Digital Music: Building A Library From CDs

OK, these days, most people don't buy CDs. Hell, most people can't even spell "CDs" (there's no apostrophe, kids). But CDs are still almost always the only way to get high-quality lossless music.

So this guide assumes you want to build a flexible digital music library from existing and continued CD purchases. Of course, you'll want all that music to be correctly "tagged" so you can find things later.

These notes deal with ripping high-quality lossless - I'm also going to assume that you'll want not only the lossless version to listen to in the house, but the option of a compressed copy on your MP3 player. Any library is going to contain stuff from a few different sources, so improvise for any non-CD formats - if you're starting with MP3 (eg. iTunes store purchases), skip right to the last section. Likewise, skip the CD ripping part for anything you can get in a lossless format. And if you want to go straight from CD to MP3, remember that choice is final and can only be reversed by re-ripping the CD.

I've noted the tools I use, but the process is the important thing here (and some of these stages are optional). Other posts may expand on setting up the various bits of software listed (look for the links), failing that you're going to have to do a bit of searching. Sorry.

If this all seems a bit much, don't panic. Once the tools are installed and setup, it's a fairly simple process to stuff a CD in, press a couple of buttons, then leave the computer to do all the work. It's worth noting that even the most basic "use iTunes to rip CDs to MP3" solution does the ripping (to lossless), tagging, and "creating MP3 version" stages. But those intermediate lossless files are destroyed.

A Day In The Life Of A CD

1. The Ripping
   
   First thing to do is get that music off CD into a digital format. I cover this process in this post. Depending on what you use, you may end up fixing tags and adding artwork at this point.
   
   My Solution: EAC for ripping (I have a couple of drives I can use in case of problem CDs), freedb tagging info, and on those rare occasions where I can't get track info, I fire up iTunes and copy-and-paste the track names (but still rip with EAC). Oh, and EAC can grab artwork too.
   
   
   
2. The Tagging (Optional)
   
   If your disc wasn't found in the database, or whoever put it there spelt a track title wrong and you've only noticed now, or you want to merge two-disc sets into one long album (CDex does this with its wonderful track offset option, EAC has a similar "first track number" option), you'll need to edit the tags with something like Foobar.
   
   My Solution: Foobar2000 (but I don't like the way it won't mirror tagging info changes in filenames, need to find something better).
   
   
   
3. The Cover Art (Optional)
   
   If you didn't get artwork while you were ripping, grab some artwork using something like Album Art Downloader. I'd recommend getting your artwork at at least 500x500 if you can. Safe bet is to save the artwork as "Folder.jpg" in the same folder as the album tracks. Check with your library software for exact size limits and filename requirements. Getting the artwork is something you can do later or grab several covers at once. Watch for auto-tagging programs, they don't always get the best (or even correct) artwork.
   
   My Solution: Album Art Downloader, just search for artist/title, pick the best match and drag from search results into album folder to save. Files saved as "Folder.jpg", up to 600x600.
   
   
   
4. Feeding The Library
   
   OK, now you have a digital version of the CD and the front cover.
   
   Move/copy the ripped music plus artwork to its new home on your music server (you could probably even automate this bit), press whatever buttons you need to re-scan and add it to your library, assuming your music server doesn't do this automatically (Sonos allows you to schedule this). If you're ripping lossless, you'll fill up a hard drive quickly, so do any housekeeping you need to and clean up those temp files.
   
   My Solution: copy to a "Shared Music/FlacTunes" folder on my NAS, use "Update Music Index" option to get Sonos to recognise new stuff, keep the last few weeks of rips backed up on my laptop until properly backed up.
   
   
   
5. The MP3/Portable Version (Optional)
   
   If you're going the lossless route, you probably also want a portable copy, so convert those FLACs to MP3 etc. This is a big topic. I use iTunesEncoder and my own custom scripts to get to 160kpbs AAC, but there's so many options. And if you screw it up or want to change format or bitrate in a couple of years, well you do have those master lossless files, and your PC will be happy to repeat the conversion. And for the artwork, well iTunes will find artwork sometimes, otherwise, just use the JPEG you grabbed earlier.
   
   My Solution: 160kpbs AAC managed by iTunes. I use FLAC and iTunesEncoder on the command line to do the conversion (uses iTunes' internal AAC encoder) and my own custom scripts/software to find, convert and import anything I copy into a temp "flacDrop" folder (FLAC to WAV to AAC).
   
   My Alternative Solution: 192kpbs MP3 converted by Foobar. Open Foobar, drag in the FLAC folders/files to be converted, select all and hit "convert", saving in an "itunes import" folder. Then open iTunes and use the "file->add folder to library" to import. More on Foobar here.
   
   
   
6. The Shelf
   
   Now your CDs can gather dust on the shelf, to be visited only when you want to laugh at the band's 80s haircuts in the photos in the booklet. Unless you forget to do...
   
   
   
7. The Backup
   
   Remember to take backups. Seriously, remember the backups! Or just live in the belief that your hard drive will never fail (millions of people do, some of them are even lucky). A USB hard drive is cheap. Re-ripping CDs is tedious, re-buying downloads is expensive. You choose.