference between 128 adn 192 or 256. (3) Either keep lossless backups or keep your CD's. I have opted to keep my CD's because I like the pictures. (4) Don't let iTunes tell you what genre your music is. I have changed my genres to very generic catch-alls (rock, jazz, classical, talk), then I use the "group" tag to separate them further.

Then backup, backup, backup.
posted by crapples at 6:55 PM on June 11

Go lossless. Not so much for quality (though that is a good argument, it just doesn't apply for most) since you can freely transcode between formats and not lose anything. I started out using APE when I was on Windows, then I switched to Linux and found it easier to play FLAC files, so I bulk transcoded before installing Linux, then I switched to Mac and found Apple Lossless to be my best bet since it syncs to my iPhone with no problem. Try that with MP3/WMA/whatever, it'll sound like crap. Storage is cheap, you can get a 1TB drive if you need it for $70, the price of half a dozen CDs. Plus, when some other format becomes better for me in the future, I can in one command bulk convert anything and when I wake up in the morning, it will be done. No more re-ripping for me ever.

I'd rip using cdparanoia (Max.app is my frontend on OS X).

Whether you want iTunes to manage your collection is up to you. I'm fine with it, since I coincidentally organized my music in the same way, so it saved a step for me. YMMV.
posted by Brian Puccio at 7:38 PM on June 11

I bought little white envelopes with circular windows in front and cardboard cd storage boxes. I kept the cd booklets and inserts, and put them in the envelopes. This is still pretty compact, and makes my CD's a little easier to sort through or add to than a spindle, I suppose.
posted by washburn at 8:03 PM on June 11

We went through a similar decluttering frenzy a few years ago and after ripping each cd, we toyed with the idea of selling them, but instead settled on storing our collection in a couple of these Slappa Hardbody Media Cases. (When I bought them from Amazon in December 2007, they were 85.00 each, not 183.00 as they are now.) I highly recommend them.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 8:20 PM on June 11

They're on Slappa's website for a much more reasonable $119.00.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 8:23 PM on June 11

Great, solid advice from everyone!

I've spent the last year archiving my 2.5k CD collection to iTunes, jettisoning the cd cases and putting cds & artwork in dj sleeves for storage. The results are so completely worth the effort; you will literally not believe how much more you can discover about your music collection when this is done.

My notes re importing a collection:

CD Errors) - iTunes has a preference called "use error correction when reading CD's" which should resolve the issues others have referred to. I had this occur on some early rips a few years ago, but have had zero problems since this pref arrived. I think CD drives have improved quite a bit, too.

File Format) - 320 mp3 files are compatible with everything on the planet (including in-car cdr players), are well nigh undistinguishable from 16bit 44.1 WAV (CD audio) on a professional studio montoring system, and are only a bit bigger than 256kbps mp3 files, with a noticeable sound quality improvement. My whole collection (approx 36k songs at 320kbps) is running a little over 300gigs at the moment. Lossless is unnecessary unless you have some archival purpose in addition to your casual (and not-so-casual) listening and convenience purposes. Proprietary formats (AAC, etc) always cause some kind of trouble sooner or later.

Info Tags) - use iTunes. Make sure the "Keep files in itunes folder organized" pref is on: it will write any changes you make in the iTunes list (artist, song name, album, artwork, comments, etc) directly onto the mp3 file itself. This will self-arrange your itunes folder into artist->album order. You'll never need to touch the files themselves, just do your tagging & organization in the iTunes lists and these will change the files automagically. The tag editor is pretty powerful as you can sort & select by any tag, then change multiple tags over multiple selections at once.

Definitely tag each album the way you like it as you import it, rather than sorting them all out later. That's a headache. Stay very broad with the genres and subdivide later. Make a Rock/Pop genre, an R&B/Blues genre and a Hip-Hop/Rap genre or you will tear your brain out trying to mentally categorize each album.

One more tag note: You can set an album to be a "Compilation" with a tag in the info pane someplace. This isn't for compilation albums like a "best of" or "greatest hits", but rather for albums that have multiple artists. If you don't tag a multiple artist album as a "compilation", iTunes will create lots of new artist folders with single songs in them. That's bad. If you tag these albums as "compilations", they will instead be organized in a single folder under the album name in a folder called "compilations". Much better!

Artwork) - make sure you put art on every album, either using a service or doing it yourself. (I scanned all my artwork at hi rez so it looks awesome on full screen.) Seeing the album art associated with the music is, for me, absolutely the #1 most important point of the whole exercise. Otherwise the collection is just a bunch of text in the iTunes window. Plus your itouch or iphone (using the 'remote' app) will control itunes & show the album art, too. Awesome for those deck parties with the computer inside running an outdoor speaker setup, let me tell you.

Backup) - backup. Drives is cheap.

Gaaaah TMI. All hard-won, tho.

Best of luck & have fun rediscovering all your music!
posted by Aquaman at 8:30 PM on June 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Only one thing to throw in... consider what CD device you use. I did my back up of all my CDs and killed the internal CD drive in my machine. I ended up having to go buy a stand alone CD player to finish the job and then pay out my nose to get the internal device fixed. Heck, you could go buy an external, use the thing for your project and return it. Not exactly ethical but it will save your internal drive some real wear and tear.
posted by bkeene12 at 8:38 PM on June 11

I've got 1500 cds in Itunes right now. Our originals are in storage just in case. We ripped them all over the course of several months into 320k MP3s. That way, no matter what system we played them on, they would work. Sure, extreme audio-heads complain about the lossy compression, but to be honest, I'll never spend 10 grand on a stereo to show the difference so who cares.

It's nice though. We have them (and our family pics/vids/etc) stored on a 4TB Raid-5 that sits in the tech closet. We can access it from anywhere and we never have to sweat turning on the drive or filling up our HDs with music.

These guys above are giving you solid advice... take it.
posted by damiano99 at 8:43 PM on June 11

Turning on iTunes' built-in "keep music folder organized" feature will create folders for each artist, with album folders and named song files in each album. I use a Mac, and have never had any of the "my tracks are disappearing" complaints I have heard from others, so ymmv.

If you don't know about discogs.com, you need to. It's a great source for locating album art which your player isn't finding on its own. You have to do it manually, but if you want it done right, you'll find a lot of cover art for rare and out-of-print albums and singles, even cassettes.

iTunes also has a spot for lyrics. Nearly every lyric download thing will deliver poorly formatted lyrics, etc.

I think, overall, one thing to remember is that there is NO service, NO process, NO software you can download which is going to fully automate this task for you. You WILL have to tweak strange-looking track information. You WILL find the entirely wrong album art has been downloaded automatically for you. You WILL find in-line ads lurking within your downloaded lyrics.

The best thing I've found to do (1600 albums, ~15K tracks) is to correct these as they come up, and not worry too much about it being all perfect all the time. If you can live with 90% correct and always improving, then you'll soon be loving your music collection in its new virtual form.
posted by hippybear at 9:13 PM on June 11

I am going to say this: do NOT use iTunes. It's not designed for ripping large numbers of discs, and it's really not designed for ripping things in good quality. Two recommendations:

Hands-down, the best quality audio ripping software I know of is Exact Audio Copy. It's a German freeware program that's very, very good at capturing high-quality stuff. Personally, I rip everything in .flac file format; this is really the best lossless format available that's open-source, and it can therefore be converted to mp3 or anything else you need to convert it to easily. (It's a good idea, by the way, to rip to the highest-quality feasible, since you don't know what you'll want to do with this stuff in the future; this way, you can convert to anything with great sound and quality.) But Exact Audio Copy does wav, mp3, mpg, m4a, and a lot of other formats, many of which, if this is what you're looking for, are much faster.
posted by koeselitz at 9:33 PM on June 11

Okay, that's only one recommendation. The other one…well, not so good.
posted by koeselitz at 9:35 PM on June 11

Feel free to read through listening tests online and you'll find that it's really, really hard to tell the difference between 320k and 256k encoding.

I worked for a company a few years back who were pitching the major music labels a plan to burn custom CDs of their music in kiosks. As far as all the "experts" were concerned, 256K encoding (mp3) was considered to be essentially "perfect" (ie: the human ear couldn't detect any loss).

Otherwise, I think you've got the right plan. Rip away and keep your original CDs. If you notice something sounds a bit glitchy, re-rip. It will only be a very occasional track if you use 256K encoding.
posted by philip-random at 9:39 PM on June 11

It's not designed for ripping large numbers of discs

I don't understand what you mean by this. You'd rip discs one at a time no matter what software. Can you clarify?

and it's really not designed for ripping things in good quality

This also makes no sense. iTunes can make a bit-perfect WAV if you want. The higher-rate MP3s are in the upper ranges in blind tests, and so is AAC for most musical material. Can you clarify?

Thanks!
posted by Aquaman at 9:48 PM on June 11

Fuck iTunes and its nonsensical organization

What's nonsensical about iTunes Music > Artist > Album > Song? I have "keep music folder organized" checked and let iTunes manage everything (on a Mac) and that's how it's organized.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:01 AM on June 12

To summarise:

Don't use iTunes - use EAC.
Rip to FLAC if you have the space, otherwise use mp3. Don't use AAC.
If using a lossy format, choose a quality that you find transparent.
If using mp3, use LAME. Nothing else. Use VBR. Anyone recommending CBR is retarded. Especially 320 kbps CBR.
Ensure metadata are consistent and correct as you go.
If possible, don't use iTunes as a music library/player - there are far superior options out there.
Also, organise the file structure of your collection from the beginning.
Back up - you don't want to have to rip them all over again.

Aquaman: "and it's really not designed for ripping things in good quality

This also makes no sense. iTunes can make a bit-perfect WAV if you want. The higher-rate MP3s are in the upper ranges in blind tests, and so is AAC for most musical material. Can you clarify?"

Read all the previous posts about error correction and catching. EAC is designed for ripping large numbers of CDs quickly, efficiently and at optimal quality.
posted by turkeyphant at 8:46 AM on June 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

If using mp3, use LAME. Nothing else. Use VBR. Anyone recommending CBR is retarded. Especially 320 kbps CBR.

How come VBR is better than CBR? Why is 320 CBR particularly worse than any other CBR? Please explain.

If possible, don't use iTunes as a music library/player - there are far superior options out there.

Different options yes. Far superior seems pretty hyperbolic, especially as you don't give any examples. Can you suggest an app and explain why you think it's far superior?

Read all the previous posts about error correction and catching.

I did, they refer to software that's 5 years old with long-fixed issues, and in my experience most of the ripping issues are due to older cd drives and discs in poor quality, not the software that's doing the conversion after the data is imported.

Sorry to be pedantic, but there's a lot of unsupported iTunes bashing going on which doesn't seem very helpful to the OP. If you have a specific beef, explain. iTunes is a great solution to the non-OCD music lovers among us for lots and lots of reasons.

I'm totally open to hearing why iTunes sucks, but you have to back it up or you just come across as another apple wharrrgarrrbler.
posted by Aquaman at 9:31 AM on June 12

well lots of advice and lots of strong feelings here.
thank you
posted by dougiedd at 10:41 AM on June 12

Not to derail but I AM trying to help the OP.

I DID specify how iTunes 8.1 with error correction turned ON caused about a 5% failure rate of my songs. More I guess I should have specified that the drive I used was brand new and some of the CDs it ripped incorrectly were taken directly from a shrinkwrapped package to the computer.

Now NOTHING is perfect. When you rip hundreds of CDs you MUST expect a failure rate. The drive, the software, something will break it. But other softwares like EAC will show you a log and tell you what is wrong if anything. Better to find out when ripping than after you've put the CDs in cold storage like I did (fortunately I didn't sell them!)

As for the folder structure, yes I too like iTunes Music > Artist > Album > Song BUT that's NOT always how it is, is it?

iTunes puts compilations under Compilations > Album > Song but sometimes it gets compilations wrong. I would want Journey's Greatest Hits under

Journey > Greatest Hits

but I get

Compilations > Greatest Hits

from iTunes. Now by the letter of the law it's right, the Greatest Hits is a compilation of previous tracks. But it's not consistent with this enforcement as I will get

The Cars > Greatest Hits

Worse, some compilations it parses out...and I have no CLUE why. I'll get:

Glenn Frye > Beverly Hills Cop Soundtrack > The Heat Is On
Pointer Sisters > Beverly Hills Cop Soundtrack > Neutron Dance
Oingo Boingo > Beverly HIlls Cop Soundtrack > Emergency

and so on.

Further, I have read several times here on Ask Metafilter (though I can find no other reference) that if you check to allow iTunes to keep the music folder organized, it can delete songs from time to time.

Now I am NOT iTunes bashing. It's a fine Podcatcher, music store, and method for me to upload my music to my iPhone/iPod. But I will Never, EVER (a) rip music with it or (b) let it automatically manage my folder structure again.
posted by arniec at 12:36 PM on June 12

Good points, ArnieC. However:

re 5% failure rate: There's no way a 5% failure rate is the fault of the iTunes software, nor would it be a problem with bunch of new discs. I'm guessing you had a wonky cd drive. I could be wrong, you may have switched to EAC on the same drive and had 100% success. But I've never heard of anyone having anything close to a 5% rip failure rate caused ANY ripping software, iTunes included.

re iTunes doesn't confirm the cd rip accuracy: A completely accurate complaint. But I haven't had one ripping issue in the last 4 years. This feature may be more of a deal-breaker for the cd-ripping archivist than the casual music collection importer.

re Compilations: you're doing it wrong. In iTunes, a compilation isn't a greatest hits or a best of by the same artist, it's a collection of songs in one album by different artists. That's why they go in the Compilations folder instead of an artist folder. Just uncheck the compilation box for the journey greatest hits mp3's and it will appear in your file system exactly as you specify. I agree that itunes' use of the word "compilation" can be misleading. But if you understand how they're using it, the tag works perfectly.

re iTunes deleting songs: In every case I've run across, this is just a matter of the song being filed someplace other than expected due to a tag error. If you see the song in iTunes, but can't find it in your file system, just do a cmd-R (show in finder) and you'll see where it went to. Fix the tag and it's back where you want it. I've never heard of a confirmed case of iTunes actually erasing music.

I like iTunes, but I'm not a fanboi. I've just used lots of different solutions to organize my collections, and iTunes works best (by far) for me. I'm aware of several minor limitations, I'm not aware of any major ones that aren't just BS from anti-mac people. I think iTunes is perfect for anyone who doesn't want to spend the rest of their days tweaking their file structure by hand or with esoteric tagging utilities.

EAC is all kinds of awesome too, but no maccy sabby, unfortunately.
posted by Aquaman at 1:28 PM on June 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

Aquaman:

If using mp3, use LAME. Nothing else. Use VBR. Anyone recommending CBR is retarded. Especially 320 kbps CBR.

How come VBR is better than CBR? Why is 320 CBR particularly worse than any other CBR? Please explain.

For the obvious reason - it is variable bitrate hence you get a far great quality/filesize ratio. 320 kbps CBR is retarded mainly because it's stupid to waste 320 kbps for silence.

If possible, don't use iTunes as a music library/player - there are far superior options out there.

Different options yes. Far superior seems pretty hyperbolic, especially as you don't give any examples. Can you suggest an app and explain why you think it's far superior?

WinAMP or anything customisable and which can handle thousands of albums well will do you better.

Read all the previous posts about error correction and catching.

I did, they refer to software that's 5 years old with long-fixed issues, and in my experience most of the ripping issues are due to older cd drives and discs in poor quality, not the software that's doing the conversion after the data is imported.

re 5% failure rate: There's no way a 5% failure rate is the fault of the iTunes software, nor would it be a problem with bunch of new discs. I'm guessing you had a wonky cd drive. I could be wrong, you may have switched to EAC on the same drive and had 100% success. But I've never heard of anyone having anything close to a 5% rip failure rate caused ANY ripping software, iTunes included.

re iTunes doesn't confirm the cd rip accuracy: A completely accurate complaint. But I haven't had one ripping issue in the last 4 years. This feature may be more of a deal-breaker for the cd-ripping archivist than the casual music collection importer.

The complaint is regarding the log checking. It doesn't matter that iTunes is a less accurate ripper in the first place (though it is) - what's important when ripping a large volume of CDs is not having to listen to every song to confirm the rip was successful.
posted by turkeyphant at 6:49 AM on June 13

Thanks, turkeyphant, great info. Although I will continue to stand up for 320 CBR mp3's because some car stereo cdr players and a few other things (some cheaper dvd players) won't handle VBR (a bummer when you're trying to pop an mp3 CD into a buddy's car or a friend's DVD/Stereo system), and disk space is rapidly becoming a non-issue.

And while iTunes on a mac does handle thousands of albums quickly and smoothly, I've heard different stories regarding the PC version.

I'm sure the OP thoroughly regrets asking this question now!
posted by Aquaman at 10:13 AM on June 13

Summary:

• If you're an audiophile,
  • Rip to FLAC using EAC.
  • You'll have near perfect lossless rips of your audio. This is the future proof method, but FLAC files are huge.
  • To carry your music around, rip to mp3 using LAME.


• If you're kind-of an audiophile,
  
  • Do the CD → FLAC → mp3 conversion, but trash the huge FLAC files.
  • Unless you've spent a lot of money on a good setup, you probably won't hear the difference between high quality mp3 and lossless FLAC.
  • This isn't future proof, because maybe in a couple years, audio equipment will become good enough to easily distinguish FLAC and mp3.


• If you just don't care,
  
  • Rip using iTunes, because it's simpler than EAC.
  • Audio quality won't be as good as EAC, but you don't care.
  • Use mp3 with 320 CBR or v0/v2 VBR, because support for Apple's proprietary AAC format is poor.

I'm a kind-of audiophile myself. But I also download most of my music, so I don't waste time ripping CDs.
posted by theiconoclast31 at 4:02 PM on June 17 [2 favorites has favorites]

re 5% failure rate: There's no way a 5% failure rate is the fault of the iTunes software, nor would it be a problem with bunch of new discs. I'm guessing you had a wonky cd drive.

I'm performing some necromancy on this question as I recently came into information that is driving me crazy.

I have begun re-ripping all of my CDs due to all the bad tracks I had. I started to wonder about the "wonky CD drive" so I used a different one. SAME problem. And I noticed this problem was almost 100% of the time on discs over 65 minutes the end track(s) would be skippy.

I tried on 3 totally different computers, different hardware, the only consistency was running iTunes version 9 with Error Correction on and ripping to Apple Lossless Format (tried MP3 and it still skipped too). And almost EVERY TIME (24 times out of 26 attempts) the later track(s) skipped.

I was being driven mad...but then I turned OFF error correction and...strange as it may sound, the later tracks started ripping fine. I have not had a single failure on over 50 discs over 65 minutes, plus dozens more shorter, (yes all verified by my ears) with error correction off.

This makes no sense at all to me, but there are my observed results.
posted by arniec at 1:04 PM on November 12