seeking advice on ripping music to hard disk

[plz]

Hi Everyone,

I'm about to embark on a project to rip my CDs to FLAC files for use with a Squeezebox as the source for my mostly Naim system. I plan on using Exact Audio Copy and my system is Windows based (2000 Pro for now, will be getting XP Pro later this year).

I'm looking for advice on how to set up the folders and files on the HD. I want to be able to do the obvious things once it's all ripped like group by artist, genre, etc. Are the files on the HD relevant in any way to aiding this or does all the searching/grouping/filtering/sorting capability come from the database that EAC sets up? Is that database a standard format that most audio programs read?

Also, I don't want to lock myself into the Squeezebox platform in case a better solution comes along in the future. I'd like the searching/grouping/filtering/sorting capability with any platform as well. So any hints with that in mind would also be greatly appreciated.

-Peter

PS - You guys are all killing me with the thread on the world's best speakers, what a hoot.

 

[julian2002]

hi,
personally i group my flacs in an artist folder and then within that an album folder i.e. pink floyd/ dark side of the moon. if the album is a mix or compilation then i just have the name of the compilation andf then the cd number i.e. trance nation / trance nation 1 CD 1
make sure that the ID3 tag information is correct though. this can sometimes be tricky with eac and flacs but there are 3rd party id3 taggers out there that do the job quickly and easily. id3 tags contain info such as date, genre etc. as well as artist and album.
slim server allows you to brows your music folder (i mostly use this method as it's most like looking through your cd collection) or you can search by tag information such as genre or date.

oh and afaik id3 is a standard across most compressed music types (mp3, etc)
hope that helps.
cheers


julian

 

[SteveC]

Since I use iTunes I let iTunes organize files automatically into a directory and file name structure of drive:/music/Artist/Album/01 - trackname.mp3 type, moving and renaming files if necessary. This is based on the ID3 tag held in the file itself. This is an option for when iTunes periodicaly rescans.

Since I use several ripping softwares on different PCs across the home net (and other people do it too) this is a safety net in case they do not pick the right naming convention or I have not set up an individual ripping program correctly. The result is not of course restricted to squeezebox - anything that can read the directory structure. Squeezebox server can be told in turn to use the iTunes library file rather than scan the directory structure itself.