MySqueezebox.com & Squeezebox Server

[M42]

I am starting from scratch with a new library (had iTunes). This time I am building only from CDs or HD downloads.

I am using a MacMini as a server with XLD as a program to convert the CDs.

The issue is how do I best create a new linary?

Do I make a folder for each CD or just extract all of them into one single folder?

[garymc]

I have about 70,000 tracks, thousands of cds, and here is what I do.  (p.s. if you are ripping CDs again, I highly recommend

dbpoweramp for ripping (and recommend ripping to FLAC for your lossless library (SB players handle FLAC natively!).

What I do for organization (and dbpa will create this automatically):

For regular artist albums I have a directory for Artist, then a separate directory for each album of that artist

x:\music\flac\artist\album\tracks....

for compilation CDs (soundtracks, etc.)

x:\music\flac\compilations\album\tracks

I also do exactly as above for non-lossless files I might have (where I don't have CD or lossless version). These are in:

x:\music\lossyonly\artist\album\tracks...

x:\music\lossyonly\compilations\album\tracks...

Within LMS, I would point the music directory to the folder:

x:\music

[squeezeit]

The more common way is to rip each CD to it's own folder, so that folder is now the Album.

Hard Drive > My Music > Artist > Album

If properly tagged you can search by Artist or Album or Song anyway.

[garymc]

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squeezeit wrote:

The more common way is to rip each CD to it's own folder, so that folder is now the Album.

Hard Drive > My Music > Artist > Album

If properly tagged you can search by Artist or Album or Song anyway.

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yes! tagging is key.  And another reason I really like dbpa is its excellent metadata source for good tagging and artwork.

[garymc]

and when ripping you should go ahead and add ALBUM and TRACK replaygain tags to your tracks. You can decide later if you want LMS (or any other player) to actually use the tags or not, but it is nice to have them.  I like LMS and its ability to use SMARTGAIN (uses TRACK RG values when doing random mix and ALBUM RG values when playing complete album).

[M42]

Thanks!!!

dbpoweramp seems to be a Windows only aplication, no?

My server is OS X only.

[garymc]

yes (although it can run on parallels, etc.).  But there are other OSX secure rippers. Can't recall names. maybe XLD or something.  google should help you with this. Main thing is you want something that does secure ripping and even better if it uses the accurraterip database (like dbpa and EAC do).  Itunes would not be a recommended ripper. 

[garymc]

bootcamp would also allow you to run dbpa.

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?26294-Use-on-a-Mac&highlight=run+on+bootcamp