Music filing

[Chris OH]

Hi,

XLobby is the front end for my new HTPC and I am still figuring my way around the place. I am using EAC to rip CD and want to achieve the highest possible quality. To this end I am storing files as .wav and use an RME 9632 soundcard. My problem is that the .wav files do not store track listing information and so show up in a random order in XLobby. I have tried introducing numbers into the filenames and organising them into the correct order but XLobby ignores this. Any suggestions gratefully received.

TIA
Chris

[Tracie]

Hi Chris,
The problem that you're having is due to the fact that .wav files don't have id tags the way that lossy or other lossless file formats do, & unfortunately I don't think that there's a way around it. Have you considered using a lossless codec such as Monkey's Audio (.ape) or .flac? Lossless will give you the same quality as .wav, just in a more compressed format. It's not like lossy formats that actually take info away from the file, it just compresses the file a bit & you can always go back to .wav with no loss in quality.

I'm using .ape with good success, might be worth checking out.

[Chris OH]

Many thanks Tracie,

I am a bit of a Luddite and still treasure my turntable and ever growing record collection. Computer audio is completely new to me and I am on a steep learning curve. I’m using EAC to rip CD’s and all I know how to do so far is put a CD into the drive, launch EAC, click the button that rips the tracks to a drive, get some artwork off the net, update the database and that’s me done. I have Monkey audio and LAME on the machine I believe, if I use one of these to compress the .wav files will I get the track ID tags? If so what is the easiest way to configure the software to get the best possible quality?

Chris

[Tracie]

*I think* you can use EAC to rip to .ape, but I'm not sure & couldn't tell you how if it is possible. You may check EAC's forums on that. LAME is an .mp3 encoder & so you won't need that if you're looking for the best possible sound. I looked at all of this about 9 months ago & by far the easiest solution that I found is this:

http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/

I already owned it, so that was a bonus, but in retrospect even if all you use it for is ripping & encoding (as I do) it's still worth paying for IMHO. It's got a ripper (when in secure mode) that's on par with EAC & it's so much easier to use. You do need to make sure that the .ape plugin that you use for Winamp is the correct version - I think JRiver uses the latest one. I've heard really good things about EAC & CDEX both, but I found the learning curve steeper than I was patient, & JRiver makes it really easy. Once you've got the settings where you want them (& that's not really hard) it really is just pop the disc in & hit the rip button. It's also got a good tag editor that allows relatively easy editing of the id tags. The reason I don't use it for playback is that I found it to be a little unstable & it would occasionally crash - Winamp is rock solid, so I rip with Jriver & play back with Winamp (plus Winamp has Milkdrop ).

I still have some records too.

[Chris OH]

Thanks Tracie, you’re a star , this is exactly what I wanted to know and I will check JRiver out at the weekend.

Chris

PS 3,000 ish and rising? How sad is that !

[Tracie]

Hey no problem. Let me know if there's anything else that I can do to help, & have fun!