CD Ripping, File Management and Burning

[Rpl77]

Hello. I'm setting up a PC based system to archive my collection of 4000 CDs. My objective is to have a large database from which I can burn CD's, and feed my 30GB Ipod with my desert island songs. I've currently purchased two Sony CDR players/burners, one DVD burner, 200GB hard drive and a Fire Wire card with three ports. I'm running a 1.4GB processor, 256 RAM Sony Vaio PC. I would be grateful for any recommendations for:

- PC upgrades (I'm not ready to buy a new PC just yet)
- Sound cards
- Software (ripping, file management and burning)
- etc.

While I'm doing this for fun I do want to consider all my options. I will spend the money if a change would result in a material difference.

Thanks

Rich

RPL77@aol.com:help:

[Sckott]

Sound Card, I would possibly go for something like the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (unless you wanna spend good money on a card) Get yourself a Maxtor, Western Digital or IBM 7200rpm HD, most all the good software can be had on the net for free. You seem to have a system well enough to do all these things otherwize.

Just don't get rid of your CDs!

[Cafe Jeff]

With such a big hard drive, I would seriously consider using one of the lossless compression codecs such as Monkey's Audio and dispense with lossy compression entirely.

If you will not be using your PC for serious listening or analog capturing, you haven't mentioned this in your post, any soundcard will do.

In terms of software, Exact Audio Copy at:

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

I don't think can be beat. For MP3 ripping, you can download Lame. Jeff

[lsupro]

I was unaware of Monkey's Audio.

Thanks for the link and info Jeff!

[Irwin Mainway]

Another vote here for EAC.

You can't use FLAC or Monkeys Audio on the iPod though...

I use about the same rig as you and have been ripping with EAC and using EasyLame to encode the MP3's. You can use LAME in EAC, but I much prefer using EasyLame because its...uh....Easy!

http://easylame.audiohq.de/index_en.html

I use the --alt-preset standard switch. It results in VBR mp3's that are roughly 160-220 Kbps in size.

[Dave]

I'm with the gang here as well. EAC rocks!

[CardinalFang]

1) EAC does indeed rock.

2) Monkey's Audio is nice, but until they serve up Macintosh and Linux applications, it's useless. SHN is available for everybody, although the file size is a little bigger. I've used Monkey's Audio when I've had to on my PC, but I've had many errors decoding. SHN always works fine for me.

[Grant]

Originally posted by lsupro
I was unaware of Monkey's Audio.

Thanks for the link and info Jeff!

I have been using Monkey's Audio's filter in Cool Edit for years now, and it is great at lossless compressing audio files.

[Rpl77]

Originally posted by Grant


I have been using Monkey's Audio's filter in Cool Edit for years now, and it is great at lossless compressing audio files.

:confused:

Grant, is Cool Edit worth the money? What do you use it for?

[Cafe Jeff]

Originally posted by bigolbug

2) Monkey's Audio is nice, but until they serve up Macintosh and Linux applications, it's useless. SHN is available for everybody, although the file size is a little bigger. I've used Monkey's Audio when I've had to on my PC, but I've had many errors decoding. SHN always works fine for me. [/B]


I have never had a problem decoding with Monkey's Audio. I didn't know it wasn't supported on other platforms. Hopefully they'll fix that soon. It doesn't seem that it would be too hard a part. I have yet to try Shorten. I will. Jeff

Here's a question: how is it that wave files when played on my SACD player often contain song info?

[misterbozz]

Both SHN and FLAC are more widely accepted lossless formats than Monkeys, and FLAC is free and supports beyond 16bit, and is completely free and has lots of other bells and whistles SHN doesn't.

Monkey is also only for use on a PC, its a commercial thing not recommended at all.
For more info see:

http://www.etree.org/

[Graham Start]

Originally posted by Rpl77


:confused:

Grant, is Cool Edit worth the money? What do you use it for?

I'm not Grant, but I'll answer anyway.

In a word, YES. CEP is a fantastic bargain for the money, offering features normally only seen on high-end apps for the Mac platform. I use it primarily for audio restoration, for which there is absolutely nothing even close to it at this price. To give you an idea, Waves restoration bundle goes for over $600 US, and it's just a plug-in -- you still need to shell out for a host program!

You can also use it as a sample editor (it supports heaps of formats), and a digital multitrack recorder. One thing I should point out is that it doesn't do much in the way of MIDI; if this is what you need then you should look at Cubase or Sonar.