Ripping CDs in 2022?

[Stan]

My BS5 music collection has been pretty stagnant for a few years, but with the holiday season upon us, I want to load some Christmas CDs on to it.  My BS9000 is (hopefully) temporarily incapacitated, and SWMBO needs Christmas music.

I broke out my old laptop that I last used to rip and load CDs and I’ve run into a few problems.  I started using MediaMonkey at some point in an attemp to clean up some of the collection, but that project fell by the wayside so I don’t really remember what I was doing with it and where I might have left off in terms of the cleanup.

Problem #1:  It seems like Media Monkey’s tagging isn’t necessarily recognized by the BS5.  I have loaded some songs tagged correctly in Media Monkey, but they show up in an “Untitled (date)” album.

Problem #2:  Media Monkey can’t download song lists anymore.  It uses “freedb”, and that has been turned off.  There’s a gnudb that some freedb links are redirected to, but I can’t find any way to make Media Monkey use it.

Any one still ripping CDs to load into the BS5?  What software are you using?  Also, if anyone is familiar with Media Monkey and might have insight into why its tagging isn’t recognized by the BS5, that would also be helpful.

Thanks everyone,

Stan

[Millemissen]

I don’t…

….but if I had to – on a PC – I’d rip with dBpoweramp CD Ripper.
(There is a free 21 days trial).

And I’d tag the files with Mp3tag.

MM

[kirin]

Hello Stan

I made quite good experiences using CDEX for the ripping job, and MP3DirectTag for Tagging. All inWindows.

Where I have to add that I used mp3 with a high data rate. MP3directtag had also access to some databases. Unfortunately, getting the album art was more and more a pain (no interface to amazon any more), but somehow i managed.

I always copied it to Beomaster 5 using the seevice mode, with an external USB Stick, but it works also quite good via the shared folder.

 

[kirin]

(can’t edit my above post), MM is right, tagging tool is mp3tag 🙂

mixed up with mp3directcut which was great for cutting files (if needed, e.g. after a digitalization job)

[Stan]

I was going to try CDEX as there was an article on the gnudb site for making it work with gnudb, but Chrome, Edge and MalwareBytes said it was malware.  I also read some comments in a forum speculating that the project may have been “taken over” by bad guys.  I’m already running on an older PC so I didn’t want to risk inviting unfriendly software visitors so I passed.  Can I ask what version of CDEX you’re using?

I sort of remember working with dbpoweram many years ago.

[NQVHNWI]

I’m still ripping CDs. I’ve basically re-ripped my original ripped WMA files on the BS5, to FLAC, the re-ripped them all again with a Melco D100 ripper into a Melco N1 music server.

I have also migrated to Qobuz but still buy cheap CDs – often in used form from Amazon. It’s a cheap way of loading up on excellent quality rips which are yours to keep forever…..

I use Jaikoz to extensively re-tag my library to just the way I want it.

im sure my old BS5 can read all those FLACs again, but the age of CDs, rips and hard drives and so on is coming to end. Soon it will all be pay per view, including having your annual BMW seat-warming rental and your electric Mercedes that can accelerate just a little faster.  Just hope I can keep all my effort going another 30years or so when it won’t really matter what happens to my FLACs

[Stan]

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

Here’s the process that I worked out last night that seems to work pretty well (for my future reference, or other forum readers):

1.  Use MediaMonkey to rip CD to disk flac files.  MM’s tagging seems broken, or some is stored in the MM music server vs. embedded as tags in the files.  I just skip any of that and bring it in as Unknown Album with Track01 – Trackxx.
2. Use mp3tag can grab the CD metadata from “freedb” (not sure where it’s really getting it since freedb is supposedly turned off, but that’s what the menu says) and configure the tags in the file.  You can also touch up any tags that you might want to change from what is downloaded.
3. Use mp3tag to convert the “Track01” filename to the track name from the metadata.  Mp3tag has a feature that allows you to do this.
4. Use mp3tag to find album cover art
5. Copy the folder to the BS5’s Music folder using the convention <Artist>\<Album>\
6. On the BS5, find the album in RECENTLY ADDED under FAVORITES and add it to the “RED” playlist (red=Christmas, am I right?) and add it to the EXCLUDED list so MOTS doesn’t play Christmas music in July.  You need to long press GO while pointing to the album to get this option.

Wife selects N.Music and presses “red” button on Beo4.  Win!

[Millemissen]

Congrats!

Mp3tag is a mighty piece of software….used it a lot earlier on.

MM

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