Storing CDs on a Hard Drive: Part I

[Resurrection Man]

I have been thinking of buying a hard-drive for my collection. Any ideas?

Are you PC based (in which case johnb has addressed this in detail) or Mac based?

[gurnemanz]

3) You need a system to file your music away and to be able to retrieve it. Relying on internet based tags or databases is pretty well pointless for classical music. One only has to look at CDDB, for example, to see that different people have different preferences. So it is more a question of data entry rather than editing. iTunes works quite well in this respect as it will auto-fill fields for you as you type which saves time.

I can see the advantages of putting everything on a hard drive. What puts me off is the sheer time and effort with over 3000 CDs + the fact that after all that input there is a possibility (however remote) that it might fail. I'm sure I would be neurotic and copy it all to a backup drive. Then you've got issues of keeping the two synchronised.

To keep track of everything I use a database OCD, referring to it on an almost daily basis. For me the software does an excellent job and I have not found CDDB/FreeDB to be "pretty well pointless". It does the donkey work of data entry very successfully. You can also get details via Discogs. After download of the basic details, the programme then has plenty of scope for you to tailor things to your own preferences - which I always do. The programme integrates with music stored on the computer and I think most users work that way. For me it only applies to mp3 and flac files which are on the drive.

You can upload your database to their server in HTML form if you wish. Here's mine if anyone's interested.

[richardfinegold]

That's exacly the way I feel about. It it ain't broke, don't mend it (unless you just like having fun).

If it wasn't for the space saving storage issues, I'd completely agree.

[richardfinegold]

The DAC I use - Audiolab MDAC - will accept up to 24/96 via the USB connection. I would think that, or similar, would be the case for most modern DACs that can use a USB interface. Theoretically the DAC should sound better through the use of the USB port because of the elimination of jitter.

Actually the USB interface is more jitter prone than S/PDIF or coax or firewire. That is why there has been a big move towards asynchronous USB. And many USB interfaces are still restricted to 16/48 even on high end dacs.

[Resurrection Man]

.....I'm sure I would be neurotic and copy it all to a backup drive. Then you've got issues of keeping the two synchronised.

On the Mac platform, this is a no-brainer and done for you automatically if you use Time Machine. There are other excellent programmes such as SuperDuper that can be set to only back up the changes. I'm sure there are similar programs for the PC.

..... I have not found CDDB/FreeDB to be "pretty well pointless". ......

We'll have to differ on this one. I find that some entries might have Rachmaninov, Sergei and others Sergei Rachmaninov. By the time you've faffed around changing them to suit your own preference you might just as well have entered the data in directly. At least that works for me as I never bother with disc covers, date acquired, or much else other than the composer, work and performers.

[Stunsworth]

Actually the USB interface is more jitter prone than S/PDIF or coax or firewire. That is why there has been a big move towards asynchronous USB. And many USB interfaces are still restricted to 16/48 even on high end dacs.

The Dac I have is an asynchronous Dac, sorry, I should have made that clear. The designer says quite clearly that this is the recommended interface. As I say it handles up to 24/96 through the USB interface.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If it wasn't for the space saving storage issues, I'd completely agree.

But what do you do with the CDs you are no longer playing?

[johnb]

I have not found CDDB/FreeDB to be "pretty well pointless".

I've used FreeDB when ripping ~800 CDs (over time) and find it pretty useful. Sure, you will probably have to edit the album title and the artists to suite your preferences but most of the track titles are perfectly usable (and they account for the the bulk of the input) and it is often a matter of taste (or personal preference) whether you edit them.

I'm sure I would be neurotic and copy it all to a backup drive. Then you've got issues of keeping the two synchronised.

Resurrection Man has mentioned a solution for Mac computers. For Windows, I use the excellent "Beyond Compare" to maintain a mirror of my music library on an external hard drive. I also use it periodically to maintain a mirror of my PC's data drive as well. (I use Acronis True Image for my system/programme drive - horses for courses.)

[richardfinegold]

But what do you do with the CDs you are no longer playing?

I wasn't kidding in the original post when I said that after I give away a CD that I haven't played for years, it doesn't take long before I start wishing that I had it back. These are the CDs that I wish to save on a hard drive. The ones that I actually do play frequently I plan to keep in their jewell boxes.

[David-G]

I would just like to mention my solution for playing music files to my hi-fi. I recently purchased an Arcam rDAC, together with an rWave. The rDAC is a little box that connects into the amplifier. The rWave is a sort of dongle that plugs into a USB port, and transmits wirelessly to the rDAC. I have a Dell laptop, which is in a different room and some way from the hi-fi. I have not experienced any difficulty with reception of the wireless signal. Because of the wireless connection, there are no earthing issues.

These Arcam items were not cheap, but the sound quality is superb, and the system is robust and reliable.

At present I have a relatively small number of music files on the computer. I label them with appropriate file names. I have therefore avoided the tagging problem (for the moment!)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I wasn't kidding in the original post when I said that after I give away a CD that I haven't played for years, it doesn't take long before I start wishing that I had it back. These are the CDs that I wish to save on a hard drive. The ones that I actually do play frequently I plan to keep in their jewell boxes.

My point here was that by retaining the copyright recordings, but passing the original CDs on to someone else, you are on the wrong side of the law (and from the point of view of the copyright and royalty holders, on the wrong side of justice). I'm sure that isn't your intention, but when I tell others of this dilemma, many say "but I'll never get caught".

[robk]

[QUOTE=johnb;229932]I've used FreeDB when ripping ~800 CDs (over time) and find it pretty useful. Sure, you will probably have to edit the album title and the artists to suite your preferences but most of the track titles are perfectly usable (and they account for the the bulk of the input) and it is often a matter of taste (or personal preference) whether you edit them.

I agree FreeDB is a generally helpful but you need to check the length of filenames before importing the files. I have had files that go way beyond the number of characters permitted by windows and you cannot delete, edit or rename them in the normal way.

[mikealdren]

I'm in the process of transferring my CDs at the moment. It's a long slow process.

There seem to be 4 issues, where to store them, what format to use, how to catalogue and how to play them back.

I've chosen to store on my PC (I'll be adding network store later as the volume grows.)

I'm using FLAC format, it's lossless, reasonably compressed and supports tagging, to me the only alternative is Apple and I don't like their proprietary approach.

The difficult issue is cataloguing and I've chosen Musichi. It's designed around Classical Music (and Jazz) and it really works. Go to their website and have a free trial. It's work in progress, they are improving it quickly, particularly in adding items to their library.

The data available on-line is awful, is it Bach's:
Partita in Ema
Partita for violin in Ema
Partita for solo violin in Ema
Violin partita in Ema
etc.

and that's before we look at formatting and opus nos etc etc.

Musichi has good editing tools and after a while, I have got pretty slick at editing the data. They are also about to add another database (GD3) to the FreeDB and Amazon. I have another catalogue that I have built up over the years and I can cut and paste from that.

Finally, I have had a few issue (largely my own fault) with loading early versions of the software and they have been VERY helpful with support.

Strongly recommended.

How will I play back - well I haven't finally decided, they player software with Musichi is good but my PC is in my office not by my living room hifi.


Mike

[Paul Sherratt]

You might be able to connect via your mains supply, Mike.

http://cdn-two.connecteddigitalworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/CDW-Review-of-the-TP-Link-AV500-Powerline-kit-23.jpg?76a6e8

[johnb]

The data available on-line is awful, is it Bach's:
Partita in Ema
Partita for violin in Ema
Partita for solo violin in Ema
Violin partita in Ema
etc.

and that's before we look at formatting and opus nos etc etc.

The other thing to take account of is how you want pieces ordered when you display a list of pieces (if your final system allows you to do that). This will probably depend on the order of the various bits of information in the tag. For example,

by Key........ Bach - Violin Partita in E maj, BWV 1006)
by No......... Bach - Violin Partita No 3 in E maj, BWV 1006
by BWV No.. Bach - BWV 1006, Violin Partita No 3 in E maj

Another example is Schubert Piano Sonatas: whether to arrange the tag so they are sorted in key order or D no ("Schubert - Piano Sonata in Bb, D960" or "Schubert - Piano Sonata D960, in Bb"), etc, etc, etc.

How will I play back - well I haven't finally decided, they player software with Musichi is good but my PC is in my office not by my living room hifi.

I hate to say it but, IMO, this is one of the first things that anyone considering playing music from their PC should consider, possibly by ripping a few CDs and then testing out various alternatives (iTunes, Foobar, JRiver Media Centre, etc,etc). Also, how you are going to get your music from your PC to your audio system (analogue cables, digital cables, USB, external sound card, music streamers such as Squeezebox, Sonus, DNLA to a music player or DVD player). How the player deals with tagging will probably influence your decisions about how to tag.

[Edit - added a little later]
Then there is the issue of how work numbers are sorted, e.g. Symphony No 9 and Symphony No 100, BWV 56 and BWV 156. In both these examples the sorting will probably be the opposite of what you would expect, because the programme will consider the tag as a string of characters and won't recognise the number as a number. So, in order to get, say, Haydn Symphonies or Bach Cantatas sorted in the correct order, one way is to pad out the number with zeros - e.g. 009 or 056. Admittedly it is much more of an irritation with Haydn Symphonies and Bach Cantatas than almost anything else.

Also, it is worth deciding whether to use "No.1" or "No 1" for, say, symphony, piano concert, string quartet numbers and stick to what you decide - as the two formats will be sorted separately (usually all the "No X" formats followed by all the "No.X" ones)

(If you ever decide to change the tags, mp3tag is the standard recommendation for editing them - and has quite a few very helpful features for 'bulk' editing.)