DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Music Library Advise Needed

Well the Browns are done and it's too cold to work on my car hobby so my wife says I need something to do.Translation get lost! Anyway I noticed that we have loads of CDs (maybe 500 between my wife and I. Many more if you count the ones that belong to the kids) scattered in different locations around the house. No way I know what and where they are. So I figured it might be a good project to put them in computer library. I don't have much tech savy but I know some of you guys do. So far the plan is to dedicate a computer strictly to this project. It's an Athalon 64 3400 with 2 gigs of memory and 160 gig hard drive. I was going to back it up with an external hard drive. I'm leaning toward buying one of the smaller mobile external drives that don't require a power source.. I'm wondering if this is enough storage. I don't want to have to start over. Should I get the mobile hard drive I noticed some of them list speed at 5400 the HD in the computer is 7200 does it make much difference? There are lots of diffenent HD names are some better than others? What program should I use? I experimented ripping CDs with windows media player and my kids recommed I tunes. These are the same kids that tried to make a parachute and jump off the garage so I can't help but consider the source.I'd be grateful for any advise or direction. I feel like a babe in the woods when it comes to computer stuff.

If I was you I would just copy all your CDs onto cassette, then build a big brick-and-board shelf in the living room to store them in. After that get one of those newfangled quadraphonic stereos with tower speakers to put in each corner, install some shag carpeting, dim the lights, light a candle, open some wine, and call for pizza.

Sorry, I don't know a thing about external hard drives, but I hope that helps. <img src="/images/graemlins/azzangel.gif" alt="" />

i cannot suggest which externals are best...i have a Western Digital, 200GB...it's not portable, but that wasn't really a priority for me...it has worked just fine with both my old Dell desktop and my new macbook alike...

but to work out the basic math: of the albums i own, songs avg out at about 5MB, with around 15 songs/album...so at 75MB/CD, 500 CDs is gonna require 37.5 GB...i believe most of those portables are 40GB, so you'd be ok, there, assuming you're not going to add a lot of new stuff. i also keep our digital photo library on the external, which is why i went larger...

hope there's something helpful in the above...

I have around 100 CDs so far on my HDD and it takes 12GB

Some are done at 128 kbs .mp3, but most are at 192kbs .mp3

It's a great way to store your music and listen to it on the PC, and since my car stereo plays both .mp3 CDs and uses a SD memory card, I can pop the card in and copy songs to it in a flash and have 300-400 songs in my car in a snap.

for storing music, the speed of the HDD is not important, that only comes into play in situations of constant read/write needs. Reading to playback .mp3s will work just fine at 5400. although 7200 rpm is kinda the standard now, and don't really cost all that much.

What I do recommend, cause like you I have 500+ CDs, is to have a hard drive JUST for the music, and put nothing else on it.

BTW, the newest version of Windows media player, 10.0, has built in .mp3 ripping, unlike the older 8.0 or 9.0 version, so be sure to update, and check your options at the format and quality before starting.

128 is decent and most likely wont hear any degradation in a car cd player with the road noise and all. but a 192 setting gives you a nice copy without losing that nuances of the different frequencies. 320 kbs is max setting if your trying to make true backups, but the higher the setting the more space the songs require.

128Kbs approx 57 MB per CD x 500 = 28.5 GB
192Kbs approx 86 MB per CD x 500 = 43 GB
256Kbs approx 128 MB per CD x 500 = 64 GB
320Kbs approx 144 MB per CD x 500 = 72 GB

Storing music in a computer is ok, but don't throw away the CD's

The information stored on a CD is in .wav format. about 1 MB/min.

You can get binders to store CD's if you don't like the jewel cases.

I have all of my CD's loaded into Sony jukebox players, I have a 200 disc changer and a 300 disc changer. A 300 disc changer goes for about $200. They are linked together and shuffle between changers for endless music. You can cascade upto 3 changers together.

You can organize your music into "blocks", (8 per changer) that way your preferences can be played. No sense listening to your childerns music.

I have mine set up with areas for

Jazz
Country
Rock
Soft Rock
'70s
'80's
90's
00's

and various other blocks.

This makes it very convienent to listen to your music.

I use itune, which uses AAC format, the same, but different as .mp3. If you are going this route, and not using an Ipod or mp3, I would suggest 192 or 256 for ripping onto the hard drive.

Even with all those CD's I still have music on the computer. I would suggest that if you went with a drive (external or internal) you use a high speed connection (SATA internal or external) is currently the fastest. I think firewire is faster than USB2.0 for external drives.

If you don't like WMP, you could try MusicMatch. I've used it for years. Yahoo now owns it...

Yahoo Jukebox (MusicMatch)

There are probably several open source rippers out there. I've never looked for one...others might know?

I just bought a 250 gig external for about $70 at Tiger Direct . It's about $10 more now, but they have good prices.

LOL You forgot to mention the strings of beads that hang in the doorway! Dave, actually I'm not that far removed from those good old days. The truth is this project did not start because I'm ambitious. It started because the wife told me that she wants the 1980 entertainment center ( with room for only a 27" TV) and the 4 giant sized speakers out of her living room. I actually have more records and cassettes than CDs.The thought of alphabetizing all that stuff again stuck fear in my heart.So I thought I'd start with the CDs
Thanks to all you guys!
I got good heads up ideas on kbs,space needed, programs, hard drives and even what to do with the CDs once I get the music on the computer. Thanks again for helping old Moe step out of the dark ages. <img src="/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the good information that motivated me!

I just went out last weekend and purchased an internal 100 GB hard drive after spending about a half hour in the Sunday adds.

I bought this for 80 bucks which included a fifty dollar mail in rebate............that gives me 100GB for about 30 bucks............what a deal.

I have just spent the past week ripping all of my 728 CDs to my new hard drive and now proudly own my own damn juke box right on my PC! <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

It is just so convenient............no more digging threw all the collection to see what I have forgotten about or what is collecting dust and now I can have all the album covers in front of me at one time by just scrolling down a few inches!

WMP is pretty awesome.........................I am now very much ready to get an IPOD................the loading process will go pretty smooth!

I am listening to Four Way Street by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young right now..............pretty awesome! <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Wow! I wish I had that kind of get up and go. I'm still in the planning stage.... Ah actually the truth is I wanted to wait until after the Jan 15 credit card cut off date because I didn't want to make the Xmas bills any worse that they were. Thats what happens to last minute shoppers. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
I need the hard drive and a battery backup then I'll have at it. Ripping 728 cds in a week is good work. Very impressive. <img src="/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> I hope the wife doesn't expect that kind of performance from me cuz she'll be disappointed. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> BTW if anyone is able to convert records ( those old black plastic thingeys that are about the size of a dinner plate) to mp3 format I'd be very interested to know how to do that. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
Isn't that just like me. I haven't even started the CD ripping yet and I'm looking at records. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

If that is Windows Media Player, I must admit I never thought I'd here that. On the other hand it is free (bundled with the OS anyway) and does offer useful functionality. I'm glad to here it's working for ya. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />



Now that is some work (and quite a collection, as well)! Four Way Street sounds like a good idea....I think I'll fire it up.

I logged in to share some freeware that I thought some might find useful and this thread is perfect. It is called, The Godfather and it appears to be an outstanding way to organize one's digital music library. I have had a version of this for sometime, but only recently committed myself to the tasks of eliminating the duplicates that I have in my collection. The link is the homepage and provides the latest stable build. It is freeware and does not bundle any crapware with it. It seems to have many capabilities including scanning for duplicates, adding / editing ID tags, batch processing (both of those will come in handy for me later), file conversion and other features. It seems to be straight forward and intuitive to use. It even includes an integrated media player. I found hundreds of duplicates. While some were the same song covered by multiple artists, the software does allow the ability to set terms prior to the scan to possibly narrow the results. I'm glad I remembered this software, as it is helping to make a daunting task much more efficient. If you wish to try this, I would recommend assembling your files in one directory. It will scan subdirectories, so you can navigate to the single directory that contains all and then work from there.

oops...I meant "hear". <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Oh by the way......................728 CDs is about 58 GBs which means I still have about 50 GB still free on my harddrive..............ready for about 600 more CDs! <img src="/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif" alt="" />

All is good! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Did you use 192kbs? I'm going to get the 250 gig hard drive Maddog said he used so that looks like plenty of space.Since space will not be a problem I'm trying to decide if I should use the 192kbs or move up to the 256kbs or 320kbs. I'd hate to get all done and say, gee I wish I had done this or that. On the other hand if 192kbs is enough that only a dog with super hearing can tell the difference whats the point of using up the space? Mostly I'll play these on a pretty good home audio system so is using the higher 256/320 kbs going to be worth the space? Does WMP let you organize to your satisfaction? Thats another thing I'm leary of. I want to be able to find songs fairly quickly. ( At least as fast as the jewel cases in almost alphabetical order system I'm going to replace.) <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

With the drive space you may want to use 320kbs, since as you said you want to do this properly to your needs the first time. Are you streaming to your home audio or reburning the rips? Perhaps you may want to try one at 128 and then one at 320 to see if you can hear a difference on any system (include your vehicle, etc).

An alternative to the mp3 codec is FLAC. I do have a few files in this format and use Winamp to listen to them. They do sound better than mp3 compression. I have not tried my burning software to create any CDs with these, so I don't know if there are any compatibility issues. Free Lossless Audio Codec (open source). You may want to check out "AutoFLAC" on the download page for ripping and reburning.

As far as organization goes, I created a "My Music" directory on the external drive and have subfolders for each artists. Within each artist directory are folders per release (album). My problem is that I have mutiple unsorted folders containing a mix of artists. This is where the software that I previously mentioned has helped.

I am really pleased with that drive(Beyond Micro Mobile ) . Considering it sits on the desktop, it is fairly quite. When I ordered mine they had a SATA external for only $10 more. I don't see that anymore, but that is certainly the fastest way to transfer files to the drive. My older P4 board is IDE and I didn't want to get into additional spending. The do have this one: Seagate 250 GB SATA External .

Yeah, I am a very picky MS user, avoid it when I can, but I have to admit the Windows Media Player 10 & 11 are very nice and do a great job..It has improved greatly over the older 7 and 8 versions. WMP 9.0 was decent, but still lacked some things.

Yes it has. I have used MusicMatch for ripping the past, but I think I'll be changing that. If I'm not mistaken Yahoo puts itself in my start up menu everytime I use what is now called "Jukebox". Darn shame. There are several Yahoo apps I like, but stay out of my start menu. <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />