I've had a search on the forums without coming up with any answer! I'm on Win10 and trying to transfer albums on MP3 format ( I know, I know) to my Digital Audio Player from my music library / CD collection. WMP just will not order the albums in disc 1 , 2, 3 etc f0 some albums no matter what I name them (I end up with playing the album with disc 1 then 3 then 2 or a variation thereof). Any recommendation or suggestion for an alternative to just rip CDs to my library and keep them in the correct order (with album info and picture imported preferable when ripping) Obviously after something secure and current Thanks
vendor/manufactorer? The most important issue that some devices play music as timestamp show - first come, first serve. WMP is a really bad choice to copy music.
Jonathan B, I'm aware that there are some issues with this on Win 10 as evidenced on Sony's own forum!
Well I must admit I don't currently use Music Center as it doesn't support all the features I routinely require in a music management program in particular it doesn't register changes to albums or tracks made outside the program. However I've always liked the look of Music Center. To test for you I've just installed the current v2.30 on my Windows 10 Home (version 2009) PC. It reliably found all the albums currently in my music folder, responded promptly to a newly inserted music CD, correctly downloaded the CD's details and artwork from Gracenote and ripped it perfectly to my preferred FLAC format. It's now playing the ripped CD. I don't have a portable device to test the album copying facility. Have you tried Music Center and if so did you have any problems? JB
Thanks Jonathan B. I haven't tried it so far after reading there were issues. Were you able to see if it correctly 'ordered' a double album (this is the only reason I'm looking at a replacement for WMP) Thanks
I've only got one double album (by Allan Holdsworth) which is already in my library as two seperate albums. I can try removing them from my library and then getting Music Center to rip them to see how it deals with them but that would be a job for tomorrow. Music Center's a small download and a quick install, why not try it yourself? Let me know if you'd like my configuration tips for the program. You are welcome to send me a personal message via Wilders rather than continuing with this thread. JB
Thanks for the kind offer JB. I've had a play around with Musicbee on my secondary machine and I think I'll give it a try for a while Is there any advantage / disadvantage to downloading it from the Microsoft Store?
I work around such things by appending the disk title with a [Disk 1], [Disk 2], etc. The Gracenote database used by many applications does this the same way. It works on any player I've tried it on, including the PS3 and the car. Edit: Alternatively you can number the sets by putting a digit in front of the album title: 1. Album Name [Disk 1] 2. Album Name [Disk 2]
I use dBpoweramp https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper.htm Loseless ripping with album art and whatnot
Your problem isn't ripping. It doesn't matter what tool you rip or copy with. You either haven't filled out the metatag info for the disk numbers, or named the files in a useful way. It depends on what your player takes notice of for ordering the tracks. If your player ignores the Disc metatag, you will have to include a number as the prefix or suffix in the album name. Alternatively save playlists of the albums you have ripped and load the playlists. Stop using WMP unless you want to bash your head against software. WMP is there only for convenience while you find a decent player (just like Internet Explorer is). Exact Audio Copy (does what it says on the tin) https://www.exactaudiocopy.de Tag all your music and video files properly with Mp3Tag https://www.mp3tag.de If you want a desktop player that plays everything without you first having to convert it, try WACUP https://getwacup.com
@Huwge there is no reason to use a Microsoft Store download when you can get the latest version of a program from the developer’s own website which is the case both with Music Center and MusicBee (which I routinely use myself) which you say you are now trying. MusicBee is a much more complex program to configure than Music Center although once you have it configured to your liking it now has the facility to save your settings which makes it easy to install and configure identically on another PC or laptop. I’d have thought for what you are after Music Center is a much better bet. If you do decide to make MusicBee your main music management program I suggest you do as I have done and make a donation to the author – you’ll find the link at the bottom of MusicBee’s web page. Today I’ve done a test rip of my Allan Holdsworth double CD for you using Music Center which grabbed the correct artwork, album and track names and created one overall new folder with the artist name within which it created two further folders named Album Name [Disc 1] and Album Name [Disc 2] each of which included the relevant set of tracks all of which seems ideal to me. The only anomaly I found was that once the rip is complete if I then selected Music Center’s Albums tab it was obvious that it was listing Disc 2 before Disc 1. This was a transient sorting anomaly which I fixed by temporarily sorting on Title and then going back to sorting on Artist which requires precisely two clicks of the mouse. Ripping a single CD album would of course not produce this anomaly. With regard to others suggesting the use of dBpoweramp etc, I’d suggest there’s no need for you to use or pay for more complex software to do the job when free software like Music Center is likely to do the job simply and correctly for you especially as it uses Gracenote from which to download the required metadata. Gracenote is usually as accurate as most other online metadata sources with regard to supplying the correct metadata and artwork. JB
Jonathan B, thank you for your insightful reply. It is much appreciated that you have tested the Sony software for me. At this time I will give Musicbee a try on my main machine. The challenge of setting it up to my liking will be half the fun. Having read some more on the program, I believe that if I download without going through the MS store, Musicbee will come bundled with the codec for MP3 ripping. All this reading is tempting me to change to a lossless format which my DSP supports but I doubt my old ears would tell the difference. Your help and everyone else's replies have been greatly appreciated Thanks Huwge
You are correct that the current version 3.3 of MusicBee does indeed now include the MP3 codec. I am also no longer in my prime but I'm fairly confident that FLACs sound clearer and cleaner to me than MP3s as long as the original recording is up to scratch of course. Plus these days with most devices having much greater storage capacity the occupied space of FLACs instead of MP3s is no longer worth worrying about. I can see no good reason, unless a particular device doesn't support FLACs (Apple devices for instance), to continue using the MP3 format which deliberately throws information away to save space. A conversion to FLAC format loses no information whatsoever from the original. JB
The inclusion of the codec is another reason not to go through the MS store. The download from there did not include the codec. I will see how much storage I have with my Micro SD installed and mull over going to FLAC on the DAP
