Posters regularly query whether they should use iTunes or some other means of ripping and managing their music libraries, so I thought I would write down my experience.
In mid 2005 as a retired computer systems man with a thousand CDs collected over the years I started looking for a better way of playing music than a CD player. This review http://www.silentpcreview.com/article287-page1.html got me looking and this post (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=38242&view=findpost&p=337788) sent me down the Squeezebox and iTunes Apple lossless route on Win XP. When I found MIP the time consuming task of building playlists was fixed. All was rosy. Then the iTunes problems started - the iTunes directory became huge (>300Gb) and the library became corrupted and some music went missing when I attempted to rebuild it, iTunes 7 point something broke MIP for a short time, new releases of iTunes occasionally re-organized the music library, it isn't easy to move the iTunes directory to a different drive, there is an occasional noise at the end of iTunes tracks (bug 4366, still not fixed) and finally I have a strong impression that iTunes is treated as a necessary evil that has to be endured by the SB developers. Time for a change. So after lots of research I bought dbPoweramp R13 and slowly started re-ripping all my CDs to FLAC using a similar library naming structure ([IFCOMP]Compilations\[album]\[track] [title] - [artist][][IF!COMP][artist]\[album]\[track] [title][]) to iTunes that works for me. My SB Music Library now consists of a series of shortcuts that point to directories such as "FLAC Classical from xxxx" or "FLAC from xxxx" where 'xxxx' is the location of the actual CDs - e.g. in storage, at my house, at my son's house etc. I used MediaMonkey to convert the remaining iTunes library to "FLAC from iTunes 1", "FLAC from iTunes Compilations" etc. I also use MediaMonkey to convert playlists to MP3 and load them onto my iPods. My advice - avoid iTunes, rip to FLAC with dbPoweramp, manage your library with MIP and MP3Tag and use MediaMonkey to manage your iPods. -- Wirrunna A camel is a racehorse designed by a committee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wirrunna's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3225 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=55209 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
